On September 29, 1963, a forgotten classic made its premiere on the CBS television network. “My Favorite Martian” was a smash in its first season, with intelligent scripts, ahead-of-its-time special effects, and fabulous chemistry among its stars. After spotty home video releases by Shout Factory a decade or so ago, MPI Home Video has rescued the program and re-released it, this month as a complete series set.
Our story begins as a young reporter, Tim O’Hara (Bill Bixby), on his way home from covering a rocket launch at a nearby Air Force base, witnesses the crash of a flying saucer. He rescues the craft’s sole occupant, an acerbic anthropology professor (Ray Walston) from the planet Mars. The half hour introduces our two heroes, their officious landlady, Lorelei Brown (Pamela Britton), her teenaged daughter Angela (Ann Marshall), and Tim’s boss, Harry Burns (J. Pat O’Malley). It also showcases the Martian’s abilities to levitate objects with his finger, disappear once his antennae are raised, and even to read minds and communicate with animals. Tim decides to pass the alien off as his Uncle Martin while his spaceship is repaired in the garage.
The pilot was adroitly directed by sitcom veteran Sheldon Leonard, and smartly performed by its cast, along with outstanding support from sitcom veterans Simon Oakland, Herbert Rudley and Ina Victor. Unhappy with early script submissions from creator/producer Jack Chertok, the network hired script doctor Sherwood Schwartz to lend a hand. Schwartz changed the Tim-centric scripts to focus more on the Martian, as a fish out of water, on, as he termed it “this backwards planet.” Marshall was dropped early on, to free Bixby’s character to become more of a playboy, and Britton’s Mrs. Brown became decidedly more scatterbrained than she was portrayed in the pilot.
Strong entries in the first season include “There is No Cure for the Common Martian,” which features Alan Reed, the voice of Fred Flintstone, as a department store owner. “Miss Jekyll and Hyde” introduces Mrs. Brown’s niece Paula (Marlo Thomas) and a matchmaking effort by the Martian to pair her up with her longtime lab assistant, portrayed by Tom Skerritt, who would reunite with Walston in the 90s in the CBS drama series “Picket Fences.” And my personal favorite from the entire series, “How’re You Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Pharmacy” is a brisk riot, involving both Martin and Tim suffering from the Martian’s vitamin deficiency. The great Herbie Faye is the guest star as the clueless pharmacist.
Season two is arguably the strongest, with many episodes focusing on the travails of various guest stars, rather than unusual Martian maladies and Tim O’Hara’s dating woes (although an early entry “The Memory Pill” is a marvelous farce featuring our leads and guest star David White). “We Love You, Miss Pringle” is a good example. Tim discovers that the high school teacher who intimidated him and his classmates is retiring, and that she is deserving of more accolades than she ever received, because behind the scenes, she was constantly fighting for her students. When she receives her gold watch at the end of the episode, she mutters “damn thing probably doesn’t even keep time.” Whether the expletive was improvised or not, it’s the first time the “d” word was uttered in prime time television.
Another episode, “A Martian Fiddles Around,” focuses on a father-son violin company trying to recapture its former glory. “My Uncle, the Folk Singer” follows a young entrepreneur (“The Munsters”’ Pat Priest) trying to save her night club. And in “How’re Things in Glocca Martin,” the Martian and Tim play Cupid for Tim’s Irish uncle and his old flame. These are all excellent character studies, played with humor and sensitivity, raising the program beyond its obvious gimmicks.
Season two also introduces Alan Hewitt as Detective Bill Brennan, a recurring nemesis for Uncle Martin and love interest for Mrs. Brown. Walston disliked the Brennan character (but not Hewitt), thinking that he was hardly a match for an alien with superior intelligence. But a highlight of the episodes featuring the detective are the Shakespearean insults the two performers hurl at one another from time to time. Another notable introduction in season two was the evil spy agency CRUSH, undoubtedly inspired by the success of NBC’s “The Man From UNCLE.” “Martin’s Favorite Martian” is notable for the casting of a pre-“Big Valley” Linda Evans.
In season three, “Martian” moved out of its Desilu home, as Lucy had sold her studio to Paramount. There are modest changes in the apartment exterior set, but the most notable change to the program was the fact that it was finally presented in color. Sadly, there were few exceptional episodes in this final year, which led to Walston’s dissatisfaction with the series, and his decision to participate only part-time if there were to be a fourth season. CRUSH returned a couple of times, and Gavin McLeod made a pair of memorable appearances as Mrs. Brown’s worthless nephew Alvin.
Also in the final season, the writers opened wide Uncle Martin’s bag of tricks, and he was capable of all sorts of abilities never hinted at in the first two seasons, possibly feeling the pressure from the omniscience of Jeannie and Samantha on the rival networks. He was suddenly able to change any solid objects into others by “rearranging the molecular structure” with his levitating finger … turn himself into a gas or a liquid … or instantly hypnotizing a museum guard into thinking he was someone else. Anything goes, I suppose.
A bizarre episode, “When You Get Back to Mars, Are You Going to Get It,” introduces Wayne Stam as Martin’s real nephew, Andromeda, who crash lands in his dad’s spaceship and exposes himself and his uncle as extraterrestrials. Walston had already made clear his intention to scale back his involvement in a fourth season, so the thought was to introduce the younger Martian to the show to play off of Tim in the next year. The network wasn’t crazy about the idea, and the character disappeared, never to be referred to again, in the last several episodes of the series.
What elevated “My Favorite Martian” in my book is the interplay of its cast of characters. In Walston’s home movies, which appear in MPI’s set as a bonus feature, it is clear that Walston, Bixby and Britton were quite fond of each other. In fact, Bixby cast Britton in an episode of his underrated adventure series “The Magician” in 1973, and Walston in an episode entitled “My Favorite Magician” on “The Incredible Hulk” in 1979. Walston’s staunch Broadway training is evident, and Bixby, who in later years seemed sedate to the point of narcolepsy in his other TV roles, is a taut spring of boundless energy. And as television’s first mainstream supernatural success story, it paved the way for the genies, witches and space aliens yet to grace our screens.
For those who bought the Shout Factory individual series releases of this program, there are several outstanding reasons to buy the program again. First off, there are bountiful bonus materials included on this release of the Complete Series. Kellogg’s cereal commercials, featuring Walston, Bixby and Britton in character are here, as are the aforementioned home movies. A couple of lost episodes of Lucille Ball’s radio series, “Let’s Talk to Lucy,” featuring Bixby and Walston are here, as are samplings of “My Living Doll,” another Chertok production, an unsold Chertok pilot, “The Man in the Square Suit,” and the already out-of-print “My Favorite Martian” TV soundtrack recording, released five years ago by La-La Land records. Some animation test footage and photo galleries round out the set. Sadly, our main cast has all left us, so there are no commentary tracks available. But the episodes are gorgeously presented, sometimes betraying the thin wires that aided in the Martian’s levitation stunts.
More importantly, there were several episodes in the Shout Factory discs (which were double-sided … don’t even get me STARTED on that) that were syndication rips. Worse than just being edited, some of these episodes were actually time compressed … i.e. sped up, and it was painfully obvious. Most of these edited episodes have been replaced by the network originals, and, while I do see some shorter, probably edited episodes, I’m not noticing the time compression that was evidenced on the earlier releases.
I had the great honor to correspond with Mr. Walston shortly before he passed away in 2001. I sent him a piece of fan mail when he finally won his elusive Emmy award for his role in “Picket Fences.” I also sent him a photo to sign that I picked up at a science fiction convention. Not with extended antennae, knowing that he was sensitive to the perceived damage that “Martian” did to his career, but rather of him in one of those splendid Andrew Pallack suits that he’d wear on the show. He signed the photo, which resides on my piano today, and also sent back my letter, with answers scribbled in the margins, and graced me with a telephone call thanking me for my kindness.
It’s nice to know that “Picket Fences” allowed him to finally (I believe) make peace with “My Favorite Martian.” Enough so, that he shot a memorable AT&T commercial implicating Uncle Martin, and reprised his role, in a way, in Disney’s otherwise regrettable big-screen version. While it’s largely forgotten in television history, it remains high-spirited family fun … and if you’re not careful, you may actually learn from it. As Uncle Martin once told Tim, “culture is like spinach. Once you forget that it’s good for you, you’ll start to enjoy it!”
“My Favorite Martian” is available on DVD, either as a full series set, or in individual season packages, at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/My-Favorite-Martian-Bill-Bixby/dp/B011MU9ZIY/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1444920786&sr=8-6&keywords=My+Favorite+Martian), or other fine retailers. Special thanks to J.H. Harison’s exquisite website, http://members.tripod.com/~jhh_2/TVMFM.htm, for educating me on aspects of this program of which I was unaware. Well worth a visit.
