My Favorite Martian | |
---|---|
Genre | Sitcom |
Created by | John L. Greene |
Starring |
Ray Walston Bill Bixby Alan Hewitt Pamela Britton |
Theme music composer | George Greeley |
Composer(s) | George Greeley |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 3 |
No. of episodes | 107 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Harry Poppe |
Producer(s) | Jack Chertok |
Camera setup | Single-camera |
Running time | 25 minutes |
Production company(s) | Jack Chertok Television Productions, in association with The CBS Television Network |
Distributor |
Telepictures Distribution Warner Bros. Television Peter Rodgers Organization |
Release | |
Original network | CBS |
Picture format |
Black-and-white (1963–65) (75 episodes) Color (1965–66) (32 episodes) |
Audio format | Monaural |
Original release | September 29, 1963 | – May 1, 1966
Chronology | |
Followed by | My Favorite Martians |
My Favorite Martians | |
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Genre | Animation |
Voices of |
Howard Morris Jonathan Harris Lane Scheimer Jane Webb |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 1 |
No. of episodes | 16 |
Production | |
Producer(s) | Norm Prescott Lou Scheimer |
Running time | 22–24 minutes |
Distributor | Warner Bros. Television Distribution |
Release | |
Original network | CBS |
Original release | September 8 | – December 22, 1973
Chronology | |
Preceded by | My Favorite Martian |
My Favorite Martian is an American television sitcom that aired on CBS from September 29, 1963, to May 1, 1966, for 107 episodes (75 in black and white: 1963–65, 32 color: 1965–66). The show starred Ray Walston as Uncle Martin (the Martian) and Bill Bixby as Tim O'Hara.
John L. Green created the central characters and developed the core format of this series, which was produced by Jack Chertok.
A human-looking extraterrestrial in a one-man spaceship crash-lands near Los Angeles. The ship's pilot is, in fact, an anthropologist from Mars and is now stranded on Earth. Tim O'Hara, a young newspaper reporter for The Los Angeles Sun, is on his way home from Edwards Air Force Base (where he had gone to report on the flight of the X-15) back to Los Angeles when he spots the spaceship coming down. The rocket-powered aircraft had nearly hit the spaceship and caused it to crash.
Tim takes the Martian in as his roommate and passes him off as his "Uncle Martin." Uncle Martin refuses to reveal any of his Martian traits to people other than Tim, to avoid publicity (or panic), and Tim agrees to keep Martin's identity a secret while the Martian attempts to repair his ship. Uncle Martin has various unusual powers: he can raise two retractable antennae from his head and become invisible; he is telepathic and can read and influence minds; he can levitate objects with the motion of his finger; he can communicate with animals; he can freeze people or objects; and he can speed himself (and other people) up to do work.
Ostensibly an inventor by trade, Martin also builds several advanced devices, such as a time machine that transports Tim and the Martian back to medieval England and other times and places, such as St. Louis in 1849 and the early days of Hollywood, and brings Leonardo da Vinci and Jesse James into the present. Another device he builds is a "molecular separator" that can take apart the molecules of a physical object, or rearrange them (a squirrel is made into a human). Another device can take memories and store them in pill form to "relearn" them later. Other devices create temporary duplicates, or levitate Martin and others without the need of his finger.