# The Dick van Dyke Show Revisited **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 12, 2004, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725 "2004-05-12T03:28:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/1 "2004-05-12T03:28:13Z")
Well, I can’t say I wasn’t warned. All the reviews said it was a lame, strained, and embarrassing effort. And it was. Dick van Dyke came off by far the best. He kept showing flashes of the old Rob Petrie, loose-limbed and amiable. Mary Tyler Moore was a monument to the whole anti-aging industry - from a distance. The botox joke must have been a personal reference because she didn’t appear able to open her mouth enough to let in more than a straw. The rest of her face was so immobile that it created almost a physical barrier to her acting. Rose Marie and the rest are, sadly, just too old to function properly as actors. They don’t even have enough energy to wisecrack. Except for Carl Reiner, who knew enough to write himself the perfect short comebacks for his character. But the rest of his writing was below even his own low standards. Yes, his own low standards. Despite everybody else’s opinion, I maintain that the first year of the original show - the one he wrote almost entirely by himself - is, by today’s standards, just ordinary and now dated, with “sitcom” written over every scene. He was better in season two, but it took other writers, like the brilliant Bill Persky and Sam Denoff, to lift the series into something so truly special that it still shines today. (And can anyone tell me why despite 29 episodes _neither one_ is credited as a writer on the show on IMDB?) I’m almost sorry I watched. Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/2 "2004-05-12T05:00:33Z")
Yeah, **Harpo** , it was pretty bad. I found it embarrassing that they would make a plot line out of everyone still hating Alan Brady. What was that thing with the computer animation? Just trying to show that Rob is “hip” to computers? And the segues to some of the original series clips were just non-existent. “Just throw another one in here! They’ll love it!” I have a feeling that the only reason they even did this show was the one that the characters in the show rejected on moral grounds: for the money. Oh, well. However, this regrettable episode does not change my firm opinion that _The Dick Van Dyke Show_ was, and remains, the best sitcom ever. Forget _Friends_, forget _Seinfeld_. The cast of TDVDS were _real_ actors with talent, unlike the _personalities_ that performed on those other shows. And the writers were clever, inventive, and sometimes sophisticated. In five years of shows (back when a season was 39 episodes!), TDVDS almost never repeated a storyline or plot. That was my big problem with _Seinfeld_: the structure of the show _never changed_. One the characters had a scheme that was bound to fail embarrassingly by the end of the show. That’s every episode of _Seinfeld_ in a nutshell. TDVDS is the best, despite this lame “bring 'em back before they die” episode. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/3 "2004-05-12T05:26:24Z")
Proof that re-living the good 'ol days ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. In my mind, I always thought the Dick Van Dyke Show was good…but having seen a few episodes on Nick and seeing this mess tonight, well…it was a lot better in my memory. I forgot how lame the show was…Dick always doing his stupid pratfalls, Mary always worried about burning a roast or something stupid…Buddy and Sally doing vaudeville schtick…and any excuse to get some song and dance in the show… I will give them credit for bringing the characters back to life in a real episode, instead of the usual “I remember when the caterers forgot the bagels and…” plus a few teary memories about yadayada…they at least tried to give the show some closure by showing where everybody is after all these years. But like the proverbial Christmas newsletter, they went on and on a bit too long. Plus, it would have been a lot funnier and better if they had filmed this in black and white, and done the whole thing out of the old house in New Rochelle. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/4 "2004-05-12T05:33:42Z")
It should be noted that Ann Morgan Guilbert (Millie) is only _ **eight years older** _ than Mary Tyler Moore. How many cosmetic surgeons is that woman buying summer houses for?! ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/5 "2004-05-12T05:36:07Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > It should be noted that Ann Morgan Guilbert (Millie) is only _ **eight years older** _ than Mary Tyler Moore. How many cosmetic surgeons is that woman buying summer houses for?! My bad… **supervenusfreak** just reminded me that she’s married to a cosmetic surgeon. It shows. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/6 "2004-05-12T11:29:57Z")
Well, maybe it was because I had heard so many bad things about it, but I thought that it was a lot _better_ than I’d been told. The plot (such as it was) was a fairly decent way of introducing the characters and getting them together. The jokes were serviceable (if not great). It gave us updates on the characters and re-introductions, and clips. Heck, it’s a _lot_ to try to fit into even that one hour time slot. Everybody was a helluva lot older, and it showed. (Mary Tyler Moore, as **Pepper Mill** pointed out, is picking up a Katherine Hepburn tremulo in her voice). Rose Marie is a loe slower. You can pity them ( which is unworthy) or think of them as troupers. Still better than 90% of the fare I typically see on a weeknight. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/7 "2004-05-12T12:33:58Z")
I didn’t find it all that bad. Not up to the original, of course, but pleasant enough and with more things that made me laugh than the entire run of “Friends.” ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/8 "2004-05-12T13:44:25Z")
Taped it; maybe I’ll watch it later. I thought the best part of the old _DVD Show_ (the _Penis Van Lesbian Show_, as we used to call it) was the office scenes, with Buddy, Sally and Mel Cooley. Obviously, none of that was possible. And of course part of the charm was that Rob and Laura were the sitcom JFK and Jackie. By the way, I worked on a project with Rose Marie a year or two ago and was horribly disappointed to find her a mean, vicious old bitch. I’d always admired her work, but in person she was a real let-down. ---
**Author:** ![vertizontal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ad7895/32.png) [@vertizontal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vertizontal)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/9 "2004-05-12T13:48:21Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > … What was that thing with the computer animation? Just trying to show that Rob is “hip” to computers? … It looked to me like they wanted to contrive a way to show Rob doing some dance steps at his current age. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/10 "2004-05-12T17:25:15Z")
It should have been just clips and reminiscenes. The big problem in setting a contemporary episode was that the characters would be even older than the characters who played them. If Laura married Rob at age 17, during World War 2, she’d have to be at least. . . 76 years old. No wonder she had trouble with the ballet scene that opened the show. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/11 "2004-05-12T19:05:13Z")
They met and married in the peacetime 50s army, not in WWII. Ritchie was five when the show debuted in 1961, so they presumably married in 1955, or possibly 1954. If Laura was 17 then, that would make her 66 or maybe 67 today. Mary Tyler Moore is 67. What’s the problem? (Jackie Kennedy was 12 years younger than John. Laura was 11 years younger than Rob. Probably not much of a coincidence.) The Dick van Dyke Show created the modern sitcom style. It’s impossibly unfair to compare an originator to what that form has accomplished over 40 years. The fact that we can still seriously talk about DvD being the best ever is tribute to how incredible it was. The Beatles of sitcoms. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/12 "2004-05-12T19:16:15Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > By the way, I worked on a project with Rose Marie a year or two ago and was horribly disappointed to find her a mean, vicious old bitch. I’d always admired her work, but in person she was a real let-down. She’s pitiful in this- she could barely walk. Most of her scenes were filmed with her seated (ala Howard McNear in his last few seasons of _Andy Griffith_). Maybe she’s just cranky due to health problems, or the knowledge she’ll never have the opportunity to work with Davy Jones and Mickey Dolenz again has hit her really hard. On an E! True Hollywood Story on the show she said that she tried leaving the DVD Show several times because of personal problems. Her husband died during the run of the series and she wanted to spend more time with her daughter and was fighting depression, but Dick talked her out of it. There was very briefly a gay club in Huntsville, AL called ‘Dicks Vans Dykes’, but they had to change the name due to a decency ordinance. I remember a few years ago during the California wildfires a camera crew actually gave DVD a lift to his home, which he didn’t know if he would find burned or intact because the roads were closed. (He was actually walking back illegally.) It was revealed that the only damage occurred when Fire Rescue workers broke down the door when they saw him inside and thought he was asphyxiated because he wouldn’t respond; in fact what they saw was a life-sized wax statue of him used as a prop on one of his movies that he keeps seated in the house. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/13 "2004-05-12T19:40:20Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > . . . the only damage occurred when Fire Rescue workers broke down the door when they saw him inside and thought he was asphyxiated because he wouldn’t respond; in fact what they saw was a life-sized wax statue of him used as a prop on one of his movies that he keeps seated in the house. Would have been a lot funnier if they’d looked in and saw him sitting there, slowly melting . . . ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/14 "2004-05-12T20:05:10Z")
I was surprised to learn that DVD’s significant other for the past 20 years has been Michelle Triola (Marvin), the mother of palimony suits. (She received $104,000 in her precedent setting suit against Lee Marvin, an amount which after legal fees and expenses probably left her with less than nothing.) I wonder how they met? ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/15 "2004-05-12T21:39:29Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > They met and married in the peacetime 50s army, not in WWII. Ritchie was five when the show debuted in 1961, so they presumably married in 1955, or possibly 1954. If Laura was 17 then, that would make her 66 or maybe 67 today. Mary Tyler Moore is 67. What’s the problem? > > (Jackie Kennedy was 12 years younger than John. Laura was 11 years younger than Rob. Probably not much of a coincidence.) > > The Dick van Dyke Show created the modern sitcom style. It’s impossibly unfair to compare an originator to what that form has accomplished over 40 years. The fact that we can still seriously talk about DvD being the best ever is tribute to how incredible it was. The Beatles of sitcoms. First off, no argument here that DVD was one of the top 5 sitcoms ever. In addition to inventing the ensemble-cast sitcom, it actually touched on issues (race, Millie and Jerry seeing a marriage counselor, whether Buddy was seeing another woman, and so on) that are at least as relevant as anything on Friends or Everybody Loves Raymond. But my nitpick with the reunion is that the characters are too damn old in 2004. Whether the character of Laura is 67 or 76, it was painful to watch her trying to dance, and it was just painful to see Millie and Sally, period. Would you want to see Don Knotts trying to play an updated Ralph Furley or Alan Young playing a 75 year old man who talks to a horse? It’s one thing to have actors look back at themselves 40 years later, but it’s quite another to try and recreate a character 40 years later. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/16 "2004-05-12T23:53:40Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > First off, no argument here that DVD was one of the top 5 sitcoms ever. In addition to inventing the ensemble-cast sitcom, it actually touched on issues (race, Millie and Jerry seeing a marriage counselor, whether Buddy was seeing another woman, and so on) that are at least as relevant as anything on Friends or Everybody Loves Raymond. And Buddy Sorell was, I believe, the only Jewish character on TV for the entire decade of the 1960s (between _The Goldbergs_ of the '50s and _Bridget Loves Bernie_ of the '70s). Buddy even had a Bat-mitzvah in one episode). ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/17 "2004-05-13T00:42:44Z")
> [@](#): > > Buddy even had a Bat-mitzvah in one episode). A Bat-mitzvah? Did Buddy star in a Very Special Episode? ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/18 "2004-05-13T01:25:27Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > A Bat-mitzvah? Did Buddy star in a Very Special Episode? [Yep](http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/GuidePageServlet/showid-535/epid-11884/). ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/19 "2004-05-13T01:30:10Z")
If I’m misreading something, just think of me as the sweet and cute but dumb character, but isn’t a bat-mitzvah for girls? ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725/20 "2004-05-13T02:10:35Z")
That’s what I was referring to. If Buddy had a bat-mitzvah, the Dick Van Dyke show was very progressive for its era. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dick-van-dyke-show-revisited/244725.md?page=2)