With a Wednesday-night time slot that put it in direct competition with The Beverly Hillbillies and The Virginian, it did poorly in the Nielsen ratings and was cancelled at the end of its first season.

The novel was adapted into a 1959 movie, Gidget, starring Sandra Dee, James Darren, and Cliff Robertson.

The 1965 weekly half-hour television series is seen by some as a sequel to the 1959 film, despite numerous discontinuities in plot, time frame, and other details.

Russell Lawrence guides his 15-year-old daughter, while married sister Anne and husband John offer often unsolicited child-rearing tips.

Each episode is narrated by Gidget; on occasion, she breaks the "fourth wall" and directly addresses her audience, usually reflecting on what she has learned from the evening's story, and sometimes ending with "Toodles!"

The lyrics of the theme song "(Wait 'Til You See) My Gidget" were written by Howard Greenfield, with music by Jack Keller.

Gidget educates Swedish college student and bride-to-be in the "American way", resulting in a transformation from meek to man-chaser.

On August 27, 2013, Mill Creek Entertainment announced it had acquired the rights to various television series from the Sony Pictures library, including Gidget.

The series was moved to Thursdays at 8:00 pm starting with episode 18 ("Like Voodoo"), where it performed poorly opposite CBS's Gilligan's Island,[7] despite airing after the top-five rated Batman.

[7] Rather than squander the newly found audience for which ABC was hurting at the time, the network scrambled to find a new starring vehicle for Field.

[8] Field later commented that she has great affection for her young persona and was proud of her work on Gidget, but was embarrassed with The Flying Nun.