Marty Paseta | The Summer Brothers Smothers Show / July 1968 [TV series]

it must be him

by Douglas Messerli

 

Allan Blye and Mason Williams (writing supervisors, with Sam Bobrick, Ernest Chambers, Ron Clark, Bob Einstein, Carl Gottlieb, John Hartford, Cy Howard, Saul Ilson, Steve Martin, Lorenzo Music, Rob Reiner, Murray Roman, and Mason Tuck), Marty Paseta (director) The Summer Brothers Smothers Show / July 1968 [TV series]

 

In the summer of 1968, Glen Campbell for the three summer episodes hosted The Summer Brothers Smothers Show. Already on the June 23rd show Campbell had sung “For Once in a Lifetime,” during which in the final chorus, a dozen large hogs were ushered in and herded off, somewhat unsuccessfully, by Tom and Dick Smothers, Tommy taking credit for the “highly original idea,” which, he argued, was just a taste of what was to come for the rest of the summer. Dick is sure that with the ideas Tommy has suggested, including boring historical facts and an occasional quick blackout, that the show will be a “summer bummer.”

      More seriously, Campbell sang a duet with Nancy Sinatra in which she sings “I Say a Little Prayer” while he alternates “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” Later with Sinatra and the Smothers Brothers he also sings Roger Miller’s “Squares Make the World Go Round.”

      On the July 1968 show, Jennifer Warnes sang a credible, if somewhat too emphatic version of Joni Mitchell’s “From Both Sides Now.” In the same show Campbell made up a trio with the Everly Brothers singing “Bowling Green.”

      But it was his opening number, a rendition of Vickie Carr’s “It Must Be Him,” sung entirely straight-faced and with all of Carr’s original lyrics that was the most hilarious and outlandish moment in that television summer. Just for a reminder here are a couple of crucial stanzas:

 

I tell myself don't be a chump

Who cares, let him stay away

That's when the phone rings and I jump

And as I grab the phone I pray

 

Let it please be him, oh dear God

It must be him, it must be him

Or I shall die

Or I shall die

Oh hello, hello my dear God

It must be him but it's not him

And then I die

That's when I die

 

    Campbell good naturedly sings the entire song while two women dance around him, he trying to brush them off and ignore them. Finally, a third appears, who the audience soon perceives in Pat Paulsen in drag, a figure Campbell, again singing the refrain, “Let it please be him, oh dear God / It must be him, it must be him,” quickly dismisses as not being the right “him.”

    The girls line up in a row, Campbell completing the song, pushing them each aside, particularly Paulsen, as he continues to belt out the lyrics to his missing male lover.

     By this time, television was certainly pushing the boundaries of sexual content. Paul Lynde was already making his double entendre quips that signified his homosexuality on The Hollywood Squares (Q: "Who determines the sex of a child?" Lynde: "I say let the child make up its own mind!"). But such an obvious gay reference, played out by a recognized heterosexual without turning it into full camp and without “winking”—although at one point while singing “That’s when the phone rings and I jump,” he does a little leap as if he really meant it—was unheard of.

     The performance was later featured on a short film titled Gay Gay Hollywood by Mizzel Films.

 

Los Angeles, September 30, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (September 2023).