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Written by Phil Glatz
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Wednesday, 07 September 2005 |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 30 October 2006 )
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In regards to the recent passing of actor Bob Denver, who was from all accounts one of the Real Nice Guys in the business, the media got it all wrong. Sure, Gilligan was fun, but it was fluff. His real contribution to our cultural history was the portrayal of Maynard G. Krebs on “Dobie Gillis.” He was a TV beatnik, quite a memorable character. Of course “beatnik” was a made up term the media used to categorize folks (coined by Herb Caen).
Maynard was a parody of the media’s portrayal, and quite a humanized character. I think he planted the seeds of how perhaps there were alternatives to the grey flannel suit mentality of the fifties in the minds of many impressionable young people, who later dropped out of straight society.
He also made America safe for beards again; during wartime, short hair and bald faces are considered "patriotic" (but this practice was mostly about contolling lice in the foxholes). Men in the late fifties were still sporting the Army look, and Maynard was an example of how being loose and letting your hair do its thing could be cool.
 Maybe I’m reading too much into this - but where else on Television in 1961 would you find references to Monk and Parker? Definitely a cultural hero of many (including Bob Dylan; read the last sentence here).
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