Classic TV & Movie Hits - Marcus Welby, M.D.

Marcus Welby, M.D.

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Picture Credit: The Museum of Broadcast Communications

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> Description

The Tuesday, 10-11:00 P.M. program was created by David Victor, who had been a producer on the hit Dr. Kildare television series during the 1960s. Victor took a centerpiece of the basic doctor-show formula--the older physician-mentor tutoring the young man--and transferred it from the standard hospital setting to the suburban office of a general practitioner. The sicknesses that Marcus Welby and his young colleague Steven Kiley dealt with--everything from drug addition to rape, from tumors to autism--ran the same wide gamut that hospital-based medical shows had. In fact, many of the patients ended up in the hospital, and Welby even moved his practice to a hospital toward the end of the show's run. Nevertheless, Marcus Welby, MD. was different from other shows of its era such as Medical Center and The Bold Ones. Those shows stressed short-term illnesses that paralleled or ignited certain unrelated personal problems. Welby, on the other hand, dealt consistently with long-term medical problems that were tied directly to the patient's psyche and interpersonal behavior. Acute episodes of the difficulty often sparked movement toward a cure, but only after Welby or Kiley uncovered the root causes of the behavioral problems.

Show Description Credit: The Museum of Broadcast Communications

> Airing History & Information

Last Airing

May 11, 1976

Premiere

September 23, 1969

Episodes

Network

ABC

Format/Time

Black & White / 30 Minutes

Country

United States