“ROUTE 66” has captured the imagination of many a Corpus Christian.

The glamour of nationally-known television personalities and the excitement of filming an episode on location here fascinated hundreds of onlookers yesterday and Friday.

Many of them probably wondered, also, how the production group will ever make a film out of what appeared on the surface to be mass confusion.

People crowd around, grabbing every possible vantage point, talking and laughing.  Others mill about, sometimes getting in the way.  Amateur photographers snap pictures all over the place.

WORKING IN and around all this are all types of crewmen - electricians, light technicians, sound men, camera men - plus the actors, director, assistant directors, associate producer, script supervisor and others.  Each knows what his job is and goes about doing it.

Suddenly director David Lowell Rich yells, “Quiet!” Everyone freezes.  The camera rolls, and the action begins.

The scene is completed in a few moments, and the talking, laughing and milling about starts up again.

In a few days they’ll have shot a complete one-hour show and will be ready to start the next one.

It’s not as simple as that, however.

IT’S A HIGHLY organized operation requiring experts, and they work on a tight schedule.  The company films about 36 episodes a year.  That gives them an average of about 10 days to do each one.

Members of the cast and production staff arrived here about 1:30 p.m.  Friday.  They went directly to H.  E.  Butt Tennis Center and began filming the series.

The script, by Stirling Silliphant, co-owner of the production, had been completed less than two days before.  Martin Milner, one of the stars of the series, saw the script for the first time Thursday night.  He began acting in front of the camera Saturday morning.

“We study it at night,” he said, explaining how the actors know their lines.

Also busy at night after each day’s shooting is t he production staff.  They go over every detail of the next day’s shooting.  The schedule must be flexible, too, because the weather can change, and they have to change with it.

THE EPISODE being filmed now is entitled “Can You See an Echo Come Back?” It is about an orphan who runs away from his foster home and lives more or less by his wits.  Milner helps a welfare worker straighten him out.

Guest stars are Robert Mobley, who plays the orphan, and Martin Balsam, the welfare worker.  Both have appeared in numerous TV productions.

A number of Corpus Christi residents will appear in the film.  Among them are Dell Aldrich, Walter Furley, Bill Southern, G.  K.  Stupps, E.  J.  Schuster, Mrs.  Alice D.  Wyse, Scott Doty, Larry Brownstein and Eddy Livsey.

The filming will be done in many parts of Corpus Christi, much of it out of doors, as are most of the “Route 66” episodes.

Meanwhile, Silliphant will be busy writing a script for the next show, to be filmed around Port Aransas.  It’s due to be ready Saturday.