It's a Man's World (TV series)

It's a Man's World
Title Card
Format	Comedy/Drama
Created by	Peter Tewksbury James Leighton
Starring	Glenn Corbett Michael Burns Ted Bessell Randy Boone
Country of origin	USA
No. of seasons	1/2
No. of episodes	19
Production
Running time	60 min
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Original run	September 17, 1962 – January 28, 1963

It's a Man's World is a 19-episode comedy/drama television series centered on four young men who live in a houseboat called the Elephant, which is moored at an Ohio River town named Cordella, in Ohio. The program aired on NBC from September 17, 1962, to January 28, 1963.

The characters

The main characters are pre-law college student Wes Macauley, portrayed by Glenn Corbett (1933–1993) and his younger brother Howie, recently orphaned by an automobile accident, played by Michael Burns (born 1947). Ted Bessell (1935–1996) played Tom-Tom DeWitt, a college student who came from a wealthy Chicago family. Randy Boone (born 1942), a cousin of Pat Boone and a nephew of Richard Boone, played free spirit Vern Hodges, a talented guitarist from Boone's native North Carolina.

In the story line, Wes is working his way through college at Stott's Service Station, owned by Houghton Stott, played by the late Harry Harvey, Sr. Jan Norris appears as Wes's fiancee, college student Irene Hoff. Other characters, Iona and Virgil Dobson, are portrayed by Kate Murtagh and Scott White, friends of Stott and the four houseboat males. Their daughter, Alma Jean (played by Jeanine Cashell), is interested in Vern. Nora Fitzgerald (played by Ann Schuyler) is interested in Tom-Tom. There is also a dog named Shadrack.

Restless youth syndrome

Peter Tewksbury and James Leighton were the creators of the series, a Revue Studios production. Earl Hamner, Jr., later the creator of CBS's The Waltons, was part of the writing staff. He wrote the episode "A Drive Over to Exeter" in which Vern takes young Howie to a roadhouse in the town, which is known for its beer joints, adult theaters, tattoo parlors, and bordellos. Wes and Tom-Tom suppose that Vern is in search of sexual adventure and is corrupting Wes' younger brother. Yet, it was all so innocent: Vern took Howie to Exeter because he was homesick for North Carolina and thought that the town would be exciting.

It's a Man's World was "ahead of its time": it depicted the restlessness, idealism, and increasing iconoclasm that began to emerge among American youth during the early 1960s. Broadcast at the family hour, It's a Man's World did not shy from the themes of premarital sex, feminism, and the gulf between adults and adolescents, which began to be known as the generation gap. The program coincided with the Cuban Missile Crisis, civil rights disputes, and the emergence of protest singer Bob Dylan. It attracted a minor cult following on college campuses, but it failed to attract mass audiences.

NBC cancelled It's a Man's World on grounds of low Nielsen ratings and ignored viewers who wrote letters of protests, the kind which resurfaced four years later in 1967, when CBS axed Gunsmoke but then reversed itself and gave the long-running western another eight years of production.

Episodes bore such titles as "Four to Go", the series premiere; "Stir Crazy", which introduced Randy Boone to the cast; "Molly Pitcher and the Green Eyed Monster"; "Winning His Way", "The Beavers and the Otters"; "Howie's Adventure"; "The Bravest Man in Cordella"; "The Man on the Second Floor"; "I Count My Life in Coffee Cups"; "The Macauley Profile"; "The Long Way Around"; "Hour of Truth", and "Winter Story", the concluding episode.

Four stars in later roles

All four stars of It's a Man's World advanced to greater roles, Corbett as Martin Milner's second co-star (replacing George Maharis) in the role of Lincoln Case on CBS's Route 66; Burns as the teenager Barnaby West on ABC' s western series Wagon Train as well as appearances on Gunsmoke; Bessell, Donald Hollinger, as the love interest of Ann Marie in ABC's That Girl sitcom starring Marlo Thomas, and Boone as Randy Benton in forty-six episodes of NBC's The Virginian with James Drury, Doug McClure, and Lee J. Cobb and twenty-three segments of Cimarron Strip, a CBS western starring Stuart Whitman.

It's a Man's World faced relatively weak competition at 7:30 Eastern on Mondays from the last season of Clint Walker's western Cheyenne on ABC and the two long-running CBS quiz programs, To Tell the Truth with Bud Collyer and I've Got a Secret with Garry Moore.

External links

• It's a Man's World at the Internet Movie Database