The Bob Cummings Show

Lively series that could occasionally sparkle with comedy and high spirits. This is a role the handsome, slightly smug Cummings was born to play. As a high-fashion photographer, there was always a parade of shapely girls passing through his studio each week. I'm guessing teen- age boys like me made up a lot of his steady audience. But that's not to say glamour was the only draw. The scripts, by and large, were surprisingly good, usually centering around a romantic predicament Bob would then have to fast talk his way out of. Maybe secretary Schultzy (Davis) or sister Margaret (DeCamp) would help. More likely, they would standby amused, while Bob was getting some kind of minor comeuppance. And what a fine supporting cast they were, including a pre-Dobie Dwayne Hickman. Nothing special or substantive here, just solid light-hearted entertainment that wears surprisingly well.

Bob Cummings was a pioneer in the early days of sitcoms, making this show worth viewing if you're interested in the history of television programming. There's a certain "live on tape" feel to some episodes, when actors accidentally step on each others' lines, which also makes the atmosphere a little more natural than today's highly polished (tightly edited) sitcoms.

It's a treat to see a young Ann B. Davis, best remembered today as "The Brady Bunch"'s housekeeper, Alice. In the 50s, she was considered a fairly major TV star, and she was an undeniably inventive comic actress. In many episodes of "The Bob Cummings Show," she has a pretty substantial amount of screen time -- far more than she usually got in the Brady household.

Another classic sitcom star is on hand: Before Nancy Kulp played Miss Jane Hathaway on The Beverly Hillbillies, she honed her TV skills in "The Bob Cummings Show." Her character, a snooty, sexually aggressive bird-watching enthusiast has much in common with Miss Jane. In fact, in many ways they're practically identical. In later years, Kulp came out of the closet and lived as an openly gay woman. Her character in "The Bob Cummings Show," while aggressively pursuing Bob, certainly has a lesbian vibe. In the episode "Bob Goes Bird Watching," for example, when Kulp enters the episode, she's clad in a very masculine suit, with a "butch" hairstyle, but throughout the scene she's trying to persuade Bob abandon his swimsuit-clad models and join her at Griffith Park, to check out some "tit mouse" birds -- no double entendres were wasted in this show...

Dwayne Hickman is also in the cast, perfecting his Dobbie Gillis character. Like Kulp, he carried this character's basic traits into another show -- so it's interesting to watch him learning his craft here.

Like many shows of this time period, "The Bob Cummings Show" was performed at a pace most viewers now find stunningly slow. But many of the scripts hold up fairly well, and the acting, though a bit stagey at times, is naturalistic and enjoyable. If you want lightening- quick repartee, tune into "Will and Grace," but if you're ready for some relaxing old-time humor performed by some of the best actors from TV's early days, check out "The Bob Cummings Show."

I watched this show when it first aired and in many reruns over the following decade. Bob Cummings demonstrated impeccable comic timing while supported by an equally outstanding ensemble. Especially noteworthy for me were Dwayne Hickman, Ann B. Davis, Nancy Kulp and King Donovan. This show has often been criticized as "sexist" whereas it was, in fact, just the opposite. The primary theme of the show centered around Bob's constant womanizing which almost always ended in his getting his comeuppance. Bob often poked fun at himself in this series for example: making fun of health-foods through Nancy Kulp's character even though he was himself a health-food "addict" long before such became fashionable or portraying himself (i.e. Bob Cummings the actor) as an arrogant egotist. I strongly disagree with the "if you liked this" suggestions. This is hardly in the same category as Mr. Ed. Better choices would be Dobie Gillis or the Phil Silvers show.

"The Bob Cummings Show" -- I knew it as "Love That Bob" in syndication -- was a mid-'50s TV show starring Bob Cummings, Ann B. Davis, Rosemary DeCamp, Dwayne Hickman, Joi Lansing, King Donovan, Lyle Talbot, Rose Marie, Nancy Kulp -- you couldn't ask for a better cast.

Cummings was 45 when he started this show - playing a bachelor photographer, no less - but he could get away with it. While he wasn't a superstar in films, he was a star and later became a superstar in television, due to his comic timing, charm, and good looks. On the show, Rosemary DeCamp plays his sister, Hickman his nephew, Davis his secretary, and Kulp a strange woman who constantly throws herself at him. She's hilarious. Cummings occasionally played his grandfather as well.

The comedy is wonderful, not only because of the lines, but because of the characters and the line readings. The show was probably considered a little risqué for the time -- after all, Bob had a lot of girlfriends -- but it was a more innocent time, at least as far as television was concerned so while there was some very veiled innuendo, that was about it.

I loved going back in time with this show and seeing the cigarette commercials - wow. Amazing. The show is available on Netflix. Check it out.

Bob Cummings' swinging bachelor photographer is the complete antithesis of "Ozzie And Harriet" and "Father Knows Best". Makes whiny, boorish Lucy look, well, whiny and boorish. Excellent writing and supporting cast of Rosemary DeCamp, Dwayne Hickman, Ann B. Davis, and a bevy of the most curvacious cuties of the day. One of the true gems of TV's golden age. Any resemblance between this series and "Mr. Ed", "Gilligan's Island", or the "Brady Bunch" is purely delusional.