The Patty Duke Show: The Complete Second Season [6 Discs] [DVD]

Patty Duke, William Schallert. Patty as Patty and Patty as Cathy make for a double dose of wild and crazy goings-on for the Lane Family in this second season romp. Guest stars include Sammy Davis Jr.., Peter Lawford, Bobby Vinton, Robert Goulet, Sal Mineo, Jean Stapleton and more in 36 episodes on 6 DVDs. 1964-65/b&w/15 hrs/NR/fullscreen.

The Patty Duke Show hasn't been seen much outside of showings on Nick-At-Nite in the 1990s -- it was popular enough to run three seasons (and would have had a fourth, if the producers and the network could have agreed on who would pay for switching to color filming); but because it was filmed in black-and-white, it didn't have too long a life in syndication after the 1960s. The second season of The Patty Duke Show, newly-arrived on DVD from Shout Factory, was where the series hit its stride, and then some. A success in its first season, the second season allow the series to attract some big name guest stars, most notably actor Sal Mineo (playing himself) and the English singing duo Chad & Jeremy (playing a duo called "Nigel and Patrick," but whose repertory included the currect Chad & Jeremy hits). The pacing is a little slow by modern sit-com standards, but the series makes up for it with a wealth of now-alluring period detail, fashions, hair-styles, and other topical elements of the time, that make it a treat for viewers over 50. One episode here, "Patty, the People's Voice", depicts the two identical cousins played by Duke getting involved in a Congressional campaign in the 1964 election -- no mention is made of civil rights legislation, but the range of issues that are alluded to are astonishingly relevant to 2010; and the central issue of their involvement, that the candidate they like the best -- for personal reasons -- is far and away the less qualified (and, indeed, not qualified at all), but has the money to run and sees no reason not to, unintentionally reflects aspects of politics that are still being fought over upon the DVD release of the show, 46 years later. The transfer quality is generally excellent, derived from clean and uncut sources. And for a change, the sound is set at a healthy level as well. Each episode gets four chapters, delineating the original breaks for commercials. Each disc opens automatically to a simple two-layer menu that offers "Play All" and individual episode access, and moving between the episodes and the menu is fast and easy. The main bonus feature is a series of new interviews with the surviving cast members, Patty Duke, William Schallert, Paul O'Keefe, and Eddie Applegate, discussing the way in which the star portrayed two different characters -- the technical side contains few surprises, although Duke reveals that she did make one suggestion that vastly extended the range of what they could do with split-screen photography; and she discusses, in detail, the way in which she devised and dealt with the different characteristics of each cousin, in her mind and in her acting. It's enlightening and it might serve any aspiring actor or actress well to watch this featurette. There are also a selection of public service announcements done by Duke in connection with the series -- but, in contrast to the early 1990s laserdisc release of "The Best of the Patty Duke Show," the DVD producers have not included any of the original commercials that ran with the series on network television.