Trivia / The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis

• Actor Allusion: The reunion has Maynard mention having been shipwrecked on an island for some time.
• The Cast Showoff: Dwayne Hickman made a few records to cash in on his fame as Dobie, as was the norm for stars of teen sitcoms in that era regardless of whether they could actually sing. He recorded one album and a few singles, none of which sold well.
• Colbert Bump: Post-2000s, many people paid attention to this show once word spread around that the cast inspired Shaggy, Fred, Velma and Daphne of Scooby-Doo.
• Dawson Casting:
  • 25– to 29-year-old Dwayne Hickman as Dobie.
  • 24– to 28-year-old Bob Denver as Maynard.
  • 22-year-old Warren Beatty as Milton Armitage.
  • 20-year-old Michael J. Pollard as Jerome Krebs.
  • Averted with Tuesday Weld (Thalia) and Sheila James (Zelda), who were 16 and 18 respectively when the show first began.
• Divorced Installment: In the late sixties, DC Comics printed tweaked versions of their Dobie Gillis comics, resulting in "The Way-Out World of Windy and Willie".
• Irony as She Is Cast:
  • Sheila James Kuehl (then billed as Sheila James) as Zelda, a very man-hungry (well, Dobie-hungry) young woman. In reality, Ms. Kuehl is an out-and-proud lesbian. (Although not "out" during the show's run in the late 50's and early 60's, she was already well aware of her orientation at the time.) It's said that a "Zelda" spinoff was scotched because executives somehow got wind of her sexual orientation. Not that it hurt her too badly - she went into law, then politics and became a California legislator for years before being termed out in the early '00s.
  • Maynard G. Krebs and Dobie Gillis being drafted into the Army in season 2 becomes this considering that Bob Denver was drafted early in the first season^note the series' fifth episode, titled "Maynard's Farewell to the Troops" was written as an Put on a Bus exit storyline; only for a previous neck injury to cause Denver to fail his physical. Denver would ultimately miss only one episode before The Bus Came Back, allowing Denver to return for the show's 7th episode, "Greater Love Hath No Man".
• Real-Life Relative: Dwayne Hickman's older brother Darryl Hickman played Dobie's older brother Davey Gillis in the Season One episodes "The Right Triangle", "Deck the Halls" and "Where There's a Will".
• Recycled Script: A few Season 3 and Season 4 shows were recycled scripts from Season 1.