MR PEEPERS STARRING WALLY COX

NBC SITCOM AIRING FROM 1952-1955

Wally Cox started out in New York City giving dance lessons. In the evenings, Cox wrote some stand up routines and tried them out on his roommate, Marlon Brando, and some other friends. They thought he was pretty funny and encouraged him to try out his routine in coffee houses in the Village. These were not jokes or one liners but humorous stories.

NBC discovered him in a coffee house and hired him to star in The Copper, which was about a timid policeman. The story aired on the Philco TV Playhouse and it was a hit. A TV series based on The Copper was attempted but did not work out. So NBC got the idea for a show about a timid science teacher in a small town and Mr. Peepers was born.

MAIN CHARACTERS

Wally Cox as Robinson J. Peepers

Patricia Benoit as Nancy Remington who was the school nurse and Mr. Peepers girlfriend and later wife.

Tony Randall as Harvey Weskitt who was the English teacher and Mr. Peeper's friend.

Marianne Lorne as Mrs. Gurney who was an elderly friend.

When NBC first decided to make the show, early in 1952, the script incorporated lots of slapstick. But Wally Cox insisted on taking it out. His humor was not compatible with any slap stick or violence. The humor from the show came from the characters and down to earth situations dealt with in a funny way.

The show was first aired in the summer of 1952 with Ford Motor Company as the sponsor. It was popular immediately but NBC decided not to renew the show since they felt it was too complicated to film. But there were thousands of letters of protest and when a slot opened up in the fall season, Mr Peepers was on his way.

 

BROADCAST

The show was broadcast live on the East Coast. Kinescopes were made and sent to the West Coast for broadcast there. Kinescopes were very crude, it basically involves filming a television screen while the live broadcast was airing. The films were then sent to the West Coast to be rebroadcast. So it was a film of a film and the film itself wasn't that great a quality.

The show was broadcast in black and white with somewhat crude lighting and the sets were flimsy. These shows were not rerun, just one broadcast and that's it. But UCLA did digital restoration of the shows and they are now available on DVD. The films are of only fair quality, restoration can't make them better than they were originally. But the shows are still good and showcase the gentle humor of Wally Cox.

AFTER THE SERIES

After the show Wally Cox was, unfortunately, typecast as a meek, mild intellectual. For the rest of his life he played, with few exceptions, variations on Mr. Peepers. A few years after the show ended he was offered the lead in Hiram Holiday about a proofreader who goes around the world as a spy. It didn't last long and Wally Cox perhaps his greatest success as a regular guest star on the game show Hollywood Squares.