Good Morning World

It seemed the show was mainly about Dave's and Larry's personal lives and hardly anything about their radio show or the station they worked at unlike WKRP years later.

OK, the producers of this show wrote the Dick Van Dyke Show. Problem is they produced this show and didn't write for it. It's not funny. The characters are one dimensional. Carl Reiner wrote about the writing staff of a prime time comedy-variety show because that's what he knew. Apparently, nobody connected with this show had any experience working in radio (unlike WKRP, even though that experience was about 20 years out of date). The situations are dull and not believable. Amazon Prime is showing it now so we can all see how bad it was.

GOOD MORNING WORLD is a mid-60s hybrid of the Occupational Sitcom and the Domestic Sitcom. They took as their format the classic "Dick Van Dyke Show" mix of 50% Rob Petrie's home life and 50% Rob Petrie's work as a TV gag writer.

In this case, the single protagonist becomes two men and the workplace shifts from TV to radio, but otherwise things are fairly familiar. Richard Deacon's fussy producer was replaced by Billy DeWolfe's fussy station manager.

The main change was that by going with two men, the show was able to do both happily married plots and bachelor dating plots. In the latter case, dating involved newcomer Goldie Hawn, doing an early version of the ditsy character she later developed for LAUGH-IN.

Like most sitcoms, individual episodes' plots are long-forgotten aside from an occasional story that stuck in the memory for some reason. In the case of GOOD MORNING WORLD, it was the "Nude Ranch" episode. The guys had been sent to do an overnight remote broadcast from a "dude ranch." But when they got there, they discovered to their horror they were at a NUDE ranch. This being the still-uptight age of sitcoms, the humor was limited to the guys' nervousness at being around nude people (who were of course mostly off-camera aside from some above-the-waist shots on a couple men). The guys do their first show and retreat to their room, dreading the fact they are to be guests of honor at dinner that night. They decide they have to appear.... The next scene shows them bare-chested as they sit in the still-empty dining room. They hear the sounds of the ranch guests approaching.... And see that everyone is fully dressed. The nudists explain "We always dress for dinner!" but thank the guys for their thoughtfulness in appearing nude. The guys admit they chickened out and stand up, revealing large towels firmly in place.

GOOD MORNING, WORLD was an amusing bit of fluff with Joby Baker and Ronny Schell that was set on a radio show that was produced by Billy DeWolfe. Baker and Schell played Lewis and Clarke, the D.J.s on the show, who found their attempts to enliven their show curtailed by DeWolfe (whose name was Roland Hutton). Baker was married to Linda Lewis, and Schell dating Golde Hawn. DeWolfe was married, but you never saw his wife. The show was on Tuesday nights from 9:30 to 10:00 P.M.

I don't recall all the episodes (it ran for only one year). There were two that I recall, one involving DeWolfe's background and the other dealing with Baker and Schell's fondness for Laurel and Hardy. In the latter, they both see (in a novelty antique store) a salt and pepper set that are in the shape of Stan and Ollie, and both want it. The perfect solution doesn't occur to them (keep the set at the radio studio boys) because each feels he is the world's biggest fan of the team. So, at one point, they try to best each other in a rapid fire trivia contest on the films of Laurel and Hardy. I remember one of the questions dealt with the first short they starred in together ("Putting Pants on Philip").

The one with DeWolfe's past is interesting because it enables us to see him from his nightclub/vaudeville days. Billy DeWolfe is remembered for his snide, fussbudgets. He is like a younger brother of Clifton Webb (it would have been amusing if they had been together in a film as brothers). But his best known characterization before he hit the movies was "Mrs. Murgatroyd", a tight-ass-ed lady who reveals her pent-up feelings when she gets drunk with a friend at a local bar. This actually was shown in one of DeWolfe's early films, and is quite a funny piece of business. But we rarely saw much more of his early acts. In the episode on GOOD MORNING, WORLD, DeWolfe and the show are running a charity program - they get phoned in requests that the D.J.'s will do for money for a charity. One of the requests that is phoned in requests that the show put on some unknown man. It turns out it is DeWolfe. His wife has called in because she wants him to do the routines that he played when he was courting her (the name is his long forgotten stage name). And DeWolfe, for the last five minutes cuts up in very unusual comic bits that one normally never thought of him doing. It was a very unusual episode actually, and quite rewarding.

It never picked up the audience it deserved. Too bad, for it was above average as far as a sit-com of that period.

It's hard to add much to what's already been said about this show. All I have to say is, it was cute, clever, smart and entertaining.

Billie De Wolf was perfect as the uptight boss with A.R. (anal retentiveness). Pencil thin mustache and whiny voice. Scowly eyebrows.

Joby Gray was great. I remember one episode where the two DJs were hosting a fund raiser and he kept trying to sing his "Banana" song.

Speaking of songs, the opening sequence with the "ting ting ting" sound along with the conglomeration of still photos in succession of the two DJs getting ready for an early morning radio show was very entertaining in itself.

Joby and Ronnie Schell played well off of each other. I can't understand why it was canceled after so few episodes.