My Living Doll

[McGillicuddy]

My Living Doll, a 1964 1-season sit-com starring Julie Newmar is coming to DVD in February, by MPI.

[Du Mont]

Originally Posted by markway895

My Living Doll, a 1964 1-season sit-com starring Julie Newmar is coming to DVD in February, by MPI.

This was an exceptionally well-crafted, funny sitcom, and I am looking forward to its DVD release very much.

'My Living Doll' suffered from poor timeslotting by CBS on Sundays at 9:00 pm. It followed 'Lassie', 'My Favorite Martian' and 'The Ed Sullivan Show', and that should have been good because all three were CBS hits. However, 'The Ed Sullivan Show' was not really a compatable series (it skewed old), and 'My Living Doll' at 9 pm was up against the first half-hour of 'Bonanza' on NBC and the first half-hour of 'The ABC Sunday Night Movie' which had a large number of hot theatrical titles in the 1964-65 season. People switched their channels in large numbers, and 'My Living Doll' retained only about two-thirds the audience flow from 'The Ed Sullivan Show', providing a poor lead-in to 'The Joey Bishop Show' (also not compatable with 'My Living Doll') at 9:30 pm.

[TV Knowledge Fan]

...it didn't help when the series was shifted to Wednesdays at 8pm(et) in December 1964- opposite NBC's "THE VIRGINIAN" and ABC's "PATTY DUKE SHOW"- and Bob Cummings' departure from the show in January 1965 {he had a disagreement with producer Jack Chertok over a script he personally commissioned- "Grandpa Visits", which was never produced- in which he would have reprised his "Grandpa Collins" character from "THE BOB CUMMINGS SHOW", and virtually wrote Julie Newmar out of the episode [Rhoda would have appeared only in the opening and closing scenes]. There was a huge argument over Julie's potential absence, with Bob walking away from the series as a result}. Once Jack Mullaney became the "star", the series was over.

[bencasey]

I don't remember if I stuck with the show once it moved days. I did watch it and Joey Bishop on Sundays. Cummings was crammed down Chertok's throat by CBS. He had wanted Bob Crane and they insisted on Cummings who was way too old for the part. He was in his mid 50s at that point and besides, he and Newmar hated each other because he was always telling her what to do, how to act, etc. No doubt due to the troubled nature of the production, Chertok washed his hands of the show and that's why the majority of it may not even exist anymore.

[philipabraham]

Nice one.thanks for sharing.

[Edison]

Originally Posted by markway895

My Living Doll, a 1964 1-season sit-com starring Julie Newmar is coming to DVD in February, by MPI.

..h'm..to the point...

[TV Knowledge Fan]

...only 11 "random" episodes are featured on "Volume One". The remaining 15 have yet to be remastered and/or "rediscovered".

[McGillicuddy]

Originally Posted by TV Knowledge Fan

...only 11 "random" episodes are featured on "Volume One". The remaining 15 have yet to be remastered and/or "rediscovered".

Seeing that this set is called "Volume 1", implies (atleast to me) that there will be a volume 2. That there's only 11 episodes, and that they're random makes me think not all 26 will be recovered........or maybe they have the episodes and like you say have not been remastered, and we won't see volume 2 for another 5 years.

Since it has been believed this series was long lost with no hope at all to ever be viewed again, I suppose this set is a miracle for vintage TV fans.

[rcbrad]

They have been searching for all episodes for years. Volume 1 has been brought out so they can at least release what they have for now. Maybe one of these years more could turn up, but as time goes on and an since an exhaustive search has already take place it seems that it may be unlikely they will ever surface. We can still hope for the best.

[bencasey]

Originally Posted by rcbrad

They have been searching for all episodes for years. Volume 1 has been brought out so they can at least release what they have for now. Maybe one of these years more could turn up, but as time goes on and an since an exhaustive search has already take place it seems that it may be unlikely they will ever surface. We can still hope for the best.

You never know what might surface at some point from some unlikely source. Things are found all of the time that were previously thought to be completely lost. Game 7 of the 1960 World Series turned up last year and that was thought to not exist. Same with Super Bowl 1. There are many other stories as well of things being found. The negatives or prints could be sitting in some warehouse somewhere, unmarked, unlabeled or just unfound and waiting for someone to stumble across them by accident. Or, they truly could be gone. Only time will tell.

[burlivespipe]

Originally Posted by bencasey

You never know what might surface at some point from some unlikely source. Things are found all of the time that were previously thought to be completely lost. Game 7 of the 1960 World Series turned up last year and that was thought to not exist. Same with Super Bowl 1. There are many other stories as well of things being found. The negatives or prints could be sitting in some warehouse somewhere, unmarked, unlabeled or just unfound and waiting for someone to stumble across them by accident. Or, they truly could be gone. Only time will tell.

Good points. The one thing I also know is that if this vol. 1 doesn't sell OK there will be little incentive to release a vol. 2, so i'm buying it. Perhaps they also are hoping a little capital will help pay for some of the necessary refurbishing needed on any others in their possession...

[bencasey]

Originally Posted by burlivespipe

Good points. The one thing I also know is that if this vol. 1 doesn't sell OK there will be little incentive to release a vol. 2, so i'm buying it. Perhaps they also are hoping a little capital will help pay for some of the necessary refurbishing needed on any others in their possession...

What others? This is what is known to exist. There are no others in some secret stash somewhere and no one is hiding anything. Maybe someday a complete set of prints will turn up but it will have to be a fluke thing where somebody just stumbles across them somewhere.

[My Favorite Martian]

While we have nothing further that is of a quality that can be used..A poster on Amazon.com is breaking my heart right now.
I really hope this is not true but a collector called Tommy Land claimed to have two 16mm prints from the show.
He posted that our MPI release was priced to high ? which is ok that's a opinion.and we live in a free country.
So we contacted him to try and get these prints returned, he claimed due to ill health he could not do it right now.
At that point we just say when your ready..we hear nothing back from him..and on a whim I check the Amazon posts.
He claims he now has three prints two of which are not on our set..and because of all the flack from fans on Amazon he is now set to burn them in his backyard..
This is just the tip of the iceberg in trying to find and bring this show back to all of you classic tv fans..

[bencasey]

Originally Posted by My Favorite Martian

While we have nothing further that is of a quality that can be used..A poster on Amazon.com is breaking my heart right now.
I really hope this is not true but a collector called Tommy Land claimed to have two 16mm prints from the show.
He posted that our MPI release was priced to high ? which is ok that's a opinion.and we live in a free country.
So we contacted him to try and get these prints returned, he claimed due to ill health he could not do it right now.
At that point we just say when your ready..we hear nothing back from him..and on a whim I check the Amazon posts.
He claims he now has three prints two of which are not on our set..and because of all the flack from fans on Amazon he is now set to burn them in his backyard..
This is just the tip of the iceberg in trying to find and bring this show back to all of you classic tv fans..

He also has a print of the color Sheena pilot. Very strange guy though.

[TV Knowledge Fan]

Tommy Land sounds like a latter-day Raymond Rohauer.