The cast and crew of the hip show Route 66 came to town in July 1963 to film three episodes in Minneapolis.  By this time Tod Stiles’ (Martin Milner) original traveling companion, Buz Murdock (George Maharis) has been replaced by Lincoln Case (Glenn Corbett) because Maharis came down with hepatitis.  Will Jones reported that the filming took a crew of 60, plus 15 or 20 wives and a couple of dozen children of crew members who travel with the show during the summer.  Filming the three hour-long episodes was expected to take about a month.  The whole crew stayed free at the Sheraton-Ritz Hotel, which was a prominent locale for the first episode.

On July 25, 1963, the Minnetonka Record reported that the crew had been to Parade Stadium and in Excelsior the week before.  On August 1 the Record reported that hundreds of onlookers crowded the Excelsior shoreline last week to watch the cast and crew work at the Amusement Park and the Mark Knowlton home in Excelsior.  More scenes were being taken at a Hopkins raspberry farm, it reported.

The episodes were:

• “Where Are the Sounds of Celli Brahms?”  aired October 18, 1963.  As Tod and Linc drive across a bridge into Minneapolis they are stopped and told that they are the millionth visitors of the season, qualifying Linc (who is driving) to be a judge of the Aquatennial Queen contest.  Tod gets a job at the Sheraton-Ritz.  They meet Celli Brahms (Tammy Grimes), a no-nonsense career girl whose job is to soundproof the hotel.  A girl from a poor family enters the contest and wins, according to Jones.
• “And Make Thunder His Tribute,” aired November 1, 1963.  Tod and Linc find work with an eccentric farmer. He is at odds with his son about using any new farming ideas and actually uses a shotgun for noise to scare birds away from his crop. The son and he escalate the battle between them over the possible use of the farm as the site of a motel.
• “Kiss the Monster – Make Him Sleep, aired January 24, 1964 (originally scheduled to air November 22, 1963). “Tod and Linc are in Minneapolis working in construction on a river lock project. Linc becomes “involved” with the sister of their boss. She resents her brother being overprotective and buying off her men friends. Linc tries to help her make it on her own but later finds she has neuroses involving dependency and nymphomania.”  (synopsis from imdb.com)

TV Times image courtesy Jeff Lonto