Peanut butter and jelly and milk. Gathered in an intimate dining room of a rural country home, squinting at a tiny 8" black-and-white television at 11:30 in the morning, I got my first glimpse of "The Dick van Dyke Show." I don't know if I was hooked instantly, but I did feel a kinship towards this program stronger than anything I had yet seen from Andy Griffith and Lucille Ball.
"The Dick van Dyke Show" was originally to be entitled "Head of the Family," an autobiographical situation comedy that would mirror, to a large extent, Carl Reiner's experience as a young writer on Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows." After that phenomenal variety series folded, and Sid's "Caesar's Hour" failed to catch on, Carl started to think about changing his focus to the situation comedy. He was frustrated by the blandness of so much of the homegenized sitcoms currently littering the airwaves. It was his wife Estelle who suggested he write his own, about his own experiences, working alongside such erstwhile but unproven talents as Selma Diamond ("Night Court"), Lucille Kallen, Mel Brooks and Neil Simon.
Meanwhile, Danny Thomas, with a hit series of his own and a production company hungry for another hit, told his powerhouse producer Sheldon Leonard that he wanted to find something fresh to put on the air for Procter and Gamble. Leonard reached out to Reiner, and liked the idea enough to finance a pilot.
Reiner arrived at Leonard's office clutching thirteen completed scripts for a sitcom that had yet to get a greenlight. The pilot was shot and the result was disappointing. The canny Leonard spotted the problem right away. "Carl," he said, "you're not right for your own show."
The two men lured Dick van Dyke from Broadway, where the former Atlanta TV morning show host was toiling on "Bye Bye Birdie" and hired him to headline the series. Leonard wanted Rose Marie to co-star on "The Dick van Dyke Show," to which she replied, "sure. What's a Dick van Dyke?" As the Mel Brooks character, it was Marie who suggested the human joke machine, Morey Amsterdam. And days before shooting was slated to begin, after auditioning nearly 100 hopeful actresses, Reiner grabbed Mary Tyler Moore by the head and guided her to Leonard's office, where he told him that the terrified actress "says 'hello' like a regular person!'"
"The Dick van Dyke Show" was canceled ... yes, canceled ... after their first season, even though many of Reiner's outstanding scripts were used to full effect. Leonard believed in his show and persuaded a new sponsor to take over for year two, and the series, thankfully, got its reprieve, running for five Emmy-winning seasons.
Why has "The Dick van Dyke Show" survived these many years? The main reason is that it was, and remains, funny. It has a talented cast, and exceptional writing. Only my younger readers need to be told how successful Dick and Mary were after the series left the airwaves. But another huge reason for its timelessness was Reiner's own genius in keeping politics, and indeed any "news-of-the-day" references out of the program. By keeping the action mainly in the writer's room of "The Alan Brady Show" and Rob and Laura's New Rochelle home, you rarely get a glimpse of an outdated automobile. Dress on the program, always shot in black-and-white, was conservative and the style timeless.
I've quite literally been a fan of these 158 shows since I was about six years old. They still make me smile, and often laugh out loud. What a gift that is all these years later. Reiner himself added delicious spice to the stew when he found the perfect role for himself -- that of Alan Brady, Sid Caesar himself, with all of the arrogance and foibles that super-stardom has thrust upon him. Reiner won an Emmy for his portrayal as Brady, although oddly enough, not on the original series, but in an episode of "Mad About You."
A delightful installment of Jerry Seinfeld's "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" told us that Carl went next door after dinner every night to enjoy "Jeopardy!" with his pal Mel Brooks. It warmed my heart to know that that friendship had endured.
Carl Reiner passed away this week, so I will never have the opportunity to thank him for the laughter and love that his pet project provided me with all of these years. "The Dick van Dyke Show" is available to stream just about everywhere, so I did want to share with you some classic moments for your own salute to the auteur behind this great show.
"My Husband is Not a Drunk:" in which a hypnotized Rob goes in and out of a drunken stupor each time a bell rings. No other episode more greatly emphasized the elastic insanity that was the spine of Dick van Dyke.
"It May Look Like a Walnut!:" the episode that Sheldon Leonard emphatically predicted would not work! A science fiction spoof that guested Danny Thomas, that is a delight from start to finish. Leonard relented, by the way, upon viewing the finished product.
"October Eve:" Carl makes his first full-face appearance in this episode, although not as Brady. He plays an eccentric and overbearing audience who once painted Laura in the nude.
"Never Bathe on Saturday:" Rob and Laura's romantic weekend is less than memorable when she gets her toe stuck in an hotel bathtub faucet. Character actress Kathleen Freeman almost steals the show as an acerbic maid.
"Hustling the Hustler:" Standard sitcom fare until the tag scene. Rob and Laura are playing pool in the Petrie basement, and the script calls for Mary to make a difficult trick shot. The original plan was to shoot a wide shot of her hitting the cue ball, and then cut to a close-up as a pool pro made the actual shot. But the director wisely chose to hang on to the wide shot just in case, and Mary actually made the shot --- to her obvious astonishment. Watch her face, and van Dyke's reaction as well. Priceless.
"The Curious Thing About Women:" This one's my all-time favorite. A domestic dispute at home becomes the basis for a comedy sketch at work. This is one of Moore's finest comic performances in the run of the series, in a strong script, surprisingly NOT by Carl Reiner.
Thanks again, Carl, for all the laughs. Tell the gang I said hi!
