Hey!
I recently found “Remember Lake Serene”, a 1967 episode of the sitcom Please Don’t Eat the Daisies which guest-starred Jack Kelly. Unfortunately, the video I discovered is very grainy, but I tried to get the best screenshots I could.
Daisies started out as a best-selling collection of humorous essays by Jean Kerr, author, playwright and wife of famed theater critic Walter Kerr. The essays centered on various happenings in the Kerr household, including their move from New York City to a rambling home in Larchmont, NY.
In 1960, the book was adapted into a hit film with Doris Day and David Niven starring as the Jean and Walter Kerr characters (which were re-named “Kate and Larry McKay”).
The sitcom version premiered on NBC on September 14, 1965. For some reason, the Kerr/McKay family became the “Nash” family in the TV series.
Jim Nash (Mark Miller) is a college professor in Ridgemont, NY. His better-half, Joan (Patricia Crowley), is a housewife who pens a column for the local newspaper. However--at least in this episode--Joan does more meddling than writing. Their four sons are typical sitcom tykes and are pretty much interchangeable (two are literally twins). And, their shaggy pooch “Ladadog” is about the size of a Shetland pony.
The Nashes argue about spending $18 a month on dog food and $15 for a run to the grocery store (which would cost more like $115 today!). Yet, they can somehow afford to live in a castle on their ostensibly meager combined earnings as a teacher and a part-time writer while raising a quartet of growing boys.
The castle’s doorbell doesn’t merely ring--it "bongs" like the chimes of Big Ben. When the doorbell bongs on a Saturday morning in “Remember Lake Serene”, it signals that Jim’s old college pal “Bob Daniels” (JK) has come to visit. Bob was the “campus Casanova” and is still a carefree bachelor.
When Jim asks why Bob is visiting, he answers that he just wanted “to look at a beautiful woman”. He slyly glances at Joan and purrs, “Hello, beautiful woman”:
Joan rolls her eyes and replies, “Bob, we’re going to have to get you married—a look like that could smear a woman’s make-up!”
(She really does say that.)
Actually, Bob wants to go camping and fishing at Lake Serene, like he, Jim, and their other college pal Herb (who is also the Nashes’ neighbor) used to do back in the day.
He invites Jim and Herb to come along, stag, no wives or kids. But first, Jim and Herb must tell—er, ask—their wives.
Joan and Herb’s wife Marge are surprisingly all right with their guys taking a trip without them. Since the Nash kids have been conveniently shunted offscreen to Grandma’s house for spring vacation, the wives plan to sneak out to the lake to foist an eligible young woman on unsuspecting bachelor Bob.
The men start off for the lake the next morning in Bob’s convertible, but he says they’ll have to stop first so he can get a sweater. Surprise! The sweater is inhabited by a lovely blonde named Gloria:
The wives set up camp at Lake Serene. Penny, the bachelorette they’ve chosen for Bob, starts to wander over to the guys’ rustic campsite in a flouncy red dress. Before she reaches the site, however, she spots Bob and Gloria. She hurries back to tell the wives.
Then, Bob goes for a walk, so when the wives go to check out Penny’s story, all they see is Gloria with their husbands. They decide to crash the “party".
Finally, Bob returns from his walk.
“Look what I found out on the beach!” he cries.
He’s accompanied by a brunette who announces, “Hello, my name is April Dancer”.
Yes, it’s “The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.” (played by Stefanie Powers).
Penny and Gloria are presumably forgotten as Bob smears April’s make-up in “The Maverick Bachelor Affair”. ;)
“Remember Lake Serene” is one of those cutesy sitcom episodes where everyone practically shouts many of their lines, as if saying them louder makes them funnier. And, it’s easy to imagine other sitcom gal pals such as Lucy and Ethel or Laura and Millie conspiring in the same silly plot, only those characters (and their writers) would have handled it with much more comic finesse. A lot of the dialogue and situations are downright dopey, like the running gag about Herb leaping through a large open window to visit Jim instead of entering through the front door. (“It saves time,” Herb explains.)
But, the talented cast does their best with what they’ve been given to work with. And, of course, handsome JK plays Bob with his usual charm and humor.
This episode was briefly viewable on YouTube and has since disappeared from that venue. Hopefully, someday Please Don’t Eat the Daisies will be officially released on DVD or a streaming service so we can get a clearer look at JK in “Remember Lake Serene”.
TRIVIA:
- In 1966, Jack Kelly played the male lead in Jean Kerr’s play Mary, Mary in Houston, TX. His co-star was Marjorie Lord.
- Pat Crowley previously appeared with JK in three Maverick episodes, “The Rivals”, “Betrayal” and “A Tale of Three Cities”.
- King Donovan, the rubber-faced comedian who plays Herb in this episode, acted with JK in the Maverick episode “Maverick Springs”. Donovan also appeared in JK’s feature films Sally and Saint Anne (1952) and The Bamboo Prison (1954).
- Shirley Mitchell, who plays Marge, was the last surviving adult cast member of I Love Lucy (she played Lucy's friend "Marion Strong", with the cackling laugh). She also appeared in The Beverly Hillbillies as "Opal Clampett", wife of "Jake Clampett" (played by King Donovan!)
- The end-title credit for Stefanie Powers’ cameo appearance reads, “We wish to express our thanks to APRIL DANCER--Whose appearance was authorized by the United Network Command for Law Enforcement.”
- Both Please Don’t Eat the Daisies and The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. were MGM productions, and both were canceled in 1967. The men from U.N.C.L.E. (Robert Vaughn and David McCallum) appeared in an earlier episode of Daisies titled “Say U.N.C.L.E.”. Also, Pat Crowley guest-starred in the pilot episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E (“The Vulcan Affair”).
- In my hometown, there was a Buick dealer named Bob Daniels. The dealership’s catchy jingle played in my head as I watched JK in “Remember Lake Serene”: “Bob Daniels Buick—B-I-C-K; ‘B-I-C-K’? That’s not the way to spell ‘Buick’!; The only thing missing is ‘You’!” I couldn’t tell if the convertible JK drives in the episode is a Buick, though.
- The actual castle-like home once owned by Jean and Walter Kerr in Larchmont, NY, went on the market in 2020. Asking price: $5,850,000.
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