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 by Billy Ingram  Filmed
on location all over the United States, along the course of the famous highway
(and beyond), Route 66 debuted on October 7, 1960. The premise was simple: ernest, privileged and sheltered Tod Stiles' (Martin Milner) father dies and leaves him a shiny new Corvette but little money; he and his buddy Buzz Murdock (George Maharis), who grew up in Hell's Kitchen, take off in the car to discover America, in search of adventure and enlightenment. There were no other co-stars, just guest stars and guest cities. / / / Classic TV Blog / / / TV Shows on DVD / // TV on BLU-RAY
Along the way the guys encounter outcasts and ordinary people entangled in conflicts - eventually traveling to almost every city along the run of the highway.
"Most of the guys don't like it because they're away from home too long," George Maharis noted in 1960, "but I love it because I'm a bachelor."
Buzz: "How many guys do you know who have knocked around like we have and still make it pay?"
Buzz: "Who wants status? You've got status, you've got strings. You've got strings, you're a puppet. Who wants to be a puppet? Besides, it's the times that's bugging you, Tod, that's what it is, just the times."
According to the 1963 issue of Movie Screen Yearbook, "Marty had been the master of 'underplaying' - his style of acting was low key, subdued. So was George's, but Marty felt, for the sake of the script, that there should be a contrast between them and that if anybody came on strong it should be Maharis and not himself. Maharis didn't see it that way." This led to conflicts between the two early on.
The story revolved around Buzz and Tod's search around the country for the old timers through the jazz and be-bop clubs. Some of the finest jazz players around in 1961 - Jo Jones, Roy Eldridge, Bill Gunn and Coleman Hawkins - made up the band in this episode. Ethel Water's performance was a powerful one, earning her an Emmy nomination that year, the first such nomination ever for a black actor.
Despite the soul-searching, what was left unexplained was how the guys bagged a brand new model Corvette every season.
When Maharis returned, he reportedly lashed out at everyone on the set, blasting producers for being insensitive to his recovery and accusing co-star Martin Milner of allowing stardom go to his head. "Maharis and I got along fine," Milner told TV Guide in 1963, "until I found out he didn't like me." With the program earning solid but hardly spectacular ratings, producers suspected Maharis was threatening to quit as a ploy to renegotiate his contract; they wouldn't budge so Buzz just disappeared. The show's co-creator and head writer Stirling Silliphant stated at the time, "I think Maharis is impatient to get on with his own career. He has had no regard for this company, his co-star, Marty Milner, and the 50 or 60 other people on the show."
Maybe it seemed strange to everyone that Tod was traveling around the country with Buzz for two and a half years and now he's coming 'round again to some of the same cities with another guy who looks just like him; the series went on for only another year after the switch. "We knew when George left the show it was over," executive producer Herb Leonard was quoted as saying, "but we had our audience and the sponsor renewed us for the next season. Eventually, though, the audience got bored. It's really sad, when you think about the show's potential."
Martin Milner went on to great success in 1968 portraying police officer Pete Malloy for 7 years on Adam-12 and later as a DJ in San Diego.
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Episode 16 --"Fly Away Home (Part 1)"
-- Tod becomes a crop duster for a struggling company. ROUTE 66 / TV Program / 1960-1964
TV Guide's Route 66 Page, with TV Listings, Photos, Videos, Exclusive News and More. |
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If
Star Trek was meant to be "Wagon Train in space,"
then Route 66 was Wagon Train in a rag top.
It
took a traveling crew of 50 people, two brand-new baby-blue (later brown)
Corvettes, two tractor trailers and other assorted vehicles to film this
series, one of the largest mobile film operations in TV history.
The
series itself was standard low-key anthology drama with the occasional
exceptional script. It was the changing locales and exotic personalities
that helped to keep things interesting, that and conversations in the
'vette like this one from an early episode:
Tod:
"Oh, we sure make it pay. Almost lynched in Concord,
drowned in Grand Isle, beat up in New Orleans, blown away by a dust storm
in Kanab, arrested in Spare Falls. Our trouble is we have no status."
George
Maharis played the stronger and more interesting character, with a street-wise
stance that served as a counter-weight to Milner's mostly strident portrayal.
The
scripts that centered around Maharis were usually more entertaining, and
would occasionally tackle controversial topics - racism down South and
union busting up north for instance.
"George
and I have romances, but neither of us ties up with a girl," Milner
revealed to the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1960. "After all,
the car in which we are riding is a two-seater so we have no room to tote
a steady girl friend from one town to another."
Route
66 produced many excellent hours of television, utilizing acclaimed
directors like Sam Peckinpah and Arthur Hiller; featuring a galaxy of
guest stars like Rod Steiger, Martin Sheen, Buster Keaton, Robert Redford,
and a young Robert Duvall in a fairly realistic (for the time) portrayal
of a heroin addict. In that episode ('Birdcage on my Foot'), it was revealed
that Buzz had his own experiences with drugs in the past, surely the first
regular TV character to make such an admission.
There
was a particularly strong episode, filmed in Pittsburgh, which aired on
October 6, 1961. It guest-starred the legendary vocalist / actress Ethel
Waters as a dying blues singer who asks Tod and Buzz to pull together
her old band for one last gig together.
On
that second season episode, the guys let it be known why they were still
on the road. "You see, were sorta looking for a place where we really
fit," Buzz explained. "A kind of niche for ourselves. You know?
But, until then, we'll just sorta keep looking and moving."
George
Maharis was forced to leave the series temporarily due to a nasty case
of hepatitis in the spring of 1962, well into filming the show's third
season. With Buzz unexpectedly sidelined, Tod continued the journey alone
for a handful of episodes.
Glenn Corbett stepped into the role of Tod's new best buddy Lincoln Case
beginning with episodes airing in March of 1963. The focus of the show
remained primarily on Martin Milner as the new guy became more of a supporting
player.
Route
66 was canceled in September of 1964 - as good as it was, the show
may have lasted a couple of extra years just on the strength of the brilliant
theme music by Nelson Riddle.
George
Maharis released several albums between 1962 and 1966 (scoring a Top-40
hit with "Teach Me Tonight") but never landed another successful
series after Route 66. He starred in The Most Deadly Game
for a half-season in 1970 on NBC, appeared in several motion pictures,
TV movies and was a frequent guest on game shows in the early-1970s. He
was one of the first stars to pose nude for Playgirl (in the
second issue, July, 1973).
Maharis
made headlines when he was busted in 1974 for engaging in a sex act with
a male hairdresser in a public bathroom in LA; he had been arrested previously
on a charge of lewd conduct after propositioning a vice-squad officer
in a Hollywood restaurant restroom in 1967 but, hey, that could happen
to anybody.
