Positive Quiddity: Comic Duo Hickman and Denver

Dwayne Hickman and Bob Denver formed a nearly perfect but almost forgotten comedy team through their characters Dobie Gilllis and Meynard G. Krebs.

The television show, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, worked because the odd partnership of Dobie and Meynard was funny and charming. Hickman, who had played Bob Cummings' scatterbrained nephew on The Bob Cummings Show, had the experience to lead this sitcom as Dobie Gillis. Dobie was an average young man, looking for the right girl and too often looking over his head for the wrong girl, spoiled, stuck-up Thalia Menninger, played by Tuesday Weld. Maynard was a beatnik, a rather clumsy and dimwitted one (in an era when beatniks were well-read bookworms). The two characters were good allies in a world where the spoiled rich boy, Chatsworth Osborne, Jr., always got bailed out and the popular students (played perfectly by very young Warren Beatty and Tuesday Weld) got all the credit. The girl that actually loved Dobie, Zelda Fitzgerald, is gently spurned by Dobie, as his character always searches for infatuation rather than an adult partnership.

Doris Packer played the mother of both Beatty's character and Steven Franken's Chatsworth Osborne, Jr. As a conniving, pushy, wealthy suburban battle ax, she was a humorous and effective antagonist to the middle class friendship of Dobie and Maynard.

Hickman and Denver played high school students and then junior college students, but in real life they were both college graduates who knew what they were doing and, right from the beginning, knew how to read their lines to each other with crisp delivery and great timing.

Episodes ended in the local town park. With a copy of Rodin's “The Thinker” in the background, Dobie, seeming a lot like his mentor, Bob Cummings, would look into the camera and conclude the episode by offering a humble and ironic summary of the misadventures he had just endured. 

Here is a tribute to Denver written by Hickman on his blog:

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Remembering Bob Denver

I want to share a few thoughts about my dear friend, Bob Denver, who passed away on Friday, September 2, 2005. Bob and I have been friends for over fifty years. We both attended Loyola University in Los Angeles. I knew him briefly from his work with the Del Rey Players, the college theatre group. In 1958 he came in to audition for the role of Maynard G. Krebs opposite my character, Dobie Gillis. I had already been cast and the producers asked me to test on film with all the actors they were interested in for the role of Maynard. I must have tested with twenty actors, some good, most not. It was the end of the day and as I was leaving the studio the producer called me back to test with one more actor. It was a favor to a secretary on the lot - it was her brother. When I returned to the set I was amazed to see that the secretary’s brother was Bob Denver. From the moment we began to read the lines all the other actors who had auditioned for the role just evaporated. Bob and I had a rhythm and timing that was instant and a new comedy duo was born.

For the next four seasons, I had the privilege to be Bob’s straight man. My favorite line? "Maynard, go home and feed your iguana." Maynard’s reply? "He don’t need me, Dobe, he can open the refrigerator door himself."

After Dobie Gillis ended its run, the next season Bob landed the title role of "Gilligan" and for the rest of his life, he and that character would become one.

Bob was a gentle comedian and wonderful with physical comedy. Everyone loved Maynard and Gilligan; they were both characters that you could identify with and root for.

We worked together on two Dobie Gillis reunion Movies of the Week in the 1970’s and 80’s and several years ago I joined him in the "Surviving Gilligan’s Island" movie. We had always hoped to work together again as Dobie and Maynard.

In fifty years we never had a harsh word. My wife Joan, son Albert, and I send our love and prayers to Bob's beautiful wife, Dreama and his wonderful children. I will always cherish my friendship with Bob and feel honored to have been his straight man..."Goodnight, Maynard - now go feed your iguana."

http://www.dwaynehickman.com/