Gidget's brother-in-law, who appeared in the novels as Larry Cooper, an intelligent but condescending child psychiatrist was reinvented in the television series as John Cooper, an obtuse but lovable psychology student. In the television series, Gidget regarded both her sister and brother-in-law as clueless squares. The pilot episode ("Dear Diary - et al.") explains that Gidget's boyfriend Moondoggie is sent east to Princeton University with the convenient understanding that both were free to date others while separated, thus opening plots to a variety of complications and guest stars. In the sitcom, Gidget's mother is deceased (unlike in the novels or the motion pictures), and the series focused on the father-daughter relationship, with Gidget receiving moral instruction from her father at episode's end and growing a little wiser from it. The sitcom ran for only one season, but spawned a devoted cult following.