tbk-10

The "Dobie Gillis" series has impressed me a bit more, looking back on it, with a few things that were definitely ahead of the time for early 60's TV. Besides Maynard always scat-singing to himself, they also used his character to refer to some jazz greats out in the real world. He'd often talk about Dizzy Gillespie, and one episode had him preparing to play bongos for Thelonious Monk (although there's no evidence Monk actually hired pickup bongo players when on tour). Later in the series, when Dobie went to college, I notice that whenever there were other students in background shots, a few of them were usually black (the term back then would've been "colored", or any of a few other vile terms). A bit adventurous, when a lot of schools were putting up a vicious fight against integration.

Since moving to Utah, I've been wondering if the show had any Mormons (or ex-Mormons) on the writing staff. In the episode where Maynard met the caveman, I think they called the place the Wasatch Caves - Wasatch is the name of the mountain range just east of Salt Lake City. Also, it's a tradition in the Mormon church to include a person's middle initial, such as a few recent church presidents - Spencer W. Kimball, Gordon B. Hinckley, and so on. Could this be an inspiration for Herbert T. Gillis or Maynard G. Krebs?