Maynard G. Krebs, RIP

Boy, I’ve been busy. I just noticed that Maynard G. Krebs had died. It must be ’60s television week here. Why not?

It wasn’t until about a year and a half ago that I saw any episodes of Dobie Gillis, or to give its full title, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, beyond faint memories of it on afternoon TV when I was four or five. (Mostly, these memories involved “The Thinker.”) I borrowed a tape of episodes from the library and watched with amusement. It holds up fairly well.

In one, Dobie and Maynard had forgotten to thaw meat or something, and a picnic was coming up, so they had to… I forgot how they had to heat it, but it was comically slow. I sat there thinking, “Boys, just put it in the microwave.” Oops, that modcon hadn’t been invented just yet.

In another, Francis X. Bushman made a guest appearance. Just the name evokes bygone movies, all the way back to silents. But I checked, and he worked right up until his death in 1966 at 83. His last movie was The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, made the year he died.

In Dobie Gillis, he played a eugenics-minded health fanatic who wanted to breed his daughter with Dobie, who, despite his longstanding desire for a girl, found the idea daft. They don't write 'em like that anymore.