The Patty Duke Show

1963 - 1966

Patty and Cathy Lane are two long-lost cousins who just happen to look exactly alike, even though they're complete opposites. Patty Duke plays both Cathy, the sophisticated, cultured intellectual, and Patty, the typical teenager who lives for dancing and dating.

Stars: Patty Duke, William Schallert, Jean Byron, Paul O'Keefe, Eddie Applegate
Created by: Sidney Sheldon, William Asher
Tags: family, teens

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Episode Tropes

Season 1

Hot for Teacher: Episode 1, "The French Teacher" (1963). Patty falls for her new French teacher.
Wunderkind: Episode 2, "The Genius" (1963). Patty takes an IQ test on a new computer and accidentally overloads it, leading the test proctor to tell her parents she's a genius.
Unwelcome House Guest: Episode 4, "The House Guest" (1963). Aunt Pauline comes to visit, and her unusual quirks--like opening all the windows in the middle of winter, buying weird instruments for the kids and insisting they perform, and cooking "beet steak" for dinner--and apparent resentment towards Cathy get on the Lane family's last nerve.
Dance Lessons: Episode 5, "The Birds and the Bees Bit" (1963). Ross is going to his first dance, so Patty teaches him how to dance with a girl.
Learn While You Sleep: Episode 8, "The Conquering Hero" (1963). Cathy records herself reading a textbook so a high school basketball star can listen to it and learn the information while he sleeps.
The Education of a Jock: Episode 8, "The Conquering Hero" (1963). The Lane family try to help a high school basketball star get his grades up so he can stay on the team.
Election: Episode 9, "The President" (1963). Patty and Cathy find themselves running against each other for president of the Girls' League at school.
Sister Wife: Episode 14, "The Princess Cathy" (1963). A foreign exchange student turns out to be a prince, and he asks Cathy to marry him. Cathy is thrilled with the opportunity to help the citizens of his country until she finds out he plans to have multiple wives.
Business Goes Bust: Episode 18, "The Tycoons" (1964). When Cathy's handmade dress makes a splash at school, Patty talks her into selling them. Soon the IRS comes calling, and another girl at school starts making all the girls custom dresses with their boyfriends' photos on them. When the business goes bust, they end up in the red.
Author, Author: Episode 19, "Author! Author!" (1964). Patty reads about a teenager who published a book and decides to do the same. She dresses in black, sequesters herself in her "garret" (the attic), and moons around like a tortured artist. Her final product, "I Was a Teenage Teenager," is, as Martin put it, "a combination of Hemingway, Salinger, and Superman, only not grammatical," with random cooking recipes that she thoughtfully threw in "for nothing."
Vanity Press: Episode 19, "Author! Author!" (1964). Patty thinks a publisher accepted her book and is going to pay her an advance, but she has actually signed a contract with a self-publishing company, which experts her to pay them $1500.
Housewife Rebellion: Episode 23, "Are Mothers People?" (1964). Natalie feels that her family doesn't appreciate her and tries several methods to get their attention, like pretending to be sick, going for a spa day, and staying out until after 10pm.
Hosed: Episode 24, "The Con Artist" (1964). A fast-talking salesman tricks Cathy into buying a $145 vacuum that she thought was only $29.50. She tells Patty, who hatches a scheme to try to sell it to someone else, and it turns out about as well as most of her schemes do.
The Old Pie in the Face Gag: Episode 25, "The Perfect Teenager" (1964). Patty gets a job as a model, and as part of a magazine shoot, she has a pie thrown in her face.
Beauty Contest: Episode 27, "The Wedding Anniversary Caper" (1964). Ross enters Patty in a beauty contest in an attempt to win a prize for his parents' anniversary gift.
Catfish: Episode 28, "Pen Pals" (1964). Patty starts writing to a pen pal called "Lancelot," whom she found through an ad in a magazine, and she calls herself "Gwenivere." She falls in love with Lancelot and dumps Richard for him, only to find out that Richard is Lancelot, and she and Richard have been unknowingly corresponding with each other.
Allergic to You: Episode 29, "The Friendship Bit" (1964). Patty starts sneezing whenever she's near Cathy, and a so-called doctor tells her she's allergic to Cathy. Eventually, she realizes she's allergic to a pin Cathy's been wearing.
The Magician: Episode 34, "The Little Dictator" (1964). Patty is clearly jealous when Cathy is chosen to be student principal for a week, so Cathy lets her take over. While Patty is trying to teach a class, the students get rowdy, and Richard stands up and performs his new magic routine he's been talking about for the whole episode.
Moonlighting: Episode 35, "The Working Girl" (1964). Patty gets a job at the soda shop and is so exhausted she spends all her free time sleeping.

Season 2

Practice Makes Perfect: Episode 2, "Practice Makes Perfect" (1964). Patty wants to learn to play the tuba to impress a boy, and she plays it nearly 24 hours a day to the chagrin of her family.
On Strike: Episode 4, "Patty, the Organizer" (1964). Patty decides to organize a union of the kids in the house and negotiate with her parents for "fringe benefits." When the union feels management is exploiting them, they go on strike.
Mounting the Hustings: Episode 7, "Patty, the People's Voice" (1964). Patty and Cathy decide to campaign for a local candidate for congress and discover they actually prefer his opponent.
Playing the Market: Episode 12, "This Little Patty Went to Market" (1964). Patty decides to start her own corporation and sell stock to the kids at school.
Business Goes Bust: Episode 12, "This Little Patty Went to Market" (1964). Patty wants to get into the stock market, so she starts a business selling Cathy's fruit preserves.
Cooking Catastrophe: Episode 12, "Little Patty Went to Market" (1964). To save time for their fledgling business, Patty, Cathy, and Ross cook preserves in a pressure cooker, but they overfill it, and it explodes all over the kitchen.
Cooking Catastrophe: Episode 12, "This Little Patty Went to Market" (1964). To save time, Patty decides to cook preserves in a pressure cooker, but she overfills it, and it explodes.
Reluctant Witness: Episode 16, "Patty, the Witness" (1965). Patty witnesses a car crashing into a deli and driving away, and she's afraid to report it to the police.
I'm My Own Grandpa: Episode 18, "The Perfect Hostess" (1965). Patty Duke plays Patty and Cathy's cousin Betsy, who comes to visit from the south.
Bachelor Auction: Episode 20, "The Raffle" (1965). Patty raffles off a date with Richard to support the church bazaar.
Vacation All I Never Wanted: Episode 21, "Patty and the Newspaper Game" (1965). Martin's boss thinks he needs a rest, but Martin refuses to take a vacation, so the boss hires an executive assistant so Martin can have a break.
Hot for Teacher: Episode 26, "Don't Monkey with Mendel" (1965).Patty has a crush on her new science teacher and becomes convinced that their genes would be a perfect match.
Prank War: Episode 27, "Patty, the Practical Joker" (1965). When Ross puts his frog in Patty's bed, it triggers a prank war that wreaks havoc on the whole Lane family.
The Old Pie in the Face Gag: Episode 27, "Patty, the Practical Joker" (1965). Ross tries to throw a pie in Patty's face but hits their dad.
The Old Bucket of Water on the Door Gag: Episode 27, "Patty, the Practical Joker" (1965). Patty tries to get back at Ross for putting a frog in her bed by getting him with the old bucket of water on the door gag. Unfortunately, it falls on her dad instead.
Reluctant Hero: Episode 35, "My Cousin the Heroine" (1965). Cathy rescues a boy from drowning but doesn't want anyone to know.
Don't Speak: Episode 36, "Patty, the Chatterbox" (1965). Martin is tired of Patty's constant chatter, so he challenges her to stop talking for three days.

Character Tropes

Brainiac: Cathy Lane - Played by Patty Duke.
The Gaucho: Kalmere - Played by Richard Caruso in season 1, episode 14, "The Princess Cathy" (1963).