Desilu Studios Archives - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

When I think of My Favorite Martian, I really don’t remember watching it as a first-run show — I remember the repeats. After looking into it, I have a feeling I’m far from alone.

The show originally aired Sunday nights at 7:30 on CBS from 1963 through 1966, right after Lassie and immediately before The Ed Sullivan Show. And here’s something I never really thought about: at the same time over on NBC, it was going head-to-head with Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. That’s quite a Sunday night television lineup!

The opening I’m showing here is from 1965, when My Favorite Martian finally made the jump to color for its third and final season. The first 75 episodes were black-and-white, while only the last 32 were produced in color. Production also moved from Desilu to MGM that final year.

But here’s why so many of us may remember the show from later. Almost immediately after the CBS run ended, My Favorite Martian went into syndication. I found a 1967 television-industry advertisement promoting all 107 episodes to stations as “The Martian Strip,” with the show already running or being sold in major markets around the country.

So while Uncle Martin originally belonged to Sunday nights, reruns probably created a whole second generation of viewers who never really thought about when the show originally aired. I think I’m one of them.

And once that George Greeley theme starts, I’m right back there again!

Do you remember watching My Favorite Martian on Sunday nights, or like me, do you mostly remember it from the reruns?

There’s no special birthday or anniversary behind today’s Ken Berry clips. They just happened to come up, and after seeing him in Mayberry R.F.D., it seemed only right to go back to the role that first made him a television star, Captain Wilton Parmenter on F Troop

Parmenter was a well-meaning but accident-prone officer who became a Civil War hero completely by mistake after his sneezes were misunderstood as orders to charge. From there, he was placed in command of Fort Courage, where Sergeant O’Rourke and Corporal Agarn ran their own questionable business deals while trying to keep the captain out of trouble

Ken Berry’s background as a singer and dancer helped make his falls, reactions and physical comedy look effortless. Before F Troop, he served in the Army with Leonard Nimoy and later became part of Desilu’s talent-development program after attracting the attention of Lucille Ball.

Melody Patterson was only 15 when she auditioned for Wrangler Jane after claiming she was 18, although she had turned 16 by the time filming began. Jane could ride and shoot better than most of Fort Courage’s soldiers, but Captain Parmenter somehow remained completely unaware that she was in love with him.

And then there was that unforgettable opening theme. William Lava composed the music and Irving Taylor wrote the lyrics, creating a song that quickly explained how Parmenter accidentally became a hero and ended up commanding F Troop. It was almost a miniature episode before the show even began.

F Troop lasted only two seasons, from 1965 through 1967, but Ken Berry, Forrest Tucker, Larry Storch, Frank de Kova and Melody Patterson created the kind of cast chemistry that kept the show popular through decades of reruns