Love on a Rooftop
Encyclopedia
Love on a Rooftop is an American sitcom
about a newlywed couple, Dave and Julie Willis, and their humorous struggles to survive in San Francisco on Dave's apprentice architect's salary of $85.37 a week. Matters were complicated by the fact that Julie's rich father did not approve of their less than luxurious lifestyle and often took it upon himself to try and improve it, much to Dave's chagrin.
The series was produced by Screen Gems
, the production company behind shows such as Gidget
, Bewitched
, and I Dream of Jeannie
. It premiered on September 6, 1966 on ABC
and stars Pete Duel
, credited at the time as Peter Deuel, and Judy Carne
in the leads. Also in the regular cast were Rich Little
and Barbara Bostock
as the Willis’ neighbors, and Herb Voland
and Edith Atwater
as Julie's parents. All thirty episodes of the series were filmed in color.
) is an apprentice architect who strongly believes in the importance of being practical. His wife, Julie Willis {born Julie Hammond} (Judy Carne
), an art student, is the opposite, placing more emphasis on attending to the needs of the heart and soul than on keeping the budget.
Fred Hammond (Herb Voland
) is Julie's father. He owns nine used car lots and is quite wealthy because of it, a fact that he often points out to Dave. Fred is reluctant to let go of his daughter and spends much of his time trying to protect her from what he sees as the life of abject poverty to which Dave has doomed her. Phyllis Hammond (Edith Atwater
) is much more understanding than her husband and does her best to welcome Dave into the family, even though Fred would prefer he get out.
Stan (Rich Little
) and Carol Parker (Barbara Bostock
) live in the same apartment building as the Willises. Stan is an eccentric who never holds a steady job because he spends most of his time coming up with inventions and oddball moneymaking schemes. Carol is his devoted wife who has full faith in all of his ideas. Both are Dave and Julie's best friends.
In need of a new place to start their lives together, Julie finds an unfurnished converted store room with no windows that has one major perk: direct access to the roof of the apartment building which offers a beautiful view of San Francisco. Julie feels that the place has charm and atmosphere, plus the rent is cheap.
The newlywed couple becomes friends with fellow tenants, Stan and Carol Parker. Stan quickly develops the habit of coming into their apartment unannounced in order to share his ideas with them. Also in the habit of showing up unannounced, although much less welcome than Stan, is Julie's father, Fred Hammond, who is always finding a way to meddle in Dave and Julie's lives, while his ever-patient wife, Phyllis, watches in amusement. Dave, however, is adamant that he and Julie will not accept Fred's help, especially if it is monetary, a stance that causes much contention between the two men.
The humor in the series is formed, not simply out of the situations in which the characters find themselves, but out of the ways in which the differing personalities that regularly pass through the Willis’ apartment react to the situations and, in the process, to each other.
, another ABC series that premiered that year and went on to have a five-year run, Love on a Rooftop was cancelled at the end of its first season. However, both Judy Carne and Pete Duel continued with their television careers - she, as a regular on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
, which ended when she left the series in late 1969 - and he co-starring in Alias Smith and Jones
, which ended shortly after his death in 1971.
During the summer of 1971 (when Duel was starring in Alias Smith and Jones), ABC re-broadcast Love On a Rooftop. However, the series was never sold into syndication
and has not been seen on television since.
* The unaired version of the pilot episode credits Bernard Slade as the sole writer
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
about a newlywed couple, Dave and Julie Willis, and their humorous struggles to survive in San Francisco on Dave's apprentice architect's salary of $85.37 a week. Matters were complicated by the fact that Julie's rich father did not approve of their less than luxurious lifestyle and often took it upon himself to try and improve it, much to Dave's chagrin.
The series was produced by Screen Gems
Screen Gems
Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation....
, the production company behind shows such as Gidget
Gidget (TV series)
Gidget is an American sitcom about a surfing, boy-crazy teenager called "Gidget" and her widowed father Russ Lawrence, a UCLA professor. Sally Field stars as Gidget with Don Porter as her father. The series was first broadcast on ABC from September 15, 1965 through April 21, 1966...
, Bewitched
Bewitched
Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York and Dick Sargent , Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban...
, and I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie is a 1960s American sitcom with a fantasy premise. The show starred Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie, and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries...
. It premiered on September 6, 1966 on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
and stars Pete Duel
Pete Duel
Pete Duel was an American actor, best known for his role in the television series Alias Smith and Jones.-Early life:Peter Ellstrom Deuel was born in Rochester, New York, and grew up in nearby Penfield....
, credited at the time as Peter Deuel, and Judy Carne
Judy Carne
Judy Carne is an English actress best remembered for the phrase "Sock it to me!" on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.-Career:...
in the leads. Also in the regular cast were Rich Little
Rich Little
Richard Caruthers "Rich" Little is a Canadian-American impressionist and voice actor. He has long been known throughout the world as a top impersonator of famous people, resulting in his nickname, "The Man of a Thousand Voices"....
and Barbara Bostock
Barbara Bostock
Barbara Bostock is a retired American actress. In 1955 she appeared in "Silk Stockings" at the Imperial Theatre in New York City...
as the Willis’ neighbors, and Herb Voland
Herb Voland
Herb Voland , who also performed under his full name Herbert Voland, was an American actor, best known for his role as General Brandon Clayton on the hit CBS-TV show M*A*S*H from 1972 to 1973.-Career:...
and Edith Atwater
Edith Atwater
Edith Atwater was an American stage, film and television actress.Born in Chicago, Illinois, Atwater made her Broadway debut in 1933. In 1939 she starred in The Man Who Came to Dinner....
as Julie's parents. All thirty episodes of the series were filmed in color.
Characters
Dave Willis (Pete DuelPete Duel
Pete Duel was an American actor, best known for his role in the television series Alias Smith and Jones.-Early life:Peter Ellstrom Deuel was born in Rochester, New York, and grew up in nearby Penfield....
) is an apprentice architect who strongly believes in the importance of being practical. His wife, Julie Willis {born Julie Hammond} (Judy Carne
Judy Carne
Judy Carne is an English actress best remembered for the phrase "Sock it to me!" on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.-Career:...
), an art student, is the opposite, placing more emphasis on attending to the needs of the heart and soul than on keeping the budget.
Fred Hammond (Herb Voland
Herb Voland
Herb Voland , who also performed under his full name Herbert Voland, was an American actor, best known for his role as General Brandon Clayton on the hit CBS-TV show M*A*S*H from 1972 to 1973.-Career:...
) is Julie's father. He owns nine used car lots and is quite wealthy because of it, a fact that he often points out to Dave. Fred is reluctant to let go of his daughter and spends much of his time trying to protect her from what he sees as the life of abject poverty to which Dave has doomed her. Phyllis Hammond (Edith Atwater
Edith Atwater
Edith Atwater was an American stage, film and television actress.Born in Chicago, Illinois, Atwater made her Broadway debut in 1933. In 1939 she starred in The Man Who Came to Dinner....
) is much more understanding than her husband and does her best to welcome Dave into the family, even though Fred would prefer he get out.
Stan (Rich Little
Rich Little
Richard Caruthers "Rich" Little is a Canadian-American impressionist and voice actor. He has long been known throughout the world as a top impersonator of famous people, resulting in his nickname, "The Man of a Thousand Voices"....
) and Carol Parker (Barbara Bostock
Barbara Bostock
Barbara Bostock is a retired American actress. In 1955 she appeared in "Silk Stockings" at the Imperial Theatre in New York City...
) live in the same apartment building as the Willises. Stan is an eccentric who never holds a steady job because he spends most of his time coming up with inventions and oddball moneymaking schemes. Carol is his devoted wife who has full faith in all of his ideas. Both are Dave and Julie's best friends.
Plot
Apprentice architect Dave Willis meets art student Julie Hammond when his liverwurst on pumpernickel sandwich falls into her bag while she is passing by a building on which he is working. In pursuit of his lunch, he chases after her until she stops in a local park. Upon getting his first good look at Julie, Dave loses interest in the sandwich and the two start to talk. So begins a whirlwind courtship that quickly leads to marriage, despite Dave's misgivings about getting married while he only makes $85.37 a week.In need of a new place to start their lives together, Julie finds an unfurnished converted store room with no windows that has one major perk: direct access to the roof of the apartment building which offers a beautiful view of San Francisco. Julie feels that the place has charm and atmosphere, plus the rent is cheap.
The newlywed couple becomes friends with fellow tenants, Stan and Carol Parker. Stan quickly develops the habit of coming into their apartment unannounced in order to share his ideas with them. Also in the habit of showing up unannounced, although much less welcome than Stan, is Julie's father, Fred Hammond, who is always finding a way to meddle in Dave and Julie's lives, while his ever-patient wife, Phyllis, watches in amusement. Dave, however, is adamant that he and Julie will not accept Fred's help, especially if it is monetary, a stance that causes much contention between the two men.
The humor in the series is formed, not simply out of the situations in which the characters find themselves, but out of the ways in which the differing personalities that regularly pass through the Willis’ apartment react to the situations and, in the process, to each other.
Reception
Despite having better ratings than That GirlThat Girl
That Girl is an American television situation comedy that ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971. It stars Marlo Thomas as the title character, Ann Marie, an aspiring actress, who had moved from her hometown of Brewster, New York to make it big in New York City...
, another ABC series that premiered that year and went on to have a five-year run, Love on a Rooftop was cancelled at the end of its first season. However, both Judy Carne and Pete Duel continued with their television careers - she, as a regular on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In is an American sketch comedy television program which ran for 140 episodes from January 22, 1968, to May 14, 1973. It was hosted by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin and was broadcast over NBC...
, which ended when she left the series in late 1969 - and he co-starring in Alias Smith and Jones
Alias Smith and Jones
Alias Smith and Jones is an American Western series that originally aired on ABC from 1971 to 1973. It stars Pete Duel as Hannibal Heyes and Ben Murphy as Jedediah "Kid" Curry, a pair of Western cousin outlaws trying to reform...
, which ended shortly after his death in 1971.
During the summer of 1971 (when Duel was starring in Alias Smith and Jones), ABC re-broadcast Love On a Rooftop. However, the series was never sold into syndication
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
and has not been seen on television since.
Episode list
| # | | Title | Director | Writer | Original airdate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pilot | E.W. Swackhamer E.W. Swackhamer Egbert Warnderink "E. W." Swackhamer Jr. was an American television and film director.... |
Albert Mannheimer Albert Mannheimer Albert Mannheimer was an American writer, principally of screenplays, including the Academy Award nominated screenplay for Born Yesterday, which screenplay also received the Writers Guild of America award for Best Written American Comedy Award.He was a protege of philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand in... * |
September 6, 1966 |
| 2 | "117 Ways to Cook Hamburger" | E.W. Swackhamer | Bernard Slade Bernard Slade Bernard Slade is a Canadian playwright and screenwriter.Born in St. Catharines, Ontario, Slade began his career as an actor with the Garden Center Theatre in Vineland, Ontario. In the mid-1960s, he relocated to Hollywood and began to work as a writer for television sitcoms, including Bewitched... |
September 13, 1966 |
| 3 | "My Husband, the Knight" | E.W. Swackhamer | Bernard Slade | September 20, 1966 |
| 4 | "The Big Brass Bed" | E.W. Swackhamer | Bernard Slade | September 27, 1966 |
| 5 | "The Six Dollar Surprise" | E.W. Swackhamer | Bernard Slade | October 4, 1966 |
| 6 | "The Chocolate Hen" | E.W. Swackhamer | Bernard Slade | October 11, 1966 |
| 7 | "Homecoming" | E.W. Swackhamer | Bernard Slade | October 18, 1966 |
| 8 | "One Picture is Worth…" | E.W. Swackhamer | Bernard Slade | October 25, 1966 |
| 9 | "Chinchilla Rag" | Robert Rosenbaum | James Henerson | November 1, 1966 |
| 10 | "Who is Sylvia?" | Claudio Guzmán Claudio Guzmán Claudio Guzmán was a Chilean-American television director, producer, art director, and production designer... |
Richard Baer | November 15, 1966 |
| 11 | "War on a Rooftop" | E.W. Swackhamer | Bernard Slade | November 22, 1966 |
| 12 | "Dave's Night Out" | Claudio Guzmán | John McGreevey | November 29, 1966 |
| 13 | "There's Got to Be Something Wrong with Her" | Jerry Bernstein | John McGreevey | December 6, 1966 |
| 14 | "But is it Really You?" | E.W. Swackhamer | Bernard Slade | December 13, 1966 |
| 15 | "The Fifty Dollar Misunderstanding" | Alex Grashoff | James Henerson | December 20, 1966 |
| 16 | "Frocks of Trouble" | Claudio Guzmán | Barbara Avedon | December 27, 1966 |
| 17 | "Going Home to Daughter" | Robert Ellenstein Robert Ellenstein Robert Ellenstein was an American film, television and theatre actor.The son of Meyer Ellenstein, a Newark dentist, Robert Ellenstein grew up in that New Jersey city and saw his father go on to become its two-term mayor. He served in the Air Corps during World War II: earning a Purple Heart during... |
James Henerson | January 3, 1967 |
| 18 | "Let It Rain" | E.W. Swackhamer | Dorothy Cooper | January 12, 1967 |
| 19 | "King of the Castle" | Jerry Bernstein | Bernard Slade | January 19, 1967 |
| 20 | "My Father, the TV Star" | Richard Kinon | Bernard Slade | January 26, 1967 |
| 21 | "Who Was That Husband I Saw You With?" | Gene Reynolds Gene Reynolds Gene Reynolds is a former American actor turned award-winning television writer, director, and producer.-Early life:He was born Eugene Reynolds Blumenthal on April 4, 1923 to Frank Eugene Blumenthal and Maude Evelyn Blumenthal in Cleveland, Ohio, he was raised in Detroit, Michigan, where his... |
Marty Roth | February 2, 1967 |
| 22 | "Shotgun Honeymoon" | Mack Bing | Dorothy Cooper Foote | February 9, 1967 |
| 23 | "Musical Apartments" | Jerry Bernstein | James Henerson | February 16, 1967 |
| 24 | "Low Calorie Love" | Russell Mayberry | Tom August, Helen August | February 23, 1967 |
| 25 | "The Sell Out" | Leo Phillips | Ron Friedman Ron Friedman Ron Friedman is a productive screenwriter most famous for his work on such successful television shows as G.I. Joe, Gilligan's Island, The Transformers and the Marvel Action Hour shows Iron Man and Fantastic Four.... |
March 2, 1967 |
| 26 | "The Letter Bug" | Russell Mayberry | James Henerson | March 9, 1967 |
| 27 | "Debt of Gratitude" | Russell Mayberry | John McGreevey | March 16, 1967 |
| 28 | "Murder in Apartment D" | Jerry Bernstein | Bernard Slade | March 23, 1967 |
| 29 | "One Too Many Cooks" | Mack Bing | James Henerson | March 30, 1967 |
| 30 | "Stork on a Rooftop" | E.W. Swackhamer | Bernard Slade | April 6, 1967 |