| The Dick Van Dyke Show | |
|---|---|
The opening for the second through fifth seasons. |
|
| Format | Sitcom |
| Created by | Carl Reiner |
| Written by | Carl Reiner Frank Tarloff (as "David Adler") John Whedon Sheldon Keller Howard Merrill Martin Ragaway Bill Persky Sam Denoff Garry Marshall Jerry Belson Carl Kleinschmitt Dale McRaven |
| Directed by | Sheldon Leonard John Rich Jerry Paris Howard Morris Alan Rafkin |
| Starring | Dick Van Dyke Mary Tyler Moore Rose Marie Morey Amsterdam Larry Mathews Richard Deacon Jerry Paris Ann Morgan Guilbert Joan Shawlee |
| Theme music composer | Earle Hagen |
| Composer(s) | Earle Hagen |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 5 |
| No. of episodes | 158 + 1 reunion special (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Sheldon Leonard, in association with Danny Thomas |
| Producer(s) | Carl Reiner Bill Persky (1965) Sam Denoff (1965) |
| Running time | 22–24 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Calvada Productions |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | CBS |
| Picture format | Black-and-white |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original run | October 3, 1961 – June 1, 1966 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | The Danny Thomas Show Mad About You |
The Dick Van Dyke Show is an American television sitcom that initially aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from October 3, 1961, until June 1, 1966. The show was created by Carl Reiner and starred Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. It was produced by Reiner with Bill Persky and Sam Denoff. The music for the show's theme song was written by Earle Hagen.[1] A three-camera/studio audience format was used during production.
The series won 15 Emmy Awards. In 1997, the episodes "Coast-to-Coast Big Mouth" and "It May Look Like a Walnut" were ranked #8 and #15 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time.[2] In 2002, it was ranked #13 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.[3]
Contents |
The two main settings show the work and home life of Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke), the head writer of a comedy/variety show produced in Manhattan. Viewers are given an "inside look" at how a television show (the fictitious The Alan Brady Show) was written and produced. Many scenes deal with Rob and his coworkers, writers Buddy Sorrell (Morey Amsterdam) and Sally Rogers (Rose Marie). Mel Cooley (Richard Deacon), a balding straight man and recipient of numerous insulting one-liners from Buddy, was the show's producer and the brother-in-law of the show's star, Alan Brady (Carl Reiner). As Rob, Buddy, and Sally write for a comedy show, the premise provides a built-in forum for them to be making jokes constantly. Other scenes focus on the home life of Rob, his wife Laura (Mary Tyler Moore), and son Richie (Larry Mathews), who live at 148 Bonnie Meadow Road in suburban New Rochelle, New York. Also often seen are their next-door neighbors and best friends, Jerry Helper (Jerry Paris), a dentist, and his wife Millie (Ann Morgan Guilbert).
Many of the show's plots were inspired by Reiner's experiences as a writer for Your Show of Shows, but though he based the character of Rob Petrie on himself, Rob's egocentric boss Alan Brady is less Sid Caesar (host of Your Show of Shows) than a combination of the more abrasive Milton Berle and Jackie Gleason, according to Reiner himself.[4] Carl Reiner originally planned to produce and star in the series, which was going to be titled Head of the Family. The pilot episode was written by Reiner in 1960, but it was unsuccessful.[5]
CBS had intended to cancel the show after its first season, but Procter & Gamble threatened to pull its advertising from "the network's extremely lucrative daytime lineup" and the show was renewed, keeping its Wednesday night time slot (TV programming).[6] After going into summer reruns, the show jumped into the top ten by the third episode of its second season. It may have been helped by coming directly after the new #1 hit, The Beverly Hillbillies.
In 1969, Van Dyke and Moore reunited for a one-hour variety special called Dick Van Dyke and the Other Woman which included a never before seen alternate take from one of the show's episodes in which Van Dyke breaks down and cries after being dismissed from a film role instead of just being disappointed. A 1979 episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Hour featured Van Dyke and Moore reprising their roles as the Petries in a short sketch presented as the brainstorming of Van Dyke (guest-starring as himself) and the writers of Mary McKinnon's (Moore) variety series, who noted McKinnon's resemblance to "the gal who played Laura Petrie". In a 1995 episode of the sitcom Mad About You, Carl Reiner reprised the role of Alan Brady, appearing in a documentary by Paul Buchmann (Paul Reiser) about the early days of television. The episode included several other references to The Dick Van Dyke Show, including a scene in which Reiner and Reiser discuss whether it would be funnier to trip over an ottoman, or to step over it at the last moment. In 2003, TV Land produced The Alan Brady Show, an animated special presented as an episode of Dick Van Dyke's show-within-a-show. Reiner, Van Dyke, and Rose Marie contributed voice performances to the show. A 2004 reunion movie, The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited, brought together the surviving members of the cast. In this continuation, Rob and Laura have left their New Rochelle home to Richie and moved to Manhattan, where Laura runs a dance studio. Alan Brady re-enters their lives to ask Rob to write his eulogy, with the help of a happily-married Sally Rogers.
In a 2010 interview on National Public Radio, Van Dyke revealed that Morey Amsterdam wrote a set of lyrics for the show's theme song:
Main:
Supporting:
Secondary characters:
A group of character actors played several different roles during the five seasons. Actors who appeared more than once, sometimes in different roles, included Johnny Silver, Amzie Strickland, Eleanor Audley, Sandy Kenyon (who also appeared in the 2004 reunion special), Jackie Joseph, Doris Singleton, Peter Hobbs, Len Weinrib, Burt Remsen, George Tyne, Bella Bruck, Jerry Hausner, Herb Vigran, Alvy Moore, Jane Dulo, Bernard Fox, Dabbs Greer, Elvia Allman (as Herman Glimscher's mother), and Tiny Brauer. Frank Adamo, who served as Van Dyke's stand-in, also played small roles on several episodes throughout the show's five years.
| Season | Day & Time | Preceded or Followed by |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (1961–1962) | Tuesdays at 8:00 pm (October 3 - December 26, 1961) Wednesdays at 9:30 pm (January 3 - April 18, 1962) |
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis at 8:30 pm Checkmate at 8:30 pm |
| 2 (1962–1963) | Wednesdays at 9:30 pm | The Beverly Hillbillies at 9:00 pm |
| 3 (1963–1964) | ||
| 4 (1964–1965) | Wednesdays at 9:00 pm | The Cara Williams Show at 9:30 pm (September 23, 1964 - April 21, 1965) Our Private World at 9:30 pm (May 5–26, 1965) |
| 5 (1965–1966) | Wednesdays at 9:30 pm | Green Acres at 9:00 pm |
| Season | Rank | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (1961–62) | not in the top 30 | N/A |
| 2 (1962-63) | #9 | 27.1 |
| 3 (1963-64) | #3 | 33.3 |
| 4 (1964-65) | #7 | 27.1 |
| 5 (1965-66) | #16 | 23.6 |
As a Top 30 series, The Dick Van Dyke Show has an average rating of 27.8.
At least three episodes were filmed without a live studio audience: "The Bad Old Days," which featured an extended flashback sequence that relied on optical effects that would have been impractical to shoot with a live audience in the studio;[10] "The Alan Brady Show Presents," which required elaborate set and costume changes;[11] and "Happy Birthday and Too Many More," which was filmed on November 26, 1963, only four days after President Kennedy's assassination.[12]
Reiner considered moving the production of the series to full color as early as its third season, only to drop the idea when he was informed that it would add about $7,000 to the cost of each episode.[13]
Image Entertainment has released all five seasons of The Dick Van Dyke Show on DVD in Region 1. Season sets were released between October 2003 – June 2004. Also, on May 24, 2005, Image Entertainment repackaged the discs from the individual season sets into a complete series box set.
In Region 4, Umbrella Entertainment released Season 1 on DVD in Australia on September 1, 2011.[14]
| DVD Name | Ep# | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
| Season 1 | 31 | October 21, 2003 |
| Season 2 | 33 | October 21, 2003 |
| Season 3 | 31 | February 24, 2004 |
| Season 4 | 32 | April 27, 2004 |
| Season 5 | 31 | June 29, 2004 |
| The Complete Series | 158 | May 24, 2005 |
|
||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||