Lassie Stays Home

The pretty little boy with the shiny blond bangs sank to his knees beside the bed, cupped his pudgy hands and prayed for just about everyone in the Lassie kennel; then he caught himself. "Excuse me, God," he said. "I forgot something. God bless my new mother and father too."

It was just a CBS scriptwriter's way of telling Lassie's 25 million viewers (most of them young, all faithful) that there were going to be some new faces around the famous old farm. The chief newcomer, Jon Provost, 7, was eased into the filmed series 13 weeks before as Lassie's new chum Timmy; this week's episode introduced Timmy's foster parents (Cloris Leachman and Jon Shepodd) for the first time. Gone after three years was Lassie's old playmate Jeff (Tommy Rettig), who in reel life had to go off to high school, but in real life had outgrown the part (hair on the chest is permissible for a collie, but not a collie's young pal). With him went widowed Mom (Jan Clayton), who told viewers she had to move to the big city to look after Jeff, but off-screen confided that she was simply weary, weary of wearing the same shabby dress.

Most delicate problem for the money-making Lassie team came when 71-year-old Actor George Cleveland (Gramps) died of a heart attack shortly before he was to be script-spirited away to the hospital with a broken hip. After consulting a child psychologist, Producer Robert Maxwell decided to have Gramps die onscreen of the infirmities of old age. At first the notion raised suspicion in Sponsor Campbell's Soup, which balked at the idea of a TV death based on life, came around only after Maxwell promised to expunge from the script specific references to death or dying. This week Gramps got a tasteful TV funeral and such sponsor-selected eulogies as "Gramps's gone. Everybody loved him," and "He was a grand old man." And Timmy was allowed to get on his knees again to beg God to "take good care of Gramps in heaven." At his side, whimpering mournfully, sat Lassie,* a middle-aged pro of five, still willing to nuzzle through another few lucrative years on TV for the tots.

* Son of the original M-G-M movie Lassie (also male), now retired and blind at age 17.

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