Brilliant! The 60s sitcoms in syndication were a big part of my childhood, too, and still today they cheer me. Often, if I’m blue or ill, a feature length film demands too much of me, and these half-hour interludes with laughter fit the bill perfectly. I think all the performers you mention were (are) outstanding talents, the equal of their cinema brethren. I want to give special mention to the flawless cast (and scripts, proving not all sitcoms need be uninspired) of “The Dick Van Dyke Show”, my favorite.

This is a great post. In my mind, the stars of old movies and old TV shows are very much integrated, at least in terms of talent. One thing I like about TV is how much the audience is able to build a relationship with the characters over time. One show you didn’t mention was “The Dick Van Dyke Show” which I particularly love because of the amazing talent of those actors. My favorite episodes were when they were performing comedic sketches or musical numbers. Buddy on his Cello and Rose Marie with her Vaudevillian charm and Mary dancing and Dick van Dyke and his fabulous legs – I love that!
In England, most of the top dogs in acting have also done a great deal of television – for them there’s much less of a division between the two media. Judi Dench is a prime example – I absolutely adore her in “A Fine Romance” and ESPECIALLY “As Time Goes By.” Thank you for your post!

As a real child of the 60s, the big revelation of ‘penthouse talent’ was Fred MacMurray! I grew up watching him play Steve Douglas on “My Three Sons”, where he was as innocuous and laidback as anyone could be, and as a grown-up, finding him in “The Caine Mutiny” and esp. “The Apartment”, and seeing him as an absolute heel, was a total shock. And from the same sitcom, William Demerest. His Uncle Charlie character was just kind of mild-mannered comic relief; his work in Preston Sturges’ movies is tremendous. I think if I actually could make it through one episode of “My Three Sons” today, just knowing that the two adults were actually Mister Sheldrake and Officer Kockenlocker would totally blow my mind.

Fred Gwynne was immensely talented; he takes the small part of the judge in ‘My Cousin Vinny’ and, as you note, turns in a jewel of a performance. Another sitcom with great acting was the 70′s ‘The Odd Couple.’ Both Tony Randall and Jack Klugman had noted film careers, but the juice was really turned on when they paired here. There was also some great supporting character actors here (Murray the cop, for instance. And remember Victor Buono as the landlord?), as well as excellent script writing. And the thing to remember about all these shows is that actors had to do consistently good work EVERY WEEK – talk about talent and discipline!

April, it’s funny you mention the length of a feature film because one of the reasons my wife and youngest watch episodes of Bewitched together is so they can have a shared experience that still leaves time for homework, school rest and dinner. We still do family dinners, all six of us, and when everything’s done and cleaned up, sometimes 23 minutes is all you have time for before bed. And if you have a little more time, you can watch two episodes and still come in under an hour.

Margaret, my wife and I have seen every episode of As Time Goes By probably ten times each. Now that I’m so familiar with the show I can’t bear to watch the first season (Lionel with Judy?!!?!?!! Jean with Alistair??!?!?!?!) but by the third, it really clicked. What a great show.

sgw – We were all talking about Fred MacMurray on my post just last week. Of course, he had a full career, going back to the thirties, of leads in big Hollywood productions so he never faced the stigmatization of other sitcom actors. He definitely retired into it, and did a great job week in and week out.

Grand Old Movies – The Odd Couple, like you said, came later and didn’t have the stigma attached that shows like The Munsters and Gilligan’s Island did but its lead and supporting players got locked into being “television actors” just the same. It’s one of the few sitcoms based on a movie/play that I enjoy more than the source. I love Matthau and Lemmon but Klugman and Randall had a chance to develop the characters far beyond the scope of the play/movie.

There are at least a few people who managed movie careers alongside TV ones, even back in the day- Peter Falk’s permanently associated with Columbo, but he’s also the driving force in a bunch of really amazing Cassavettes movies (and one Elaine May movie that feels like a Cassavettes movie) and managed to get half his movie friends into one episode of Columbo or another.

Alan Alda was pretty great in Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors, too.

Tom, no doubt about Falk and Alda doing great film work but the difference is that the sixties actors had really derided vehicles they were starring in. Like I said, things like MASH were serious enough to make crossover into movies much easier for Alan Alda than say Fred Gwynne or Bob Denver. People ran down their shows which, quality notwithstanding, involved a lot of talent to pull off.

Sitcom acting — even on a bad sitcom — seems to take an extraordinary amount of technical skill. I’ve seen guest parts and bits played by people I’ve seen do amazing serious stuff onstage; paying attention to them I realize how insanely precise something like “Frasier” can be.

As for Don Knotts, he’s a great illustration of the difference between a comedian and a comic actor. Knotts gets character laughs, usually based on the distance between a tough, macho self-image and reality. This carried him through a lot of weak gags and bland productions. If only somebody had remade “The Love God” a few decades back, with a harder satirical script but keeping Knotts as the Hefner character.

Dbenson, I’ve seen many an established actor guest on a silly sitcom and fall flat as a pancake. It does take skill, just like the over the top skits of Vaudeville took talent and precise timing even if it appears to be beneath serious acting.

And good distinction with Knotts. I wish he’d gotten more than he did. Thing is, on Andy Griffith, when he has to do a serious moment he pulls it off splendidly. I watched an episode last week where he’s being bullied by two tough guys and Andy says he has to go talk to them and when he does, and tells them that they’re bigger than him, yes, but they have to respect what he represents, he really nailed it. None of it even remotely played for laughs. He really pulled it off.

Jonathan Harris, primarily known for being the pompous doofus on Lost In Space, was on an episode of Twilight Zone where he played a rather sinister doctor. He might have had a hefty career as baddies in the earlier crime noir era of the 40s.

I think about actors used outside of their comfort zone a lot. There were many actors in sixties stuff that probably could have done a lot more. I know this isn’t a sixties sitcom actor but I always felt Jerry Lewis, as evidenced by the Buddy Love and Jerry Langford roles, could really have played an arrogant, mean jerk in straight drama, no laughs at all. But his show with Dean Martin set the mold for him and that was it. Fortunately, he had plenty of talent in that area, too.

Don’t forget Fred Gwynne in “The Cotton Club”. The watch scene between him and Bob Hoskins is both funny and touching.

Chris – Agreed. Heck, even in the quite bad Off Beat (1986) he does a superb job in the small role as the commissioner.

Greg, the same could be said for actors on the soaps. For many years, those tapes were simply erased. At least the 60s sitcoms were preserved.

If you ever see the trailer for A FACE IN THE CROWD, which TCM has shown, the pitch is that Elia Kazan, who brought you Marlon Brando and James Dean, now is introducing an exciting new star, Andy Griffith.

Fred Gwynne also did a lot of stage work, including Big Daddy in a revival of CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF.

Kingrat, although soaps are on their way out, they were, and are, the last bastion of underrated performers who have a difficult time making the leap to the big screen. A few have made it but almost always an actor with a small part on the show (like Demi Moore in her small role on General Hospital). The big soap stars, like Susan Lucci, were stigmatized from the start.

Nice list. I agree and would add Ron Howard, I think the best child actor ever in TV, as young Opie. He could carry a scene. Credit for this shared with Andy G. They had a fine relationship on and offscreen.

Steve – Truth be told, I could have included the whole cast from the show and Ron Howard would be near the top. Also, Hal Smith, who played town drunk Otis Campbell, was fantastic. Howard McNear as Floyd the barber, was another great cast member.

I remember loving Fred Gwynne in the minor comedy Disorganized Crime. I don’t remember much else about that film, but he was great in it. He’s also in the rarely-seen Marshall Brickman comedy Simon and the wonderful Ironweed, I need to watch those again.

The saddest example of this is Jim Backus, who had a fine charactor actor career prior to Gilligan’s Island, Rebel Without a Cause is the best-known, but he seemed unable to get good roles afterwards (I just saw him in a nothing part as a doorman in the Chuck Norris vehicle Good Guys Wear Black) and due to the nature of ’60s TV contracts received little or maybe even no residuals for his work on Gilligan’s Island.

Swac, you know, I’ve wanted to watch Simon again since I saw it in 1980 but it’s unavailable. It’s never been transferred to DVD. It’s insane.

Love Jim Backus. He had great comic timing, even in small parts like the rich guy in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. I think a part of his typecasting problem was how utterly recognizable his voice was. Producers probably thought, “Nah, he won’t work. Everyone will hear Mr. Magoo.”

Greg, another great topic ripe with examples; thanks! I always get a kick out of seeing “TV” actors from the syndicated sitcoms (etc.) in movie roles, whether they appeared on TV first or more likely found work in television when the studio system collapsed (no coincidence that the time period we’re talking about is the late 50’s/early 60’s).

Finding three (or even more) in one movie is like playing/winning “BINGO”; my daughter is pretty good at this game too. From older films like Wake Island (1942) – which has Hugh Beaumont (TV’s Leave it to Beaver), Alan Hale Jr. (Gilligan’s Island), and Richard Loo (Kung Fu, among others) – to the ones in the aforementioned timeframe like Lover Come Back (1961), which not only features Tony Randall, but also Ann B. Davis (The Brady Bunch), Donna Douglas (The Beverly Hillbillies), and Ted Bessell (That Girl).

One which has an exceptionally high number is Captain Newman M.D. (1963) – with Angie Dickinson (Police Woman), James Gregory (Barney Miller), Dick Sargent (Bewitched), Ted Bessell (That Girl), Larry Storch (F Troop), Eddie Albert (Green Acres), and Vito Scotti (The Flying Nun, among others)

It’s also fun to see John Hamilton, who appeared in literally hundreds of movies (mostly uncredited) in the 30’s and 40’s before settling down in his best known role as TV Superman’s Perry White in the 50’s.

Someone else whose name deserves mention is Raymond Burr, just because;-)

MDR – Larry Storch. He’s definitely another one I could’ve added to the list. His career was almost exclusively tv and he played in the much derided F-Troop which stigmatized him and his co-stars. By the way, his brief eulogy in S.O.B. is funny as hell.

Another actor in a low-quality sitcom that had high-quality talent: Ray Walston from My Favorite Martian. He did end up getting a lot of good small parts in movies and was always great.

Or Fred Gwynne in Pet Sematary!

But really, this is a great post. I’ve noted for years that there are so many shows out there with casts that surpass the writing by far – I can’t think I’ve noticed the reverse, although I’m sure there’s one somewhere, I think because bad writing is much more often about network and studio interference than it is about bad writers – as you note with “Gilligan’s Island”. I remember first explaining it to people with “Wings”. I’m sure that says more about when it came out compared to my maturing, but I remember saying to people, “Yeah, the writing is hackneyed, the same old expected jokes, etc., but the actors all deliver on it. To the extent it’s possible to make the jokes work, they do.”

Two Andy Griffith points… First, No Time For Sergeants has been a favorite of mine forever. I was very excited about TiVoing it off TCM recently, although now we’re switching systems, and I’ll lose it… I just need to buy it. Second, “The Andy Griffith Show” is great in part because the writers knew when to trust the actors, or how to, and were allowed to. I can’t imagine many of the scripts for that show are very funny on their own. They might work for you and I, who’ve seen the show over and over and could imagine what the actors would do, but blind? Not a chance for most of them.

So glad to see so much love for Fred Gwynne. What a great actor, able to impress all of us with small, almost inconsequential parts in movies that he made work!

I can’t remember the names of the characters on Wings (so I just looked them up) and Roy was great. The actor was David Schramm and he was brilliant. I still remember an episode where they’re in a hotel room and the fire alarm starts going off and no one can stop and Roy walks over in his pjs with a baseball bat and whacks it off the wall, turns and goes back to bed. And it was beautiful. Doesn’t sound like much written down, but he delivered the “joke” as deadpan and bitter looking as possible. Anyway, looked him up and no credits for 15 years now.

Who said the famous line “Television is the place for those on their way up and those on their way down”? Thank goodness, that’s no longer the case. Now more often than not the big name movie stars started in television first.

There are many actors who fell into the Television “ghetto” who should had the talent to be on the big screen. Elizabeth Montgomery is the first to come to mind. She came from a famous pedigree, started on her dad’s TV show at a very young age, trained in New York, was the runner-up to Eva Marie Saint for the role of Edie in On The Waterfront role and pretty much did everything in episodic TV from mysteries, to westerns, to The Twilight Zone to Bewitched. She was a heckuva talent and yet never really got out TV.

And there are the still-young actors who went to TV because the movie roles dried up and never was able to make the transition back. I remember the 1963 MGM romantic comedy “A Ticklish Affair” (which TCM has shown) which starred Shirley Jones AND Carolyn Jones (as her sister-in-law who ends up with Red Buttons of all people). Both were never more attractively photographed on screen (in short shorts!) and were ogled by pretty much every male in the film. Within 2 years, Carolyn was playing Morticia as the mother of 2 teenagers, within 7 years (and a mere decade after her Oscar win), Shirley was playing Mrs. Partridge as the mother of 4 teenagers. Quite a career turn-around.

I agree 100% about Fred Gwynne. He was a great actor. I wonder what would have happened if he had started his career in the 70s (an era of many not conventional looking leading men) instead of the 50s.

Elizabeth Montgomery had the looks and the talent to be a star so you can really see how stifling the tv ghetto was. Most actors in dramas didn’t have the same concerns. George C. Scott and Cicely Tyson both did East Side/West Side with obviously no impact on their film careers but get stuck in a silly sitcom about witches and warlocks and you’re doomed.

Carolyn Jones definitely could have had a better film career but Hollywood thought all she could play was the weird beatnik. I had such a crush on her in The Addams Family, I could totally understand why Gomez was so enamored of her. In the movie version, with Angelica Huston, I just couldn’t see it at all. Angelica didn’t have the same delicate nature that Carolyn had.

I think another example is Sally Field. She had one uncredited movie role as part of a crowd and then, BAM!, she’s “Gidget”, “Sister Bertrille” and “The Girl with Something Extra” with a lot of episodic tv work in between. She’s made some great films (imho) and was recently back on tv. I was just watching “Absence of Malice” in which she’s a far cry from “Gidget”.

Buddy Ebsen had a supporting Oscar-worthy role in Robert Aldrich’s “Attack!.” But that movie was full of wonderful performances by underrated (at least at the time) actors – Jack Palance, Lee Marvin, and especially Eddie Albert, who would later be wasted on “Green Acres.” To top it off, the film flopped because it was an antiwar piece at a time too soon after WWII, when only films flattering to the US military could succeed. Even “From Here to Eternity,” around the same time, had to tone down the anti-army themes to get military cooperation and ensure box-office success. “Attack!” was a 60s movie made during the early 50s.

Greg, you brought up some great tv viewing memories for me. My brother and I grew up in NW OH and we watched syndicated comedies afterschool, via Channel 50, out of Detroit. We saw The 3 Stooges(which my Dad would watch with us and howl with laughter at), The Little Rascals, The Brady Bunch, The Munsters, The Addams Family, The Monkees, Gilligan’s Island,The Beverly Hillbillies, and Lost in Space. Great stuff!! One show you didn’t mention was Green Acres, another show full of talent: Eddie Albert, Eva Gabor, and the sundry character actors and actresses who made up the natives of Hooterville. I just heard on the radio yesterday that the actor who played the storeowner on GA had just passed away,Frank Cady, 96 years old I believe I heard on the report. I also tivoed the Andy Griffith show last year and watched all the episodes-this is one of my Mom’s favorite tv shows of all time. The writers of that show should be awarded medals, because almost all of the b/w shows are funny, but are also filled with tender truths of the human condition. My kids watched them with me, and we loved the episodes where Barney has to dress as a bride, to fool the hillbilly family bent on kidnapping some woman for their son to marry, the bratty new kid in town who tells Opie how to act like a brat to get his way and Andy ignores Opie’s new bratty shenanigins, and Opie trying to raise a nest of baby birds because he killed their mama with a slingshot(or bb gun?). That was a tearjerker!

One more theory I have, actors and actresses on television shows in the 1950s and 60s,were so talented and
did such a great job with their characters, that audiences had a hard time taking them away from that character if they saw them in a movie, playing a different character. Even though the 70s may have seen some of this change, Henry Winkler, has had a hard time being in other movies, because everyone identifies him so much with his character Fonzie, from Happy Days. He has had more success on other television shows. I didn’t watch Arrested Development, but my husband did, and he shared with me how Henry Winkler was a character on the show, playing a lawyer, who in one scene, was looking in a mirror, and was combing his hair and fussing with it, like Fonzie would’ve done-a funny scene, and nice touch, as my husband said.

Buddy Ebsen, as great as he was on Beverly Hillbillies, was even better as Barnaby Jones in the 70′s.

Not enough wonderful things can be said about the entire casts of The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Andy Griffith Show. They are among the greatest ensembles in TV history, right up there with I Love Lucy, Seinfeld, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show and Arrested Development.

Jenni- Both Fonzie and Chachi had recurring roles as lawyers on Arrested Development. Scott Baoi’s character was named Bob Loblaw. I love that.

I meant “Baio”.

And started Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog.

missrhea, Sally Field is one of the rare ones that escaped mindless sitcom life to make it into success in film, and two Oscars! Possibly because Gidget and The Flying Nun didn’t run around the clock in syndication. Neither was as instantly recognizable to kids watching afternoon syndicated tv as Gilligan, Samantha or Jeannie. Whatever the reason, she got very lucky in that she was able to break out of sixties sitcom land and move into big time film work.

John, it’s interesting you bring up From Here to Eternity because, it’s true, they had to pull it back. It wasn’t until the tv miniseries a couple of decades later that they could include the Sgt Warden’s line from the book, when asked if the dead Private Prewitt was one of his soldiers to which he responds, “He was the only soldier.” Such an implication, that everyone else was a slack-off or lacked the essential dignity that Prewitt had, was still too harsh right even eight years later. Although, Best Years of our Lives did a lot more only one year after the war. Go figure.

Jenni, I agree, I think The Andy Griffith Show balanced comedy and sincerity amazingly well. And you’re probably right that it was the actors who became so recognized as one role that the audiences wouldn’t accept them in another. Henry Winkler is a very good actor typecast forever more as the Fonz, even if he’s not playing the Fonz, you still know he is.

Duke and Neil – I loved Barnaby Jones, never watched Arrested Development. I know, I know, what’s wrong with me? I don’t know, it just takes me a long time to get around to watching tv shows. Most likely I’ll end up watching Arrested Development sometime around 2030 or so.

My Mom and I always call Henry Winkler the Fonz even when he is not on “Happy Days”. The other weekend on Sunday,Hallmark Channekl had a Bob Newhart show marathon. There was an episode with Henry Winkler and we kept saying:”the Fonz! It’s the Fonz!” As for all these shows that have been in sindication for seems like forever,it’s funny because when I was kid they were on and they’re on now! I remember before TVLAND our local cable included something kinda like that,a reto-channel and it was groovy! It had the “Mod Squad” and “That Girl!”,”The Munsters”,etc. I thought it was cool! TVLand got really lousy for awhile there with almost nothing worth watching! They even deprived me of my midday “Gunsmoke” viewing! The horror,the horror! Anyway,I retreated to my room and my computer and watched “Gunsmoke” on YouTube,like the geek that I am! P.S. Thanks to everyone for talking about these great shows,which are truly classics! Who would like to join my group called SOUP: Supporters Of Underappreciated Performers?

One of my many favorite movies is The Seven faces of Dr. Lao and even when I first saw it as a kid I was aware of how many great tv character actors there were in it. Tony Randall, Barbara Eden, John Ericson, Noah Beery, Arthur O’Connell and a host of others.

* Great post … Just noticed vis-a-vis Lynde, I don’t think anyone mentioned how utterly stupendous he is in one of my personal favorite films, SEND ME NO FLOWERS — and to a lesser extent in the much maligned, vastly underrated UNDER THE YUM YUM TREE!

I have seen Sally Fields on “Gidget” and “The Flying Nun”. I thought she was so cute! She has been in so many films now that I don’t really peg her into any one show or film. She deserved the Oscar, and yes we like her,we really like her!

@Juana Maria – good call! I love Sally Fields and it all started with Gidget!

I’d Like to ackowledge the incredible talents of Raymond Bailey (Mr.Drysdale from The Beverly Hillbillies) and Joe Flynn (McHale’s Navy). Just brilliant!!!!

Joe Flynn was probably the best thing about those Kurt Russell Disney movies from the 70′s. He also did a lot of great voice work for Hanna-Barbera in the 70′s.

As someone who grew up with TV and made my profession working with so many of the great classic series in independent TV and then national cable, I have always appreciated the breadth of amazing talent that was on display. Perhaps in hidden gems, but always great to see and it’s nice to be able to revisit many on Netflix and other sources.

Viva la television! Great post, Greg!