Too much of everything

People are voting emotionally.

As Good As It Gets

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Haven't seen anything in previous reviews re: motivation, at least originally, behind the filming of this show. Gidget was an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the Patty Duke Show, which had been doing very well on ABC since 1963. A couple of very sad notes re: the demise of both programs. When Patty and other actors showed up at the film company to start shooting for the fourth season of the Duke show, they had no idea that the network had been trying to get the production company to pay for having the program shot in color. When the producers said, "no way" (this would have been very rare by the way; the networks always paid for this process, and just shortened the TV season to pay for the increased costs) the show was canceled--on the spot! Gidget hadn't been doing all that well during the regular season, being up against shows like the Beverly Hillbillies, and other established programs. But during the summer time, the show really began to catch on with teenagers all over the USA. By then, however, it was felt that it was too late to continue on with Gidget, so they decided to put Sally Field in another show, and that's where the idea for The Flying Nun came about. Even though that program did pretty well, I can speak from personal experience when I say that they should have let well enough alone. People loved Gidget!

America's favorite beach girl Gidget after being played by Sandra Dee on screen came to the small screen and it gave Sally Field her first big break. But it was a double edged sword. Who but Field suspected she actually had acting chops. But this show and The Flying Nun left her type cast for years before she showed what she could do in Norma Rae and Places In The Heart.Not much difference in the big screen and small screen Gidgets. Francine 'Gidget' Lawrence is a happy go lucky teen with surfing and boys on her mind. Her family unit was her widowed father Don Porter and married sister Betty Conner, her rather dense but lovable husband Peter Deuel and what we would now call her BFF Larue, Lynette Winter.Every week Gidget would get into her usual teen troubles and get out of them after consultation with dear old Dad.One thing I liked about this show was Don Porter. If you think Hugh Beaumont or Lorne Greene was the wisest TV dad than you never saw Gidget. Always professorial for that's what he did and totally unflappable in any situation Don Porter to me was the ideal TV dad. This man never, ever lost his cool in any situation. Granted these were G rated teen situations still the man was amazing. If you were to predict Sally Field's career would boast two Oscars within the next quarter century when Gidget was on you would have been sent forthwith to the rubber room. One never knows what lies ahead.

This series was based on the popular movie series of the same name starring Sandra Dee. Newcomer Sally Field is perfectly cast as Frances "Gidget" Laurence. Sally Field is the star of the show along with Don Porter who played her father, Dr. Russell Lawrence, professor. Betty Connor played her sister, Ann, and she has a brother-in-law. Her best friend, Larue is hysterical. The series was light-hearted with plenty of memorable guest stars like Bonnie Franklin, Richard Dreyfuss, and more. While the series only lasted a season with 32 episodes, it's still enjoyable and light-hearted perfect for the summer months. It's hard to believe that it has been 50 years since Sally Field debut on to our hearts as lovable Gidget. Who would have imagined that she would go on to play the flying nun, win 2 Academy Awards, an Emmy, and more in her long career. It's time that Sally Field got the highest honor of the Kennedy Center Honors.

By the time ABC filmed the 1965-1966 television version of "Gidget," Frederick Kohner's 1957 novel of that name (based on the adventures of his daughter Kathy) had already provided the basis for three motion pictures. Unlike the Gidget films, however, the television series does not focus on Gidget's romantic involvements. We rarely see her boyfriend Jeff, who is a student at Princeton; and her romantic interests are primarily limited to ill-advised infatuations that do not last beyond a single episode. The television series devotes most of its attention to Gidget's relations with her family, her peers, and her teachers. As with the movies, surfing is an underlying theme, but much of the action takes place away from the beach, and deals with such mundane subjects as school work, dating, getting a job, and learning to drive, as well as more unusual ones such as escaping from a "haunted" house, or evading a witch's "curse." In coping with life, Frances Lawrence, whose diminutive stature earned her the nickname "Gidget" (a contraction of "Girl" and "Midget"), gets advice, sought and unsought, from her father Russ (Don Porter), a UCLA English professor, her sister Anne (Betty Conner), her brother-in-law John (Pete Duel), and her best friend Larue (Lynette Winter). "Gidget" captures the different dynamic that exists in a one-parent, one-child, family--Gidget and her father are especially close. Anne is a somewhat conventional meddling older sister who is trying to make Gidget into a lady. John is an aspiring psychologist who attributes nearly everything to subliminal motives. Gidget customarily ignores their suggestions. Larue is a rather eccentric figure, who visits the beach clad in clothing that conceals everything but her face (and sometimes that as well) because she is allergic to sunlight. Gidget often gets together with Larue to consume exotic sandwiches and discuss whatever problem she is facing. Despite her eccentricities, Larue's judgment is often better than Gidget's, but she sometimes gets drawn into Gidget's misadventures against her will.Sally Field landed the role of Gidget through a summer workshop screen test. She had participated in secondary school dramatic productions, but she had had no on-screen experience apart from being a supernumerary in the forgettable 1962 film, "Moon Pilot." Although 19 when the program was filmed, Field is entirely credible as the 15-year-old Gidget. And, in mastering this role, she gave early evidence of the acting talent that was to win her many parts (from the Flying Nun to Mary Todd Lincoln) and awards. Her attitude toward the filming of "Gidget" was "absolute total glee," and her performances reflect this. Don Porter served as her mentor; and there was good chemistry between them, both on and off camera. Similarly, Field described Lynette Winter as her "best friend" in real life as well as in the show. Winter brought to her role a veritable arsenal of facial expressions, and a talent for physical comedy perhaps even greater than Field's. It is hard to imagine "Gidget" without these three. Conner and Duel successfully portray an annoying sister and brother-in-law; and Duel displays surprising aptitude for slapstick when he accidentally disconnects the water supply hose to the washing machine, drenching Anne, Gidget, and himself (we are left to wonder what the soaked cat, watching from a corner, thought of this human folly)."Gidget" is a conglomeration of 1960s artifacts--cars, clothes, hair styles, dances, record players, dial telephones, VHF/UHF television sets, and manual typewriters. In terms of its cast, subject matter and attitudes, it is also a product of its times. Occasionally, there are explicit, if not emphatic, references to sex, and to Gidget's physique. And the cast includes African-Americans playing minor, but respectable, characters. But the women are definitely not liberated. One of Gidget's male acquaintances commands her, "Go fetch food, woman!" Her father tells one of her male classmates what to do "when a woman clamors for complete equality with men," and implies that women really do not want such equality. Gidget receives a spanking in one episode, as does a visiting Swedish female student in another. (No male characters suffer this indignity.) As Gidget concludes in one postscript, "I'd set back women's rights a hundred years--exactly where they belonged." Today, some of this may grate on the nerves, even of those not sensitized to gender issues. On the other hand, in several episodes, Gidget attempts to improve the behavior of her male associates, and, more generally, her participation in surfing involved breaking into what had been a male preserve.An episode of "Gidget" typically ends with sage advice from Russ, or--better--a humorous epigram from Gidget herself, such as: "You're only young once; but if you work it right, once is enough." Or: "It's too bad you can't be born with maturity, then lose it when you don't need it anymore."