| The Patty Duke Show | |
|---|---|
 Opening sequence of The Patty Duke Show |
|
| Genre | Sitcom |
| Created by | William Asher Sidney Sheldon |
| Written by | Gary Abrams William Asher David Butler Arnold Horwitt Roy Kammerman Sidney Sheldon |
| Directed by | Bruce Bilson Harry Falk Claudio Guzmán Stanley Prager Alan Rafkin James Sheldon Don Weis |
| Starring | Patty Duke William Schallert Jean Byron Paul O'Keefe Eddie Applegate |
| Theme music composer | Sid Ramin |
| Composer(s) | Harry Geller |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 104 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | William Asher Bob Sweeney |
| Running time | 30 mins. |
| Production company(s) | Chrislaw Productions (1963-1966) United Artists Television (1963-1966) Cottage Industries, Inc. (1965-1966) |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ABC |
| Picture format | Black-and-white |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original run | September 18, 1963 – May 4, 1966 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | The Patty Duke Show: Still Rockin' In Brooklyn Heights |
The Patty Duke Show is an American sitcom which ran on ABC from September 18, 1963, until May 4, 1966, with reruns airing through August 31, 1966. The show was created as a vehicle for rising star Patty Duke, who had recently won an Academy Award for The Miracle Worker (1962). A total of 104 episodes were produced, most written by Sidney Sheldon.
Contents |
Plot
Patty Lane (Duke) is a normal teenager living in the Brooklyn Heights section of New York City, who loves boys, ice cream, and sleepovers. Her father is the managing editor of the New York Chronicle. In the unaired pilot episode, her "identical cousin" Cathy Lane (also played by Duke), whose father also works for the Chronicle as a foreign correspondent, arrives in the United States from Scotland to live with Patty's family and attend school.
The show's premise is that Cathy is more worldly and demure than identical looking cousin Patty. However, most storylines were standard sitcom fare where wacky teenager Patty encounters a problem at the top of the show only to experience a resolution by the end of the half-hour. In actuality, few storylines required two identical-looking, different-personality girls sharing the same family, home, and school.
The remarkable physical resemblance that Patty and Cathy Lane share to each other is explained by their fathers being identical twin brothers.
Characters and cast
Rounding out the cast were William Schallert as Patty's father Martin Lane (Schallert also played Cathy's father in a handful of episodes), Jean Byron as Patty's mother Natalie Lane, Paul O'Keefe as Patty's brother Ross Lane, and Eddie Applegate as Patty's boyfriend Richard Harrison.
In the pilot episode only, Mark Miller played Patty's father and Charles Herbert played Patty's brother. The pilot episode was not aired as such, but parts of it were used in the last episode of the first season, with Schallert and O'Keefe in their respective roles.[1]
Special guest stars included singing duo Chad and Jeremy; teen-heartthrob singers Frankie Avalon, Bobby Vinton, and Frank Sinatra, Jr.; Sal Mineo; Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford; and a then-“unknown” James Brolin.
Production
Filming locations
The Patty Duke Show was, atypically for the time, filmed in New York (at the Chelsea Studios)[2] and not in Hollywood. This was done because Duke was not quite 17 when the series began, and California's strict child labor laws curtailed the number of hours that child actors could work. New York, by contrast, did not have such stringent laws, thus allowing producers to devote more time to the production, a distinct advantage, since Duke effectively carried the show.[3]:116 Duke turned 18 during the 1964–65 television season; consequently ABC wanted to shift the show's production to Hollywood. To the network's displeasure, Duke was reluctant to make the move; at the time, she was in the midst of breaking off her relationship with her managers, who were insisting upon the move. Nonetheless, a few of the last shows were in fact filmed on the West Coast.[1]
Music
The show's theme song, which has since been parodied many times over in pop culture, illustrates the two girls' differences:
- Meet Cathy who's lived most everywhere,
- from Zanzibar to Berkeley Square;
- But Patty's only seen the sights a girl can see from Brooklyn Heights — what a crazy pair!
- But they're cousins, identical cousins all the way;
- one pair of matching bookends, different as night and day.
- Where Cathy adores a minuet,
- the Ballets Russes, and crêpes Suzette;
- our Patty loves to rock 'n' roll, a hot dog makes her lose control — what a wild duet!
- Still they're cousins, identical cousins and you'll find
- they laugh alike, they walk alike, at times they even talk alike.
- You can lose your mind ... when cousins are two of a kind!
Visual effects
The dual role for Duke challenged special effects for its time, considering that television special effects were rare in the early 1960s, particularly for a sitcom.
In all episodes, Duke appeared as both characters in the same frame through use of a split-screen effect. To complement these effects, child actress Rita McLaughlin was used as Duke's double (almost always seen only from behind).[4] In order to differentiate the two characters to the viewing public, the character Patty wore a flip-fall hairpiece, while Cathy's character wore a more conservative turn-under hairstyle.
Reception
Already a budding star in her own right, Duke was further thrust into the public consciousness through the show. As the series went on, her star power from the series allowed her to enter the realm of popular music, releasing a Top Ten single, "Don't Just Stand There", in 1965.[5]
Cancellation
Although the series was still very popular during its final season and getting high Nielsen ratings, ABC decided not to renew it for the 1966–67 season on the basis that filming it in color would have been prohibitively expensive (at the time all three networks were switching their entire prime time lineups to color production).
Duke wrote in her memoir Call Me Anna that United Artists, which produced the series (as well as The Miracle Worker), refused ABC's demand for a switch to color. Duke suspected, but never knew for sure, that United Artists executives said no as "a negotiating ploy" with the hope that ABC would respond with an offer to pay it more money for the series. In the end, however, ABC decided not to renew the series.[3]:167
In 1999, CBS aired the TV movie The Patty Duke Show: Still Rockin' In Brooklyn Heights, which reunited most of the original cast, including Duke, Byron, O'Keefe, Schallert, and Applegate. In Still Rockin', Patty and Richard married after high school, had a son, and were amicably divorced (though toward the end of the movie, they reconcile). Cathy is a widow living in Scotland and has a teenage son. Most of the plot revolves around Patty's old rival Sue Ellen's plans to buy Brooklyn Heights High School, raze it, and replace it with a mall, which is opposed by Patty, Cathy, and the rest of the family.
Syndication and DVD releases
The Patty Duke Show was rerun on Nick at Nite from September 19, 1988 to August 30, 1993.[6][7] On June 30, 1995, Nick at Nite showed one episode of the series during their 10th anniversary celebration.[8] In 2005, both Nick at Nite and TV Land aired an episode of Patty in honor of Nick at Nite's 20th anniversary.
As of November 1, 2008, The Patty Duke Show is currently being syndicated on This TV as part of an early morning "kid friendly" entertainment block. Prior to this, the show had not appeared in national syndication since Nick at Nite dropped it from its lineup. As of March 2009, the show was being broadcast daily on World Harvest Television, the cable/satellite channel operated by televangelist Lester Sumrall's LeSEA Broadcasting.
Shout! Factory released the first season of The Patty Duke Show on DVD in Region 1 on September 29, 2009. The second season will be released on February 9, 2010.[9]
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
| The Complete First Season | 37 | September 29, 2009 |
| The Complete Second Season | 36 | February 9, 2010 |
| The Complete Third Season | 32 | TBA |
Social Security ad campaign
In 2009, Duke would reprise her dual roles from the show in a PSA for The Social Security Administration, in which Patty asked Cathy about where she got her information about how to get Social Security benefits and other questions, like applying for one, online. The PSA was targeted towards baby boomers who were born or grew up in the 1960s[10][11].
See also
References
- ^ a b Parla, Paul; Mitchell, Charles P. (2000). Screen Sirens Scream!: Interviews with 20 Actresses from Science Fiction. McFarland. p. 29. ISBN 0-786-40701-8.
- ^ New York: The Movie Lover's Guide: The Ultimate Insider Tour of Movie New York - Richard Alleman - Broadway (February 1, 2005) ISBN 0767916344
- ^ a b Duke, Patty; Turan, Kenneth (1988). Call Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke. Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-27205-5.
- ^ Mansour, Davod (2005). From Abba to Zoom: A Pop Culture Encyclopedia of the Late 20th Century. Andrews McMeel Publishing. p. 355. ISBN 0-740-75118-2.
- ^ The Billboard Hot 100, "Don't Just Stand There"
- ^ Nick at Nite Log - 1985-present
- ^ The Intelligencer - August 27, 1993
- ^ The Intelligencer - June 30, 1995
- ^ http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Patty-Duke-Season-2-Box-Art/12977
- ^ Patty Lane Retires - Social Security From YouTube
- ^ from www.socialsecurity.gov/pattyduke
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
