Route 66

Simply one of the finest shows from American t.v.This is an undeservedly "lost" show ,amazingly neglected when so many inferior 60's series are wildly overpraised.If you have never seen "Route 66" try to,it's a rare gem.The scripts are not just highly literate,but often close to poetic(no wonder Jim Aubrey,downmarketeer boss at CBS TV disliked it!).There's a great deal of acting talent in the guest roles-Boris Karloff,Lee Marvin,Robert Duvall,Warren Stevens,Lew Ayers,Michael Rennie,Martin Sheen,Dorothy Malone,Ed Asner,Walter Matthau,Edward Andrews,Leslie Nielson,Anne Francis,Jack Lord,William Shatner and Dan Duryea are just a few to look out for.The two part story "Fly away home" has a haunting tortured performance by Michael Rennie as a doomed pilot;"Welcome to Amity"featuring Susan Oliver is both uplifting and truly moving; in "A month of Sundays" the "Route 66" camera captures Anne Francis at the peak of her stunning beauty and series regular Martin Milner gives the performance of his life as a drug crazed Tod Stiles in "A thin white line".These are just some of the highlights in "Route 66".The location filming (unusual then and now),provides a marvellous time capsule of a now vanished America.

It's said "they don't make 'em like they used to" and Route 66 certainly brings credibility to that statement. I was only about eleven years old when the show went off the air, but what an impact it had. I can't see one of those old two seater Chevys without the sweet theme song going lightly through my head. Here's a masculine buddy show, two good looking guys, side by side, all the way across the country. Pure and simple, clean and fascinating, both the relationship and the adventures they achieved. I have no doubt that my own cross country odyssey in a little open air two seater from New England to Southern California in the mid 1970s was subconsciously a way to live briefly as Buz or Tod. Can't wait for the DVD which I understand is coming out in a couple of months because the world is a place more lacking for want of reruns of this All American classic.

I saw many of the 1960 and 1961 episodes while in the service. I was so taken by the show that in my mind (confusing reality and television), I decided to hit the road when I got discharged in 1962. I purchased a 1961 Vette and a buddy and I set off from Sacramento, California sometime in May 1963 a la Tod and Buzz to find adventure and romance at every stop. Unfortunately we only got as far as southern Utah when we totally ran out of money. I guess we forgot that Buzz and Tod took time out to work here and there. Anyway, it was fun while it lasted and my only lasting regret was having sold the Corvette. Back to the show: one fascinating aspect is in the scripts. Silliphant in particular was a great writer both serious and comedic - but what is amusing today is the amount of beat-era language, as well as existentialist philosophy. Sterling must have read his Sartre and Camus - or at least Tod did while at Yale. The show had at times a strangely schizophrenic nature: trite, even stupid story lines, but some very profound dialogue (at least for television). And the need for at least one fist fight in every episode gives the lie to any myth of a "kinder and gentler nation" before the counter culture invasion in the mid 60's.

I got hooked on this through my obsession with Adam-12 and some tapes I bought off ebay. I've only seen 14 episodes, but they are 14 of the greatest TV episodes of any drama ever to make it into our homes. So few shows now make you think, but this does and that's good. Makes you think about human nature, the world, and your role in it. It's more than just a show about two cute guys in the world's coolest car (though there's nothing wrong with that), it's about people. I cry when I remember that no one has jumped at the opportunity to put this show on their network. What are they thinking??? This is the drama that all the dramas since have wanted to be but never succeeded at becoming.

The romance of the road is alive and well as Tod (Martin Milner) and Buz (George Maharis) cruise the country in their snazzy corvette convertible and get involved in the lives of the people they meet. The series opens by explaining that the boys are lost and a "long way from Route 66," when they find themselves in a backwater Mississippi town that harbors a grim secret. From there, they're on to Louisiana where they get involved with a lady shrimp boat captain and find trouble at the New Orleans waterfront before befriending a Nazi-hunter on an off-shore oil rig.

This was the first drama to be filmed entirely on location (in 40 states and Canada) and the locations were really the key to the unique excitement of each show. The boys were mainly observers, albeit defenders of the underdog and good with their fists if need be. Each show featured many famous stars and well-known character actors; the quality of the acting and the scripts (most by Stirling Silliphant) were first-rate.

Clean-cut and twenty-something Tod and Buz bear no resemblance to the leering sex, drug, and rock and roll-crazed young men we often see on the screen today. Dressed in their button-down shirts and freshly-creased slacks, they were upstanding good guys who solved a town's problems in strictly G Rated style. It's fun to remember the old days through this wonderful series. And who could ever forget that cool theme music?