A couple of nitpicks. Sally was a combination of Selma Diamond and Lucille Kallen. The inspiration for Buddy was definitely Mel Brooks, and Reiner’s script for the failed “Head of the Family” pilot he starred in described the character as “a 23-year-old hypochondriac.” When he redid the show for Dick Van Dyke, Rose Marie was the only one considered for the Sally role and was cast right after Van Dyke. They had no one in mind for Buddy and she pitched Morey Amsterdam. He embodied Buddy, so to speak, and they never seemed to have auditioned anyone else. Morty Gunty and Silvia Miles played the roles on the Reiner pilot.
By the way, y’know how Rob and Laura would occasionally do musical numbers to impress friends at parties or for USO shows (“You, Wonderful You” and similar?)
I would swear that I remember them doing an utterly charming rendition of the Rogers and Hart classic “Mountain Greenery” (Where God paints the scenery/Just two crazy people together/While we love sequestering/where no pests are pestering… etc. )
I don’t think I’m imagining or misremembering it. I’d swear that they did it in their living room to entertain at a party and Sally(?) was accompanying them on the piano.
Anyone else remember this? Can anyone tell me which episode it was?
I think they did “Mountain Greenery” in the one where they all went to a resort in the Catskills (and once there it turned into a “hey kids, let’s put on a show” thing.)
They did do “Mountain Greenery”[sup]*[/sup] at one of the many parties thrown at the Petrie house. I remember Rob and Laura sitting on stools in the living room, singing, while surrounded by guests. However I don’t seem to remember the rest of the episode. Maybe it was one of the ones with van Dyke’s brother? Where he played Stacy Petrie and was too shy, unless asleep, to play in front of people? Just a shot in the dark.
On a barely related note, anyone ever watch the X-files? There was one episode where Muldur and Scully went undercover in the suburbs. They introduced themselves as Rob and Laura Petrie. I laughed my head off at that.
*Every time I hear that song I think of Mel Torme. I’ve got an old 45 of my mother’s with him performing that number.
One reason I liked the DVD show (!) as a kid was that it was so easy to identify – I naturally saw my father as Dick van Dyke and my mom – who had a similar hair style – as Laura Petrie. But we had neighbors who bore quite a resemblance to Millie and the dentist.
I woulda been Ritchie, of course. There was no place for my sister, then. But when I was a kid, that would’ve been fine.
I knew Rose Marie at first only from her roles on The Dick Van Dyke Show and her oddly similar role on The Doris Day Show. It wasn’t until long afterwards that I found out that she’d started out as a singing kid – “Baby Rose Marie” in the 1920’s, before starting an acting career in the 1950s (the IMDB says the forties, but her first credits in movies and TV start in the 50s):
I would like to know what happened to Mary Tyler Moore from Dick Van Dyke to the MTM show?
Mary on DVD was hot! Beautiful body and lovely face. Mary on MTM was skinny, gawky, with a long face. (I thought Rhoda{Valarie Harper} was the hot one there).
The end of DVD and the start of MTM were only 5 years apart. What happened?
She was a heavy-smoking, alcoholic diabetic, which means that it’s amazing she looked as good as she did on the MTM show. Which was very at times. But she had lost that glow of youth.
DVD is my second-most favorite classic TV show - after “I Love Lucy”, of course.
I once had a DVD experience that blurred the lines between fiction and reality. A friend and I visited New York several years ago. While there, we had dinner at the New Rochelle home of one of his college friends and her family. Believe it or not, her parents were named Jerry and Millie. So I got to have dinner in New Rochelle with Jerry and Millie!
We also walked a few blocks from their house to Bonnie Meadow Rd, which was the street in New Rochelle where the Petries and Helpers lived.
And, for a long time now, I’ve wanted to start a Cafe Society thread titled “WWRLLT - What Would Rob & Laura Listen To” asking Dopers for suggestions on the kinds of music that a young, hip couple in the early Sixties would have been listening to.
OK, now I’ve opened the floodgates of my DVD mania. One other DVD related question. for you Dopers:
In episode 63 “All About Eavesdropping”, Rob and Laura eavesdrop on Jerry and Millie through Ritchie and Freddie’s toy intercom. Millie suggests to Jerry that Laura had intentionally left out an ingredient in the recipe she gave Millie for “Peanut Butter Avocado Dip”. The missing ingredient was mustard.
I’ve always wondered, is this Peanut Butter Avocado Dip something that people really made and served in the Sixties? I am both repulsed and intrigued by it.
I often thought how different Mary Richards and Laura Petrie were, and to me they aren’t remotely the same person.
MTM is in my opinion, a great actress. She almost won an oscar for “Ordinary People”
DVD was a brilliant show, way ahead of it’s time. I saw a show about it and it was going to be cancelled until Carl Reiner begged the sponsers or CBS or someone. They gave it another chance. The same thing happened to Seinfeld. In my opinion the 2 best American half hour shows of all time.
Folk music: The Weavers, Tommy Makem, that sort of stuff. I’ll bet they also loved Alan Sherman and Tom Lehrer (though Laura was a bit of a princess and probably liked Patti Page, Julie London and Frank Sinatra).
BEATLES (remember the episode where thay had to hide the pop stars who were appearing on Brady show?) didn’t their house get torn apart by screaming teenage girls?
I’ll have to disagree with Eve about some of the music. No folk. I think they would have listened to music like they performed, kind of loungey/jazzy things. Think slightly jazzier than that performance of “Mountain Greenery” which wound up with a bit of skat singing.
There as a special that brought Dick Va Dyke and MTM back together again a couple of years after the show went off he air. It was partially a remeniscence about the show (they had a schematic set of the Petrie living room – with a closet full of walnuts) and partly DVD and MTM performing (they did a bit where they play th model couple atop the wedding cake, againg in the freezer. They sing “Sunrise, Sunset” from "Fiddler on the Roof’ with vastly changed lyrics). I’ve heard that the high ratings for this special encouraged them to make the Mary Tyler Mooe Show.
There’s a Legend that Mary from the MTM Show was supposed to be a divorcee, but they changed that because too many people would think she was divorced from Rob Petrie. Stupid enough to be true.
