Maybe you don't remember "I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster," but I do.

"Onscreen, the sandpaper-voiced [Marty] Ingels was best known for his role in the short-lived sitcom 'I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster,' broadcast on ABC in the 1962-63 season. Mr. Ingels (as Fenster) starred opposite John Astin (as Dickens), as one of a pair of jovial carpenters. Off screen, Mr. Ingels — who began his professional life as a talking peanut and was later a booker of celebrities on television commercials, a frequent TV guest star and a voice-over artist whose credits include Pac-Man in the animated series of the 1980s — was by all accounts highly voluble, genially combustible, energetically litigious and unmistakably larger than life."

I'm sorry to see him go, this man most famous for being the husband of Shirley Jones. As for litigious, I remember when Shirley Jones sued The National Enquirer for an article that — as the U.S. Supreme Court decorously put it — "alleged that respondent drank so heavily as to prevent her from fulfilling her professional obligations."  I taught that case, Calder v. Jones, in Civil Procedure class many times.

But I loved "I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster." 1962-63. That was during the JFK administration. Before we knew John Astin as Gomez on "The Addams Family," which didn't start until 1964, the highly transformative year that followed the Kennedy assassination, the year of The Beatles, the Civil Rights Act, and much else. 1962, that was a different time, and John Astin and Marty Ingels were carpenters. (Shirley Jones was Marian the librarian in "The Music Man" in 1962, long before "The Partridge Family.") Do you think it was funny? He's a segment all about "It's not funny":



ADDED: I made an "I'm Dickens He's Fenster" tag, because I've written about this TV show before. Twice. Both times were back in 2004, the first year of this blog. April 17, 2004:

Why isn't TV more like the Internet? Why can't I just watch any old episode of, say, Dobie Gillis or I'm Dickens, He's Fenster whenever I want? Why can't I sit down any night and call up, say, "The Dalton Girls"? (Althouse trivia experts should know that was the first movie I ever saw in the theater. According to an IMDB user summary it's "Just another 'B' western, except the outlaws are babes." I see the plot was "After the Dalton boys are killed by the law, one of the Dalton girls is forced to kill a lecherous mortician who tries to rape her...)

Maybe I need to make a "Dalton Girls" tag...

AND: Weirdly, that April 17, 2004 post has Donald Trump in it. I'd just watched an HBO on Demand documentary called "Born Rich" — "a nice documentary, made by a born-rich guy who had access to other born-rich kids, because (as I learned in the documentary), born-rich people are an inbred subculture": "There's a nice variety of rich kids to react in different ways to. And I must say one of the nicest ones was Ivanka Trump, which has to remove a layer of loathsomeness from Donald Trump."

Video on Demand ... "The Dalton Girls" ... "Born Rich" ... The Apprentice. I caught the documentary "Born Rich," which is playing on HBO on Demand. And let me just pause to say I love the whole video on demand technology--except the way on my service if you leave it on pause too long a too-happy female voice booms "Welcome to video on demand!" Since I pause a lot, leave the room, enter into conversations and so forth, that "Welcome!" voice is the least welcome thing on TV. But a little video on demand and you can't help wanting the future of TV to arrive quickly. Right now some of HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime is available free and some other things are available for a price, but why isn't every movie and TV show ever made available? Why isn't TV more like the Internet? Why can't I just watch any old episode of, say, Dobie Gillis or I'm Dickens, He's Fenster whenever I want? Why can't I sit down any night and call up, say, "The Dalton Girls"? (Althouse trivia experts should know that was the first movie I ever saw in the theater. According to an IMDB user summary it's "Just another 'B' western, except the outlaws are babes." I see the plot was "After the Dalton boys are killed by the law, one of the Dalton girls is forced to kill a lecherous mortician who tries to rape her. Being branded a murderess, the sisters follow in their brothers tracks and take up a life of crime." Hey, this was some 1950s "Thelma and Louise"! Hmmm ... I wonder if that shaped my whole life. And how bad were my parents to let me see that when I was six? Ah, don't worry, she's not going to get the mortician rape part. She'll just see a bunch of cowgirls. Like Sally Starr! She loves Sally Starr!)

"Born Rich" was a nice documentary, made by a born-rich guy who had access to other born-rich kids, because (as I learned in the documentary), born-rich people are an inbred subculture. They hang out with each other and interact with each other, in part because only another rich kid can understand the sorrows of inherited wealth. The rest of us can look on with horror, amusement, sympathy, or whatever we like, now that we have this film to watch.

There's a nice variety of rich kids to react in different ways to. And I must say one of the nicest ones was Ivanka Trump, which has to remove a layer of loathsomeness from Donald Trump. And here's a good article in today's NYT on the aftermath of The Apprentice, for those who are still wondering if Bill Rancic is actually going to be trusted to run that billion dollar Chicago construction project. ("This is a large and sophisticated project, and the job is like being the conductor of an orchestra ... I don't know how somebody can conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra if they've never gone to a concert before, and if they've never played any of the instruments.") Read about the complexity of the project, and consider how absurd it would be to only make $250,000 (Bill's new salary) for running it. So why didn't Trump pick a more practical project to put Bill in charge of? Are you kidding?

"I felt that this was a great opportunity to promote a great project," Mr. Trump said.

Well, isn't the whole TV show an infomercial for Trump's projects? He features one project or another not because it makes for a good prize or competition, but because he needs to advertise it, as the end of the finale show on Thursday made crashingly obvious.

The SAG Awards, Get to Know Your Rabbit. The SAG Awards were awfully dull. One big surprise--Johnny Depp won the best male actor award--but then he wasn't there, so the moment fizzled. The best thing about the SAG Awards is that they give awards for entire ensembles. So they give the TV one to Sex and the City, but Sarah Jessica Parker is a no-show, and then they give the movie one to Lord of the Rings, and a huge group of lesser actors assembles on stage and mills about, while Sean Astin babbles boringly about something Guild-ish, until the hulkish John Rhys-Davies shoves him aside, seemingly for being tedious.

Lately, Rhys-Davies has been having some troubles. As he puts it: "I'm burying my career so substantially ... that it's painful."

It was only through Astin's speech last night that I realized he was Patty Duke's son. He didn't name her but mentioned that his mother had been president of the Screen Actor's Guild, and I put two and two together. John Astin is not his natural father, but adopted him after he married Patty Duke.

So let me just take this opportunity to say how much I love John Astin. And I don't just mean that I love him as Gomez on The Addams Family. I love him as Harry Dickens on I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, And I love him as Turnbull in Get to Know Your Rabbit.

I saw Get to Know Your Rabbit when it was shown, pre-release, in 1971, to a test audience in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I and it seemed like everyone else in that theater experienced it as the funniest movie we had ever seen. Somehow, even though it was directed by Brian De Palma and has Orson Welles in its cast, it fell into oblivion. I still have never come close to laughing as much at a movie as I did that night. I finally found a videotape of it, watched it again, and couldn't recapture the original feeling, maybe because I knew all the surprises. But Astin stands out as especially funny, especially, for some reason, while trying to keep pencils from rolling off his desk. For those in the know: "Pass your hand through the flame!"