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"Lost" Julie Newmar robot series coming to DVD

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23skidoo

Admiral
Admiral
OK, of all the releases they could have announced, this one I never expected.

MPI Home Video is scheduled to release the first volume of My Living Doll, consisting of 11 of the 26 episodes of this single-season sitcom that starred Julie Newmar as a sexy robot. (Think Small Wonder except, well, sexy.) This was the show Newmar did right before becoming Catwoman.

http://www.TVShowsOnDVD.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=16205

Now why is such a deal is up until this point I was under the impression, based upon numerous websites and forum discussions, that My Living Doll was considered a "lost" series. As of 2006 only 10 episodes were known to have survived, and they'd been cobbled together from numerous sources. (While it's sadly commonplace for British shows like Doctor Who to have large gaps in the archive from episodes being junked, it's rare - but not unknown - for this to happen with US shows too.) The fact they're putting out a Vol. 1 and the first volume has 11 episodes, suggests there must have been a cache of episodes discovered somewhere.

The "rediscovery" of My Living Doll isn't likely to make the world a better place - I'm interested in it because it has Newmar, and from what I hear she's the only thing worth watching in it, plus there was some interesting behind-the-scenes drama - but it does add a smidgen of hope for those of us who still dream of seeing more lost Doctor Who episodes and the like.

Alex
 
Heard of this, but never seen it. Looking forward to seeing it.

Sean
 
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Yep, I'm old enough to remember that show. It was a typical fantasy or "wacky" sitcom of that era. Basically the same concept as I Dream Of Jeannie or Bewitched, only with a robot instead of a genie or a witch.

One time in elementary school, I was pretending to be a robot. "You know Rhoda on My Living Doll?" I said. "Well, I'm built just like her."

To which the teacher replied, "You're not built like Julie Newmar. I don't think you'll ever be built like Julie Newmar."
 
There were a few sitcoms like that in the 60s. In addition to I Dream Of Jeannie and Bewitched, there was My Favorite Martian, The Ghost And Mrs Muir and Nanny And The Professor (and possibly others I can't think of right now). In the late 70s, Mork And Mindy was based on the same model. It's kind of a shame that Newmar's series didn't catch on, because she was really cool. I'll probably grab this set when it comes out.
 
More early Julie Newmar is always a good thing. Anybody else remember her as the Devil on that old Twilight Zone ep?
 
Interesting bit of trivia: My Living Doll is apparently the origin of the phrase "That does not compute." Interesting that the catchphrase would become so much more famous and enduring than the show.
 
Greg Cox said:
More early Julie Newmar is always a good thing. Anybody else remember her as the Devil on that old Twilight Zone ep?
Click to expand...
That was "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" with Albert Salmi. It was from TZ's fourth season, when the show experimented with a one-hour format.

For Newmar completists, there's the unsold pilot Three On an Island, in which she co-starred with Pamela Tiffin and Monica Moran (daughter of actress Thelma Ritter).
 
scotpens said:
Greg Cox said:
More early Julie Newmar is always a good thing. Anybody else remember her as the Devil on that old Twilight Zone ep?
Click to expand...
That was "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" with Albert Salmi. It was from TZ's fourth season, when the show experimented with a one-hour format.

For Newmar completists, there's the unsold pilot Three On an Island, in which she co-starred with Pamela Tiffin and Monica Moran (daughter of actress Thelma Ritter).
Click to expand...

And, of course, she can also be seen in the musicals Lil' Abner and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. (Naturally, she plays the most vixenish Bride.)

I was also watching an old Fred Astaire movie recently--and spotted her among a bevy of chorus girls. She's only on screen for a few moments, but it's definitely her.

The Bandwagon, maybe?
 
Greg Cox said:
More early Julie Newmar is always a good thing. Anybody else remember her as the Devil on that old Twilight Zone ep?
Click to expand...

I do. One of my favorite episodes. Anybody remember her guest shot on Get Smart? It was the episode called "The Laser Blazer".

I'm also looking forward to seeing this Living Doll show. I've heard about it, but never seen it.
 
That voice sounds like it has a bit of proto-Terminator accent in it. The show has definitely kind of fallen through the cracks, I had never even heard of it.
 
Here is a very lengthy thread that goes through the five year journey that made this Doll release possible:

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=177816

Long story short, there seem to have been a myriad of problems in getting these eps together. The guy claiming to be the rep for CherTok TV is posting in that thread above, but it seems hard to get a straight answer out of him.

What I walked away with is that they have enough to put together for all 26 episodes, but the film qualities don't match. They've spent five years trying to find find higher quality pieces, and they are still looking for higher quality pieces so that they can put out a professional release instead of just throwing something out there. These 11 are the ones they've finished to their satisfaction.

They've also allegedly had a run in with Rhino video; Rhino sat on the material for years while it had the overall Chertok TV license and wouldn't put together a release for "My Living Doll" (possibly due to quality issues?). The rights are now free again and they've found a distributor.
 
Newmar was also in 2 episodes of Route 66 (notably "How Much a Pound is Albatross?") as a very philosophical biker chick who's hard to pin down. That noted episode was one of the best episodes of the series BTW. Eye candy helps :drool:


Being lost is interesting. Usually, the lost episodes and series are in the 1950s in the US when many things were live or weren't archived. George Burns and Arnaz/Ball were ahead of the curve, wanting their series recorded on good film so it can air in the future. Honeymooners wasn't, which is why so many episodes were lost and most of the gaps were filled from Gleason's private archive. Late '50s sitcoms (Beaver, Father Knows Best) and dramas (Perry Mason, Sea Hunt, Highway Patrol) + Westerns (Gunsmoke, Have Gun Will Travel) were recorded on real film which is why they've been airing in good quality in syndication for decades. Sgt. Bilko is somewhere inbetween. A lot of early sitcoms are gone as are those playhouse anthology dramas.

Beyond standard shows, I know game shows were wiped through the '60s (and early '70s). The UK was far worse than the US on archiving, a bit ironic given Europe having far more history than the US. It may have been lost as a 1 season series. Anything that ran longer, like 2 seasons (Outer Limits, Munsters, Addams Family, Car 54, etc) were preserved for syndication. Not sure if the half-season Way Out survives (a TZ, TOL like show). Living Doll raises the question: how many other 1960s series or even 1970s 1-season series survive? Have their film prints deteriorated?
 
Christopher said:
Interesting bit of trivia: My Living Doll is apparently the origin of the phrase "That does not compute." Interesting that the catchphrase would become so much more famous and enduring than the show.
Click to expand...
The catchphrase was no doubt assisted into the collective consciousness thanks to regular iterations by the robot on Lost in Space, which began its run on CBS one week after My Living Doll's final episode aired. (I'm not so sure the phrase wasn't also used a time or two by Dick Gautier's recurring robot character Hymie on Get Smart!, besides.)
 
Reviving this thread from a few months back, Volume 1 of My Living Doll is now out on DVD. I ordered it via Amazon (no surprise none of the Best Buys bothered to stock it here in Alberta...) and have had a chance to watch part of the first episode. You can tell they've done some restoration work but it looks pretty good.

As far as quality of show goes, well you can't really judge based on 15 minutes of one episode. I've heard people complain about the show's sexism and all that. But this is 1964 we're talking about. And frankly the premise is not that much more "offensive" than Darrin Stevens ordering Samantha to no longer be a witch in Bewitched (which started the same year IIRC) or the whole Jeannie serving her master thing.

But frankly the script could be reciting cereal box ingredients - when Julie Newmar is on the screen she utterly dominates. Which is probably why her co-star famously hated her and eventually ended up walking off the show. Even watching the DVD I had to fight the urge to fast-forward whenever Julie isn't on the screen! The show also does generate a similar vibe to I Dream of Jeannie (space program backdrop, attempting to hide someone's true nature, some initial misunderstandings by the leading man, etc.).

I'm glad I ordered it (and MPI better put out Volume 2 - I hate these split sets). Since a major selling feature of any Batman TV series DVD set would be, of course, the Newmar episodes as Catwoman, and since we're unlikely to ever see a legal release of that show, My Living Doll is really the only example of Batman-era Julie Newmar (give or take a year) we're likely to get. Sadly, the series never got a second season otherwise it would have made the transition to color like the others did. Still, it looks pretty good in color and I do find that, generally speaking, films that have become, shall we say, roughed up over the years tend to smooth out better in B&W than color.

I'm quite impressed with the extras in the set. Having been used to most of these old series releases having nothing extra (Mission Impossible, most season sets of Wild Wild West and Honey West being three of the worst offenders IMO), or maybe a trailer or two, here we've got a retrospective featurette, a radio interview with Julie Newmar conducted by, of all people, Lucille Ball, some alternate footage, a commercial with Newmar and soundtrack music selections. They also snuck on an episode of The Bob Cummings Show as a bonus.

Alex
 
Slowly working my way through the set. Here are some additional comments:

There's actually a 12th episode hidden away in the set. That's because they weren't able to locate a good copy of one of the episodes from the first half of the season, so they included it anyway with a plea for anyone with a better copy to contact them.

Newmar's performance is quite interesting. In an interview on the set she says she approached the role as a dance performance, and if you watch it you'll see that is true. She also is very consistent: she'll always use the same sort of greeting when encountering a certain character, and there are a few running gags (repeated pre-recorded statements she makes when asked certain questions) that work well due in part to the fact she delivers the lines exactly the same way week to week. It's all quite post-modern.

And then I came across the episode "Uninvited Guest" which was based on something I never expected to see in a 1960s fantasy-com: hard science.

In the episode, Rhoda begins malfunctioning and suffering from vertigo (which is supposed to be impossible for a robot). Turns out she had been asked by a child she encountered to read Alice in Wonderland. And Lewis Carroll's poetry with the Jabberwock causes her to lose control. Investigation reveals that as Carroll's poetry is based on mathematics, it causes a feedback loop in Rhoda's systems and she needs to be reprogrammed. Later, this quirk becomes a major plot point in resolving the episode.

So you have a character whose fatal flaw is "Mimsy were the borogroves" because of the mathematics of Lewis Carroll. Even if the rest of the series sucks, it's got my respect from this one episode alone.

The only thing I don't care for is Bob Cummings. He's miscast in the "Darrin Stevens" role, has no chemistry with Newmar (no surprise given the behind-the-scenes tension), and is a bit too old and shouty for the role. A few times I thought I was watching Odd Couple-era Tony Randall (nothing against Tony Randall but he wouldn' t have been right for this show either). Apparently they wanted Efrem Zimbalist for the part.

Alex
 
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