My Favorite Martian

My Favorite Martian
Title screenshot in black-and-white
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	John L. Greene
Starring	Ray Walston Bill Bixby Alan Hewitt Pamela Britton
Theme music composer	George Greeley
Composer(s)	George Greeley
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	107
Production
Executive producer(s)	Harry Poppe
Producer(s)	Jack Chertok
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	22–24 minutes
Production company(s)	Jack Chertok Television Productions, in association with The CBS Television Network
Distributor	Telepictures Distribution Warner Bros. Television
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Picture format	Black-and-white (1963–1965) Color (1965–1966)
Audio format	Monaural
Original run	September 29, 1963 (1963-09-29) – May 1, 1966 (1966-05-01)
Status	Ended
Chronology
Followed by	My Favorite Martians

My Favorite Martian is an American television sitcom that aired on CBS from September 29, 1963 to May 1, 1966^[1] for 107 episodes (75 in black and white 1963–1965, 32 color 1965–1966). The show starred Ray Walston as Uncle Martin (the Martian) and Bill Bixby as Tim O'Hara.

This series was produced by Jack Chertok.

Premise

A human-looking extraterrestrial in a one-man spaceship crash-lands near Los Angeles. The ship's pilot is, in fact, an anthropologist from Mars and is now stranded on Earth. Tim O'Hara, a young newspaper reporter for The Los Angeles Sun, is on his way home from Edwards Air Force Base (where he had gone to report on the flight of the X-15) back to Los Angeles when he spots the spaceship coming down.

Tim takes the Martian in as his roommate and passes him off as his Uncle Martin. Uncle Martin refuses to reveal any of his Martian traits to people other than Tim, to avoid publicity (or panic), and Tim agrees to keep Martin's identity a secret while the Martian attempts to repair his ship. Uncle Martin has various unusual powers: he can raise from his head two retractable antennae and become invisible; he is telepathic and can read and influence minds; he can levitate objects with the motion of his finger; he can communicate with animals; and he can also speed himself (and other people) up to do work.

Ostensibly an inventor by trade, Martin also builds several advanced devices, such as a time machine which can transport Tim and the Martian back to Medieval England and other times and places, such as St. Louis in 1849, the early days of Hollywood, or bring Leonardo da Vinci and Jesse James into the present. Another device he builds is a "molecular separator" which can take apart the molecules of a physical object, or rearrange them (a squirrel was made into a human). Another device can take memories and store them in pill form to "relearn" them later. Another device can create temporary duplicates, and another item which can levitate himself and others without the need of his finger.

Tim and Uncle Martin live in a garage apartment owned by a congenial but scatterbrained landlady, Mrs. Lorelei Brown, who often shows up when not wanted. She and Martin have a awkward romance from time to time but Martin never gets serious for fear of going home to Mars. She later dates a vain, cold-hearted, plain-clothes police officer, Detective Bill Brennan, who dislikes Uncle Martin and is highly suspicious of him.

The first two seasons were filmed in black-and-white (at Desilu), but the final season was shot in color (at MGM), resulting in minor changes in the set and the format of the show. In addition to the extraterrestrial powers indicated in the first two seasons, Martin seemed to be able to do much more in the final season, such as stimulating facial hair to provide him and Tim with a quick disguise, and levitating with his nose. Brennan's boss, the police chief, was involved in many episodes in the third season, generally as a device to humiliate the overzealous detective.

"Martin O'Hara's" real name is Exigius 12½. Revealed in "We Love You, Mrs. Pringle," it was heard again when his real nephew, Andromeda, crash-landed on Earth in the show's third season. Andromeda, originally devised to bring younger viewers to the aging show, disappeared without explanation after a single episode and was never referred to again in the two episodes filmed after it, or six episodes already filmed, but aired afterward (Andromeda was, however, a regular on the later animated series My Favorite Martians). He had a single antenna, which Martin explains was because his baby antennae had fallen out and only one adult antenna had come in, so far. Ironically this is the reason for the series cancellation, in an interview Ray Walston gave to Starlog magazine, he states once CBS heard that Andromeda was to be a regular in the series fourth season they soon announced the series cancellation.

Produced and shown at the time when other situation comedies featuring characters who could do things that were out of the ordinary, like Bewitched and I Dream Of Jeannie, as a parody or alternative to the standard family situation comedy. My Favorite Martian could be said to be an example of science fiction comedy, differing from Bewitched and I Dream Of Jeannie in that the character with comedically unusual abilities was a man rather than a woman, and relied not on magic but instead on science and advanced technology.

Characters

• Uncle Martin O'Hara (the Martian), played by Ray Walston
• Tim O'Hara, played by Bill Bixby
• Mrs. Loralei Brown, played by Pamela Britton
• Mr. Burns, played by J. Pat O'Malley, first season only, as Tim's boss at the newspaper
• Detective Bill Brennan, played by Alan Hewitt, second and third seasons only
• Police Chief, played by Roy Engel, third season only
• Andromeda, played by Wayne Stam, third season, one show only