My 50 Favorite Classic TV Characters: James Garner as Jim Rockford

You may have heard that a reboot of The Rockford Files has been picked up by NBC and will debut in January, with David Boreanaz playing ex-con turned private investigator Jim Rockford. Boreanaz has an impressive TV track record, and as a fan of both Buffy and Angel I think that casting is about the best we could hope for – given the current state of entertainment media we should just be glad it’s not Kevin Hart.

There was probably a time I would have been excited, or at least intrigued, by the prospect of a new take on a classic show. But after the reboots of Magnum and Matlock and Walker I no longer trust today’s crop of writers and producers to deliver a series that would capture even 10% of the appeal of the original.

Could Boreanaz still make it watchable? Perhaps – but it’s hard to imagine he could achieve the same indelible impression as James Garner’s portrayal of Jim Rockford.

One reason it worked so well is that Garner already had experience in the same type of character. In Maverick he played the antithesis of a rough-and-tumble cowboy hero. He tapped into that same persona here: the anti-hero, clever but cynical, smart-tongued and always preferring to talk himself out of a fight than start one. And never averse to bending or breaking a law to suit his purpose.

Once asked if there was anything he wouldn’t do for money, he replied that he wouldn’t kill for it or marry for it. “Other than that, I’m open to about anything.”

Initially he became a detective because he served time for a robbery he didn’t commit and wanted to take on cases that had been closed by the police. But series creators Stephen J. Cannell and Roy Huggins gradually moved away from that premise as it seemed too noble a pursuit for such an ambiguous character. Cannell and Garner both enjoyed exploiting the hard-luck aspects or Rockford, who didn’t always reap the rewards from solving his cases. I doubt any TV detective was stiffed more often by his clients.

The Rockford Files surrounded its star with quality performances and quality touches, starting with the answering machine messages that opened each episode, followed by that funky Mike Post theme. 

There were fights and car chase scenes for those who preferred a traditional private eye series – Jim really knew how to handle that Pontiac Firebird - but there was a welcome component of comedy as well. 

Like Maverick, Rockford was a con man at heart, taking on phony identities to catch opponents off-guard and intimidate or trick them into giving up the information he needed. Those scenes were the highlight of every episode.

Great support was provided by Noah Beery, Jr. as his father, who never gave up hoping Jim would become a truck driver, and Joe Santos as one of the few cops who could stand him. I looked forward to Gretchen Corbett’s appearances as the lawyer always bailing him out of trouble (and jail), but I couldn’t stand Stuart Margolin as Rockford’s skeezy former cellmate Angel. Clearly, I’m in the minority on that one because Margolin won two Emmys for that performance.

The show also had some wonderful guest stars –Lindsay Wagner, Isaac Hayes, Diana Muldaur, and recurring appearances from Tom Selleck as dim but perfect detective Lance White, and Dennis Dugan as Richie Brockelman, whose spinoff series disappeared after five episodes.

But without Garner I doubt anything else would have mattered. Few shows have been so successfully fueled by the charisma of one lead actor. That will be the challenge facing David Boreanaz. 

Rockford wasn’t John Wayne or John Wick – he was the first TV private eye to break his hand when he hit someone. But he still projected a strength and resilience, with a healthy dose of swag, that belied his insistence that he was never a tough guy.

Can today’s television pull that off? I wish them luck, but I don’t think they understand masculinity without the word “toxic” in front of it.

My 50 Favorite Classic TV Characters: Don Adams as Maxwell Smart

Let's first acknowledge the obvious reasons why Get Smart remains one of the crown jewels of television comedy.

Start with the clever foundation laid by genius creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry; the perfect casting of Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, with equally memorable support from sultry Barbara Feldon as Agent 99 and Edward Platt as Max’s exasperated Chief; the movie spoofs (“Bronzefinger,” “Witness for the Persecution”); the catchphrases (“Missed it by that much”); surefire visual gags like the Cone of Silence; guest characters that would be delightfully offensive to easily-triggered modern sensibilities (The Claw, Harry Hoo).

And many, many more. But there’s one ingredient in this remarkable mix that is not always acknowledged: the show was perceptive enough to not make Max stupid all the time. 

Even if part of the intent was to spoof both James Bond and U.S. covert agencies that had come under increased scrutiny in the late ‘60s, making Max a complete moron would have quickly become tiresome. He would often be clueless and clumsy, but usually he would also complete his missions, knock out a few bad guys, and keep the world safe from the evil plots of KAOS.

Contrast this with, say, Gilligan on Gilligan’s Island. In every episode, a rescue plan is foiled because Gilligan screws up. The only suspense is in exactly how he’s going to doom his fellow castaways to another week on the island. There was no point is rooting for him to be a hero. Max, despite his mistakes, could still save the day, much to the amazement of everyone around him. 

The stars seemed to align to bring this series to magnificent fruition, though there were some bumps along the way. The pilot was first offered to ABC with Tom Poston cast as Max. When ABC turned it down, NBC picked it up – not because they had a lot of confidence in the idea, but because they already had comedian Don Adams under contract and wanted to get something out of that investment. 

They didn’t know how fortuitous that decision would prove. With Adams in place, Maxwell Smart was not a character that had to be developed or shaped by the first scripts. He was fully formed before the first scene of Get Smart was shot. If you watch Adams as hotel detective Byron Glick on The Bill Dana Show, you’re seeing the birth of Max – same mannerisms, same line delivery – he was even using the “Would you believe” routine that became one of Get Smart’s best recurring bits.

Another reason I believe this is one of the most perfect matches of actor to role of the Comfort TV era, is how, in a different world, Don Adams could play it straight and make an audience accept him as a dashing secret agent - at least when he wasn't talking into his shoe. 

That debonair quality would be on display early in several scenes, as he’d walk confidently into a potentially fatal encounter, gun drawn…and then fall down the stairs. 

As gifted a physical comedian as Adams was, it’s his voice that is first recalled as a defining characteristic. The network asked him to tone it down a bit after the pilot, but thankfully it wasn’t dialed back far enough to lose that nasally quality inspired by William Powell in the Thin Man movies. Adams was also a gifted mimic, working in credible impressions of Humphrey Bogart and Ronald Colman in some of the series’ most fondly remembered episodes. 

Fifty years later Get Smart remains one of the most laugh-out-loud comedies ever created. In 1965, when one of the Gemini 7 astronauts suffered a minor technical malfunction in his space suit, the response from Mission Control was “Sorry about that, Chief.” That’s how you know a series has fully penetrated the pop culture.

Even on a tenth viewing of an episode when you know the jokes are coming, they still land. That’s a testament not only to Adams, who won the Emmy three years in a row for his portrayal of Agent 86, but to the entire cast, including occasional regulars like Hymie and Larrabee and Agent 13, not to mention the villainous Siegfried (Bernie Kopell) and William Schallert as the first Chief of CONTROL. 

Classic episodes? Where do you even start? The pilot, pitting Max against a villain known as Mr. Big (when you see him you’ll know this show was politically incorrect from day one); “Washington 4, Indians 3,” in which a Native American tribe threatens to take back their stolen land by force with a weapon that, to me, may be the best sight gag in 1960s television; “A Man Called Smart, Part 1,” featuring a masterpiece of slapstick comedy starring Don Adams, a stretcher and a revolving door.  

And about 50 or 60 more. Yes, the series did start to run out of gas in its fifth and final season, with Max and 99 married and becoming parents (did that ever work to save a troubled show?). But by then viewers had already been gifted with more laughter than most sitcoms manage in twice as many seasons. And Don Adams was doomed to a typecasting fate that befell many other creators of iconic television roles. 

Sorry about that, Don. But I wouldn’t trade a minute of this series for anything. 

My 50 Favorite Classic TV Characters: Kate Jackson as Sabrina Duncan

 

Recently Kate Jackson made her first appearance at one of those collector’s shows where fans pay for a couple of minutes of conversation with a celebrity, and take home a photo or an autograph as a memento of the occasion. 

 

 

I heard from two people at the show who described how Jackson was not at an open table on the convention floor like the other attendees, but ensconced behind a curtain, with a representative advising fans on what they could and could not do when they entered.

 

This was not an arrangement I’d seen at any show like this that I attended, but it will not surprise anyone who has followed Jackson’s career. “Difficult” is the word most often used to assess her deportment, and at 75 she has yet to mellow with age.

 

When I co-wrote The Charlie’s Angels Casebook back in 2000, I interviewed co-stars, producers and crewmembers, and heard quite a few disparaging stories, some too inflammatory to print without risking a lawsuit. And yet, to a person, every one agreed that the series would not have been as popular or successful without Jackson’s Emmy-nominated portrayal of Sabrina Duncan. 

 

 

Talent trumps shortcomings in television. That is why, despite her reputation, Kate Jackson enjoyed a successful career in series TV, from Dark Shadows to The Rookies to Charlie’s Angels to Scarecrow & Mrs. King, and still had fans lined up decades later for a few moments of her time.

 

She wasn’t just good in these shows – she was exceptional. When she was on screen your eyes were automatically drawn to her. A standard, even clichéd, line of scripted dialogue came alive when she spoke it in a flinty but still melodic voice that impelled viewers to pay attention, and to believe what she was saying.

 

It’s hard to quantify why we like to watch some actors more than others, but such has always been the case with television, and Kate Jackson belongs in that elite class of the medium’s most engaging stars. She had an indefinable charisma that many of classic television’s most revered performers possessed, from David Janssen to Diana Rigg, Elizabeth Montgomery to James Garner.

 

Charlie’s Angels has been derided as exploitative jiggle TV, and lauded as a proto-feminist breakthrough in popular culture. Maybe it was both, or neither. But it was extremely popular, drawing ratings that would be beyond the imagination of any series now. In its first season it was featured on the cover of Time magazine, back when that publication only put entertainment stories on the cover when the subject had transcended its genre. 

 

 

Sabrina was, it was said at the time, the only employee at the Charles Townsend Agency who was believable as a private investigator. But while that may have been true it should not be taken as disparaging of Jackson’s costars, whose contributions were equally valuable. I’ve lost count of how many times Charlie’s Angels has been rebooted, but the only time it really worked was with Jackson, Jaclyn Smith and Farrah Fawcett (and later Cheryl Ladd). 

 

 

Which is why the show was never the same after Sabrina left.  In retrospect it’s surprising how easily it survived Farrah’s departure after just one year, given how ubiquitous she was in the culture at that time. But there was no coming back once Kate Jackson was gone. Ratings plummeted during the Shelley Hack season, and by the time Tanya Roberts arrived in season five everyone else was ready to leave.

 

To understand what made Jackson irreplaceable, one must acknowledge that not a lot of thought was put into Charlie’s Angels beyond its premise – three beautiful woman detectives. On a show like this, what actors bring to their roles is far more essential to success than it would be on a series with better scripts and more clearly defined characters.

 

No detailed backstories were provided for Charlie’s trio of investigators before they joined the police academy. Kelly was an orphan who had a rough childhood; Jill was a sunny California girl who loved fast cars; Sabrina was married once unsuccessfully. That’s about all we got. If the audience found them credible and appealing, the cast deserves all of the credit. 

 

 

When Sabrina shined, it was because Kate Jackson imbued her with qualities beyond what were provided by writers and directors. In “Target: Angels” we meet her ex-husband, a police detective (Michael Bell) and in just a short scene together we believe the history they shared and the affection that remains in their relationship. In the book I wrote how she switches effortlessly “from comic banter with her ex-husband to a touching scene with her father, to a no-nonsense detective grilling a tough mercenary.”

 

In the fan-favorite episode “Consenting Adults” she elevates a standard kidnapping scene through the power of her personality. In “Dancing in the Dark,” Sabrina goes undercover as a neurotic heiress to set herself up as bait to expose a blackmail scheme, and makes a convincing case that the show worked best when it didn’t take itself too seriously. 

 

However, in “Angel Baby,” a grim tale about baby brokers, Jackson plays it deadly serious as a cold, brittle would-be adoptive mother. Whatever tone was established by widely varying scripts, she made it work, probably better than it should have.

 

I could go on, but if you know the show you get it. Even if you were a teenage boy, as I was when the show debuted, getting the vapors from Farrah’s dazzling smile or Jaclyn Smith wearing a bikini like no one before or since, you also noticed Kate Jackson, and you liked her. 

 

And it was hard to imagine Charlie’s Angels without her. Her co-workers may not have missed her, but viewers certainly did and probably still do. Had I been at that collector's show, I'd have happily waited to get inside the curtain and tell her so.

 

 

 

 

 

My 50 Favorite Classic TV Characters: Ricky Nelson as…Ricky Nelson

 

Was Ricky Nelson an actor, a television character, or a person? The answer is yes. And maybe no, too. 

 

As every reader of this blog should know, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was a family situation comedy featuring a real family – parents Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, and their two sons David and Ricky. It was scripted but several stories were based on real family events, elevated into clever and often brilliant situational comedy.

 

The series originated on radio in 1944. At first the two boys were played by child actors. That had to be an odd experience for David and Ricky, to hear their parents calling other kids by their names. Both then joined this dramatized version of their family in the show’s fifth season, which began in 1949. Ricky was just eight years old, and thus already a seasoned veteran at playing himself when the show began its television run in 1952. 

 

 

In its early seasons the skinny kid with the classic 1950s buzzcut was billed as “the irrepressible Ricky,” acknowledging his propensity for straight talk.

 

Ozzie: “Do most of the girls in school like you?”

Ricky: “Oh, sure, they all do. They think I'm cute.”

David: “Oh, Ricky, stop bragging. You're not cute at all.”

Ricky: “I don't know. I was lookin' in the mirror today, and I'm not bad.”

 

The writers fed him the lines but he had to be convincing in saying them, and he was. He even had a catchphrase for a while: “I don’t mess around, boy.”

 

Ricky would play Ricky for the next 14 years, long enough for him to finish high school, become more gracious and less irrepressible, go to college, date guest stars that were all among the most beautiful young ladies of the decade (Roberta Shore, Cheryl Holdridge, Yvonne Lime, Linda Evans, Lori Saunders, Tuesday Weld, Nina Shipman),  get a job at the law firm where his brother works, and get married (to Kris Harmon, who would join the show in its final seasons, also playing a pseudo version of herself).  

 

 

Actors are often asked how they are alike or different from the characters they play on TV – but here that question takes on another dimension. If your name is the same as your character’s name, and you’re playing yourself but with someone else’s script, where does the person stop and the character start? Or to borrow a line from another 1950s series, “Will the real Ricky Nelson please stand up?”

 

The media back then were not as mercenary as they are now, so there was no concerted effort to expose any uncomfortable truths to shatter the image of “American’s favorite family,” as they were described in the show’s opening credits. Magazine features offered glowing tributes to a supportive, loving family, one portrayed as more authentic than the Andersons and the Cleavers because they were actually related.

 

Thankfully (and perhaps surprisingly) subsequent years have not tarnished that image too severely, though neither David nor Ricky stayed married to the wives featured on the show. Ozzie, who served as producer, director, and cowriter on hundreds of episodes, has occasionally been described as a stern taskmaster, and not the laid-back, affable guy on the show. And one can only speculate about whether David and Ricky wanted to be part of the family business for so many seasons. But when they were old enough to leave, they didn’t, which I think says something. 

 

 

The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet is one of my three favorite classic shows, so I admit I’m more inclined to buy into the presumption that the Nelsons at home aren’t much different than the Nelsons playing parts on sets built to resemble the rooms in their actual residence. But who can say for certain?

 

One thing I do know for sure about Ricky – he was good at everything. Over the course of 14 seasons viewers saw him landing axle jumps on ice skates, riding horses with a natural ease, excelling at golf and tennis, breaking boards with judo, and even flying through the air on a trapeze (and being caught by his brother).  

 

Given the show’s shooting schedule, you wonder where he found the time to acquire all those skills before the age of 20, while working on a series that churned out as many as 39 episodes in a single season.

 

And when Ricky the person wanted to start a singing career, TV’s Ricky did the same. On television, he formed a band with his high school and college friends and played fraternity dances. But the real Ricky rivaled Elvis in popularity and record sales – 53 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, 19 in the top ten.  He was inducted (by John Fogerty) posthumously into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.  

 

 

All that talent plus teen idol looks (seriously, if they ever begin cloning gene pools, they could do a lot worse than starting with the Nelsons) could form a character that girls loved but left male viewers envious, especially after their girlfriends flocked to the performing stage at the first notes of “It’s Late” or “Believe What You Say.” “What’s he got that I haven’t got?” these disgruntled dates might grumble, while hoping that no one would actually answer that question honestly. 

 

 

 

Twenty years later, producers of The Partridge Family recognized that potential dilemma. David Cassidy was the Ricky Nelson of the 1970s – a talented singer who rose to fame on a hit TV series. But here they didn’t want Keith Partridge to seem too faultless, which is why he was so often the butt of jokes from Laurie and Danny, and why he often pursued girls that couldn’t care less about his music.

 

It’s interesting how that was never a concern with Ricky, or maybe as he was playing himself he didn’t want the Ricky on TV to be that different from the actual person. He had the basic decency that was more commonly found in the shows of that era, and he seemed to personify all of the qualities that parents hoped to see made manifest in their children at that time. 

 

 

Teenagers in the 1950s had the same hormones and temptations felt by subsequent generations, and certainly television didn’t portray those moments that were not suitable for family viewing. I’m sure Ricky and David both sowed some oats and occasionally drank more than milkshakes. And so what? This series is about my favorite classic television characters. I’ll never know where or how often Ricky Nelson the character departed from Rick Nelson, as he preferred to be called as he grew older. But for a time that character was the emblematic American teenager of the 1950s, as well as a pioneering figure in rock and roll. 

 

It’s a remarkable legacy, one I think should be better remembered. Hopefully the recent DVD release of all 435 episodes of The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet will introduce America’s favorite family to new generations raised on harsher fare. If they like what they see, there may be hope for us yet. 

 

 

 

 

My 50 Favorite Classic TV Characters: Lindsay Wagner as Jaime Sommers

 

In 1977, Lindsay Wagner received the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Dramatic Role, causing many eyebrows to be raised – especially among her fellow nominees. Family star Sada Thompson in particular did not hide her umbrage over the selection.

 

 

Did Wagner deserve to win? How should one answer that? Emmy categories will always be apples-to-oranges comparisons, even within the same genre.

 

On Family, Thompson’s Kate Lawrence coped with a cancer scare, an ailing parent, a daughter with a broken marriage and a son who dropped out of high school – all rich dramatic material, which she navigated brilliantly.

 

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the same network, Jaime was chasing Bigfoot, going undercover as a lady wrestler, and fighting Fembots. 

 

What’s worse, the Bionic Woman episode that won her the Emmy (“Deadly Ringer”) revived the hackneyed soap opera trope of an evil twin.

 

So if we were assessing based only on IMDB plot synopses, you can perhaps understand Thompson’s resentment. Thankfully, she would take home the Emmy in the same category the following year.

 

Personally, I’m fine with Wagner’s win. Television shows with a sci-fi or fantasy element are typically overlooked completely in the major award categories. This was the first time an actress won for a series in this genre, and would be the last time until Gillian Anderson’s win for The X-Files in 1997.

 

And if you watched and enjoyed The Bionic Woman, as I did, you know this was not a series that leaned on Jaime’s superhuman abilities to tell good stories. That was fine for Wonder Woman over on CBS – viewers (especially males) counted the minutes until Lynda Carter twirled into a costume that was super in more ways than one. But she was Diana Prince for more than half of most episodes, and let’s face it – Diana was kind of boring.

 

Not so Jaime Sommers. She was a captivating character and a woman of accomplishment even before the skydiving accident that changed her life. Her status as a top-ranked professional tennis player allowed her to travel the world, though it left little time for romance with Col. Steve Austin. But after the accident it was Austin who persuaded the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) to give her the same bionic makeover that saved his life.

 

The procedure gave Jaime two bionic legs that allowed her to run 100 miles per hour and jump hundreds of feet. Her bionic right arm had super-strength, and her right ear could pick up sounds at great distances – but only, apparently, if she first moved her hair out of the way. 

 

 

Seeking some return on its investment, the OSI sends Jaime on a mission, hoping perhaps her special abilities would compensate for her lack of espionage training. She does well – until her bionics began to fail. Surgery is attempted to repair the damage but it’s too late – Jaime dies.

 

Wait, what? That was the original plan, until audience response demanded a different outcome. When viewers spoke the networks listened, and in a subsequent episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, it was revealed that Jaime was kept alive in suspended animation until her condition could be stabilized.

 

Did she deserve the Emmy? Imagine creating a character that was so quickly embraced by millions of fans that they refused to let her die? Does that not speak to something in Lindsay Wagner’s talent and charisma? That she could put an audience on her side to the extent that they demanded to see her again and let ABC know it? 

 

 

That’s another difference between the classic TV era and whatever we’ve got now. Back then there wasn’t as big a disparity between what Emmy voters liked and viewers at home supported. Besides Wagner and Sada Thompson, other nominees in her category included Angie Dickinson in Police Woman and Kate Jackson in Charlie’s Angels. If their shows were so popular, surely they had to be doing something right, and that deserved to be recognized by those that honor television excellence.

 

Contrast that situation with the Emmys just a few days ago, in which the Best Actress – Drama winner appears on a series watched by about 500,000 people, or 0.15% of the US population.

 

So, yes, Lindsay Wagner deserved her Emmy Award. Because of the many beguiling, sympathetic and endearing qualities she brought to Jaime Sommers, she rescued the character from death and then headlined her own series for three seasons – two on ABC, one on NBC (even her original network couldn’t shut her down without a fight). The show was a global hit, and for a time even became the top-rated series in the United Kingdom.

 

Most episodes range from good to excellent, including several mentioned on this blog before: “Kill Oscar” was an epic three-part story that introduced the Fembots and their sinister creator, played by John Houseman; “Doomsday is Tomorrow,” covered in detail in my “Unshakeables” series; “A Thing of the Past,” from early in the first season that sets the tone for much that follows. This was never an action show centered on Jaime’s unique abilities, but a character study of a kind, compassionate school teacher who moonlights as a government agent. 

 

 

“The Jailing of Jaime” spotlights her resourcefulness, as well as her affectionate father-daughter-like relationship with Oscar Goldman, wonderfully played by Richard Anderson. And “Sister Jaime,” in which she goes undercover in a convent, is delightful from start to finish.

 

A few were not as good – generally any episode with a heavy focus on kids (“Beyond the Call”) or Indians (“Canyon of Death,” “The Night Demon”) ranked lower with me, but even here Lindsay Wagner maintained her capability to hold your attention, not with histrionics or heroics but with a kind of quiet gentleness and class that has almost disappeared from contemporary television.

 

There was one other issue that had to be addressed before spinning off The Bionic Woman – a side effect of Jaime’s life-saving surgery was partial amnesia that erased her memories of being in love with Steve Austin. It was another dumb soap opera cliché, but a necessary one to free up Jaime for romances on her own series.

 

She seemed to have plenty of those, though given Wagner's chemistry with costars like Ed Nelson in “Assault on the Princess” and George Maharis in “Jaime’s Shield” it would be easy to see how any of these flings and flirtations might evolve into something more permanent.  She even coaxed more than one expression out of Evel Knievel in “Motorcycle Boogie.” 

 

 

 

She did, of course, wind up with Steve Austin, but the marriage would not take place until 1994, in the TV movie Bionic Ever After.

 

 

I’ll end this piece with praise for the show’s final episode, which ventured into some darker, uncharted territory. “On the Run” begins when Jaime rescues a little girl, who recoils from her when the wiring in her bionic arm is exposed. Later, the girl refers to Jaime as “the robot lady.” Already burned out from too many missions, and questioning her own humanity, she resigns from the OSI. Easier said than done, when Oscar’s higher-ups worry that her bionics and her knowledge of OSI missions could make her a security threat. Like Number 6 in The Prisoner, their plan is to put her into a community where she can live a “normal” life, as long as she doesn’t stray too far outside the security fence. 

 

 

The story wraps a little too neatly, perhaps necessitating a return to the status quo in case the series returned for another season, but before that “On the Run” asked some challenging questions about what makes a person a person, and whether a manufactured arm, ear and two legs qualifies a woman as government property. It also pulls powerful performances from Wagner and Richard Anderson. If the series had to end, it did with remarkable grace – just like its leading lady.

My 50 Favorite Classic TV Characters: Hayden Rorke as Dr. Alfred Bellows

 

This will be a new occasional feature here – a closer look at single characters from classic shows, and what makes them special.

 

The choice to inaugurate this series with Dr. Alfred Bellows from I Dream of Jeannie was not a random one, as it seemed particularly appropriate to this current age. 

 

We live in a time when, like the good doctor, we are regularly presented with situations and moments that are beyond belief to a rational mind. Yet when we tell others about them, we are disregarded. Worse, we know something is wrong when we see it, but often find that it is we who are maligned for speaking truth. The crazy gets a pass, and we are the troublemakers.

 

Such is the fate that always befalls Dr. Alfred Bellows, a respected NASA psychiatrist based in Cocoa Beach, Florida. He knows there are strange, inexplicable occurrences happening at Major Nelson’s home; he sees things that shouldn’t be possible, yet every time he tries to restore the natural order by calling attention to what he rightly views as madness, it is he who winds up looking foolish. 

 

 

It’s hard not to sympathize with him. But it’s harder not to treasure those moments, because they are, to me, the principal reason I still enjoy I Dream of Jeannie. Barbara Eden’s Jeannie was gorgeous and bubbly and mischievous, and Bill Daily’s Major Healey was a staunch second banana. But the scenes that still deliver the biggest laughs on this show are those between Larry Hagman and Hayden Rorke.

 

It’s always the same set-up: Jeannie will blink Tony into some bizarre costume or surroundings, and then disappear just before Dr. Bellows enters. He will be appropriately astonished and then ask what is going on: “I can’t wait to hear your explanation of what you’re doing with an elephant in your bedroom.”

 

Tony will then stammer out a lame elucidation that Bellows doesn’t buy for a moment, and then he sets out to find someone to corroborate his allegations – usually his superior officer (either General Peterson or General Schaeffer, depending on the season or the episode). But by the time the General arrives on the scene, Jeannie has blinked everything back to normal, and a frustrated Bellows is once again thwarted.

 

 

Something like this happens in at least half of the series’ 139 episodes. That these moments still elicit a smile to viewers’ faces is a testament to what Hagman and Rorke bring to their roles.

 

Though Rorke died in 1987, there is a website that pays tribute to the man and his work that describes his approach to Dr. Bellows this way: “He’s a comedic antagonist who’s never in on the joke, always a step behind, and consistently being fooled. Play him too clueless and he’s a Gladys Kravitz. Play him too stern and he’s a Mr. Wilson. Hayden could thread the needle and make a character who is essentially the spoilsport into a charming, endearing man.”

 

He was indeed charming, with his deep melodious voice and dignified professional bearing. One imagines his military career was one of quiet distinction and steady advancement, until Major Nelson came into his life. That is when his grip on reality would gradually begin to unravel, in early season one episodes like “Anybody Here Seen Jeannie?” That’s when Jeannie sabotages Tony’s medical tests to stop him from going into space. 

 

“The results are beyond my wildest expectations,” Bellows says after looking at impossible readings. Later, after a stern lecture from Tony, Jeannie begins sabotaging Dr. Bellows’ attempt to write up his report, not to mention his dinner, to the point where he begins to doubt his own sanity.

 

Later that season, Dr. Bellows moves in with Major Nelson (“Permanent House Guest”) and is witness to one bizarre occurrence after another – it may be the most concentrated mental torture Jeannie inflicts on him in five seasons. He flees in the middle of the night, believing the house to be haunted. 

 

 

As the series progressed Rorke wisely modulated his performance. One can only be astonished by the inexplicable for so long, before that astonishment turns to bewildered resignation. By season two’s “My Master, The Rainmaker,” he is no longer amazed at a snowfall over Tony’s house in Florida, in July.

 

By this point he regards Tony as Captain Ahab regarded the white whale – the bane of his existence, and one that must be conquered: ““Fine. I’ll accept that. It’s no more ridiculous than any of your other explanations,” he would say after Jeannie’s latest stunt. But he’s not going down without a fight. “Some men dedicate their lives to science, some men dedicate their lives to politics,” he tells Major Nelson.  “I’m dedicating my life to understanding you.”

 

In the season four episode called “Dr. Bellows Goes Sane” he is ready to make his move. Dr. Bellows presents a summary of his observations to General Peterson, entitled “A Clinical Report on Major Anthony Nelson: A Factual Dossier on Every Unexplained Incident in Which Major Nelson Has Been Involved for the Last Three Years.” It’s all in there – sudden appearances and disappearances, giraffes, bears and other wildlife in Tony’s home. But after reading through the more-than-100-page document, Peterson concludes,  “Any man who would turn in a report like that has got to be a candidate for a padded cell.”

 

Foiled again.

 

“I feel sorry for Dr. Bellows. He is a very nice man,” Jeannie once said after driving him to the brink of a nervous breakdown. I do too. But it’s his close encounters with her magic that make I Dream of Jeannie classic television.