MONDAY MEMORIAL TVXOHOF TRIBUTE 01/13/2020 - GERALD LLOYD KOOKSON III (AKA KOOKIE)

From the Associated Press:
Edd Byrnes, who played cool kid Kookie on the hit TV show “77 Sunset Strip,” scored a gold record with a song about his character’s hair-combing obsession and later appeared in the movie “Grease,” has died. He was 87.

Byrnes died Wednesday at his home in Santa Monica, his son, Logan Byrnes, said in a statement.

Edd Byrnes came to regard the role of Kookie as a millstone, typecasting him and limiting future roles.  But it also has now provided him with an immortality in his video legacy.

And to acknowledge that, this is a memorial induction into the TVXOHOF.  We haven't done one of these in a while - for which I'm thankful.

In the month when we celebrate the classic characters of Toobworld, we’re inducting Gerald Lloyd Kookson III (better known as “Kookie”) into  the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.

From Wikipedia:
[Edd] Byrnes was cast in “Girl on the Run”, a pilot for a detective show starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Byrnes played contract killer Kenneth Smiley who continually combed his hair – Byrnes said this was an idea of his which the director liked and kept in.

Around this time Byrnes decided to change his acting name from "Edward" to "Edd". "I just dreamed it up one day," he said. "Edward is too formal and there are lots of Eddies."

The show aired in October 1958 and was so popular Warners decided to turn it into a TV series ‘77 Sunset Strip’.  Byrnes' character became an immediate national teen sensation, prompting the producers to make Byrnes a regular cast member.

They transformed Kookie from a hitman into a parking valet at Dino's Lodge who helped as a private investigator.

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., explained the situation to the audience:

We previewed this show, and because Edd Byrnes was such a hit, we decided that Kookie and his comb had to be in our series. So this week, we'll just forget that in the pilot he went off to prison to be executed.
— From the pre-credit sequence for the episode "Lovely Lady, Pity Me"

O’Bservation – Kookie and Kenneth Smiley were identical cousins.  That way we don’t have to banish the pilot to some alternate Toobworld.

More from Wikipedia:
The 'breakout' character, who had not been included in the pilot film, was Gerald Lloyd "Kookie" Kookson III (Edd Byrnes), the rock and roll-loving, wisecracking, hair-combing hipster and aspiring PI who initially worked as the valet parking attendant at Dino's, the club next door to the detectives' office. "Kookie" often found a way to get himself involved in the firm's cases, and was eventually made a full partner in the firm with his own office.

Kookie's recurring character—a different, exciting look that teens of the day related to—was the valet-parking attendant who constantly combed his piled-high, greasy-styled teen hair, often in a windbreaker jacket, who worked part-time at the so-called Dean Martin's Dino's Lodge restaurant, next door to a private-investigator agency at 77 Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. Kookie frequently acted as an unlicensed, protégé detective who helped the private eyes (Zimbalist and Roger Smith) on their cases, based upon "the word" heard from Kookie's street informants. Kookie called everybody "Dad" (as in "Sure thing . . . Dad") and was television's homage to the "Jack Kerouac" style of cult-hipster of the late 1950s.

To the thrill of teen viewers, Kookie spoke a jive-talk "code" to everyone, whether you understood him or not, and Kookie knew, better than others, "the word on the street." Although the Kookie character was at least several years older than Jim Stark, James Dean's character in the film “Rebel Without a Cause”, Byrnes exuded a similar sense of cool. Kookie was also the progenitor of Henry Winkler's The Fonz character of the ‘Happy Days’ series (switch hot rod for motorcycle; same hair and comb). By April 1959 Byrnes was among the most popular young actors in the country.

"I was a nobody," said Byrnes. "Now I'm dragging in over 400 letters a week and I'm a name."

Byrnes made a cameo as Kookie in ‘Surfside Six’ and ‘Hawaiian Eye’, a 77 Sunset Strip spin off.  

Here are the appearances made by Byrnes which qualified Kookie to become a member of the TVXOHOF:

1958-1963
77 Sunset Strip
163 episodes

Hawaiian Eye
- Swan Song for a Hero
(1960)
- Among the Living
(1962)

Surfside 6
- Love Song for a Deadly Redhead
(1962)

Kookie & Co. (TV Movie)
(1964)


O’Bservation: This was a TV movie made in West Germany.  Beyond a list of his co-stars, I know nothing more about this.  Byrnes may not have been appearing as his ’77 Sunset Strip’ character.  For years he’s been saddled with Edd “Kookie” Byrnes whenever his name showed up in print.  It could be this was just a variety show which he headlined as himself.

I’m including it for now, but if it has to be jettisoned, its absence won’t affect Kookie’s eligibility for the Hall.

This won’t be the only Edd Byrnes role which will find a home here in the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.  Another will be inducted in September when we look at characters who appear on Toobworld television.

I can’t tell you his name, however.  I don’t know it!

Welcome to the Hall, Mr. Kookson.  You’ll find your old buddies Stu Bailey and Jeff Spencer already ensconced here, dig?