The Thin Man

This show was one of my favorites as a kid growing up in suburban Maryland. I was lucky enough to get home from elementary school just in time to catch the reruns every afternoon along with OH SUSANNAH with the Team of Gale Storm & Zasu Pitts...The Thin Man Came on afterward and it made a great double bill each afternoon. Mr. & Mrs. North with Richard Denning was also in the mix. Phyllis Kirk and Gale Storm were two of the prettiest women in the world to me at the time (Gale Storm singing "Tropical Heatwave" was a source of many wonderful dreams as a child...wink, wink, nudge, nudge...), even allowing for the below the knee fashions of the time. Phyllis was tall and oh so sexy in her short hair do's and long, lanky legs with those marvelous high heels. Peter Lawford was so suave, that I always wanted to be Nick Charles whenever I had the opportunity, like at "Teen Club" with the ladies, between classes with the ladies, etc. I was too young to know about the the Rat Pack, but of all of those guys, Lawford was the coolest, to me. His understated manner, and matter of fact conversational delivery of his lines were far ahead of his time, and made him one of my favorite actors of the time, and this show, the one I'd most like to see brought back on a DVD. of course, that one episode of OH SUSANNAH with Gale singing " 'Heatwave" would be nice, too!

After Dear Phoebe left the air after one season, Joseph P. Kennedy was behind a second television show for his son-in-law Peter Lawford. The famous Thin Man series was adapted to a half hour television format and Lawford played Nick with Phyllis Kirk as Nora. Of course Asta was around as well. No children however for the Charles as were introduced in the six film series for MGM.

Lawford and Kirk were really up against it. William Powell had just retired and Myrna Loy was still active. People remembered the most famous screen couple ever created. Additionally and this is my own personal opinion, mysteries are no good in a half hour format, you need at least an hour to develop plot and alternative suspects.

Still The Thin Man on television was entertaining and got by on the charm of its leads.

I agree with Alice. Why is no one putting out a DVD collection of this wonderful TV program? I am a devotee of the William Powell, Myrna Loy classics; this is to underscore that for me, the Peter Lawford, Phyllis Kirk re-working of "The Thin Man" requires no apologies for its contemporaneity. There were seventy-two episodes (twenty-four a season), far more than I had guessed. For those of my generation (these episodes ran during my junior high school years), there is doubtless a dear nostalgia for the time; but there is a smooth sophistication here which I am noting many much younger people are beginning to re-appreciate. The exigencies of DVD production has long made me wonder at the odd and inexplicable choices. Some awful turkeys show up both in single releases and in compilations, as fine productions are overlooked.

I remember this series so well. I was 5 years old. It seems there are no prints of this series. I think the dog was called Rusty. The show just had class and Peter Lawford, the star. Anyone with information please make contact

I also watched and loved this show when I was five. The dog's name was Asta. The show was based on Dashiell Hammett's novel, The Thin Man. A series of movies based on the book came out between 1934 and 1947, with William Powell and Myrna Loy.