Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady? on AllMovie

After registering well in supporting roles in such Bob Hope farces as Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number and Eight on the Lam, raucous comedienne Phyllis Diller attempted to carry a picture all by herself. Alas, Did You Hear the One About the Travelling Saleslady? proved to be as bad as its title. Borrowing elements previously utilized in Joan Davis' Travelling Saleswoman (1950) and the Ginger Rogers-Carol Channing vehicle The First Travelling Saleslady (1956), the film casts Diller as a player-piano saleslady, dispatched to the Wild West. TV-sitcom perennials Bob Denver and Joe Flynn offer their usual overplayed support; at times they're funnier than Diller, though that's not saying much. The film's highlight is a cattle stampede, which should give you some idea. Did You Hear the One... was scripted by John Fenton Murray, soon to be a mainstay of such Sid & Marty Krofft kiddie fare as The Bugaloos and Lidsville; compared to the Diller film, the Krofft stuff was a step upward.