Thanks for the heads-up. Watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang right now.
I still like the 1960s TV show. I’ve been watching it on and off over the last few weeks, and I’m glad to see that the humour holds up just as well as I remember from years ago. After it’s first run, of course; I was a little too young for that, but it ran in reruns for quite some time.
Today, CNN posted a nice gallery of photos, showing Van Dyke over the years:
I was watching The Dick Van Dyke Show during its initial run, and loved it. I didn’t see the first season or so, and caught up with them through innumerable reruns. The show was great not only because of van Dyke himself, but because of superb writing that sidestepped cliches and often seemed years ahead of its time.
Van Dyke reprise his Broadway role in Bye Bye Birdie, but he was very annoyed that they shifted the emphasis (and rewrote the script!) to newcomer Ann Margaret. Van Dyke and the rest of the cast deserve appreciation for their work.
Of course, he’s famous for appearing with Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins, and his work was superb in that. He deserves to be remembered for more than his awful accent (which he blamed on instruction from J. Pat O’Malley)
He appeared opposite Shirley MacLaine and an impressive cast in the forgettable What a Way to Go! and with James Garner Elke Summer and Angie Dickinson in the equally forgettable The Art of Love. (I think it was this appearance with Garner that persuaded Mad magazine to cast the two of them in their movie parody The Son of Mighty Joe Kong.)
After the show finished, van Dyke appeared in a number of other movies, often made by Disney. Most of these were not terribly memorable:
Fitzwilly (With Barbara Feldon and a lot of actors from TV sitcoms)
Never a Dull Moment (with Edward G. Robinson and Slim Pickens!!)
Lieutenant Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. (with Nancy Kwan. This one is definitely non-PC)
But he was also in the amazing Cold Turkey, made by Bud Yorkin and Norman Lear before they made All in the Family. Besides van Dyke, it has a young Bo Newhart and features the last movie role of Edward Everett Horton. A superb and much-overlooked dark comedy)
He appeared in a one-off TV special with Mary Tyler Moore that probably launched her star career in The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
He tried The New Dick Van Dyke Show, but it flopped. He made a serious movie about an alcoholic priest, The Runner Stumbles
I didn’t see much of him after that. I never watched his Mystery show, and caught him occasionally in things like Night at the Museum. But I never watched much of the later stuff he did.
Congratulations on reaching the century mark, Mr. Van Dyke!
He entertained me when I was in utero – my parents went to see Mary Poppins when my mother was about six months pregnant with me. They tell me that, during every musical number in the film, I got very excited, and started kicking and moving. 
I remember the short-lived variety show he had in 1976, Van Dyke and Company, mostly because, on one of the early episodes, Dick brought out this strange foreign man, who stood next to a record player, on which he played the theme song to Mighty Mouse, waiting patiently for the line, “Here I come to save the day!,” which he would lip-sync. 11-year-old me thought that this was just really weird, and I certainly didn’t get the humor (or even understand that it was even meant to be humor)…and then they kept bringing the guy back in later weeks. Yup, that was the first time I ever saw Andy Kaufman.
Lillian Gish almost did. She didn’t get as close as Betty White-- Gish needed 8 more months-- but she was born in 1893, when surviving childhood was still remarkable.
And you don’t get a bigger movie star than Lillian Gish. It’s probably not possible for us to imagine how big she was in her own time, when there were many stars fewer, and the A-list was her and maybe a handful of other people.
I think he made it this long because he knows Tim Conway is waiting for him with a new elephant story.
You joke, but George Burns provides the counterpoint.
I’m pretty sure that was before Dick replaced Harvey on the Carol Burnett Show.
David Attenborough is a few months from 100 as well.
If I were going to binge-watch a series in which he featured, it would be Diagnosis Murder. I think he’s been a quite-talented actor but 1960s-era comedies with laugh tracks are totally not my thing. And while I don’t blame him for it, I detested what they did to Chitty Chittty Bang Bang, a book I read in 4th grade and loved and which the movie ruined pretty badly. Kudos to you, sir, for doing the century mark!
Damn, I misrembered that.
I love the guy. He reminds me so much of my Dad, before my Dad became a MAGA. Dick Van Dyke kept his humanity, humility and his class. May he enjoy many more pleasant and productive years! An example for us all of a life well lived.
He still deserves credit for performing one of the most difficult dance numbers in movie history -while starting one step off from everyone else.
I just watched that and was marveling at how effortless he made it look. Amazing!
TCM is showing it [Fitzwilly] early the 23rd (1:15 am MST)
This is an amazing living tribute from his 99th birthday. Well, released on his 99th.
Thanks, that helped a lot. Found it.
Ditto to your entire post. I was 11 in 1961 and I too thought Laura Petrie was hot! (Still do.)
I’m glad to see he made it to 100. But I have him in this year’s Life Pool so I’ll celebrate in three weeks.
Mrs Maven & I saw the Tribute in a movie theater this afternoon (12/13). It was great. Carl Reiner was emphatic that The Dick van Dyke Show did not have a laugh track.