The Patty Duke Show

[ClassyCo]

"But their cousins, identical cousins...."

What?

I've never seen THE PATTY DUKE SHOW, the sitcom that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1966. It starred Academy Award-winning actress Patty Duke in a dual role as "identical cousins" Patty Lane and Cathy Lane. I remember seeing clips of the show as a preview to another show I once had on DVD -- but I can't remember the other show now.

Any fans of this series?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Duke went home and slept all weekend in between getting molested by her uncle and aunt whose behavior became worse and more oppressive the more successful she became.

Anna hated THE PATTY DUKE SHOW.

 

[Seaviewer]

She had a very sad personal life but the show itself I loved, improbable premise not withstanding.

 

[Chris2]

Cute show that should have run a season or two longer, but was cancelled in a dispute between ABC and United Artists TV over who would pay for the show’s conversion to color production.

Duke made peace with the show later on and did a reunion movie in the late 1990s. I think it held the record for the longest time between the show ending and the reunion (33 years!).

 

[Seaviewer]

Yeah, the reunion move, Still Rockin' in Brooklyn Heights, marred slightly by the fact that Duke seemed to have forgotten how to do Cathy's accent.

 

[Chris2]

The thing I liked about that movie, which was mediocre at best, was the use of the original theme song and intro. I’m always amazed when some of these TV reunions don’t use the original intro. That’s part of the nostalgia. But Still Rockin’ In Brooklyn Heights did. Didn’t matter that it was in B&W - after the cold open in color, they went straight to the old intro in B&W with the original theme song (with a few color clips of the cast in the present day thrown in).

 

[Crimson]

I'm not sure I've ever seen THE PATTY DUKE SHOW but after seeing Catherine O'Hara's SCTV parody ("Identical Cheese Hostesses" -- all video of which seems to have been scrubbed from Youtube), I don't think I could take it seriously. Well, as seriously as a comedy should be taken.

 

[Daniel Avery]

And of course there was the infamous take-off/spoof within the sitcom Newhart, on the show-within-a-show "Seein' Double!". Julia Duffy's Stephanie was playing the two roles, with Bob Newhart's character playing the befuddled father-figure to the duo and Stephanie's TV-producer boyfriend slapping the monstrosity together. Since it was a low-budget, local Vermont TV station, it was about as well-done as one would expect, but that was what made it comedy gold. Throughout the whole thing Dick Loudon (Bob Newhart's usual character) looked as if he wanted to shoot himself.

 

[AndyB2008]

Cute show that should have run a season or two longer, but was cancelled in a dispute between ABC and United Artists TV over who would pay for the show’s conversion to color production.

Duke made peace with the show later on and did a reunion movie in the late 1990s. I think it held the record for the longest time between the show ending and the reunion (33 years!).

She worked with MGM\UA again on Karen's Song, one of the early shows on the Fox network, but that was a failure, not helped by being aired against Amen.

It gave Teri Hatcher one of her earlier roles.

She worked with MGM\UA again on Karen's Song, one of the early shows on the Fox network, but that was a failure, not helped by being aired against Amen.

It gave Teri Hatcher one of her earlier roles.

To add too, in her memoir The Presence of Greatness, Patti mentions she didn't think much of Lewis Smith, her co star in Karen's Song, off screen.

Not to mention it was chaos on set.

 

[Chris2]

I was sorry that Patty Duke’s early 80s series with Richard Crenna, “It Takes Two,” didn’t take off. It was from Witt-Thomas-Harris (producers of Soap, Benson, and Golden Girls) and gave Helen Hunt and Anthony Edwards their start. It was well produced - as all WTH series were - and should have become a long-running hit. Instead, only the show’s kitchen set because a hit, used for the Golden Girls kitchen just a year or two later.

 

[ClassyCo]

I believe it was during the advertisements on the THAT GIRL first season DVD set where I originally learned about THE PATTY DUKE SHOW. I had never heard of the show, and I had never heard of Patty Duke, although my mother remarked, "I think she played in some movies on Lifetime."

THE PATTY DUKE SHOW was ignited by ABC as a star vehicle for Patty Duke (who had won an Oscar for playing Helen Keller in THE MIRACLE WORKER in 1962). The network wanted to make sure they showcased the young actress's versatility, so they conjured up the "identical cousins" aspect of the series' plot, where Duke would play two identical-looking cousins that were, as luck would have it, polar opposites.

THE PATTY DUKE SHOW ran for three seasons, from 1963 to 1966, and produced 104 half-hour black-and-white episodes. Upon its abrupt cancellation, Duke desired to move into more mature roles, and would soon play Neely O'Hara in the big screen version of VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1967).

Any thoughts or insights on THE PATTY DUKE SHOW from my fellow Telly Talkers?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I never really saw it when I was a kid -- it may not have been syndicated in my particular market. I've still seen precious little of it even today, but it looks cute and fairly benign.

Patty Duke said years later that "I hated the Patty Duke Show" -- not because of the program itself necessarily, but as it was a metaphor for the imprisonment of her life. She would come home on Friday from a grueling workweek, have to endure the physical, psychological and sexual abuse from her aunt and uncle, and would then go into hibernation and sometimes sleep until she had to get up and go back to work on Monday morning.

Apparently, Anne Bancroft (THE MIRACLE WORKER) and William Schallert were nice to her.

 

[Bobby Southworth]

So.. Yes, I remember the show on Nick at Nite back in like '92/'93. I watched it just prior to becoming a fan of the MTM show. I had no idea this show only ran for 3 seasons, but..while I thought it was cute, I guess I wasn't as keen on shows like this and Dobie Gillis around that time.. You would have thought because I was like 14/16, it'd be the right time, but I gravitated more to MTM. Duke wasn't a bad show, though..at least not in my recollection. I'm tempted now to try to see if I can find it on prime. I also had no idea Patty was going through all of that in her personal life during the filming. Apparently it seems a lot of child stars have just had it rough, whether it's someone from the set or someone in their own family. Disgusting.

 

[Bobby Southworth]

So..turns out I can actually stream this for free on prime right now. I have watched the first handful of episodes. Wow. We have come a long way. I say this as both a positive and negative. I'm almost 50 years old now, and if I wasn't really able to get into it at 14, I don't know what I was expecting at 48, but at the same time, it has a "Leave It To Beaver" like charm. I do like that the first episode just goes right into the plot..the theme song tells the story, we don't have to have a first episode introduction type deal.

In a way, it's comforting, but then it feels kind of phony when you know what was really going on behind the scenes. It's interesting how we've evolved. The same stuff has always been going on behind the scenes on some level, in some form, but now we want to see the nit and grit, and most of the time, that's what we have.

 

[Chris2]

They didn’t use the series pilot, where Cathy first comes to live with the Lanes, as the first episode because they had different actors playing the dad and the brother. They did use parts of that pilot as flashbacks in a late season 1 episode, where Cathy and Patty reminisce about Cathy’s arrival.

 

[Bobby Southworth]

I skipped ahead to the 3rd season, and just watched the episode where Troy Donahue is her doctor that she thinks is into her. Cute episode I guess, but what strikes me is that the high school boyfriend, Richard, looks to be just slightly younger than Troy, That actor did not have the face of a high school kid.

 

[Chris2]

Oh yeah - Eddie Applegate (Richard) was 28 when the series started and was in his early 30s when it ended. His real age was particularly problematic for the reunion movie where he looked like an old man next to Duke.

 

[Bobby Southworth]

Oh yeah - Eddie Applegate (Richard) was 28 when the series started and was in his early 30s when it ended. His real age was particularly problematic for the reunion movie where he looked like an old man next to Duke.

Now I'm tempted to seek out the reunion movies just for that reason..laugh. So, I'm not crazy. He didn't just look older, he was.. Wow. I'm kind of surprised he landed the gig because of this. I mean, he plays the part well, but to have an actor that is 28 with an actress that is only 16. Problematic. Yes.

 

[Soaplover]

She had said that the creator of the show spent time with her before developing the show and the idea of Cathy and Patty being identical cousins was inspired by how she was when around him. Anna said later that this was most likely the early signs of her than undiagnosed bi-polar disorder.

While she didn't quite do as well with playing Cathy and Patty as two separate individuals in the reunion movie, I often think it was because she had gotten treatment for bi-polar. When watching the original show, both characters did seem like two different people were playing them.

 

[Bobby Southworth]

She had said that the creator of the show spent time with her before developing the show and the idea of Cathy and Patty being identical cousins was inspired by how she was when around him. Anna said later that this was most likely the early signs of her than undiagnosed bi-polar disorder.

While she didn't quite do as well with playing Cathy and Patty as two separate individuals in the reunion movie, I often think it was because she had gotten treatment for bi-polar. When watching the original show, both characters did seem like two different people were playing them.

Thank you for sharing that information. That's really interesting. I will say, from what I have recently watched of the original show, the episodes seem more Patty oriented, but I haven't watched much. I know it was only on for 3 seasons, but back then they had more episodes than a prime-time soap in the 80's, so I still have a lot to get through. Just from what I've seen so far, they seem to center more around Patty.

I found the reunion movie from '99, but I wasn't loving the beginning, and have temporarily reverted back to the original series. It's incredible that as of 1999, everyone was still alive..both parents. Wow.