100 Favorite Shows: #38 — The Dick Van Dyke Show
“They laughed at Louis Pasteur, but he went right ahead and invented milk.”
The last vestige of a privileged American innocence transpired in the early 1960s, ahead of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and a tumultuous end to the decade that witnessed discordant division and the sycophancy of American exceptionalism. But in 1961, when Carl Reiner created The Dick Van Dyke Show to air on CBS, entertainment was the only quality on his mind. The Dick Van Dyke Show, in its five seasons (which wrapped in 1966), was obviously a vehicle for the range of showman-esque talents from Van Dyke himself (portraying Rob Petrie in the series). However, it was also partially based on Reiner’s time writing for Your Show of Shows, the Sid Caesar NBC variety show with a legendary writing staff (Reiner, Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, Lucille Kallen). On The Dick Van Dyke Show, Rob wrote for “The Alan Brady Show” (Reiner played Brady), but his attention was split between this job and his home life with wife Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) and son Ritchie (Larry Matthews). In its highly influential run through the early ’60s, The Dick Van Dyke Show embodied a wholesome spirit of the U.S. that has long since departed.
(Spoilers for The Dick Van Dyke Show are in this essay. Yes, it’s been six decades. Yes, someone might still care.)
“The Dick Van Dyke Show!” announces Colin Male, the series’ voice that introduces the cast over the opening theme, at the beginning of each episode of the series after the first season. He runs through each main cast member as the instruments combine to produce the cheerful opening tones of a comedy that mirrored the musical merry-making. A small twinkle accentuates Male’s transition from “Starring Dick Van Dyke” to the rest of the credits and Dick Van Dyke either trips over his home’s ottoman or wisely jukes out of the way of it. It’s the promise of jolly joyousness and wholesome antics from a 1960s sitcom that makes the theme song Pavlovian to anyone who hears it. Dogs salivate at the sound of a bell ringing; humans’ ears perk up at the idea of seeing the lovable cast back on the screen once more.
Additionally, the series’ theme is as cheerful as Dick Van Dyke himself. A performer beloved across decades (so beloved that it took one quick clip of him dancing in the trailer for Mary Poppins Returns to make the entire world say, “Aw!”), Dick Van Dyke and Rob Petrie are nearly indistinguishable. Both are kind, both are charming, both are talented. And, of course, both are gifted entertainers with a penchant for contorting their faces in silly ways and devoting themselves to physical comedy at all times.
Likewise, Dick Van Dyke was emblematic of the early, quaint nature of The Dick Van Dyke Show, which hardly pushed any seals and was most keen to entertain anyone who’d turn on CBS. He and Laura slept in separate beds, the idea of Alan wearing a toupée was considered an earth-shattering gaffe (in “Coast to Coast Big Mouth”), visual gags included such iconic moments as a closet full of walnuts (“It May Look Like a Wallnut”). Every episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show was representative of a simpler, more restrained time on the screen. But they were always entertaining above all else, whether it was Sally putting on a musical revue at a dinner party or Rob teaching Ritchie’s class about comedy.
What helped set The Dick Van Dyke Show apart from its hokier contemporaries, though, was its sophistication. Rob and Laura, for example, were characters said to be explicitly well-educated and, as a result, competent. Yes, Rob was prone to tripping over the slightest bump in the flooring of his home, but he was also whip-smart and capable of holding his own in an all-star comedy writer’s room and in a home with a wife who was always game to carry out his bits. Together, he and Laura, despite being fictional, were in consistent competition with John and Jackie Kennedy for the title of the U.S.’s favorite couple. Both couples represented elegance, approachability, and intelligence, but only one has endured in our most illustrious image of them. Only one came close to an everlasting Camelot.
In addition to Rob and Laura, each of the characters on The Dick Van Dyke Show were competent, even if they weren’t always as put-together as the main couple was.
There were Millie (Ann Morgan Guilbert) and Jerry Helper (Jerry Paris, also a frequent series director), the neighbors of Rob and Petrie, who were happy-go-lucky and specifically oriented towards their own interests, but also deferential in many of their interactions with the couple next door. There was Mel Cooley (Richard Deacon), Brady’s endearing producer/pest who always tried his best. There was Buddy Sorrell (Morey Amsterdam), the high-octane, prolific joke machine, who wrote on The Alan Brady Show with Rob. (A favorite comes in “Jealousy!” when Mel apologizes to Rob, “As the producer, I’m sorry.” Buddy replies, “We believe you, Curly. You’re a sorry producer.”) And, of course, there was Sally Rogers (Rose Marie, in a breakout supporting turn), a sharp, forthright writer on Brady’s program, who brought much of the series’ sarcasm to the mix. (She’s quick to explain an elevator as “a room that goes up and down” when Rob is in hysterics in “Coast to Coast Big Mouth.”)
Since none of the characters were that easy to craft a joke out of, the writing staff was forced to work harder, mining comedy from clever conversations and surprising turns of phrase. (Even Alan Brady, initially depicted as a faceless figure in the series, and his brand of demanding, bravado-based humor proved influential for comedies that would later employ similar “unseen” techniques, like George Steinbrenner on Seinfeld.)
The aforementioned, “Coast to Coast Big Mouth,” from season five, is an example of this subversive sense of humor rooted in excellent, pointed performances. While appearing on the fictional game show, “Pay as You Go!,” Laura is targeted by the host, Johnny Patrick (Dick Curtis), as an opportunity to conjure up gossip on Alan Brady.
In her early interactions with Johnny, we’re yo-yoed throughout as the dialogue teases us into thinking that Laura will slip up and reveal something damning about the show. Johnny asks if she thinks the show is “better now” and if Alan is “easier to get along with.” The yo-yo unfurls, but rises back up each time as Laura is too clever by half for Johnny, upending his plot each time. That is, until Johnny zeroes in on the potential of Alan wearing a toupée and before she realizes what she’s revealed, Laura has spilled the entire story of her evening get-together with Alan — a bald Alan. (Later, Laura’s accidental reveal to Alan that she knows about his nose job (courtesy of Rob) is played for an even bigger laugh.) It’s gentle, wholesome humor, but it was still enough to spread an irrepressible smile across as my face as I watched Mary Tyler Moore’s brilliant frustration and mental maneuvering unfold on screen.
In addition to the delightful, comedic premise of “Coast to Coast Big Mouth,” the installment also operates on the level of providing the viewer with another privileged glance into the inner workings of a showbiz staple. Throughout The Dick Van Dyke Show, we see at least some semblance of how a television writer’s room operates, but in “Coast to Coast Big Mouth,” we’re taken behind the scenes of a quiz show.
Even rarer in this installment is that the third act revolves around the character pairing of Laura and Alan together. While not foreign to one another on the series, it was still not a dynamic depicted on screen too frequently, as the home and work life of Rob was typically kept apart roughly three-quarters of the time. (Laura knew Buddy and Sally much better than Alan Brady.) But it’s hardly jarring to watch two of the most important people in Rob’s life converse without him nearby. The dynamics on The Dick Van Dyke Show were always impeccable because of how fully-formed every figure was. (It certainly helped, as well, that the characters were based off of real people from Reiner’s time on Your Show of Shows. For example, Buddy takes many cues from Mel Brooks.)
This was the era of comedians who wanted nothing more than to entertain people. Within the decade, Brooks would put comedy into the glittering lights of The Producers and Reiner would strike eternity status in the world of comedy with The Dick Van Dyke Show. Were either all that groundbreaking or revolutionary in comedy? Perhaps not. But the sense of humor championed by these entertainers is one akin to the glitz and glamour of Hollywood (or, considering the admittedly corny nature of their comedy, Disney’s “The Great Movie Ride” might provide a more accurate vibe than actual Hollywood) with creating joy in others serving as the top priority.
The best example of this entertaining humor in “Coast to Coast Big Mouth” comes when Rob first blabs about Alan’s nose job during an argument over the gaffe on the game show and Laura complains, “I thought we had no secrets from each other!” Rob begins to apologize before realizing what he’s doing and instead remarks, “You’re mad at me for not telling you a secret right in the middle of an argument where I’m mad at you for telling a secret!”
Of course, Dick Van Dyke delivers the line expertly, playing up the perfect laugh for the moment, but it’s an exchange that’s more than just tickling. It’s also a representation of the marriage Rob and Laura shared. Their incredibly authentic and charming relationship is still cherished decades later and there’s no doubt that Rob and Laura are spouses that belongs in the pantheon of television romances. At a time when many comedies focused on series patriarchs bullying and mocking series matriarchs, The Dick Van Dyke Show refreshingly depicted Rob and Laura as equals. (Likewise, Moore was clearly just as funny as Van Dyke (if not more so), but it never seemed to generate an ego conflict within Dick.)
It might seem ludicrous to think of Rob not kicking Laura as a “punishment” for her slip-up as radical for the time (instead, he apologizes to her for just yelling). After all, he shouldn’t (and doesn’t) expect praise or commendation for restraining his temper against Laura. But it does help the series age better when considering that Rob and Laura were much more progressive than many other contemporary series. Now, the idea of such abuse being played for laughs is insane, but at the time, it was a critical step forward in popular discourse. Mary and Dick were leading the way.
The show was always just keen to be kind and it was buoyed by actors who were secure enough in their egos to allow others to have a go at them. After all, Reiner was game to mock his own bald head in this episode. And for Rob, Dick Van Dyke never shied away from a less traditionally masculine portrayal. (“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do — and so do I,” he states in “The Sound of Trumpets of Conscience Falls Deafly on a Brain That Holds Its Ears.”)
The two-handed nature of The Dick Van Dyke Show and its episodes headed by Rob and Laura is on full display in my favorite installment of the series, “Never Bathe on Saturday.” When Rob and Laura away for a second honeymoon (showcasing this story as a home life episode, as opposed to a work life one), they find their hotel lovingly luxurious. Rob prances on the carpet out of joy for being in a relaxing hotel room for the night; Laura stretches out and relaxes on the cushy nearby couch. Most of the time, Rob and Laura are more inclined to eat “cornflakes and bananas” than “caviar and champagne,” but in “Never Bathe on Saturday,” we get to see them indulge in some of the finer things the hotel has to offer them. (Rob’s kindness is also demonstrated again, when he remembers to amend his forgetting to tip the concierge (Johnny Silver) without needing prompting.) However, the finest thing to both of them is the fact that they get to spend a happy night away together.
No episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show could ever be so simple, though. When preparing for a night at the theater, Laura first decides to spend a couple minutes soaking in a warm bathtub to bring her state of mind to full relaxation. Within seconds, Laura winds up stuck in the bathtub (“Is it that narrow?” Rob asks initially) because she was toying with the faucet’s drip with her toe and stuck her toe to the inside of it.
Throughout, both Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore get to be obscenely funny. Van Dyke is an expert at reacting to Laura’s plight with confusion and skepticism; Moore uses her voice (echoing from behind a locked door that separates the two) as a sharp comedic weapon. (The best is when Rob attempts to knock down the door with his shoulder and ends up solely hurting himself, to which Laura asks, “Did you hit it yet?”)
The premise of “Never Bathe on Saturday” is funny enough in its original conceit, but it’s also enhanced by a maid (Kathleen Freeman), who brings the wrong key (and insists it’s right key) to free Laura, and a nearby detective-turned-vigilante (Bernard Fox), who overhears Laura shouting and assumes Rob is attacking her, even though he’d never do anything of the sort. (The most he musters, when he finally enters the bathroom, is a delirious, “Do you want to see something ridiculous?” before remembering that the detective once held him at gunpoint and Laura was naked in the bathtub.)
It’s one of the best, simplest, most ingenious sitcom episodes ever created. The entirety of the events unfold in a single hotel room (with a framing device of Laura relaying the story to Millie), but the humor builds and builds with hysterical jokes and line deliveries. Even the eventual reveal of Laura’s encased two lives up to the twenty minutes of anticipation beforehand.
For as funny as the installment is, the core ethos of The Dick Van Dyke Show is represented in a microcosm before Laura ever entered the bathroom. While Rob and Laura wrap their arms around one another romantically, she sarcastically swoons, “Sometimes, I’m glad I married you.” Rob’s eyes narrow and he smiles, “What about the other times?” Cheerfully, she retorts, “I suffer.” And the happy couple grins, hugs, and continues loving one another.
