"Hennesey" kept my teen-aged interests high week after week because of the chemistry of all of the elements described so fondly by other posters. I doubt that an analysis of IMDb- listed TV series would turn up another with as many positive and well thought out comments.
Well-turned programs like "Hennesey" entertain because they invite viewers to join the compelling mind-set of the creative team that put the program together. With the "Hennesey" package, that participation (even for we passive couch potatoes) was never boring and always intriguing. Similarly, about a decade later, the short-lived James Garner revisionist western series "Nichols" accomplished the same in a hardscrable southwest during the World War I era.
Although both series are stylistically different, each was blessed with a team of writers, producers and actors who told themselves: "We CAN do it this way" and "Millions WILL love it." Luckily, for a while, enough network suits agreed. And back then each series succeeded without injections of robotic laff tracks, gratuitous sex, violence and cadavers and, with all due respect, to Larry David, profanity.
As a kid, I predicted that the adult world would be filled with the kinds of characters populating "Hennesey," "The Tonight Show With "Jack Paar" and "Omnibus." My high school steady looked not unlike Abby Dalton but none of my dentists over the past half century could match the one on "Hennesey" invented by Mr. Komack.
Well-turned programs like "Hennesey" entertain because they invite viewers to join the compelling mind-set of the creative team that put the program together. With the "Hennesey" package, that participation (even for we passive couch potatoes) was never boring and always intriguing. Similarly, about a decade later, the short-lived James Garner revisionist western series "Nichols" accomplished the same in a hardscrable southwest during the World War I era.
Although both series are stylistically different, each was blessed with a team of writers, producers and actors who told themselves: "We CAN do it this way" and "Millions WILL love it." Luckily, for a while, enough network suits agreed. And back then each series succeeded without injections of robotic laff tracks, gratuitous sex, violence and cadavers and, with all due respect, to Larry David, profanity.
As a kid, I predicted that the adult world would be filled with the kinds of characters populating "Hennesey," "The Tonight Show With "Jack Paar" and "Omnibus." My high school steady looked not unlike Abby Dalton but none of my dentists over the past half century could match the one on "Hennesey" invented by Mr. Komack.