DClog

Maynard G. Krebs

Bev modified an old sweater for Django. Now he reminds me of Maynard G. Krebs.

In Praise of Maynard G. Krebs

Bob Denver played Dobie Gillis’ lackadaisical, free-spirited, bohemian pal, Maynard G. Krebs. The primordial hip nonconformist, (the “G,” he insisted, stood for Walter), Maynard was thought by many at the time to be the nation’s most famous beatnik, better known and perhaps more lovable than the likes of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs.

In what even today would be an unlikely set of traits in a sitcom character, Maynard was a jazz fan who talked frequently about Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie, played the bongos and ocarina and even sang scat. He wore a goatee, baggy clothes and invoked a kind of hipster parlance that was so ahead of its time that it was actually outmoded before other television shows had a chance to catch up. "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" rode the subtler currents of be-bop and Salinger-esque angst. If Bob Denver could have copyrighted Maynard’s signature use of “like” to preface his sentences, generations of teenagers would owe him a fortune….

Being into jazz is fairly radical stuff for a television teenager, and we pretty much never saw it again after “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis” went off the air. Adolescence became as commodified as the rock ‘n’ roll that defined it, and the interests and hobbies associated with teenagers became increasingly about shopping. With all that purchasing power on the line, networks couldn’t take risks on characters with underground tastes.

Dobie Gillis and Maynard G Krebs were sitcom characters from 1959 to 1962