User Reviews

Like most everyone else, I was too young to clearly remember this show. What I do remember is that the show contained male tenderness (seldom on display on the small screen), that the leading men were not tough guys (although they were tough), and that the thoughtfulness in the storytelling thrilled me. Unconsciously, IAMW became my measuring stick for the quality of television. Not many shows have measured up.

As important as the scripts were, I remember being so impressed with the four "men" who formed the cast. Glenn Corbett was my personal role model, but I remember being so taken with Ted Bessell that I became a That Girl watcher because he was on the show. I never understood what drove him to do "Me and the Chimp," even though I watched it.

The integrity of the four leads encouraged me to become the person I am today, and I wish I had the opportunity to visit that houseboat again,

I'm amazed to see that so many comments are from folks who saw this at such young ages: I was 15 and enraptured by a show that was completely different from anything else that was on the air then. The plots were realistic with a comic edge, the dialog was intelligent without pretension. Admittedly, I was attracted to the guys physically, as well as to their characters. Do you suppose that the show's end came because somebody caught on to the homoerotic or at least homosocial subtext? I mean, so many write here that they sent letters protesting cancellation--and it looks as if quite a few were young boys....network execs weren't afraid of exploiting sexuality within the bounds of existing "codes" but IAMW might have pushed too near the boundaries. With todays (relatively, misleadingly) relaxed attitudes , the idea of this show might float(as it were) but it wouldn't be done with such sweetness, brightness, innocence and whimsy. Seeing that so many other remember IAMW as I do, I am happier.

Remenber it well. Found a collector years ago who sent me the series on VHS. Still have it. Quality TV from the guy who did Father Know Best.

It's difficult to explain exactly why IAMW was such an extraordinarily fine piece of television theater. Partially, of course, is that it was produced at a time when most television drama was either heavy-duty major productions or amazingly stupid sit-coms. IAMW was well acted, well produced and well written. It showed a group of ordinary, nice people getting on with their lives as best they could. The dialog was intelligent. The characters were people you knew from your own life. There were no terrible crises, no violence, no darkness beyond people worrying about what the right thing to do was, but it wasn't Beaver Knows Best and Father is a Dope, which were your other choices. It wasn't bland. It wasn't simple. It wasn't boring. It was real and it was decent and it was interesting. What more can you ask for?

I just barely remember this show but I do remember I loved it. Four young men living on a houseboat somewhere in New England, two of them brothers. The two other characters were Tom Tom and Vern. Tom Tom (Ted Bessell), read poetry in the cemetery. I remember Vern saying, "Shoot that's the best thing since seedless grapes" or sliced bread, or something like that. I was very disappointed when it went off the air, though sometime later Bessell ended up on "That Girl' and Corbett replaced George Maharis on "Route 66" for a while and even showed up as the original Zephram Cochran on Star Trek. It was a nice story. And if I can remember a short-lived show 40 years after it went off the air, it made an impression.

I'm another fan of IT'S A MAN'S WORLD. All these decades later I remember the characters, the boat, & find it amazing so many people do recall this relatively short lived series fondly & yet UNIVERSAL Studios who is the successor to the Production Company, has not released the entire series on DVD. If they can find silent movies to restore, surely it is possible to restore a 1960's, 18 (maybe), episode TV series. I see the TV Museum does not have it. I see UCLA may have it. Surely someone owns the rights, I'd think Universal, and get about getting this wonderful series out again.I remember Tom Tom being my favorite character. Ted Bessell was a wonderful actor who did go on to co-star in That Girl with Marlo Thomas, And another of the actors made some later Highway 66 TV shows but other than that I do not recall seeing these actors elsewhere. It would be wonderful to see this entire series again. I remember it being very well written for the period that did not have much comedy drama.

I recall watching this show in the summer. I would have been 10 or eleven years old. It made a profound impression on me that has lasted to this day, although I can only remember a few specifics. I remember one of the characters--the comic/goofy one feeling very negative about himself and reciting a version of the poem from Winne the Pooh that has the line "But what did he do...?" I also remember someone's essay or school assignment being spread all over the ground due to some kind of dispute, and then, slowly, people in the town all helping to pick up the sheets. It seemed like a great moment of unspoken reconciliation.

Overall it dealt with the subtleties and nuances of everyday fears and doubts and the small ways in which they can be temporarily overcome. The title sounds sexist today, but in an important way it dealt with male vulnerability--the opposite of macho bravado.

I'd love to see it again if it was ever available.

How amazing to find this discussion about one of the best (but worst-named) shows on television. I have been mulling over this show for 45 years but have never met another human being who remembers it. Like some of the other folks commenting here, I also traipsed in vain to the TV Museum in New York hoping to find some of the episodes. At a time when TV comedies and dramas were formulaic, trite, contrived and wrapped up with little moral lessons, It's a Man's World was about unspoken feelings, confused aspirations, nuance, pain and hope. It anticipated Robert Altman techniques: in one episode where Glenn Corbett and his girlfriend visit a bank officer, his office is being painted by a guy on a ladder in the background; the possibility of a paint can being turned over completely dominates the scene, making it almost impossible to actually follow the dialogue. This business of the background overtaking the foreground is very Altmanesque. I recall as well some scenes with overlapping dialogue that make it difficult to actually hear what is being said -- like pretty much the entire soundtrack to McCabe & Mrs Miller. Judging from the other comments here, this show obviously had a powerful effect on a lot of teenage kids who responded to the realism and subtlety of the show. I simply want to see it again to see if it truly is as good as I remember; how nice to discover I am not the only one who feels this way.

It's been a long time for me, too - I was about 14, I guess, when this was on - but I have never stopped hoping I would get to see it again. I am just thrilled that so many of you remember this wonderful show and would buy it if it were available on DVD. I guess the only thing for us to do is to bombard the tvshowsondvd.com site with our requests. If I knew a better way, I would sure go for it! I am encouraged by the apparent success of the site, as more and more older shows I never thought we would see again are turning up in release.

Whatever happened to Randy Boone, anyway? Such a strong cast, and of course all the other brothers went on to satisfying careers. Surely somewhere in some archives these tapes sit waiting to see the light of day again.

I'm probably the oldest commenter who remembers this wonderful show. I was 28, married with one child and expecting another in 1962 when I was drawn into its world. I loved the characters and the stories, but most of all I loved the theme music and have been looking for it for 46 years.

All the previous comments have expressed what I felt for this show much better than I could. My question for IMDb is, why is Glenn Corbett not listed as a regular member of the cast? He was in every episode, as I recall, but even under his own entry, he is listed in only one episode.

After all these years I'm thrilled to find that so many people remember It's a Man's World, one of my all-time favorite TV shows. If it ever comes out on DVD, I'll be one of the first in line to buy it.

It is Sunday and I was Googling around and ran out of people - so entered It's A Man's World not knowing I would actually find something! I was an extra in Hollywood back when extras were heavily unionized and one had to be registered with Central, Independent and other casting agencies to work. I landed a permanent job on It's A Man's World as double (for Glenn), stand-in (for Randy), and extra on all episodes. I submitted a story line that Peter Tewksbury and James Menzies (co-creators) almost bought - almost! So, they gave me an acting part in the episode entitled "I Count My Life in Coffee Cups" - one line "Hey Gerri" (to actress Diane Sayer). I've been 40+ year personal friends with Kate Murtagh (Mrs. Dobson) and saw Randy at a country music event at the Pomona Fairgrounds about ten years ago. I knew about Ted Bessell of course, but, until visiting this site, knew nothing of Michael Burns or the sad news about Glen. I heard that the negatives were lost - but the TV Archives at UCLA might have them. I would also like to know. This was posted earlier but my email address has changed - is now midnite-zephyr@kc.rr.com Bill Doty

I remember this series. It was like a precursor of things to come. I remember the girl smoking her first cigarette in the car. I remember Ted Bessell drawing caricatures on the border of the poster advertising an upcoming melodrama performance in town. I remember the bond between the brothers, the difficulty of a brother trying to be a parent as well. I remember they were striving to improve their lives as best they could; going to school, working hard, not just hanging out, working while going to school, working to maintain relationships, caring about one another. No gangs, no graffiti, unless you count Tom-Tom's altering the melodrama poster, no swear words, no nudity and any homo-erotic subtleties were in the eyes of gay viewers. And without all that "reality" stuff it was still excellent. Keep your Greek plays, I'll take the Politically Incorrectly titled It's A Man's World over any of them. It was my college experience before college. How I loved that wonderful TV show. I have looked for it for years.

I was thirteen when they canceled It's A Man's World. I walked six hours through two and a half feet of snow to get signatures from neighbors and also at school. I thought my eighty signatures would save the show -- I still remember it, and it's a major reason that I'm a writer today, at sixty-three. I kept tracked over many years of the actors. Glenn Corbett went on to discover Warp Drive on Star Trek, Ted Bessell was wonderful on Marlo Thomas's show, Randy Boone was on The Virginia, etc., and I just watched Michael Burns on Santee with Glenn Ford and Dana Wynter, a western on cable. I think he did Wagon Train for awhile, too. Phd? My, that's big stuff. I've just never been able to get that show out of my mind -- it's a major warm spot in my memories. I grew up on a ranch in near poverty, so that show gave me something else to look to. Lovely work, intelligent work! I'll never forget it, and, yes, I'd buy it on DVD in a heart beat!

I am on board to contact the studio that produced the show to produce the DVD. This is the first sight I have found that even acknowledges that the show existed! I was 17 at the time it was aired and I was amazed at the depth of character and the ability of the writers and actors to capture what was to come in the change of television programing and the American culture.This was a show that was well ahead of it's time. I guess a few of us are left that hold out hope that we can see it again. The episode I remember was when the youngest brother and a friend attempted to return to a spot where they played when younger, only to find that it was excavated for a new housing development. As I said the show was well ahead of it's time. frank

I know I'm just repeating what so many have already written, but I need to add my voice to this

This was the one - the very first one - that made me feel a deep and true melancholy the day I realized it was gone from the airwaves. Every time another 'too good for the masses' series has suffered the same fate, it's this title that rushes to mind.

It's difficult to express exactly why I fell in love with it so deeply. It was so quiet. So real. So human. Incredibly fast it had become as comfortable and soothing as home and family on a chill day and I remember feeling all-day joy when I knew that tonight's the night 'It's A Man's World' is on. And then, without mercy, it was gone. Ripped away.

It was just the beginning of heartbreaks, of course. A little more than a year later 'Hollywood And The Stars' would be taken from us after a single season of greatness. And on it's gone through the years. But 'It's A Man's World' was the first and still brings forth the sharpest remembrance of uncomprehending loss. How could the people not see what it was?

In 1963 I was 29 and recently married and we both watched perhaps every episode of "It's a Man's World." I truly don't recall if it was in color as we were watching it on portable Philco black and white TV. We were floored when it was canceled. I remember that many of the people that I worked with were disappointed as well and were going to write to the network. The sad thing is that it could never be resurrected on todays network television based on today's average viewing public. The only possibility would be if PBS was able to find a copy. It was without a doubt one of the great moments of television and if somehow, someone could produce a DVD I would be one of the first in line to buy it. Jim

I was fourteen when the show began. Must have had a horrible crush on Glenn Corbett. He supplanted preteen crush, Ed "Kookie" Byrnes. My brother and I watched the show faithfully. It appealed to my alienation and it was a cut above everything else on television. In 2001, a writer by the name of Kerry Pechter wrote a great article for the New York Times about the show. The show ranks right up there with one of my other favorites, "Frank's Place" with Tim Reid. You can't get that on DVD either. Really a shame. "It's a Man's World" was great writing, casting, acting. It would be great to see it again and have a window on what moved me at 14.

There are 19 episodes of the one-hour series which aired on NBC from Fall, 1962 until just after the turn of the year, 1963 - and was then canceled by NBC, over many protests nationwide. Copyright is owned by Universal and the "masters" (16mm I believe) are among the holdings of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Archives at UCLA. Director Peter Tewksbury and stars Glenn Corbett (Wes) and Ted Bessell (Tom Tom) are all now deceased. Star Michael Burns (a Yale PhD, author and retired professor from Mt.Holyoke College lives in Danville, KY); star Randy Boone still lives in southern California. How do I know? I worked on all 19 episodes of "It's A Man's World." Bill (Now ret. in Kansas City)

I was older than many of the reviewers, 21, when IAMW was on NBC. I was a UCLA senior, taking a class at their on campus remedial clinic school as an aide and trainee, and every Monday "It's A Man's World" was the talk of the students, 11-12 years old. I was still living at home and watched it with my parents, who enjoyed it as much as I did. When it was canceled in favor of Monday Night At The Movies because "To Tell The Truth", the quiz show on CBS, was beating it in the ratings, I, along with everyone who watched IAMW were devastated. I wrote many letters, obviously to no avail, along with many others in an unprecedented grass roots campaign to save the show. It was the only show on TV I ever wrote letters about. Like the other writers, I would love to buy the entire series on DVD. It is, I believe available at UCLA to borrow, but has never been made avail- able on VHS or DVD, though two episodes somehow were in circulation that I managed to get about 5 years ago, the weakest episodes in my opinion. I am now 69 and time is running out for me to see these wonderful shows again. And I too, loved the theme music, which is sorely minimal on the two episodes (blurry) that I have. (Update: the series is now available for purchase, which I did, and unfortunately it seems very dated, with only a few episodes that kept me interested, and Ted Bessell's character was really annoying).

Peter Tewkesbury ALMOST made a TV show of Salinger short story 'For Esme With Love and Squalor' but the two men quarreled about casting. There is a subtle 'Salinger' feel to this series and it caught the imagination of high school-college age youth the way Catcher in the Rye once did. Last time I saw Peter he was running a coop food store in Vermont. Glen Corbett was a nude gay model for physique magazines throughout the fifties and note how he keeps himself well under wraps here.

How ironic that they canceled a show that fit perfectly into the youth demographic TV dreams of capturinng.

I can only echo the other reviewers who remember this fine show. Excellent cast, story lines which told the life in a town located on a river. This was all about everyday life and real issues, not contrived ones. I can remember this old fella named "Pop" I think and the guys who lived on this houseboat called "The Elephant" and towboats on the river. The relationships between man and woman were portrayed in a realistic fashion. I wish it were on longer than NBC allowed it but I was caught in the "get-my-studies-completed-at -the university-first" web that left me in a social vacuum. But I do remember writing NBC protesting the lapsing of this fine show. Too bad it didn't last; I enjoyed every episode I had a chance to see; thanks for the others who wrote remembering it, too.

I recently bought all 19 episodes from a seller on iOffer.com. Quality is reasonably good, on 10 dvds. Unfortunately the episodes are not in order, but an accurate listing in available on TV.com. There has never been anything like this, before or after. Co-creator Peter Tewksbury had been a major creative force behind the long running Father Knows Best series.

Whereas FNB was generally a tidy and orderly show, It's A Man's World was the opposite, rowdy, disorderly, untidy, loud and raw. OK, viewing it now you could think it's pretty dated, but for me I'm transported back to 1962. We've come a long way. My eyes tear up at least once in each episode.

My favorite episode of the seven that I saw in 1962 before it was cancelled on my local station was Molly Pitcher And The Green Eyed Monster.

All episodes are now on Youtube. I do not know if people who didn't see IAMW as it originally aired in 1962 will appreciate it as much, or at all. Maybe you had to be there, 1962. For all the people who have remembered this gem on IMDb, it feels like family.

Perhaps the first TV show I understood was fine production that offered entertainment and intelligent content. As an 18 year old, I had begun to develop discerning taste; this show was important part of that process. Production values quite good: writing, directing, acting all excellent. How I wish I could see it again. I think it could not be reproduced today with same effect; cast members are gone, TV is not the same medium it was then. It would be wonderful if the one season of this show could be made available for viewing. It would be a nice walk down memory lane and allow persons who have not seen it the opportunity to view a very fine past TV show.

I forgot about this show until I was searching for information about "Adventures in Paradise", which aired about the same time. It must have been during the summer between my junior and senior years in high school when this show caught my attention. Maybe because of my similar age at the time, but I somehow felt like I knew these guys, or perhaps wanted to.

Reading the other comments made here, "It's A Man's World" clearly struck a chord with quite a few viewers. I recall the unique quality of the show, and the way it touched the viewer in a way no other TV program did at the time. And I remember the loss I felt when the show was canceled - like when a good friend moves away. It really had something special, and it feels good to remember it again.

It was the most intelligent show on television at the time. I wrote to the Television Museum in New York when they first opened to see if they had this in their archives but they did not. I would really love to see this show again. I was only eleven years old when this show was on the air but remember how incredibly disappointed I was when it was taken off. I remember it being about a bunch of brothers that lived together and their issues around relationships. I think the show "Thirty Something" was close to the themes discussed in this show. Way ahead of its time for television. I felt it was a very deep and adult show and appreciated their appeal to my intelligence.