Max Shulman created Dobie Gillis

Max Shulman

It is the birthday of humorist Max Shulman (1919), who created the character of teenager Dobie Gillis, who yearned to be popular, have money and the admiration of beautiful girls. Gillis was featured in short stories and a television series (CBS, 1959-1963), both written by Shulman, along with the series theme song. He also wrote novels, Barefoot Boy With Cheek (1943), a satire of college life; The Feather Merchants (1944), a humorous look at life in the Army; The Zebra Derby (1951), about a postwar veteran's life as a door-to-door salesman dealing with a bevy of beautiful women; Rally Round the Flag, Boys! (1957), a satire on life in the suburbs in the 1950s; Sleep Till Noon (1959), a slapstick comedy about marriage; Anyone Got A Match (1964), a satire on the tobacco industry, television, the South  and football, and Potatoes Are Cheaper (1971), a semi-autobiographical romp about a young man and his bouts with romance. Shulman also wrote (with Robert Paul Smith) The Tender Trap (1954), a Broadway play that was later a film starring Frank Sinatra and Debbie Reynolds, and the libretto for the Broadway musical How Now, Dow Jones (1968).