The Terrible Catsafterme

Brad's Musings and Meanderings

random acts of quoting

"Bye-bye, baby face!" - Lily, "Our Relations"

SEASON 1 – CBS

Created by Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf

Opening song: “Katy” by Gordon Zahler and Leith Stevens

  • 032. Springtime for Katy – 5/18/1959
    • Katy returns to the hotel after a day of shopping with a new outfit and hat, but neither Eddie (Jim Nolan) the doorman, nor Johnny, nor Alfred notice it Furthermore, when Mr. Devery calls her in to discuss their guest, famous international playboy Randy Rand (Patrick O’Neal), he doesn’t notice and then delivers the ultimate insult after calling her ‘O’Connor’ because to him, she is just one of the guys. He also tells her to give Randy Rand some special attention because he is the kind of guest who can bring in clientele. She goes up to his suite to visit Rand, who has been trying to ensure that no women can get to him, as they often want to take souvenirs from meeting him. When Katy comes to the door, he is leery about letting her in, but once he does, he finds himself irresistibly attracted to her. She is aloof about him and thinks that he is a wolf, so when he asks her out, she is quick to turn him down, much to Olive’s surprise and consternation. However, the more she thinks about how insulted she was by Mr. Devery, she changes her mind and accepts the date, insisting that they eat at the Colonial Room where she knows that Devery will be dining as well. Katy can hardly focus on a conversation with Rand as she waits for Devery to arrive. When he finally gets there, Katy talks loud enough so that he can easily overhears the conversation but doesn’t even notice when Rand has to get up and take a phone call. Devery then turns around and finds her talking to herself. He thinks she has had too much to drink, so he escorts her out of the restaurant and sends her home. The next day, Eddie, Johnny, and Alfred all look at and treat Katy differently after seeing her name plastered in the newspaper gossip column about her date with Randy Rand, who begins sending non-stop flowers to her office in hopes of getting another date with her, apologizing for being on the phone too long the night before, which he thinks is what caused her to leave. Katy turns him down and is much more interested in seeing what Mr. Devery thinks about the article. When Rand sends Katy an expensive watch, she goes up to return it to him, telling Olive to spread it on thick about her and Rand when he comes into the office. Olive goes too far with the romance and tells Mr. Devery that Katy and Rand are planning to get married. Up in Rand’s suite, Katy tells him that she was only trying to make her boss see her as a woman. Mr. Devery, thinking Katy will be getting married and leaving the hotel, confesses to Katy that he has always found her a warm, funny, attractive, and desirable woman, and he doesn’t know what he will do without her. She is so taken aback and floating on a cloud that she forgets to tell him that they really aren’t’ getting married. When he overhears Katy turning down Rand’s dinner offer for that night, she confesses that she only wanted to make him see her as a woman. This makes him furious that she pulled out a heartfelt confession by these means. Katy then asks Rand do do her a favor, and they stage a conversation outside of Devery’s office, in which he tells her that he wants to take her away from her work and her horrible boss, and she in turn tells Rand how wonderful Devery actually is. This appeases Devery, he asks her to discuss an upcoming convention of the hotel, and that he wants to get a ‘woman’s angle.’ 11/29/24

SEASON 2

  • 049. Slightly Married – 1/11/1960
    • A little boy named David Travers (Charles Herbert) walks into the Bartley House one day and asks to check in. Mr. Devery thinks they should phone the police as he is obviously a runaway, but Katy wants to humor him and go through the motions of checking him in. However, when Mr. Devery eventually calls the police, David overhears him and disappears in the hotel. A lieutenant (Harry Ellerbe) shows up and scolds both Katy and Devery for not calling him sooner. When David hears that Katy might be in trouble because of him, he resurfaces and tells her that he had taken a plane from Canada and was supposed to meet his adoptive parents, the Jamesons. When they didn’t show up at the airport, he got scared and boarded a bus into New York and tried to check into the hotel. An immigration officer named Mr. Thomas (Frank Behrens) comes to work the case, and when Katy volunteers to look after David until the mess is straightened out, he says that will be find provided that she is married. She lies and tells him that she has a husband named Wellington who would be happy for them to take them. That night she takes David home, and Olive comes over to spend the night and help. Mr. Thomas shows up to check out the house, so Katy pretends that it is her husband who is in the shower rather than Olive. Also showing up unexpectedly is Mr. Devery, who has come to apologize to Katy for being so hard on her about losing David earlier. She pulls him inside and asks him to pretend to be her husband for the night to fool Mr. Thomas. He reluctantly agrees, so Katy pulls Olive out of the shower while she has soap covering her eyes and puts her in the closet. She then has Mr. Devery go into the bathroom and put on a robe so that they can pretend that it was he who was in the shower. Katy goes back to put David to bed, leaving Devery to face Mr. Thomas alone. He starts trying to find Katy or Olive, and when Mr. Thomas overhears him calling for Olive and inquires who she is, he says he is looking for some olives to eat. Mr. Thomas tells him to go to his kitchen to get some, but since Devery doesn’t know his way around the apartment, he goes inside the closet where he finds Olive. Katy then comes out from putting David to sleep and asks where her ‘husband’ is. He tells her that he went to the kitchen and then directs her to the closet. She enters along with Mr. Devery and Olive… followed by Mr. Thomas, for a total of four people in the closet. Later, everything gets straightened out and Mr. (Wally Richard) and Mrs. Jameson (Eileen Harley aka Wallace Earl Laven) are located, and they all meet at the hotel. The Jamesons feel terrible that the got the date mixed up and has been in New York shopping for all kinds of toys, games, records, and clothes for David, who is happy to be entering such a loving family. Katy remarks that with Olive and her in the picture now, it will get awfully expensive for David on Mother’s Day. Later, when Devery sees another boy visiting the Bartley House alone, he tries to dissuade him from staying there. Katy, however, points out that he is only there to do the Tang commercial. 11/29/24

SEASON 3

  • 076. Secret Admirer – 12/1/1960
    • When Mr. Devery overhears Oscar Pudney insult Mrs. Lester (Norma Varden), one of the guests at the hotel, when she doesn’t have the change on her to pay for a magazine at his cigar shop, Devery threatens to terminate his lease and kick him and his business out of the Bartley House. Pudney then calls his so-called attorney Jerry Doolittle (George O’Hanlon) to ask his advice on whether the lease can be broken. Since Jerry doesn’t have much actual legal expertise, he simply advises for Pudney to try and romance Katy, since she is the assistant manager. Pudney starts copying romantic poetry from greeting cards and sending it to Katy along with flowers and candy, claiming that he it is from a secret admirer. Katy and Olive first suspect that it the gifts are coming from Mr. Devery, and then from Woody. The next time Pudney is getting ready to insult Mrs. Lester, Katy appears nearby, so he is not only extra nice to Mrs. Lester, but he places a phone call to have a romantic telegram to Katy so that she can hear him placing the order. The ruse actually works, as Devery and his lawyer Dave Shelley (John Bryant) come up with a loophole to get Pudney out of the building, but Katy tells Mr. Devery that there is more to Oscar than meets the eye and talks him out of throwing him out. Meanwhile, Doolittle tries several times to get his $5 payment from Pudney with no success. In his frustration, he goes to see Katy to tell her that the secret admirer schtick was all a plot to get him on her side. He also tells her that Pudney has a jealous Italian steady girlfriend named Angie Pepito (Rita Lynn) who works for her father at Guiseppe’s Italian Restaurant, where Pudney one day plans to work. Katy gets the idea to tell Pudney she knows that he is her secret admirer, and now that it is out in the open, they can go out together. She tells him that she wants to go to Guiseppe’s place and drags him there. Naturally, when Angie sees them together and hears how Katy is talking mushy to him, she blows her top and takes back the ring that she gave Pudney. He admits to Katy that he only did it to get her on his side against Mr. Devery. Pudney then pleads with Katy to tell Angie the truth, so she makes him vow to always be nice to the customers at the hotel and then tells Angie that she was just joking around and that they are there to discuss business. Angie returns the ring to Pudney. Later, Katy makes a bet with Mr. Devery that Pudney has reformed, and the eavesdrop on him being ultra kind to a customer… before walking him out of the cigar counter roughly. In the tag scene, Pudney gives Katy another giant gift, which is huge jar of Tang. 11/29/24
  • 090. Pandora – 3/16/1961
    • Mr. Devery plans on traveling to Los Angeles to visit with noted actor Anthony Bardot (Guy Mitchell), where he hopes to talk him into letting the Bartley House host his premier party in the Crystal Room. Katy, however, notes that Devery already has a Hotel Managers Convention booked for the weekend. Since Katy has known Bardot since before his days as a star, she volunteers to go in his place. Upon arrival at Bardot’s home, she meets Bardot’s latest secretary Mavis (Jane Burgess), who is storming out of the house and quitting. Bardot tells her that he has had trouble finding and keeping a secretary who didn’t want to either marry him or get a job in the pictures. He introduces her to his assistant Gabby Hoff (Luke Anthony) and housekeeper Mrs. Dudley (Jeane Wood). Katy agrees to help Bardot find a suitable secretary. She starts by calling an employment agency and speaks to a Mrs. Norton (Fay Baker) and tells her that she is looking for a simply, unsophisticated girl. It so happens that she has a girl fresh off the bus from Iowa named Pandora Peterson (Pat Carroll) in her office, although she worries that Pandora may be too clumsy when the wheel falls off of her chair while she is in the office, and she attempts to fix it. Katy asks Norton to send her right over but not tell her that she is working for Anthony Bardot. After she interviews Pandora and sees the incredible speed at which she types, Katy determines that she would be perfect for the job and introduces her to Bardot, causing Pandora to faint dead away. After she recovers, she meets Gabby, who puts her to work rubber stamping Bardot’s autographed photos. Pandora tries to impress Gabby with her Hollywood impersonations of Betty Duck and one that sounds just like Katherine Hepburn but apparently isn’t. Bardot tells Pandora that he is going out to lunch, and Gabby warns Pandora about making sure that she keeps the door bolted when no one is there as fans sometimes try and get in to see Bardot. As she writes a letter home to her mother, Pandora notices a but full of tourist sightseers outside the house. One tourist lady (Edith Leslie) bribes the bus driver (Art Lewis) to let her get off the bus to take pictures of the house. She winds up wandering into the yard and tripping on the front porch. Pandora brings her inside to help her, causing the other tourists to all file into the house and start looting for souvenirs. Bardot returns amidst the pandemonium, and after clearing the house, fires Katy. Both Gabby and Katy try to convince Bardot that the situation wasn’t entirely her fault and that everyone deserves a second chance. Bardot is adamant about getting rid of her, causing Pandora to rail him about that fact that maybe if he would go out and greet his fans once in a while, things like this wouldn’t happen. She tells him them that they just wanted something to remember him by, but she wants to leave and forget him. As a parting shot, she tells Bardot that he is ugly. Bardot is impressed with her and tells her that she is wonderful and has a job for life with him. She then reveals that she had taken a few souvenirs in her purse after all. Later, when Bardot needs Pandora to take a letter, she shows him that she has taken the typewriter apart to give it some maintenance. NOTE: This episode was intended as a backdoor pilot to a sitcom to be named either Pandora or The Pat Carroll Show but was never picked up by the network. 11/26/24

Leave a Reply