Dobie Gillis

The last time I saw Dobie, the hero of the TV show The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, was when I was seven. Then he reappeared in my life last night, half a century later, on a laptop screen via youtube. It was an episode I remembered, mostly intact, in black and white. There was Dobie, still a high school student, sitting in front of a statue of Rodin's The Thinker, contemplating aloud about his latest girlfriend and about his buddy Maynard.