Timmy Martin (television character)
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| Timmy Martin | |
|---|---|
 Jon Provost as Timmy Martin |
|
| First appearance | "The Runaway" (1957) |
| Last appearance | "The Wayfarers" (1964) |
| Cause/reason | Cancellation |
| Created by | Robert Maxwell Jack Wrather |
| Portrayed by | Jon Provost |
| Information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Age | 7 (in 1957 debut) |
| Date of birth | 1950 |
| Family | Jed and Abby Clausen, (aged aunt and uncle) Ellen and Jeff Miller, (foster mother and brother) Ruth and Paul Martin, (adoptive parents) |
Timmy Martin is a fictional child character in the long-running, Emmy Award-winning television series Lassie (1954-1973). The character is portrayed by Jon Provost. Timmy appears in all 170 episodes between his debut in the fourth-season opener "The Runaway" (1957), and the eleventh-season opener "The Wayfarers, Part 1" (1964). Timmy is the human companion of a rough collie named Lassie. His fictional television family includes, first, his foster mother Ellen Miller (played by Jan Clayton), his foster brother Jeff Miller (Tommy Rettig), and, in the middle of the fourth season, his adoptive parents Paul and Ruth Martin. Once the Timmy years of the show were launched, Lassie enjoyed its highest ratings. Provost reprised the character in the syndicated series, The New Lassie (1989-1990). Selected Timmy episodes (including the five Timmy Christmas episodes) are available on video and DVD.
Contents |
[edit] Profile
[edit] Timmy's first season, 1957
In in the opening episode of season four, ("The Runaway"), fictional Calverton residents Ellen Miller, her son Jeff, and her father in law, George "Gramps" Miller (George Cleveland) discover seven-year-old tattered runaway Timmy hiding in their barn. Timmy has fled his aged and ill relatives, Abby and Jed Clausen of Olive Bridge, believing he is a burden on their slim resources. Ellen contacts the Clausens and a social worker, and all agree Timmy would benefit from a summer on the farm.[1][2]
In the fourth season episode "Transition", Ellen sells the farm to a young couple, Ruth and Paul Martin (Cloris Leachman and Jon Shepodd) after the death of "Gramps". The Martins adopt Timmy, and Jeff leaves Lassie on the farm when he moves to the city, knowing the dog could never adjust to life in a busy city.[3][2] Leachman and Shepodd would finish the fourth season and then be dropped. Their characters would be played thereafter by Hugh Reilly amd June Lockhart until dropped in the first episode of the eleventh season.
In the fourth season episode, "The Ring", Paul's uncle Petrie (George Chandler) joins the cast. Timmy takes a dislike to him, but Petrie fashions a ring with Lassie's image upon it and Timmy is won over. Petrie is an imaginative man, telling stories about giants and fairies, singing and playing the guitar, and calling square dances to the tunes of his fiddle. He encourages Timmy to have an imaginative life.[4] The ring became a Campbell's Soup premium with 77,000 being distributed to fans.[5] Petrie left the show in the fifth season.
[edit] Subsequent seasons
Following seasons follow Timmy's adventures with Lassie, his family and fellow citizens while occasionally examining his growing pains. With Lassie, he travels to the Grand Canyon and the Air Force Academy. Timmy shows extraordinary concern for the welfare of wild and domestic animals, and has a number of pets including a raccoon named Melonhead and a racing pigeon named Gold Wing.
As the series progressed and environmental issues became a real-life concern across America, producers introduced the subject into the show at the request of the United States Forestry Service. Timmy spearheads a classroom tree planting project called Operation Woodland, he traps and relocates, (rather than kills) the beavers wreaking havoc with a local waterway, builds bluebird nesting boxes, and feeds and protects wildlife during severe winter weather.
[edit] Timmy's friends and community life
Timmy's friends include Scott Richards (Kelly Junge, Jr., 1957) and Boomer Bates (Todd Ferrell, 1958-1959), a chubby boy hired to recreate the Jeff-Porky friendship of the early Miller seasons. When both boys were dropped, Timmy never had another steady "pal" on the show. Classmate Wilhelmina "Willy" Brewster (Linda Wrather, 1957-1961, daughter of the show's producers Jack Wrather and Bonita Granville Wrather) made several appearances.[2] Timmy's adult friends include Ed Washburne (Dick Foran), a hardware store owner and Calverton's fire chief, Doc Weaver (Arthur Space), a veterinarian, Jenny (Florence Lake), the Calverton telephone operator, and Sheriff Miller (Robert Foulk). Timmy's best adult friend is Cully Wilson (Andy Clyde), an eccentric farmer, nature lover, and neighbor of the Martin family. Clyde was hired to fill the grandfatherly role once occupied by George Cleveland (Gramps) and George Chandler (Uncle Petrie Martin).
Timmy is a Christian; he attends church, prays at his bedside, and, in one episode "Lassie's Gift of Love", sings Silent Night as a solo in church on Christmas Eve. In a 1957 episode titled "The Cub Scout", Timmy joins the cub scouts while his mother becomes a den mother. Timmy bicycles mornings to a one room schoolhouse near Calverton and is instructed by Amy Hazlit (Sally Bliss). Timmy's bedroom is decorated with 4-H camp pennants, and, in some episodes, is involved in 4-H projects.
[edit] Timmy's last Lassie appearance
As Lassie entered the mid-sixties, Jack Wrather was concerned that Jon Provost, now a teenager, was outgrowing the role of Timmy Martin. Additionally, actor Provost wanted to leave the show. Wrather and his associates decided Lassie and the Martin family would part company, and, in "The Wayfarers", the opening three part episode of the eleventh season (1964), the Martins emigrate to Australia while Lassie remains in the States due to Australia's strict quarantine regulations. Lassie finds a home with a forest ranger named Corey Stuart. Timmy Martin is never seen on the show again.[2]
[edit] The New Lassie
The Timmy Martin character was revived in the syndicated series The New Lassie (1989–1990) starring Provost as adult character Steve McCullough. In the seventh episode, June Lockhart reprised her role as Ruth Martin when Steve McCullough is revealed to be Timmy Martin. When the Martins emigrated to Australia in Lassie, Timmy was left in the States having never been properly adopted.
[edit] Production details
The character of Timmy was created by the show's owner Jack Wrather and producer Robert Maxwell prior to the fourth season. Wrather had purchased the show from Maxwell and anticipated a long and successful life for his $3,250,000 Emmy-winning investment but Tommy Rettig, the fifteen-year-old child actor portraying Jeff Miller in the series, wanted to leave the show after a three year stint. Jan Clayton wanted to return to theater and out of the show as well. Wrather and his associates quietly reworked the show, easing Rettig, Clayton, and others out of the picture. With a new storyline (and fictional family) waiting in the wings, Wrather's wife and associate producer Bonita Granville Wrather personally selected Jon Provost for the role of Timmy, naming the character after her mother, "Timmie". Provost was the only actor considered for the role.[2][6]
[edit] Response
The highest rankings in the Neilsen rankings for Lassie were the Timmy years: #24 in 1957, #22 in 1958, #15 in 1959, #15 in 1961, #21 in 1962, #13 in 1963, and #17 in 1964. The only year the show did not climb into the top twenty-five was 1960, when it ran opposite Walt Disney Presents on ABC and Shirley Temple Theatre on NBC. With the departure of the Martin family in the eleventh season, the show began a steady decline in ratings.[2]
Photographic and painted images of Jon Provost as Timmy Martin wearing his red-and-white gingham checked shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers were frequently used to promote a variety of merchandise marketed during Timmy years of the show. Provost as Timmy appeared on the covers of Whitman novels, Dell comic books, Campbell's Soup labels and in the soup company's television commercials.[2] A complete line of boys' wear -- shirts, pants, sweaters, ties, and more -- bore the label: Jon Provost, Timmy of the Lassie series.[6]
Long after the show's cancellation, Jon Provost's Keds were placed on display in the Smithsonian Institution's television collections.
"Timmy's in the well!" became a popular catchphrase years after the show's cancellation in reference the many show situations in which Timmy's safety and welfare were placed in jeopardy. Although Timmy never fell into a well on the show, Jon Provost chose the phrase as the title for his 2007 memoirs, Timmy's in the Well: The Jon Provost Story.[6]
[edit] References
- ^ "The Runaway". Lassie. 1957-09-08. No. 104, season 4.
- ^ a b c d e f g Collins, Ace (1993-10-01). Lassie: A Dog's Life. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0140231830. OCLC 29878000.
- ^ "Transition". Lassie. 1957-12-01. No. 116, season 4.
- ^ "The Ring". Lassie. 1958-01-19. No. 123, season 4.
- ^ "The Pony". Lassie. 1958-02-09. No. 126, season 4.
- ^ a b c Provost, Jon (2007-11-01). Timmy's in the Well: The Jon Provost Story. Nashville, Tennessee: Cumberland House. ISBN 978-0140231830. OCLC 154674404.
