The Patty Duke Show

The Patty Duke Show

The Patty Duke Show season one opening
Genre Sitcom
Created by William Asher
Sidney Sheldon
Written by Gary Abrams
William Asher
David Butler
Arnold Horwitt
Roy Kammerman
Sidney Sheldon
Directed by Bruce Bilson
Harry Falk
Claudio Guzmán
Stanley Prager
Alan Rafkin
James Sheldon
Don Weis
Starring Patty Duke
William Schallert
Jean Byron
Paul O'Keefe
Eddie Applegate
Theme music composer Sid Ramin
Robert Wells
Composer(s) Sid Ramin
Harry Geller
Country of origin United States
Original language(s) English
No. of seasons 3
No. of episodes 104 + unaired pilot (list of episodes)
Production
Producer(s) William Asher
Stanley Prager
Bob Sweeney
Camera setup Single-camera
Running time 24 minutes
Production company(s) Chrislaw Productions (1963–1966)
United Artists Television (1963–1966)
Cottage Industries, Inc. (1965–1966)
Distributor MGM Television
Release
Original network ABC
Picture format Black-and-white
Audio format Monaural
Original release September 18, 1963 – April 27, 1966
Chronology
Followed by The Patty Duke Show: Still Rockin' In Brooklyn Heights (1999 TV movie)

The Patty Duke Show is an American sitcom that ran on ABC from September 18, 1963, to April 27, 1966, with reruns airing through August 31. The show was created as a vehicle for rising star Patty Duke. 105 episodes were produced, 104 of them airing over three seasons, most written by either Sidney Sheldon or William Asher, who co-created the series.

Plot

Patricia "Patty" Lane (Duke) is a normal, chatty, rambunctious teenager living in the Brooklyn Heights section of New York City. Her father, Martin Lane (William Schallert), is the managing editor of the New York Daily Chronicle; Patty affectionately addresses him as "Poppo". Her "identical cousin", Catherine "Cathy" Margaret Rowan Lane (also played by Duke), is sophisticated, brainy, and demure, and her father, Kenneth Lane (also played by Schallert), Martin's identical twin brother, also works for the Chronicle as a foreign correspondent. Cathy moves to the United States from Scotland to live with Patty's family and attend Brooklyn Heights High School. While both girls are identical in physical appearance, their style, tastes, and attitudes are nearly opposite, which is responsible for some of the comedic situations on the show.

Though the character of "Cathy" received first billing over the character of "Patty" in the show's opening credits, virtually all episodes centered around Patty's misadventures, with Cathy often only playing a minor supporting role. The remarkable physical resemblance that Patty and Cathy share is explained by the fact that their fathers are identical twins. While Patty speaks with a typical American accent, Cathy speaks with a slight Scottish accent; not surprisingly, however, both cousins are able to mimic each other's voice.

Patty and Cathy also have an additional identical cousin, the Southern belle Betsy (also played by Duke), featured in the season 2 episode "The Perfect Hostess".

Cast

In the series unaired pilot episode, Mark Miller played Martin Lane and Charles Herbert played Ross Lane.

Notable guest stars

Episodes

Music

The show's theme song, "Cousins", which has since been parodied many times over in pop culture, illustrates the two girls' differences: "...where Cathy adores the minuet, the Ballet Russe and crêpes Suzette, our Patty loves to rock 'n' roll, a hot dog makes her lose control..." and was sung by a five-voice vocal ensemble called "The Skip-Jacks", who also performed The Flintstones theme song.

Patty Duke as Cathy Lane and Patty Lane
The Lanes (clockwise from bottom left: Patty Duke as Patty Lane, Jean Byron as Natalie Lane, William Schallert as Martin Lane and Paul O'Keefe as Ross Lane)

Visual effects

The dual role for Duke challenged special effects for its time, considering that television special effects were rare in the early 1960s, particularly for a sitcom. In all episodes, Duke appeared as both characters in the same frame through use of a split-screen effect. The technically ambitious traveling matte process was also used from time to time, particularly in the pilot. To complement these effects, child actress Rita McLaughlin was used as Duke's double (almost always seen only from behind). To differentiate the two characters to the viewing public, the character Patty wore a flip-fall hairpiece, while Cathy's character wore a more conservative turn-under hairstyle.

Reception

Already a budding star in her own right, Duke was further thrust into the public consciousness through the show. As the series went on, her star power from the series allowed her to enter popular music, appearing on two episodes of Shindig! in 1965 to release a Top Ten single, "Don't Just Stand There", in one of her two appearances on the series.

Production

Origins

The ABC network was interested in producing a show with Duke as the star, but had no concept of what the show was to be about. Producer and writer Sidney Sheldon asked Duke to spend a week with his family at their home to generate ideas. During this time he noticed that Duke had two distinct sides to her personality (later in life she would be diagnosed with bipolar disorder), so came up with the concept of identical cousins with contrasting personalities. According to Duke, he successfully captured her personality in the two characters.

Filming locations

By the early 1960s, most sitcoms were being produced in Hollywood, whereas previously they had been produced in New York. New formats and innovations such as filmed shows, video tape, and coast-to-coast coaxial cable service allowed for this change. By 1963, mostly game shows, such as What's My Line and soap operas, such as The Secret Storm still originated from New York, whereas most other productions moved out West. The Patty Duke Show would prove to be the exception for the time, as it was filmed in New York rather than Los Angeles. When the series' unaired pilot episode was filmed on New Year's Day 1963 featuring Miller and Herbert in the roles of Martin and Ross Lane, respectively, the show was filmed at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in Culver City, California, with San Francisco as the setting for the series. However, when the series was picked up by ABC, it was realized that Duke's age, which at the time was 16, would result in production moving from California, as the state's strict child labor laws (known informally as the Coogan laws after famed 1920s child actor Jackie Coogan) curtailed the number of hours that child actors could work. It was thus decided that the show would originate from New York, as it did not have such stringent laws. This would allow producers to devote more time to the production since not only did Duke effectively carry the show, but with her a native of Elmhurst, Queens, it made getting to the studio easier. With the switch to the East Coast, it was decided to reset the show in Brooklyn Heights with filming in the Chelsea Studios.

Cancellation

Duke turned 18 midway through the 1964–1965 television season; consequently, although the series was still popular and was getting high Nielsen ratings during its final season, ABC wanted to shift the show's production to Los Angeles for the 1965–1966 television season, as Duke was now old enough to work longer hours. Duke refused to make the move, as she did not want to fly 6,000 miles round-trip to film the series; at the time, she was in the midst of breaking off her relationship with her managers, who were insisting upon the move. In reality, United Artists Television (UA) refused ABC's demand for a switch to color, with Duke suspecting that UA executives said no as a negotiating ploy with the hope that ABC would respond with an offer to pay more money for the series on the condition that it continued to film the series in black-and-white. Although the 1965-1966 season began in New York, some of the later episodes were filmed on the West Coast. Had it continued, The Patty Duke Show would have stayed in California, but its cancellation made further discussion moot.

Syndication

The Patty Duke Show was rerun on Nick at Nite from September 19, 1988, to August 30, 1993. On June 30, 1995, Nick at Nite showed one episode of the series during their 10th-anniversary celebration. In 2005, both Nick at Nite and TV Land aired another episode of the series in honor of Nick at Nite's 20th anniversary. As of November 1, 2008, The Patty Duke Show is being syndicated on This TV as part of an early morning classic TV block. Prior to this, the show had not appeared in national syndication since Nick at Nite dropped it from its lineup in 1993. As of March 2009, the show was being broadcast daily on World Harvest Television, the cable/satellite channel operated by televangelist Lester Sumrall's LeSEA Broadcasting. Reruns of The Patty Duke Show were seen on Antenna TV from 2013 until 2015 as part of that channel's regular programming schedule. From November 4, 2013 to April 6, 2014, The Patty Duke Show aired back-to-back episodes every day from 1:00–2:00 pm ET; from April 7, 2014, to August 29, 2014, The Patty Duke Show aired back-to-back episodes Monday–Friday from 2:00–3:00 pm ET; from September 1, 2014 to April 3, 2015, the show aired back-to-back episodes Monday–Friday from 6:00–7:00 am ET; from April 6, 2015 to September 11, 2015, it aired back-to-back episodes Monday–Friday from 9:00–10:00 am ET. As of January 4, 2016, series is now airing mornings on MeTV.

Reunion movie

On April 27, 1999, the 33rd anniversary of the ABC cancellation of The Patty Duke Show, rival network CBS aired the TV movie The Patty Duke Show: Still Rockin' In Brooklyn Heights, which reunited Duke, Schallert, Byron (in her final on-screen role, as she died in February 2006 of complications following hip replacement surgery), O'Keefe and Applegate. In Still Rockin', Patty and Richard married after high school, had a son, Michael (Alain Goulem), who in turn married (his wife is mentioned but is not seen as she is out of town on business), had a daughter, Molly (Jane McGregor) and were amicably divorced (though toward the end of the movie, they reconcile). Cathy is a widow living in Scotland and has a teenage son, Liam McAllister (Kent Riley). Martin and Natalie moved to Florida after Martin retired from The New York Daily Chronicle. Most of the plot revolves around Patty's old rival, Sue Ellen Caldwell, who is planning on buying Brooklyn Heights High School (where Patty works as a drama teacher), razing it, and replacing it with a mall, which is opposed by Patty, Cathy, and the rest of the Lane family. Kitty Sullivan, who played Sue Ellen Turner in 14 episodes over the first two seasons, was unavailable to reprise her role for the movie and was replaced by Cindy Williams, best-known for her role as Shirley Feeney in the ABC sitcom Laverne & Shirley.

DVD releases

Shout! Factory has released all three seasons of The Patty Duke Show on DVD in Region 1.

DVD Name Ep # Release Date
The Complete First Season 37 September 29, 2009
The Complete Second Season 36 February 9, 2010
The Complete Third and Final Season 32 August 24, 2010

Social Security campaigns

In 2009, Duke reprised her dual roles from the show in a public service announcement (PSA) for the Social Security Administration, in which Patty asked Cathy about where she got her information about how to get Social Security benefits and other questions, such as how to apply online. The PSA was targeted toward baby boomers who were born or who grew up in the 1960s. In 2010, the main cast of The Patty Duke Show (except Byron, who died in February 2006) reprised their respective roles in a series of PSAs, again for the Social Security Administration.

Similar shows and movies

References

    External links

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