The Great Gildersleeve - Television

Television

The radio show also suffered from the advent of television. A televised version of the show, produced and syndicated by NBC (after the pilot episode appeared twice on the network in late 1954), also starring Waterman, premiered in 1955 but lasted only 39 episodes. During that year, both the 15-minute radio show and the television show were being produced simultaneously. The radio series was taped on days when the TV production was inactive. Because of the grueling schedule, quality suffered. Only a few examples of the quarter-hour shows have survived. By the time the radio show entered its final season, The Great Gildersleeve's remaining radio audience heard only reruns of previous episodes.

The television series is considered now to be something of an insult to the Great Gildersleeve legacy. Gildersleeve was sketched as less lovable, more pompous and a more overt womanizer, an insult amplified when Waterman himself said the key to the television version's failure was its director not having known a thing about the radio classic. Harold Peary shared his thoughts on the show, by stating that the problem was, that "Waterman was a very tall man" and "Gildersleeve was not a tall man, he was a little man, who thought he was a tall man, that was the character", nonetheless, he felt, that "Willard did a very good job on the radio show", but was "miscast on the television version". Peary later appeared in the 1959 TV version of Fibber McGee and Molly as Mayor LaTrivia. Fibber McGee and Molly also failed to migrate to television in the 1950s without radio stars Jim and Marion Jordan in the TV cast. Actress Barbara Stuart landed her first television acting role on The Great Gildersleeve in the role of Gildersleeve's secretary, Bessie.

Child actor Michael Winkelman, later of The Real McCoys, made his first television appearance on The Great Gildersleeve in the role of 9-year-old Bruce Fuller.