User Reviews

This series was based on the popular movie series of the same name starring Sandra Dee. Newcomer Sally Field is perfectly cast as Frances "Gidget" Laurence. Sally Field is the star of the show along with Don Porter who played her father, Dr. Russell Lawrence, professor. Betty Connor played her sister, Ann, and she has a brother-in-law. Her best friend, Larue is hysterical. The series was light-hearted with plenty of memorable guest stars like Bonnie Franklin, Richard Dreyfuss, and more. While the series only lasted a season with 32 episodes, it's still enjoyable and light-hearted perfect for the summer months. It's hard to believe that it has been 50 years since Sally Field debut on to our hearts as lovable Gidget. Who would have imagined that she would go on to play the flying nun, win 2 Academy Awards, an Emmy, and more in her long career. It's time that Sally Field got the highest honor of the Kennedy Center Honors.

America's favorite beach girl Gidget after being played by Sandra Dee on screen came to the small screen and it gave Sally Field her first big break. But it was a double edged sword. Who but Field suspected she actually had acting chops. But this show and The Flying Nun left her type cast for years before she showed what she could do in Norma Rae and Places In The Heart.

Not much difference in the big screen and small screen Gidgets. Francine 'Gidget' Lawrence is a happy go lucky teen with surfing and boys on her mind. Her family unit was her widowed father Don Porter and married sister Betty Conner, her rather dense but lovable husband Peter Deuel and what we would now call her BFF Larue, Lynette Winter.

Every week Gidget would get into her usual teen troubles and get out of them after consultation with dear old Dad.

One thing I liked about this show was Don Porter. If you think Hugh Beaumont or Lorne Greene was the wisest TV dad than you never saw Gidget. Always professorial for that's what he did and totally unflappable in any situation Don Porter to me was the ideal TV dad. This man never, ever lost his cool in any situation. Granted these were G rated teen situations still the man was amazing.

If you were to predict Sally Field's career would boast two Oscars within the next quarter century when Gidget was on you would have been sent forthwith to the rubber room. One never knows what lies ahead.

Sally Field as a TV-version of Frances Lawrence, aka 'Gidget', that feisty teenager from a Los Angeles suburb in the 1960s, protesting injustices, standing up for the underdog, surfing on the weekends, and meddling in everyone's lives. This half-hour filmed sitcom with laugh-track only lasted one season before ABC unwisely gave it the heave-ho (due to low ratings, though they suddenly picked up during the '66 rerun season). Still, "Gidget" lives on due to canny, clever writing, rich photo stock (with colors that just POP!), a fun supporting cast, a hummable theme song (warbled by Johnny Tillotson), and of course Field, the quintessential little sister/best friend/project manager. Field was an inexperienced young actress who somehow knew the magical trick of connecting honestly with the TV viewing audience (whether addressing the camera directly or not). Her abilities were part instinct and part God's gift. She's indefatigable but never exhausting, and she makes everyone on-screen her pal as well. As widower father Professor Russell Lawrence, Don Porter (carried over from 1963's theatrical "Gidget Goes to Rome") is attractively bemused and never embarrassed, while Lynette Winter is the perfect embodiment of the misfit best friend (doggedly devoted, sometimes against her will). As Gidget's married sister and brother-in-law, Betty Conner and Peter Deuel seldom get their share of bright lines or stories, though Deuel's starchy skepticism is nearly funny on its own. Despite the product plugs, Gidget's rather under-populated high school, and a few slapstick detours, not a bad way to spend an afternoon. It's nostalgic and upbeat, and Field looks great on a surfboard.

One interesting note about this show is that it is based on a real story/situation.

The real life Gidget was the daughter of a professor at Malibu's Pepperdine College. She hung out at the beach, surfed and generally amused her dad enough that he wrote a story about her life. This story later was turned into the movie 'Gidget' and then turned into this TV show.

My mom herself was a surfer in the late 50's so I always found this show interesting when I watched it on re-runs as a kid. Or course it doesn't hurt that Sally Field is unbelievably adorable! The show airs on TV Land right now and is surprisingly fun to watch.

Gidget originated as a character created by noted screenwriter Frederick Kohner based on his own daughter for the novel "Gidget, the Little Girl with Big Ideas". Gidget is a portmanteau of "girl" and "midget". The novel follows the adventures of a teenage girl and her surfing friends on the beach in Malibu. Columbia Pictures purchased the filming rights and released three movies between 1959 and 1963. In 1965, it was picked up by Screen Gems for a sitcom executive produced by legendary developer Harry Ackerman. Ackerman was simultaneously producing "Bewitched" and the house on Gidget is situated beside the "Bewitched" home. The exterior and kitchen on "Gidget" was lifted from that of "Hazel", which was in it's final season at the time. Field, who was 18, made her TV debut by beating out 75 other girls for the part of Gidget. She lied of her surfing experience and had to learn how to even pretend to surf for the camera.

Reflecting upon the series, "Gidget" had various appealing aspects, but rarely did they all fire at the same time. Some of the more well-written shows, in my opinion, were devoid of comedy ("Now There's a Face"), and some of the funnier shows devoid of being well- written ("We Got Each Other"). The series' highlights are when they do meet to some degree at the end of its run, as in "Take a Lesson" and "A Hard Night's Night". As such, after mostly dragging along for the season, I feel the series was finally hitting its stride near the end.

Like many one-season series, the characters were generally more likable than the plots they were in. Gidget was an identifiable happy-go-lucky well-meaning teen figure with a knack for getting into trouble. Her father was a stoic character lacking dimension. Still yet, they shared a nice father/daughter relationship that gave emphasis for moral lessons on the show with first-person narration that felt as if inside Gidget's diary of teen drama. Anne, too, had little character development. Her husband John was a much-needed touch of comedy, even if it felt like watching a carbon copy of Darren Stephens from the show's sister production "Bewitched". The show worked best for me when it utilized John's character in sitcom settings, rather than a light teen comedy with Gidget paired exclusively with her best friend Larue.

The series faced strong competition from other notable series and was canceled by ABC in 1966 after 32 episodes. Entering the summer, the network realized the show had reached a strong teen following. Being too late to renew Gidget, they worked quickly to place Field in a role she disliked in "The Flying Nun". Nevertheless, Field's screen presence was established.

Only a few years after "The Patty Duke Show", the comedy "Gidget", based upon the film, mines the same veins of comedy.

Gidget, played by Sally Field in her first credited role, is the personification of cute. Wholesome, not hot. Cute also describes the show's humor. Any problems are fairly benign in the safe and fuzzy world where she lives with her father.

Gidget provides voice-overs that describe her inner feelings and provide commentary about her life. What's worse is the laugh track. It only serves to magnify how corny the humor is.

The best thing about this show is Sally Field herself. Her portrayal of the fifteen year old is expectedly cute and corny, but it also displays real acting talent. She built her early career on being cute, but there is evidence of the thoughtful woman who would later become "Norma Rae".

The second best thing about "Gidget" is the theme song.

This short lived series was very important for many of us just becoming teens in the mid-60's. Her clothing, hairdos, language and relationships with friends and boyfriends were fun to tune into once a week and see what life was like (although somewhat not believable!!) for a teenage girl growing up near the beach in California. Sally Field was a darling girl, perfectly cast here, not afraid to make faces, cry, or even do physical comedy in this series. Gidget had her own bedroom with her own Princess telephone (we all wanted one), lived in a wonderful two story home with a beautiful yard and got to drive her dad's cool car sometimes. And yes, she got into and out of a lot of trouble in the 22 minute show,but at that time in our lives, for a half hour, it was believable to many of us. Like The Donna Reed Show, Father Knows Best, and Leave It To Beaver, these were mild comedies, with gentle story lines, usually a moral to be learned, and left us feeling good about ourselves and maybe had a laugh or two during the half hour show. To many people today,this sounds corny and old-fashioned, but it felt like a safer, more comfortable world back then.

Frances "Gidget" Lawrence (Sally Field) lives with her widowed college professor father in southern California. Her overprotective older sister Anne is married to the clueless psych student John Cooper. Gidget spends her time at the beach with her best friend Larue and surfing with the boys.

This TV show follows the movie Gidget starring Sandra Dee six years earlier. It suffers from a bad pilot but does recover to a fun little sitcom. Basically, young Sally Field is adorable and that saves the show. Heck, Sally Field is adorable at all ages. Her dad and her friend Larue get the time to build their characters. They become quite a fun endearing family unit. The sister could use some work to give some more dimensions. The show gets better and then get cancels after one full season. The pilot is probably a problem that couldn't be solved. It drops the show right after the movie. It's jarring. A very boring Moondoggie shows up as her boyfriend and then dropped immediately in the second episode. Without the movie, I don't think anybody would even know how she got the Gidget nickname. Not everybody have seen the movie. It would have been so much better to redo a simplified version of the movie as the pilot and eliminate Moondoggie. In an aside, I assumed that she has a flying nun outfit for Halloween in this show. I didn't realize that The Flying Nun is a different show later in her career. So you're telling me there was a superhero nun show.

By the time ABC filmed the 1965-1966 television version of "Gidget," Frederick Kohner's 1957 novel of that name (based on the adventures of his daughter Kathy) had already provided the basis for three motion pictures. Unlike the Gidget films, however, the television series does not focus on Gidget's romantic involvements. We rarely see her boyfriend Jeff, who is a student at Princeton; and her romantic interests are primarily limited to ill-advised infatuations that do not last beyond a single episode. The television series devotes most of its attention to Gidget's relations with her family, her peers, and her teachers. As with the movies, surfing is an underlying theme, but much of the action takes place away from the beach, and deals with such mundane subjects as school work, dating, getting a job, and learning to drive, as well as more unusual ones such as escaping from a "haunted" house, or evading a witch's "curse." In coping with life, Frances Lawrence, whose diminutive stature earned her the nickname "Gidget" (a contraction of "Girl" and "Midget"), gets advice, sought and unsought, from her father Russ (Don Porter), a UCLA English professor, her sister Anne (Betty Conner), her brother-in-law John (Pete Duel), and her best friend Larue (Lynette Winter). "Gidget" captures the different dynamic that exists in a one-parent, one-child, family--Gidget and her father are especially close. Anne is a somewhat conventional meddling older sister who is trying to make Gidget into a lady. John is an aspiring psychologist who attributes nearly everything to subliminal motives. Gidget customarily ignores their suggestions. Larue is a rather eccentric figure, who visits the beach clad in clothing that conceals everything but her face (and sometimes that as well) because she is allergic to sunlight. Gidget often gets together with Larue to consume exotic sandwiches and discuss whatever problem she is facing. Despite her eccentricities, Larue's judgment is often better than Gidget's, but she sometimes gets drawn into Gidget's misadventures against her will.

Sally Field landed the role of Gidget through a summer workshop screen test. She had participated in secondary school dramatic productions, but she had had no on-screen experience apart from being a supernumerary in the forgettable 1962 film, "Moon Pilot." Although 19 when the program was filmed, Field is entirely credible as the 15-year-old Gidget. And, in mastering this role, she gave early evidence of the acting talent that was to win her many parts (from the Flying Nun to Mary Todd Lincoln) and awards. Her attitude toward the filming of "Gidget" was "absolute total glee," and her performances reflect this. Don Porter served as her mentor; and there was good chemistry between them, both on and off camera. Similarly, Field described Lynette Winter as her "best friend" in real life as well as in the show. Winter brought to her role a veritable arsenal of facial expressions, and a talent for physical comedy perhaps even greater than Field's. It is hard to imagine "Gidget" without these three. Conner and Duel successfully portray an annoying sister and brother-in-law; and Duel displays surprising aptitude for slapstick when he accidentally disconnects the water supply hose to the washing machine, drenching Anne, Gidget, and himself (we are left to wonder what the soaked cat, watching from a corner, thought of this human folly).

"Gidget" is a conglomeration of 1960s artifacts--cars, clothes, hair styles, dances, record players, dial telephones, VHF/UHF television sets, and manual typewriters. In terms of its cast, subject matter and attitudes, it is also a product of its times. Occasionally, there are explicit, if not emphatic, references to sex, and to Gidget's physique. And the cast includes African-Americans playing minor, but respectable, characters. But the women are definitely not liberated. One of Gidget's male acquaintances commands her, "Go fetch food, woman!" Her father tells one of her male classmates what to do "when a woman clamors for complete equality with men," and implies that women really do not want such equality. Gidget receives a spanking in one episode, as does a visiting Swedish female student in another. (No male characters suffer this indignity.) As Gidget concludes in one postscript, "I'd set back women's rights a hundred years--exactly where they belonged." Today, some of this may grate on the nerves, even of those not sensitized to gender issues. On the other hand, in several episodes, Gidget attempts to improve the behavior of her male associates, and, more generally, her participation in surfing involved breaking into what had been a male preserve.

An episode of "Gidget" typically ends with sage advice from Russ, or--better--a humorous epigram from Gidget herself, such as: "You're only young once; but if you work it right, once is enough." Or: "It's too bad you can't be born with maturity, then lose it when you don't need it anymore."

Of course, I could never say that "Gidget" (a fairly goofy, but, otherwise wholesome, mid-1960s, TV Sit-Com) came anywhere near to being great entertainment - But (whether you're male or female) this decidedly wacky, teen-oriented series did offer up (as a bonus) plenty of cheesecake/beefcake, beach party, eye-candy for any viewer whose attention (like mine) couldn't stay focused on Gidget's endless school-girl crushes and her frivolous, day-to-day dramas.

Starring a chubby-cheeked, 18-year-old, Sally Field (playing the part of the pert, virginal, 15-year-old, Frances "Gidget" Lawrence), this short-lived TV show (which only lasted for one season) provided lots of moral instruction for boy-crazy, California, surfer-girls (everywhere) who were out to snag themselves a cute surfer-boy, but required his solemn oath of total respect when it came to the likes of "going-too-far". (nudge. nudge. wink. wink)

I am a fan of all the Gidget movies and TV shows. I have seen them all from the 1959 Gidget to the 1972 Gidget gets married, and the 1985 the new Gidget TV series. My favorite was the 1965 Gidget TV series starring Sally Field and Don Porter. The show was funny innocent, and heart warming. Sally Field was cute, perky, and adorable as the surfer girl midget. She was the best actress who play Gidget in my opinion. She is also the only actress who played Gidget to win three Emmys and 2 Academy Awards. It is hard to believe watching the show that it only ran for one season. I could not wait to get home from school to watch Gidget.

This is one of the cutest shows of that time period. I would watch it every day after school. Sally Fields was wonderfully funny, adorably cute and just wonderful to watch. It was innocent and sweet and just plain, nothing fancy about it. It was boys, and friends and lots of worries for her father who was funny about it. It was growing up, it was enjoying being a teenager it was fun and it was exploring. Shows are made that way anymore. Times and things have changed its a pity, it was an endearing show with a sweet cast. To bad its not around for others to see and some teens to watch. It was before sex was in every teen show, it was before kids were sleeping with one another. Innocent thats what it is, where is innocence at now. I would recommend it to anyone who likes simple, and sweet.

Haven't seen anything in previous reviews re: motivation, at least originally, behind the filming of this show. Gidget was an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the Patty Duke Show, which had been doing very well on ABC since 1963. A couple of very sad notes re: the demise of both programs. When Patty and other actors showed up at the film company to start shooting for the fourth season of the Duke show, they had no idea that the network had been trying to get the production company to pay for having the program shot in color. When the producers said, "no way" (this would have been very rare by the way; the networks always paid for this process, and just shortened the TV season to pay for the increased costs) the show was canceled--on the spot! Gidget hadn't been doing all that well during the regular season, being up against shows like the Beverly Hillbillies, and other established programs. But during the summer time, the show really began to catch on with teenagers all over the USA. By then, however, it was felt that it was too late to continue on with Gidget, so they decided to put Sally Field in another show, and that's where the idea for The Flying Nun came about. Even though that program did pretty well, I can speak from personal experience when I say that they should have let well enough alone. People loved Gidget!

I love the show I got it and watch it all at least every other month. I love the story line and her crazy kid one moment and as wise as an oldster the next as it really is for kids. I know it's hard to believe in the world today but their are still kids like that and they don't flash gang signs or carry guns but U may not want to believe this but they were there then as well. Just didn't have the weapons down like now. I love the Gidgets character she is sweet and a normal kid as I was. But then I've alway crushed on Sally Field and loved all of her work. Like Smokey and the Bandit that was just fun and a feel good show but when she wanted to make a statement she can and did do that with just as much zing in Norma Rae she made you think. This talent has helped me think and look at life in a different way from time to time. Very glad she and her talents were there to say and feel what I couldn't say for the lack of writers>LOL> Thanks Ms. Field. Sincerely; Big Mike H.;Ivanhoe,Ca.

I have to say, in the summertime, it is easy to get latched onto a television show, think about it, American Idol would've never caught on otherwise. I religiously watched Gidget everyday on TV Land at 11:00 pm during the summer. I was spellbound. First of all, Sally Field is so freakishly young, she looks like some wacky apparition or something, like the ghost of careers past. Not to mention its so wonderfully cast (with the exception of Gidget's sister Anne, who just makes me REALLY tired.) And so begins my love affair with Pete Duel (R.I.P.). Overall, Gidget is really a delightful television program. ONE SEASON? ONE SEASON? What was that network thinking?!

Long before shows like "Saved By the Bell" and "Moesha" we had Gidget. This was a pretty interesting look at kids in the mid-1960's and how teen-agers were looked at in those days. It was an okay show for its times, even though it did seem kind of corny. You never would have guessed that this would be the launching point for one of the finest actresses in her era in the person of Sally Field. She gives a good performance of everyone's favorite surfer girl and is probably her third most famous character behind "Norma Rae" and Sister Bertrille. Perhaps the funniest, as well as the most annoying, part of this series were her sister and brother in law. Anne was pretty much a control freak and along with her wannabe Freud husband John were the prototype yuppies before the term was even invented. This was definitely a product of its time.

Frances 'Gidget' Lawrence, was adorable young Sally Field (Forest Gump), the girl who was always going to the beach with a wind breaker. Her best friend was always all covered up except for her face, which was well shaded by the huge hat. She was allergic to the sun! I always wondered why they had to wear wind breakers to go to the beach. Later I lived in California and found that the water of the Pacific Ocean is very cold. The beaches were hilly. I don't remember where the series actually took place. The series was black and white. I watched it dubbed. I remember the show as a whole but not much detail. Gidget herself was a lot of fun. I have good memories of the series.

I am hopelessly addicted to this show, which is way before my time and whose reruns never reach my local TV market. I am fascinated by the stunningly progressive messages that pop up, more in the earliest episodes, I think. (Gidget is such a free thinker, and she can be very good at asserting herself.) They are frequently obliterated or directly contradicted by the old fashioned values of the day, (Gidget takes shop, learns to fix cars expertly, but doesn't apply those skills later when her date's car breaks down, because it's unfeminine) and I am wondering who was writing the scripts? What was going on?

Checking out the credits on IMDb, I think I must be right, but recently, I was watching Gidget, and I saw some red thing on Gidget's dresser. It looked like maybe one of the old Bradley dresser dolls, and being a collector, I wondered if maybe it was one I had. Instead, the more I watched, the more convinced I became that the doll was in fact a little tribute to another member of the Screen Gems family -- a "Bewitched" Samantha doll. If it is... how's that for product placement! Please let me know if you can confirm my suspicions.

Sally Field and I are close to the same age, she was 18 when this series first aired in September 1965 and I was 19 and starting my third year of college. I had never yet been to the West Coast so for me this was more than just an entertaining comedy-family show, it also my introduction to California.

Sally Field is 15 1/2 year old Gidget, called that by friends because she was so small. Sort of a "girl midget", a term we probably could not get away with in 2023. Her mother had died when she was younger and she has a special bond with her father, a professor at UCLA. She has a married older sister who worries about her but Gidget is very independent. She is chasing the cute boy, Moondoggie, but he is soon off to college.

It is refreshing to re-watch an old series like this where times were simpler and the "problems" not as big as they tend to be today. Sally Field as a teenager was just perfect in this role and, as we now know, she has had a fine career after Gidget.

Watching the first episode today, it was fun to see a few typical things of 1965. As they were driving their red Mustang convertible to the beach and passing a service station with posted fuel prices, that was not $3.19 per gallon for regular, that was 31.9 cents a gallon. And when Gidget and her friend got back home they were snacking on a plate of bologna slices and chunks of cheese.

Fun series that brings back good memories of my own teen years, I now will try to find the complete series. I found the very first episode streaming on u-tube.