“Bark, bark, bark!”
“What’s wrong girl? Is Gramps in trouble?” “Bark, bark, bark, bark!”
“Show me where he is, girl, and hurry!”
For non-Boomers, that was a typical Sunday night television conversation between a young man named Jeff and Lassie, a collie with the uncanny ability to communicate to human friends about any problems on the farm. Or the young man may have been Timmy, who assumed the lead when Tommy Retig tired of the role and moved on.
Lassie was televised from September 12, 1954, to March 24, 1973. It became one of the longest running and most successful series in television history: seventeen seasons on CBS and two more in syndication.
The concept behind the hugely popular program stemmed from seven MGM movies produced from 1943 through 1951 about a fictional dog named Lassie.
Desperate for TV material, producer Robert Maxwell, thought Lassie would be a natural as a TV star. He was right. Boomers couldn’t get enough of the affable dog.
The original human stars were Jan Clayton, who played farm widow Ellen Miller, and Tommy Retig who assumed the role of Ellen’s 11-year old son, Jeff. George Cleveland played Ellen’s father-in-law, George “Gramps” Miller. For three years, it was a winning combination.
In 1957, the producers had to ease Jeff out and they revamped the entire show – a dangerous move in those days – but it worked with Timmy, played by six-year-old Jon Provost, and his adoptive parents, Ruth and Paul Martin, played by Cloris Leachman and Jon Shepodd. Other human stars and themes came and went, but Lassie anchored the dog lead. Several “Lassie’s, actually.
Overall, six different collies played the role of Lassie. All were trained by Rudd Weatherwax. The original Lassie, Pal, starred in the 1943 movie, “Lassie Come Home”. All the other Lassie portrayers were direct descendants of Pal, and all were males, presumably because males didn’t shed as much and they were physically more impressive.
To train Lassie, handlers used lots of steak during filming. When viewers thought Lassie was looking intently at Jeff or Timmy, the canine star really had his eye on a piece of rib-eye being waved in the background.
The program, Lassie, was sponsored by Campbell’s Soup. It was no coincidence that the Miller’s and the Martin’s ate lots of soup in the old farmhouse kitchen. Cans of Campbell’s Soup were always on display in the background. It must have worked out well for Campbell’s. They sold a heckuva lot of soup in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.
Lassie was a fixture on Sunday night television back when there were family shows that started and ended at a reasonable hour. Lassie was on the air every Sunday night at 7 PM. The show ran for a half-hour and placed first in its time slot for each of its 17 years on network TV. It was frequently in the Top 25 and ranked as high as 13th in 1963.
Boomers look back fondly at “Lassie” and the innocence of television programming in those days. It was a time of close-knit families on the screen and polite, obedient children. It was a time of honor, when good conquered evil and viewers readily accepted the premise that a dog like Lassie could bark words that humans could understand.
You know, they just don’t make dogs like they used to.