My Favorite Martian
First fantasy sitcom of the mid-1960s.
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My Favorite Martian was a CBS sitcom that ran for 107 episodes from September 29, 1963, to May 1, 1966. It starred Ray Walston as the Martian, known as "Uncle Martin," and Bill Bixby as Tim O'Hara.
The show was the first of the mid-1960s "fantasy" sitcoms featuring characters with extraordinary abilities, airing before My Living Doll (1964–1965), Bewitched (1964–1972), and I Dream of Jeannie (1965–1970). The first two seasons (75 episodes) were in black and white, while the 32 episodes of the third and final season were in color. John L. Greene created the core characters and format, with Jack Chertok producing.
Premise
The premise begins when a 450-year-old Martian anthropologist, piloting a one-man spaceship, nearly collides with the U.S. Air Force’s X-15 rocket plane. Tim O’Hara, a reporter for The Los Angeles Sun, witnesses the crash landing near Los Angeles after covering the X-15 flight. He takes the Martian in, introducing him as his "Uncle Martin" to avoid public panic.
The Martian hides his abilities from everyone but Tim while trying to repair his ship. His powers include retractable antennae that allow invisibility, telepathy and mind influence, levitation via his index finger, animal communication, freezing people or objects, and super-speed for himself and others. He also invents devices: a time machine (transporting them to medieval England, 1849 St. Louis, early Hollywood, and bringing Leonardo da Vinci and Jesse James to the present), a molecular separator (rearranging matter, like turning a squirrel into a human), memory-storage pills, and devices for duplication or levitation without his finger.
Tim and Uncle Martin live in a garage apartment owned by Mrs. Lorelei Brown, a scatterbrained former WAVE (revealed in the first episode). She and the Martian have an awkward, on-and-off romance, but he avoids commitment due to his plan to return to Mars. Later, she dates Detective Bill Brennan, a vain, cold-hearted plain-clothes officer who distrusts Uncle Martin. The Martian’s real name is Exigius 12½, revealed in "We Love You, Miss Pringle." His nephew, Andromeda (played by Wayne Stam), crash-lands on Earth late in season three, appearing only once before vanishing from the live-action series (though he became a regular on the animated My Favorite Martians).
Lore & Background
The series follows Tim O'Hara, a young newspaper reporter for The Los Angeles Sun, who encounters a human-looking Martian whose spaceship nearly collides with the North American X-15. Tim takes in the 450-year-old anthropologist from Mars, introducing him as his 'Uncle Martin' to avoid public panic. The Martian possesses various powers, including invisibility, telepathy, levitation, and the ability to freeze people or objects. He also builds advanced devices such as a time machine and a molecular separator.
Reader's Guide
My Favorite Martian was produced by Jack Chertok Television in association with CBS Productions. The first two seasons (75 episodes) were filmed in black-and-white at Desilu, while the third season (32 episodes) was filmed in color at MGM. The theme music was composed by George Greeley and performed in part on an Electro-Theremin by Paul Tanner, influencing Brian Wilson's work on the Beach Boys' 'Good Vibrations'. The series was canceled after its third season due to declining ratings and repetitive storylines involving Martin's time machine.
Did You Know?
- An animated series, My Favorite Martians, aired on CBS in 1973 for 16 episodes.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: My Favorite Martian (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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