Smilings
03-30-2013, 08:06 PM
Even the liberal web magazine Slate was sad at the passing of Bob Denver.
Gilligan's Dreams
Bob Denver created the TV archetype of the inept but lovable slacker.
From Slate By Dana Stevens|Posted Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2005,
Amid all the harrowing real-life rescues of the past week, I hope it isn't too offensive to take a moment to remember the loss of one fictional castaway: the actor Bob Denver, who played the eponymous first mate on Gilligan's Island from 1964 to 1967. After surviving quadruple bypass surgery earlier this year, Denver, 70, died of complications from cancer treatment on Friday. He's survived by his third wife, Dreama Denver (with whom he hosted a syndicated radio show called Weekend With Denver and Denver) and four children.
The pre-Gilligan generation probably best remembers Denver as the archetypal beatnik Maynard G. Krebs, the goateed best-friend character on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which aired from 1959 to 1963. Dobie Gillis was the first TV show for and about the emerging teen culture of the baby boomers; Denver's character, with his surrealist one-liners and trademark aversion to work, could be seen as a kind of predecessor to the 1960s hippie. It was Denver's real-life love for jazz that inspired Maynard's incessant bongo-playing and name-checking of bebop legends like Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. The character was nearly written out of the show four episodes in, when Denver suffered the un-Krebs-like fate of being drafted; after failing his physical, he returned to the series for the rest of its run. *
The year after Dobie Gillis ended, Denver would move on to his second iconic television role, the spacey sailor of Gilligan's Island. Though the show was dismissed by critics as silly fluff, Gilligan's Island immediately found a loyal following (its creator, Sherwood Schwartz, would again tap into the sitcom zeitgeist with The Brady Bunch a few years later), and though only 98 episodes were made during its three seasons on the air, the show has lived on in continuous syndication now for over 40 years.
(here the article goes on to other matters)
Gilligan's Dreams
Bob Denver created the TV archetype of the inept but lovable slacker.
From Slate By Dana Stevens|Posted Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2005,
Amid all the harrowing real-life rescues of the past week, I hope it isn't too offensive to take a moment to remember the loss of one fictional castaway: the actor Bob Denver, who played the eponymous first mate on Gilligan's Island from 1964 to 1967. After surviving quadruple bypass surgery earlier this year, Denver, 70, died of complications from cancer treatment on Friday. He's survived by his third wife, Dreama Denver (with whom he hosted a syndicated radio show called Weekend With Denver and Denver) and four children.
The pre-Gilligan generation probably best remembers Denver as the archetypal beatnik Maynard G. Krebs, the goateed best-friend character on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which aired from 1959 to 1963. Dobie Gillis was the first TV show for and about the emerging teen culture of the baby boomers; Denver's character, with his surrealist one-liners and trademark aversion to work, could be seen as a kind of predecessor to the 1960s hippie. It was Denver's real-life love for jazz that inspired Maynard's incessant bongo-playing and name-checking of bebop legends like Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. The character was nearly written out of the show four episodes in, when Denver suffered the un-Krebs-like fate of being drafted; after failing his physical, he returned to the series for the rest of its run. *
The year after Dobie Gillis ended, Denver would move on to his second iconic television role, the spacey sailor of Gilligan's Island. Though the show was dismissed by critics as silly fluff, Gilligan's Island immediately found a loyal following (its creator, Sherwood Schwartz, would again tap into the sitcom zeitgeist with The Brady Bunch a few years later), and though only 98 episodes were made during its three seasons on the air, the show has lived on in continuous syndication now for over 40 years.
(here the article goes on to other matters)