My Favorite Martian (CBS 1963-1966, Ray Walston, Bill Bixby)

Scifi sitcom My Favorite Martian focused on Los Angeles Sun reporter Tim O’Hara who was shocked when he discovered a crash landed Martian whilst on his way to cover a story. Tim ends up taking the very human looking Martian under his wing, passing him off as his Uncle Martin.

One of “Uncle Martin’s” quirks were his retractable antenna which gave him special powers such as invisibility, telekinesis and so on.

Tim lived above the garage of a house owned by Mrs Brown and towards the end of the series Uncle Martin found himself becoming attracted to Mrs Brown although he had a rival in the form of cop Bill Brennan (who always seemed to be on the verge of finding out who Uncle Martin really was).

Because of the large number of effects used on the show, it was more gruelling than a regular show and took up all five weekdays for filming as opposed to the more normal two days., also because of the effects the show was expensive, some $57,000 an episode. Season three was filmed in colour (one of only 9 prime time CBS shows chosen to be so filmed).

In 1973 there a brief 13 episode cartoon version of the show made by Filmation and featuring Martin’s teenage nephew Andromeda and then in the late 1990’s a lacklustre big screen version with Christopher Lloyd appeared.

The show was seen in syndication for many years after its demise.

production details
USA / CBS / 107×30 minute episodes (75 episodes black and white 32 in colour) / Broadcast Sunday 29 September 1963 – Sunday 4 September 1966

Creator: John L. Greene / Producer: Jack Chertok

cast
RAY WALSTON as Uncle Martin (The Martian)
BILL BIXBY as Tim O’Hara
PAMELA BRITTON as Mrs Lorelei Brown
ANN MARSHALL as Angela Brown (1963-64)
J. PAT O’MALLEY as Mr Harry Burn (1963-64)
ALAN HEWITT as Detective Bill Brennan (1964-66)
ROY ENGLE as The Police Chief (1965-66)