Remembering Jay Robinson – TV’s ‘Dr. Shrinker’

THE KROFFT SUPERSHOW - — ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images

What To Know

Jay Robinson was best known to many as the villainous Dr. Shrinker on The Krofft Supershow.
He was a memorable character actor whose career spanned both television and film.
After early fame as Caligula in The Robe, Robinson struggled with addiction and legal troubles before successfully reviving his acting career in the late 1960s.

Played by veteran actor Jay Robinson, Dr. Shrinker was perhaps the most notorious of all of the Sid and Marty Krofft Saturday morning villains. Over the course of each episode, three once-normal-sized but now, tiny teenagers do their best to evade the evil doctor and his not-quite-as-evil henchman, Hugo, played by Billy Barty. For a generation of children, the show was silly, over the top…and slightly terrifying.

Truthfully, this was one of the best segments on The Krofft Supershow. For those curious about the show, it is currently streaming on Tubi.

Sadly, when the Krofft Supershow returned for a second season, Dr. Shrinker was nowhere to be found, which is a shame because I’m quite certain Jay would have really appreciated the work. To understand why I say that, we need to travel back in time to a brief shining moment in the late fifties and early sixties when Jay was the toast of Hollywood.

It was his turn as the evil Emperor Caligula in the movie adaptation of the classic novel, The Robe, that really put him out in front and in the public eye. However, from all accounts, fame was not an easy thing for him to handle, and Jay spiraled into a haze of booze and drugs that would cost him the better part of a decade and even land him in prison for a period of time.

THE ROBE, from left: Jay Robinson, Jean Simmons, 1953

20th Century-Fox Film Corp./Everett Collection

Finally, in the late ’60s, Jay turned things around for himself and began getting work again. You may remember him as Caesar Augustus on Bewitched, as Lord Petri on Star Trek, or, in a bit of foreshadowing, as the mad Dr. Maitland on The Wild Wild West. Jay even got a chance to put on ape makeup and make a guest appearance on the TV version of Planet of the Apes.

Thinking back now, that’s probably why Jay looked so darn familiar to me when I was watching Dr. Shrinker. And, after his 16-episode run working for the Krofft brothers ended, a very thankful Jay would continue to find work. I remember seeing him on shows like Cheers and The Nanny. On the big screen, Jay was in movies like Big Top Pee Wee and Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

End of the day, the reason that Jay continued to find work was because he had become known throughout the industry as a talented character actor who had learned many of life’s lessons the hard way and had become a better person because of it.

When Jay passed away in 2013, at the age of 83, The Los Angeles Times included a quote directly from him in his obituary. Speaking to a United Press International reporter in 1988, Jay once commented, “I feel like the ultimate survivor”. Truer words were never spoken. Each performance in Jay’s career, whether it was in the blockbuster movie The Robe or his over-the-top villainy in Dr. Shrinker, was a testament to a tenacious man who never gave up on the idea that he was, first and foremost, an actor.