The Bob Cummings Show

This is simply one of TV's all-time funniest sitcoms. Bob Cummings may have done well in DIAL M FOR MURDER and many leading man roles throughout his career, but THE BOB CUMMINGS SHOW (also known as LOVE THAT BOB) proves his forte was decidedly comedy.

Cummings is a gem as the playboy Beverly Hills photographer with a bevy of models and beauties swarming in, over, and through his photographic studio. Yet he always seems to be foiled whenever he tries to nail one of them down for lovemaking. Ann B. Davis (later the housekeeper in THE BRADY BUNCH)is his hilarious secretary secretly pining for Bob who nixes his love schemes one way or another whenever she has a chance. And Dwayne Hickman (later DOBBIE GILLIS) is great as the hormone-driven teenager vying for a piece of his Uncle Bob's action. The only sensible one in the group is Rosemary DeCamp, Bob's sister, with whom he lives, who does her best to raise Hickman with some degree of morality in the midst of her brother's sexploitations.

Nancy Kulp simply must be mentioned. Though she later skyrocketed in THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, she is a riot as the birdwatching, nerdy Pamela Livingstone, the bean-pole with a crush on Bob. She popped up in many episodes throughout the series and it was always hilarious to watch Cummings jump through hoops to escape her romantic advances.

If you have never seen THE BOB CUMMINGS SHOW, you simply must. It won't disappoint in the laugh department. And it's fun to watch if you'd like to see the kind of wholesome sex farce TV could produce in the late 1950's that was neither explicit nor offensive.

Trivia: Nancy Kulp spent her life savings running for political office in Pennsylvania in the '90's...Rosemary DeCamp played the wife of Georeg M. Cohan (James Cagney) in the movie YANKEE DOODLE DANDY in the 1940's...Darrell Hickman is the brother of Dwayne Hickman, who made several teen beach movies in the early 1960's...Bob Cummings was very much into healthy living, eating, and exercising which is probably why he looked 35 when he was 60...King Donovan, one of Bob's friends who shows up intermittently throughout the series, appeared in the cult classic INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS with Kevin McCarthy in the early '50's...Joy Lansing, one of the bevy of beauties who frequented Bob's studio had been a major model and did quite a lot of television...

Dennis Caracciolo

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.

Watch this if you get a chance. It was made 40+ years ago when double entendres were the order of the day and you weren't hit over the head by crude expressions of sexuality disguised as humor. One commenter said that the women were "fat" - maybe compared to some of the anorexic women on television NOW, they were. But when women on television looked like women, they weren't "fat." I consider it to have been ahead of its time...

"Hold it, I think you're gonna like this one." To really appreciate this show I guess you had to be there, the late '50's I mean. Television was laced with action/ adventure westerns, detective/ private eye shows and screwball comedies. Then there was Love That Bob, a show about a playboy photographer living every mans dream of being surrounded by beautiful models in bathing suits, tight form fitting dresses, high heels .... well you get the picture. Add to this Ann B. Davis who could of been the prototype for Miss Moneypenny in the Bond films as his lovelorn receptionist/ secretary and Nancy Kulp as a geeky naturalist who wanted to commune with Bob. Rosemary DeCamp was wonderful as his sister and Dwayne Hickman was great as his nephew, a teenager with over active glands who wanted nothing more than to follow in his uncles wake and date Bob's model girlfriends. Bob's some time duel roll as Grandpa Collins, an elderly gent who like his grandson was a still flying high himself (in the show he flew his own bi-plane)and had his share of comic adventures with the ladies. Yeah, you had to be there for this one to really get the picture.

The "Bob Commings Show" (retitled for syndication, "Love That Bob") had eroticism, patriotism, and family values. The character of Bob Collins was a World War II veteran who was living with and supporting his war-widowed sister and her college student son, Chuck. Bob Collins was both a shameless, one could say addicted, womanizer, and an admirable role model and mentor for his nephew Chuck, played by Dwayne Hickman. "The Bob Cummings Show" was ahead of its time, representative of its time, and influential on its time. It was especially influential on a lot of subsequent shows. "The Dobbie Gillis Show", for instance was almost a direct rip-off of the "Bob Cummings Show" with Dwayne Hickman doing a recreation of his Chuck character with a lot of Bob Collins mixed in. In the "Bob Cummings Show" Dwayne Hickman as Chuck would try to date one of Uncle Bob's models, such as the French bombshell Collette duBois, played by Debra Paget's sister, Lisa Gaye. Collette would consult Bob, asking him about the idea of accepting a date with college student Chuck, "Don't you think it would be like you Americans say, 'stealing the bed?'. " A bit stunned at the expression, Bob would do one of his "takes" and then gasp, "You mean 'robbing the cradle?'" In "Dobbie Gillis" Dwayne Hickman got an awful lot of mileage out of using the same Bob Commings type gasp to yell, "That's Dobbie! With a B!" every time some character called him "Dopie." And Hickman as Dobbie was forever doing a take and responding with some gasp in response to some remark made by either Maynard G. Krebs or Zelda. Zelda, of course, was a rip-off of the Shultzy character on the "Bob Commings Show." Part of the charm of the Commings series was in its predictability of situation and the way the characters played off of one another. College student Chuck would periodically stop by Uncle Bob's photo studio, become ga-ga at the string of gorgeous models parading in and out of the studio in various stages of undress, and stutter, "Ah, ah, Uncle Bob, I feel guilty using your money to go to college. I think it is time I learned a trade. Like, ah, photography." To this, Uncle Bob would chuckle and respond, "No, Chuck, you need to get an education so that you don't end up a tradesman like your uncle. You continue in school and become a doctor." Whether he realizes it or not, I think the American who most of all refined and capitalized on the "take" and on characters playing off one another as influenced by the Commings show was Johnny Carson who captivated the American night audience for 25 years with jokes, takes, and character banter which to me, all seemed to originate on "The Bob Cummings Show."