I used to watch The Dick Van Dyke Show years ago on TV Land (my go-to channel for classic TV, as opposed to TCM, which is my go-to for classic film). However, they stopped airing the episodes, presumably because there's so much classic TV out there and only 24 hours in a day to broadcast them all. I already find it frightening that they now air Everybody Loves Raymond as a "classic" show, when it isn't even a decade old. However, much to my surprise and delight, I discovered this week that The Dick Van Dyke Show is back on TV Land, with 2 half-hour episodes from 9-10 am that can really brighten up your day.
Created by comedy legend Carl Reiner, the show was always heralded for its witty writing and timeless episodes. I read Dick Van Dyke's autobiography last year and he mentioned that Reiner always wanted to keep the writing fresh with limited pop culture references so that the episodes would always have a timeless quality. Discounting the fact that the show is black & white, I would argue that it certainly is just as funny and relevant today, with stories and plot lines that can easily rival modern family sitcoms.
At the heart of the show are Rob and Laura Petrie, who are played by the rubber-limbed and charming Dick Van Dyke and multi-talented beauty Mary Tyler Moore. They had so much chemistry together that the show grew to include more of Rob's family life than had ever been intended originally. Laura is a former dancer, now stay-at-home mother of their son Richie, and she and Rob have a loving relationship where they are both equals. This is lovely to see when you know that things weren't always so pleasant among husbands and wives of that era. In fact, the episode I saw two days ago involved Laura temporarily going back to work as a dancer for a week, with Rob hiding his worries and doing his best to be supportive. Of course there's a lot of talk from his friends about how he should stop this nonsense before Laura decides to return to dancing full-time, and of course, he is thoroughly incompetent in the house, making his son endless frozen dinners that make them both miss Laura's cooking. But Rob can't "put his foot down" and deny his wife her dreams, which is what makes this a nice departure from all those other TV husbands (ahem, Ricky Ricardo) who were always quick to mock their wives if they ever thought of leaving the house.
The flip-side of the show concerns Rob's work life as a comedy writer on The Alan Brady Show, a fictional sketch comedy show. His fellow writers are Buddy Sorrell (Morey Amsterdam with a hundred wisecracks a minute) and Sally Rogers (Rose Marie). Sally is like the original Liz Lemon, hilarious, intelligent, always moaning about being single, yet clearly fond of her work. So really, with every episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show, it's like you get to watch Everybody Loves Raymond with some 30 Rock thrown in. These two very different settings allow for a lot of great plots, with scenarios that might be more concerned with what happened at home, what happened at the office, or like the episode when Laura works as a dancer for The Alan Brady Show, some explosive intersection of the two.
If you don't have TV Land, you can find all 159 episodes of the show on Hulu (what would we do without Hulu?!) and to start you off, here's an episode entitled, "The Night the Roof Fell In." It's a classic setup, where both Rob and Laura have had bad days and when they expect some empathy in the evening, they instead get into a fight over who had it worse. Things escalate, but what makes the script so particularly funny and Coupling-esque, is the way that the fight is re-enacted twice, once when Laura is talking about it with her neighbor, Millie (the wonderful Ann Morgan Guilbert, who you may recognize as Yetta, Fran's batty grandmother on The Nanny!), and another time when Rob tells his tale of woe to his colleagues. The audience knows exactly what happened in the fight, but it's hilarious to see these two characters tell VERY different versions of how they behaved, what was said, how they were completely in the right, while the other person was so horrid.
The Dick Van Dyke Show is an excellent example of how great comedy can be mined from simple everyday mishaps. The show's writers often used stories from the cast and crew to come up with ideas for the show. One of the funniest sequences in the show's history occurs in an episode entitled, "The Cat Burglar," when the Petries think someone's in the house and Rob grabs his gun for protection. However, Laura had previously taken out the bullets and stored them in her jewelry box. Unfortunately, the box is a musical one and Rob's attempt to be stealthy is quickly defeated by the fact that every time he attempts to retrieve a bullet, he is treated to a loud rendition of the Blue Danube Waltz. As fantastical as the premise sounds, it is based entirely on a real-life incident with Dick Van Dyke and his wife at their home.
This anecdote only goes to show you that life itself is a comedy. You just need some great writers to throw in witty dialogue, some actors who can perform marvelous feats of physical comedy, and you get a 25-minute piece of television gold.
Created by comedy legend Carl Reiner, the show was always heralded for its witty writing and timeless episodes. I read Dick Van Dyke's autobiography last year and he mentioned that Reiner always wanted to keep the writing fresh with limited pop culture references so that the episodes would always have a timeless quality. Discounting the fact that the show is black & white, I would argue that it certainly is just as funny and relevant today, with stories and plot lines that can easily rival modern family sitcoms.
At the heart of the show are Rob and Laura Petrie, who are played by the rubber-limbed and charming Dick Van Dyke and multi-talented beauty Mary Tyler Moore. They had so much chemistry together that the show grew to include more of Rob's family life than had ever been intended originally. Laura is a former dancer, now stay-at-home mother of their son Richie, and she and Rob have a loving relationship where they are both equals. This is lovely to see when you know that things weren't always so pleasant among husbands and wives of that era. In fact, the episode I saw two days ago involved Laura temporarily going back to work as a dancer for a week, with Rob hiding his worries and doing his best to be supportive. Of course there's a lot of talk from his friends about how he should stop this nonsense before Laura decides to return to dancing full-time, and of course, he is thoroughly incompetent in the house, making his son endless frozen dinners that make them both miss Laura's cooking. But Rob can't "put his foot down" and deny his wife her dreams, which is what makes this a nice departure from all those other TV husbands (ahem, Ricky Ricardo) who were always quick to mock their wives if they ever thought of leaving the house.
The flip-side of the show concerns Rob's work life as a comedy writer on The Alan Brady Show, a fictional sketch comedy show. His fellow writers are Buddy Sorrell (Morey Amsterdam with a hundred wisecracks a minute) and Sally Rogers (Rose Marie). Sally is like the original Liz Lemon, hilarious, intelligent, always moaning about being single, yet clearly fond of her work. So really, with every episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show, it's like you get to watch Everybody Loves Raymond with some 30 Rock thrown in. These two very different settings allow for a lot of great plots, with scenarios that might be more concerned with what happened at home, what happened at the office, or like the episode when Laura works as a dancer for The Alan Brady Show, some explosive intersection of the two.
If you don't have TV Land, you can find all 159 episodes of the show on Hulu (what would we do without Hulu?!) and to start you off, here's an episode entitled, "The Night the Roof Fell In." It's a classic setup, where both Rob and Laura have had bad days and when they expect some empathy in the evening, they instead get into a fight over who had it worse. Things escalate, but what makes the script so particularly funny and Coupling-esque, is the way that the fight is re-enacted twice, once when Laura is talking about it with her neighbor, Millie (the wonderful Ann Morgan Guilbert, who you may recognize as Yetta, Fran's batty grandmother on The Nanny!), and another time when Rob tells his tale of woe to his colleagues. The audience knows exactly what happened in the fight, but it's hilarious to see these two characters tell VERY different versions of how they behaved, what was said, how they were completely in the right, while the other person was so horrid.
The Dick Van Dyke Show is an excellent example of how great comedy can be mined from simple everyday mishaps. The show's writers often used stories from the cast and crew to come up with ideas for the show. One of the funniest sequences in the show's history occurs in an episode entitled, "The Cat Burglar," when the Petries think someone's in the house and Rob grabs his gun for protection. However, Laura had previously taken out the bullets and stored them in her jewelry box. Unfortunately, the box is a musical one and Rob's attempt to be stealthy is quickly defeated by the fact that every time he attempts to retrieve a bullet, he is treated to a loud rendition of the Blue Danube Waltz. As fantastical as the premise sounds, it is based entirely on a real-life incident with Dick Van Dyke and his wife at their home.
This anecdote only goes to show you that life itself is a comedy. You just need some great writers to throw in witty dialogue, some actors who can perform marvelous feats of physical comedy, and you get a 25-minute piece of television gold.
Buddy Hackett may do it so well he seems to have invented or at least patented Brooklyn Yiddish comedy, but he's one of many masters of the schtick. Maury Amsterdam is another, and his character's name is Maurice Sorrell.
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