The original post: /r/television by /u/DiamondPittcairn on 2026-02-18 20:52:59+00:00.

The synopsis:

Running from 1959 to 1963, the series was based on short stories published by author Max Shulman. In 4 seasons they made 147 episodes.

“The series revolved around teenager Dobie Gillis (Dwayne Hickman), who aspired to have popularity, money, and the attention of beautiful and unattainable girls. He did not have any of these qualities in abundance, and the tiny crises surrounding Dobie’s lack of success made the story in each weekly episode. Also constantly in question, by Dobie and others, was Dobie’s future, as the boy proved to be a poor student and an aimless drifter.” (from Wikipedia)

Apart from Dobie it featured Maynard G. Krebs as Dobie’s best friend, Zelda Gilroy as a nerdy and hyper-smart student hopelessly in love with Dobie, and Thalia Menninger as an impossibly gorgeous classmate of Dobie whom he courts in the first season. From the second season on, Thalia gets dropped as a character and Dobie starts pining for a different girl every episode.

The legacy:

  • It was among the first shows to focus on teenagers and teen life, if not actually the first. Arguably, the first show to focus on something else than the workplace or family life (some might mention Our Miss Brooks from 1952 but that focused more on the teacher and her life than her students).
  • It featured the first depiction of a beatnik with the character Maynard G. Krebs, portrayed by Bob Denver. TV’s first attempt to grapple with the nascent counterculture movement.
  • It gave a very young Warren Beatty one of his first roles as antagonist rich kid Milton Armitage.
  • The characters from the first season were used almost verbatim as archetypes for the characters in Scooby-Doo, as admitted by Hanna Barbera. Fred is Dobie, Shaggie is Maynard, Zelda is Velma (duh), and Thalia is Daphne. As an important sidenote to this, I think it’s notable to mention that Velma in the LGBT community has been read as a queer/gay character, and funnily enough, the actrees that portrayed the inspiration for Velma in Zelda Gilroy was actually a lesbian in real life (and dedicated herself to politics after childhood stardom).

Now, if you want to check out some episodes to see what the TV of old (very old, 65 years old to be precise) looked like, there are episodes uploaded full on YouTube, and also in AmazonPrime.

And if you want to read some more, the wikipedia page is incredibly complete and it even has great synopsis of every episode.