Question for the Eldergays about the Patty Duke Show

Because as cousins, they came from different parts of the world, which created many plot possibilities/contrasts. Cathy was from Scotland and Patty was from...NBC Studios or something.

The Patty Duke show took place in the 60s. IMDb is your friend

1940's? OP must be a clueless millennial.

Why did they let Patty Duke get away with doing neither a Scottish nor a British accent?

Has anyone ever encountered identical cousins in real life?

Well - strictly speaking - patty and Cathy would have been born in the 1940s - so maybe OP was questioning the social mores of legitimacy and the ethics of splitting up a pair of identical twins back then when they were babies?

Or yeah - he’s just a clueless millennial.

[quote]Why did they let Patty Duke get away with doing neither a Scottish nor a British accent?

Why did they let Hayley Mills get away with not doing an American accent?

Cathy did have a distinct Scottish brogue in the first few shows, but it was softened considerably after viewers complained that they couldn't understand what she was saying.

Elder here !!!! It didn't matter. I loved the show but I guess I'm dumb cause I never stopped to think that there's no such as: " But they're cousins, identical cousins all the way, one pair of matching bookends.....different as night and day....Cathy enjoys a minuet the ballet ruse and crepes Suzette but Patty loves to rock and roll....A hot dog makes her lose control....

Sorry about that rambling . I was so sad finding out as an adult that Patty was abused by her "managers" who were like surrogate parents. When she went to a funeral, they made her go as Cathy, not herself. And all the mental health issues she had.....with her background she never had a chance ....sigh

[quote]And all the mental health issues she had.....with her background she never had a chance ....sigh

Her father was an alcoholic - who left them when she was six - then her mother tried to kill herself in front of the kids.

I love these threads where OP wants a rational explanation for some aspect of a TV sitcom.

Patty Duke said that ironically, she felt more comfortable playing the quieter Cathy from Scotland, rather than the more mod and madcap American teen Patty (supposedly fashioned after herself.) she said she had no idea how to approach playing a regular American teen, as she wasn't one, herself.

[quote]1940's? OP must be a clueless millennial.

—Anonymous

ffs, are they s too stupid or too lazy to use the google machine?

I loved the Patty Duke Show! As for relatives that look alike, my uncle and I are nearly identical (though years apart), so it can happen - perhaps not as identical as Patty and Cathy. Off topic: I thought Eddie Applegate, Patty's boyfriend Richard, was very handsome. Let's talk about him.

Eddie Applegate would fit right in here. He was like 40 years old during the show's run but thought he didn't look a day over 16.

This show needed a transwoman.

What [R1] said.Eddie Applegate was in his late twenties I believe,but was great as Richard.I always watched it for Ross.He was so funny to me.

Does anyone remember the episode where Patty adopts a Korean orphan via a mail order ad? And the Korean orphan was played by a hispanic kid? I guess most people didn't know what Koreans looked like back then.

I had a crush on Eddie Applegate.

R5 I have. Or nearly so. Phyllis Newman had (has?) a cousin named Phyllis Newman. As young women, identical.

I just watched a couple episodes this morning (including the one with Sal Mineo)! She really was such a good actress. Say what you will about the banality of much of the sitcom writing and plot lines of the time, she did manage to create two different and realistic characters.

Then there's Samantha and Serena.

Were blonde Jeannie and brunette Jeannie cousins or sisters?

Well, the song was about identical cousins - not identical twins. They would have to get a new song if the show was about identical twins.

R24 maybe they were identical twins separated at birth, then raised as cousins (?)

R5: A very good friend of mine has an identical cousin who lives in Germany. Even more ironically, the cousin was briefly married to my friend's 1st husband (after my friend dumped the husband).

If comparing identical-adjacent characters , Elizabeth Montgomery wins. Even in the early days, her Serena was consistently different enough and improved as the show wore on.

Barbara Eden seemed to rely more on vocal tricks to differentiate.

As for Patty Duke, sure she was younger and maybe had less experience as an actress. But overall, she didn't consistently bring much difference between what's-her-name and cousin what's-her-name.

3 Identical Cousins 3 - Don't forget OP, their was a third. Blond with southern accent.

THERE dammit THERE!!!!!

Um they were identical because they were played by the same actress. It's called a gimmick. Uproarious identity hijinks.

[quote] Why the fuck were they identical cousins and not just twins? Was this concept controversial in the 1940's?

They were twins, but their mother was an underdressed whore and TV wasn't ready to admit that.

Greatest TV theme song ever

I love the theme song, but it's No. 2 behind The Pruitts of Southampton, Phyllis Diller's short-lived sitcom.

Barbara Eden was a terrible actress. She somehow has survived telling that story about Desi Arnaz putting the moves on her when she played a small pat 500 years ago.

Eden wasn't subtle but she was actually an excellent performer in her exuberant niche, especially in musicals. She was a great belter and did a lot of musicals in stock. She was fantastic as Lalume in a 1960s ABC TV version of Kismet. Clips used to be available on youtube, I don't know whether they are still there.

Still there r35!

[quote]R35 She was fantastic as Lalume in a 1960s ABC TV version of Kismet.

And thankfully, her best work is preserved on YouTube....such as SPINNING WHEEL.

Barbara when she did Sally Bowles at the Roy Moore Dinner Theater.

R38 if only she had founded a Barbara Eden Dinner Theater, like the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater in Florida. She could have done THE CLASSICS!

So much time lost....

Barbara Eden IS Medea!

Barbara Eden IS Hedda Gabler!

Barbara Eden IS Camille!

Does anyone have video from Barbara Eden's run as Mother Courage?

No r41, but I have the spot remover commercial she did dressed as Lady MacBeth.

Can we please stick to the topic on hand, Patty Duke. Thank You!

I'd rather discuss her identical cousin Doris.

Bump

My father had an identical cousin. Seriously. When they were kids they could fool each other's parents. They looked and sounded alike. I can't vouch for the sound but I saw pictures. They were identical. They lost track of each other after high school. Rumor was the cousin died in WWII.

A friend of mine has an identical couisin who married her first husband. Fortunately the cousin dumped him, too.

Here's Cathy who takes it anywhere

in the mouth or derriere

While Patty's on her knees at night

Rimming guys in Brooklyn Heights

A hot dog makes her lose control.

Jeannie 2 was her sister, not cousin

R32 I loved it when ROSEANNE spoofed it after Original Becky returned.

OP What about the collection of unlikelies on Gilligan's Island? With a movie star who apparently brought along some gowns for a 3 hour tour and the millionaire Thurston Howell could certainly afford his own yacht. Making sense of nonsense.

omg this thread made be piss my Depends

so DL

Cathy's "father" was the identical twin brother of Patty's father, so coming from an American father she didn't have to have a legit accent. Supposedly, Sidney Sheldon (the schlock novelist and creator of the awful "I Dream of Jeannie" had Duke spend some time at his home with his family and noticed a duality in her personality--hence the identical cousins with different personalities.

"I Dream of Jeannie" was expected to fail--it really was meant to be a cheap knockoff of "Bewitched"---and this is why the first season was in black & white. The show was never very good---Larry Hagman was about as bad as "new Darrin", a lot of reaction shots and not much of a part. Eden deserves some award for milking a bad sitcom and being pursued by Desi Arnaz (she had a lot of company) into a career. She was the queen of dinner theater for years. If it wasn't her, it was Ruta Lee and her leading men included guys like Larry Blyden.

R54. That’s Tony winner Larry Blyden to you, asshole!

Blyden did a lot of scattered television. I remember him mostly from game shows. Definite dinner theater material.

Vote for me

How come The Patty Duke Show was in black-and-white for all its 3 seasons? It originally aired from 1963-1966. Gilligan's Island, which began in '64 was only in B&W for the first season.

I thought I heard Patty mention in an interview, or maybe in her autobiography, that the network debated but didn't want to spend the extra money for the show to go to color its third season, but that if it had got picked up for a fourth it would have definitely gone to color (as became the case by then for all the 3 main TV networks' shows).

They had Patty AND Cathy's salaries to pay R58.

R7 You'll find a WML episode in which HM played mystery guest with a southern accent. It demonstrates why she'd never be in the running to play Scarlett O'Hara.

Cousin Cathy was relegated to walk ons for most of the third season

R5 yes, Laura Palmer & Maddie Ferguson. And I killed them both!

R58: Most shows were in b&w when The Patty Duke Show started and only NBC had a large number of them (Duke's show was on ABC which had only a few, CBS had none). The show was not renewed for a fourth season because United Artists would not accept ABC's terms for filming it in color. It wasn't a huge amount of money but they clearly had no idea that the show would do well in syndication. I suspect ABC drove a hard bargain because the show did very poorly early in its last year and recovered only after it received Batman as a lead-in. They probably didn't have much faith in the show's durability either.

[quote]Why the fuck were they identical cousins and not just twins?

Tsar Nicholas II of Russia & the UK's King George V were identical cousins.