The Bill Dana Show

The term "Déjà vu" means a feeling that you have seen something before as you are watching it happen, now. And I have to say this series is the one that best sums up that phrase, for me.

Let's start with a basic fact. Bill Dana created a character that he was associated with for the bulk of his career. This character was first introduced to a national audience on "The Steve Allen Show," a kind of prime time spinoff of NBC's "The Tonight Show," which Allen also hosted at that time.

Dana's character, José Jiménez, got to be quite popular and landed an occasional appearance on "The Danny Thomas Show," where he was an elevator operator who dealt with the ups and downs of that job.

Eventually, the character became so popular, he even got one of the famed "window cameos" during a "bat-climb" on the 1966 Adam West series "Batman." But between Danny and The Bat, we had this series. It was the Autumn of 1963 and the Elevator Operator character got promoted to bellhop of a swank NYC hotel.

It's important to note that some people found Dana's characterization of this character offensive (Bill Dana's birth name was William Szathmary, and he was a Hungarian Jew, not Hispanic). But aside from a few malapropisms and an occasional mixed pronunciation of certain words, the character was intelligent, hard-working, honest and kind.

One of the co-stars that the Jiménez character had to answer to was the inept and staccato-speaking house detective, Mr. Glick, played by Don Adams.

Dana wrote comedy bits for Adams to perform on the show. And, as it turned out, when this series ended, Adams took the character of Mr. Glick (and clearly his dialog!) to Mel Brooks and Buck Henry and they created an even more inept spy to parody James Bond and the others on the scene at the time: "Get Smart."

Meanwhile, the other antagonist for Dana's bellman was the manager of the hotel, the booming, pedantic, and always annoyed Mr. Phillips, portrayed by Jonathan Harris. That character was the clear template for Dr. Zachary Smith from the sci-fi series "Lost In Space."

Those three characters: Jiménez, Glick and Phillips gave those three actors their careers!

The show's opening titles featured a cartoon avatar of Dana, with a photograph of his head, wearing a suit of armor, carrying a lance and riding a horse toward a windmill, a clear reference to the character of Don Quixote. Jiménez was a daydreamer, and would often imagine himself as someone important or famous, much like another character with an overactive imagination: Walter Mitty.

New York played a part because a big hotel always has important people coming through, new intrigue and always something for José fantasize about, plus, the stock responses of those aforementioned characters assured that there would be some interesting reactions to whatever was going on in and around their lodging.

I think this series provided a sort of comfort for viewers, in that they knew how the characters would respond to the circumstances and that knowledge provided a familiarity to how they received the situations.

Conversely, I think too many stock characters ruins the broth, and that's what you had here, before they all headed to their own shows. But, for one, brief shining moment, you had Dr. Smith shouting down Agent 86, and that has made all the difference.

Writer-comedian Bill Dana,whose character Jose Jimenez had a very successful career on records and in nightclubs following its creation on "The Steve Allen Show",during the 1950's and into the early 1960's. Bill Dana brought his character to life for this series which is a spin off of Danny Thomas' "Make Room For Daddy",in which Bill Dana was a frequent guest star. The short-lived series "The Bill Dana Show",was one of the Sheldon Leonard-Danny Thomas produced shows that lasted two seasons and a half on NBC-TV from September 22,1963 until January 17,1965. Only 42 episodes were made all in black and white. The same writers and producers who were behind "The Andy Griffith Show","The Dick Van Dyke Show","Make Room For Daddy",and "The Joey Bishop Show",were behind this series which was produced by Danny Thomas and Jack Elinson along with Sheldon Leonard,who served as executive producer along with Ronald Jacobs. It was filmed at Desilu Studios Hollywood.

Jose Jimenez(Bill Dana)was a Mexican immigrant who worked as a bellhop at the Park Central Hotel,a plush upscale hotel in New York City. Not only did he worked there,it was practically his entire world since he lived in special bachelor quarters provided for hotel employees,ate in the hotel kitchen and had social contact only with employees and guests of the hotel. In his goodhearted naivete he only saw the good in the people around him. Sometimes,he was known to be sort of a bumbling mishap when it came to taking care of situations that may occur within the hotel. Bill Dana's character of Jose Jimenez was the down south-of-the-border version of Gomer Pyle. His biggest concerns were the employees who worked around him,which was his fellow bellhop Eddie(Gary Crosby) who was trying constantly to get him to wise up:however his troubles usually ended up confronted with the less-than-understanding hotel manager,the strictly by the book and uppity forward Mr. Phillips(Jonathan Harris,in a prototype character he would take onward as the slimy,strictly by the book,and deliciously evil/cowardly Dr. Zachery Smith on Lost In Space);and the not-too-bright bumbling hotel detective Byron Glick(Don Adams,in a prototype character he would soon be playing on Get Smart). Walter Mitty-like dream sequences were occasionally used to extricate Jose from his hotel environment,which ended up with hilarious results. Also on-board this series was the show's secretary/receptionist/guest services host Susie(who was played by Maggie Peterson,who was also portrayed Charlene Darling in several episodes of "The Andy Griffith Show").

Out of all the cast of characters,actor Gary Crosby lasted one season(only Jonathan Harris and Don Adams were the only two principal actors that stayed throughout its entire run) The show hasn't been since it was cancelled in 1965 which was replaced the following week on January 24, 1965 with the Western-Adventure series "Branded". The last time it aired in reruns was back in the 1980's when the CBN Cable Network ran it briefly.

I consider this a potentially great sitcom possibly cancelled way too soon. Don Adams' "Byron Glick, hotel detective" was Maxwell Smart ahead of his time. Gary Crosby did go on to be a regular on Adam-12. Jonathan Harris' pompous hotel manager was surely an earlt version of Doctor Zachary Smith though more likable as a freind to Jose Jimenez. And by the way I love any series with Maggie Peterson, most famous as Charlene Darling Wash on The Andy Griffith Show, my all time favorite hillbilly gal. After abandoning his Jose Jimenez character to be "politically correct" Bill Dana did go on to do some straigh acting. And as "Maxwell Smart" Don Adams did give work on Get Smart to former costars from other series including Bill Dana, Jonathan Harris and Larry Storch. ☺

Comic Bill Dana was a whole lot like Vaughn Meader in terms of having the character pull his career right out from under him. Just as Meader saw his career crash and burn after the assassination of John F. Kennedy when his act became unwanted overnight, Dana was subject to a lot of criticism from Latino groups. These were the years that Cesar Chavez was emerging as a major figure in American life and also when Black groups succeeded in getting Amos and Andy syndicated reruns off the air because they saw it as caricatures from white people.

So too with Dana's character Jose Jimenez which he originated on the Steve Allen Show. While it lasted Jose gave Dana a one note career and some stardom. Which manifested itself in The Bill Dana Show.

Dana's Jose played a bellhop in a big city hotel who was a hard working guy, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and was continually having his friend and fellow bellhop Gary Crosby get him in trouble. Crosby was an operator of the first magnitude. Given his involvement you can absolutely take to the bank that somewhere was the influence of Poppa Bing on behalf of the son who turned on him posthumously in the production of The Bill Dana Show.

Pressure from Latino groups got this show canceled which wasn't drawing those good ratings in any event. Jose was not a character capable of sustaining a thirty minute comedy show built around him.

Two other people got to try out some shtick that was put to good use later on. Don Adams played the bungling house detective Glick and you can see more than traces of Maxwell Smart in his performance. And Jonathan Harris who did this show between The Third Man series and Lost In Space played the supercilious hotel manager who was forever foiling Crosby's schemes involving Dana. He was condescending in this role, but had a streak of kindness towards Dana, otherwise he would have canned the poor schnook. If you watch Disney's The Suite Life of Zack and Cody you can see a lot of Harris's character in that of Phill Lewis as Mr. Mosby the hotel manager of the Boston Tipton Hotel.

But like Vaughn Meader's Kennedy impersonation, Dana's Jose was banned due to circumstances beyond his control. Although Dana became a respected character actor, Jose Jimenez became his 15 minutes of fame.

This show was well-acted and well-written. Jose is a well-meaning emigrant who due to mistaken identity ends up as a bell-hop at a posh hotel. His best friend, Eddie is well played by Gary Crosby in what may be his best performance. Don Adams is a pre-Maxwell Smart, even using trademark dialogue such as, "Would you believe...?" Jonathan Harris is extremely energetic in this show, and with a little imagination, you could almost see him yelling at the robot from "Lost In Space" with the same exasperation he yells at Jose. Interestingly enough, Bill Dana played Agent 13 in Don Adams' "The Nude Bomb."