The Farmer's Daughter: Miss Cheese

The Farmer's Daughter
Season 1, Episode 9: Miss Cheese
Originally aired November 15, 1963

A young teenage girl named Penny wins a contest in Wisconsin and is named Miss Cheese. Her prize is a trip to Washington, D.C. and a chance to stay in the home of Congressman Morley.

Steven has a crush on Penny and chooses to break a date with his girlfriend and take Penny with him to a dance instead. Katy does not approve of Steve ditching his friend and tells him so. Katy talks to both Steven and Glen Morley about the rudeness of the act and how she feels Penny is manipulative, but neither Steven or his father listen.

Penny tells the family that she is delighted to be attending the dance if only she had a new dress and hairstyle, to which Katy sarcastically replies, "poor thing!" The rest of the family, however, are completely hoodwinked by the innocent looking ingenue and take her to town.

At the dress shop with Glen Morley, Penny chooses the most expensive dress. At the salon with Agatha Morley, Penny orders the works. Agatha says later:

I thought I was taking her. She took me and I mean took me! I'm afraid to look at the bill.

Even Secretary Cooper has been talked into purchasing a brand new evening bag for her. The family starts to realize that Katy may be right and Glen talks privately with his son, Steven. While Steven stares at a photograph of Miss Cheese, Glenn stumbles over his words as he tries to explain Penny's character:

Sometimes people appear to be something they're not...It's not so much what she's not as what she is.

As a last resort, Katy decides to have a girl-to-girl chat with Miss Cheese and uses flattery to get Penny to reveal her tricks to move up the ladder. Although young, Penny is essentially an experienced gold digger. Katy plants a seed that senators make much more money than congressmen and that the senator's son will be at the party that evening. 

Penny dances with the senator's son and completely ignores Steven at the party. Steven says that he has sure learned a lot about women and plans to apologize to his girlfriend. By the end of the episode, the calculating Penny has moved from the congressman's home to the senator's home and is now a personal guest at the White House!

Production Notes

In Eddie Foy, III's Day Out of Days Schedules, Miss Cheese is listed as Production # 3813 and the report was typed on July 26, 1963.

Schedule Days: 4
Producer: Peter Kortner
Director: William Russell
Associate Director: Herb Wallerstein

The cast rehearsed on July 29th and filmed July 30th through August 1st.

The character list for the shoot includes regulars Katy (Inger Stevens), Glen (William Windom), Cooper (Philip Coolidge), Steve (Mickey Sholdar), Danny (Rory O'Brien), and Agatha (Cathleen Nesbitt). All regulars reported for 1 day of rehearsal and 3 days of shooting.

Penny (Sherry Alberoni) was also present and working all 4 days. Guest stars Harry (Cliff Norton), Saleslady (Jean Engstrom), Charlie (Bob Cleaves in a role marked as silent) Boy (Tommy Leop), and Peter (Tim Mathison, also marked as a silent role) all worked just one day, with characters Harry and Charlie reporting on August 1st and the other guest stars reporting on July 30th.

My notes: The actors' names in this schedule are handwritten and my transcription of the names Tommy Leop and Tim Mathison may be mispelled as they are hard to read. Also, my summaries of episodes indeed skips to episode 9 this week, because I unfortunately do not own video copies of episodes 7 or 8 at this time.