I remember really enjoying The Second Hundred Years as a kid, although I must have caught it during the summer reruns. When it originally aired Wednesday nights at 8:30, it went directly against The Beverly Hillbillies, and that was one show our family never missed.
This was also a great time for those wonderfully strange fantasy sitcoms. We had I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, My Mother the Car, It’s About Time and The Flying Nun, so a comedy about a man being frozen for 67 years probably didn’t seem nearly as crazy then as it does today.
Monte Markham played Luke Carpenter, a 33-year-old gold prospector who disappeared in Alaska in 1900 and was thawed out in 1967. Technically, he was now 101 years old, but he still looked 33.
Arthur O’Connell played Luke’s 67-year-old son Edwin, while Markham also played Edwin’s 33-year-old son Ken. That meant grandfather and grandson looked almost identical, while Luke’s own son looked decades older than he did.
The series actually got off to an impressive start. Its premiere reportedly beat The Beverly Hillbillies in the ratings, but the audience dropped quickly and only 26 episodes were produced during the 1967-68 season.
The cast went on to some familiar places. Monte Markham later played Perry Mason, appeared on Baywatch and turned up on The Golden Girls as Blanche’s brother Clayton. Bridget Hanley soon became Candy Pruitt on Here Come the Brides, while Frank Maxwell later appeared for years on General Hospital.
It lasted only one season, but this is one of those forgotten shows that somehow stayed in my memory.
Does anyone else remember The Second Hundred Years, or did you discover this one later in reruns?