My Living Doll (partially found CBS sitcom; 1964-1965)

Front cover of a DVD release of the series' available episodes.

Status: Partially Found

My Living Doll was an American sitcom TV series created by Bill Keslay, Al Martin, and Leo Guild that was broadcast on CBS for 26 episodes from September 27th, 1964 to March 17th, 1965.

Premise

The series starred Bob Cummings as Dr. Bob McDonald, an Air Force psychiatrist who, through a series of mishaps, is given care of Rhoda (Julie Newmar), a lifelike female android that Bob's friend Dr. Carl Miller (Henry Beckman) built as an experiment for the US Air Force. After Carl is transferred to Pakistan, he places Rhoda in Bob's care so that she would not fall into the hands of the military. Bob is initially reluctant, but soon takes an interest in the idea of teaching the sophisticated yet naive Rhoda to become the perfect woman, one who (in his own words) "does what she's told" and "doesn't talk back."

Rhoda subsequently moves in with Bob at his home, with Bob also inviting his sister Irene Adams to stay with him as his housekeeper to prevent neighbors from believing that anything inappropriate is going on between Bob and Rhoda. Bob strives to keep Rhoda's true identity a secret from the majority of individuals, with much of the series' comedy sparking from Rhoda's attempts to fit into and learn about human society, often making mistakes that result in comedic situations, such as in the episode "The Kleptomaniac", where Rhoda helps herself to numerous gems from a jewelry counter after failing to understand the concept of a department store.

Another recurring character throughout much of the series was Peter Robinson (Jack Mullaney), Bob's lecherous neighbor and colleague who decides that Rhoda is the girl of his dreams, and makes numerous subsequent attempts to woo her. Peter later becomes Rhoda's guardian himself in the 22nd episode of the series after Bob is also transferred to Pakistan, with Peter then learning the truth of Rhoda's identity. Rhoda consequently moves in with Peter and his housekeeper Mrs. Moffat (Nora Marlowe) for the remaining five episodes, where numerous other complications owing to Rhoda's mechanical tendencies take place.

Production

The series was initially conceptualized by Jack Chertok, who based it on the Pygmalion-Galatea myth from Ancient Greece. CBS would subsequently greenlight the project, feeling that it would be an ideal role for Julie Newmar, for whom they had been searching for a vehicle for throughout the previous two years. Notably, the series was greenlit without a pilot having first been produced, with this being done at the request of CBS president James T. Aubrey due to the success of Chertok's previous sitcom My Favorite Martian.

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. was initially sought out to play Rhoda's male companion in the series, but Bob Cummings would ultimately be cast in his place. However, it was this change in casting that would ultimately be My Living Doll's undoing, as Bob Cummings would later prove to be a significant burden to the show's production. Bob and Julie would come into direct conflict on numerous occasions due to Bob's dissatisfaction with his age and the amount of screen presence and press attention Julie was receiving in comparison to him, with Bob reportedly giving Julie numerous lectures on how to properly act as a result. Bob was also suffering from a rapidly worsening methamphetamine addiction at the time of the series production, which resulted in erratic behavior on set and increased depression and insecurity. Because of these factors, along with CBS's refusal to give Bob a larger role in the series, he would request to be written out of the series after 21 episodes, with Jack Mullaney taking his place as the male lead.

Despite positive reception, My Living Doll would suffer from low ratings throughout much of its broadcast run due to it being scheduled alongside other, more popular series such as Bonanza, The Virginian, and The Patty Duke Show, with these unsatisfactory ratings, in tandem with Cummings' departure, ultimately leading CBS to not renew the show for a second season.

Availability

26 episodes of My Living Doll would be produced between 1964 and 1965, with the program later proving to be quite influential in the world of pop culture, featuring the first known use of the phrase "does not compute" in a piece of science fiction, and serving as inspiration for the 1980s TV sitcom Small Wonder (which was created by My Living Doll producer Howard Leeds). But despite this, recordings of the series have become incredibly rare in the following decades due to a combination of the unavailability of home recording devices at the time of its broadcast, and CBS disposing of many of their own copies of episodes to save space within their archives (a practice carried out by many television networks at this time).

A single complete archive of 35mm negatives of My Living Doll was known be exist within the San Fernando Valley, but this archive itself would later be destroyed in the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, leaving no complete collections of the series remaining. 16mm copies of 11 of My Living Doll's 26 episodes would later be found in the hands of various private collectors, with these copies later being gathered together for a 2012 DVD release of the series. To date, none of the remaining 15 episodes have surfaced.

List of Episodes

#	Episode Title	Air Date	Status
1	Boy Meets Girl?	Sep 27th, 1964	Found
2	Rhoda's First Date	Oct 4th, 1964	Found
3	Uninvited Guest	Oct 11th, 1964	Found
4	Lesson in Love	Oct 18th, 1964	Lost
5	Rhoda's Debut (aka "Rhoda and the V.I.P.")	Oct 25th, 1964	Lost
6	Something Borrowed, Something Blew	Nov 1st, 1964	Found
7	The Love Machine	Nov 8th, 1964	Found
8	The Beauty Contest	Nov 15th, 1964	Found
9	Leave 'Em Laughing (aka "Not So Comic, Comic")	Nov 22nd, 1964	Lost
10	My Robot, the Warden	Nov 29th, 1964	Found
11	The Rhoda Gamble (aka "Just Lucky, I Guess")	Dec 6th, 1964	Lost
12	The Language Barrier	Dec 13th, 1964	Lost
13	Little White Lie (aka "The Doctor Is In")	Dec 16th, 1964	Lost
14	I'll Leave It to You	Dec 23rd, 1964	Found
15	Mechanical Perfection	Dec 30th, 1964	Lost
16	Pool Shark	Jan 6th, 1965	Found
17	Color Me Trouble	Jan 13th, 1965	Lost
18	The Kleptomaniac	Jan 20th, 1965	Found
19	Sky Divers	Jan 27th, 1965	Lost
20	The Robotic Astronaut	Feb 3rd, 1965	Lost
21	Uninvited Guest	Feb 10th, 1965	Found
22	Rhoda Meets Dr. Robinson (aka "Boy Gets Robot")	Feb 17th, 1965	Lost
23	Dancing Doll	Feb 24th, 1965	Lost
24	The Mannequin (aka "A Paris Original")	Mar 3rd, 1965	Lost
25	Murder, He Say's (aka "Rhoda's Suntan")	Mar 10th, 1965	Lost
26	Brother Harry (aka "Comic Interference")	Mar 17th, 1965	Lost

External Links

• Wikipedia page for the series.
• IMDB page for the series.