"The Dick Van Dyke Show Season 3" -- A Personal Review - Page 2

Lynch also appears briefly in 1959's Hitchcock classic, North By Northwest .... as (you guessed it) a copper!

I can't help it......

I feel I must come to the aid of my all-time favorite TV program ever -- The Dick Van Dyke Show (ALL seasons)!

Everybody is, of course, entitled to their own opinion regarding every show they watch, but it's totally beyond my meager scope of brain power to fathom how on this Earth *anybody* can possibly prefer ANY show made this day & age over the overwhelmingly-satisifying Van Dyke Show. **

** = Although I realize nobody was directly comparing TDVDS to anything made in 2004; but I'd have to assume that one or more of the Van Dyker-bashers in this thread are probably *more* pleased with some of 2004's material than that of the V.Dyke era--which, for me, is simply an impossibility. Nothing even comes remotely close to shows like Van Dyke, TMTMS, Beaver, Andy Griffith, and perhaps a few others from the 1960s/1970s.

While I would agree that the first few episodes don't have a bunch of Laugh-Out-Loud moments, I still love every show...esp. the debut, "Sick Boy...". But that episode, as written by Carl Reiner, is obviously not supposed to be a raucous wildly funny type of script. It's designed to introduce the great cast to the viewing audience, and give a general idea about who they are and what they do for a living, etc. (plus let us know that these writers (Rob, Buddy, & Sally) can not only write, but also perform too, like at the Alan Brady party in ep. 1).

I dare anybody not to laugh at the very funny and well-written scripts like "Harrison B. Harding", "Blonde-Haired Brunette", "Curious Thing About Women", "Empress Carlotta's Necklace", and "Punch Thy Neighbor" -- all from Season One.

Someone above mentioned how he felt the shows were predictable, gags telegraphed ahead of time, and just plain lame.

Makes me truly wonder what shows you were watching! Because they couldn't possibly have been The Dick Van Dyke Show. Not the one I've loved for so many years.

It's funny, too, because those exact words (predictable, lame, et al), IMO, all describe to a tee the type of material we're subjected to in the 21st century. Other than "The Simpsons" and "Everybody Loves Raymond", I don't think I've seen a comedy program on TV that I've liked for decades.

You can take the majority of today's shows and dump them off a cliff. Especially when you compare them to the Classic (my word ) shows from the Van Dyke era. Watching just ONE Van Dyke or MTM episode makes it nearly unbearable to view pretty much anything from today's crop of so-called comedy efforts.

For me, one of the main reasons I like shows like Van Dyke, MTM, Leave It To Beaver, Jack Benny, Andy Griffith (and some others), is because the characters are really and truly likeable in nature. People I'd like to have as friends. And I think that's quite rare for a writer to accomplish on a weekly basis. I, for one, would love to have Rob, Laura, Millie, Jerry, Buddy, and Sally (and yes, Ritchie too ) as my neighbors and friends.

I'm just glad they didn't carry over the boy who played Ritchie from the "Head Of The Family" pilot. He was much more "grating", IMO, than Larry Mathews ever was. And I, for one, like Larry Mathews as Richard Rosebud Petrie. I think he seems much more like a real kid than even Ricky or David Nelson from the Ozzie & Harriet series -- and they WERE their real kids! Has there ever been two more cardboard-cutout kid actors than Ricky & David??

Now Ronny Howard would have made a perfect Ritchie Petrie. Ronny, of course, was already doing another Danny Thomas/Sheldon Leonard gem at the time (TAGS), so he was unavailable. But if Ronny hadn't become Opie, I think he would have been great as Ritchie.

The true likeability of the Van Dyke Show characters, for me, makes it just plain fun to watch each episode. Even "The Twizzle", which I've even grown fond of since seeing it cleaned-up on DVD.

And the shows just have a "real" feeling to them, in my view. Almost as if we're peering into the living room of an actual American family. This is partly due, of course, to the "realie" factor (as Carl Reiner has put it). "Realie" being a situation that really could (or often DID) occur in real life. Many of the show's scripts ARE, indeed, based on Carl's and Dick's (and other's) actual life experiences.

I would hope that the people who aren't too enthralled by the Dick Van Dyke Show's early episodes will still give it a chance, and watch some of the other episodes. Because I simply cannot imagine anybody NOT smiling often when watching most of these Dick Van Dyke programs.

I'm now convinced that I'm on a completely different planet. .... Because that ep. you refer to ("Washington vs. The Bunny"; Ep. #5) is, IMO, one of the very, very few misfires of the whole 158-ep. assortment. Although, I still think it's a good ep.; just not a full 5-Star effort.

Well, that did it.
I now am positive I'm on a different Van Dyke-watching planet!

"Retro-fitted burlesque routines"??? .....
What S.1 eps. even remotely resemble this descriptive passage?

I, too, agree that the comedy in sitcoms is better when it seems "real", and not seeming like the previous seven lines of dialogue are there only to "set up" the punchline on Page 8.

However, I strongly disagree with your assessment that TDVDS, at virtually any point during its 5-year tenure on CBS, bowed down to this kind of "setting up the gag" humor. I can find very few instances where that happened on that show at all. In fact, Carl Reiner specifically went to great lengths to ensure that that kind of thing didn't happen on his show.

In my view, Carl Reiner was brilliant by making the main characters of TDVDS a writing team, thereby any such "setting up a gag" type of situation in a script can very easily be turned into a legitimate "Realie" (as it were ), because these people ARE in show business.

It's been revealed, also, during the series that Buddy Sorrell's show-biz career extends well into the past, before he started writing for Alan Brady. So any of Buddy's "routines" are easily explained as being derived out of his own life experiences. (As you know, it must be quite hard to hold the tongue of "The Human Joke Machine" --- which was not only a moniker placed upon the shoulders of Morey Amsterdam, but in the very first episode of TDVDS, Rob introduces Buddy to party guests as just that, "The Human Joke Machine". So Buddy's spouting jokes night & day makes perfect sense to me. )

Now if Rob and Buddy and Sally had been insurance salesmen/(woman) -- which the network execs actually wanted! -- then many of the "performing" scenes we get on the show would stretch credibility indeed. But they aren't. They're in show biz. (With Laura's talent also fully realistic, due to the many flashbacks we see of her dancing in the USO shows. Therefore, her displaying this talent in later years doesn't seem far-fetched in the least.)

The TV series that stretched credibility the most, of course, was I Love Lucy (I'm sure we can all agree with that).

I think there are only a handful of completely believable episodes in that whole series, as well as any of Lucy's subsequent series, where a movie star just pops
up out of nowhere on "The Lucy Show" for no apparent realistic reason.

I realize that "Lucy" is a bit of a different "style" of writing and performing...but much of the basic outline (or overview) of I Love Lucy parallels that of the Van Dyke Show. I.E.: A husband-and-wife comedy series, with the hubby in show biz in some fashion. With a hubby-&-wife neighbor couple that figures prominently in many of the stories. But that's where the similarities end.

Absolutely nothing that Lucy Ricardo did could possibly even begin to fit inside our proverbial "Realistic Drawer". It's not that some of it isn't funny; but certainly not with the same believability factor that Rob & Laura & Gang possessed.

And while I like Lucy's "California Trip" episodes the best, TDVDS is miles & miles ahead of any Lucy outing....and shall forever remain there.

So you're saying Lucy's unbelievable slapstick within admittedly unbelievable storylines is better than Van Dyke's due to its "organic origins" within the ridiculously-outrageous stories which sparked it??

Hmmm....Curious. Most curious analysis, IMO.

I'd disagree again (re. Lucy). I don't enjoy the Lucy antics as much as TDVDS simply because, as is fairly evident, NOTHING about any of the crazy Lucy situations is the slightest bit realistic or believable. (Whether "organic" or otherwise. )

Plus, IMO, none of the V.Dyke material is ever "over the top", unlike Lucy, which is always way over the edge.

Exception to the above just might be the ep. Jaime referred to, "My Husband Is Not A Drunk", wherein we get a rather hard-to-believe scenario of Rob reacting to "bell rings" all day.

For one thing, I personally do not believe in THAT kind of hypnotism...the kind where a guy says a few well-chosen words, snaps his fingers, and suddenly a person is under his power. Silly. I don't believe it. WHY, then, couldn't ANYBODY ELSE (Rob, Laura, or you or me) simply do the very same thing and get the same hypnotic results? Why does it ONLY work for this "qualified hypnotist", when others could just as easily do the same thing and snap *their* fingers. Silly. I don't buy it. Kinda like UFOs...won't believe it until I see it in person.

But aside from my belief that THAT kind of random "non-drug-induced" hypnotism is simply not possible ... that particular Van Dyke ep. does "manipulate" the script in some ways to highlight Rob's malady....the most obvious and blatant is the way the phone rings once...then decides to NOT ring a second time for many, many seconds, thereby enabling Rob to stay "drunk" for these few extra seconds. Then we get two rings right on top of one another. Whose phone rings like that?? (Same thing with the office phone later in show.)

But, anyhoo, I still like even that episode because of the great cast, plus Rob's funny line, while "drunk" (and sobbing) to Mel -- "Just because I disobeyed you, you didn't have to cut off ALL your hair!!"

But that episode is, indeed, one I could never *fully* embrace with my normal 5-star Van Dyke passion, due to the hurdle about hypnotism in general that I cannot get around.

Interesting, too, that on the Commentary on that episode, Carl Reiner actually says that the network execs were concerned about viewers actually getting hypnotized right through their TV screens! I had to laugh at the prospect! HOW is that even remotely possible?? (Even if actor Charles Aidman WERE, in fact, a "qualified hypnotist"??) Impossible.

This might be the best endorsement of all. Glad to hear this, Dan.



And always remember, my friend.....
"A second with you is like a year with an angry mob!" -- Buddy Sorrell

Well said, Carlos.
Thank you.


I like that one.

Yes. I just saw this today, in fact.
If we're referring to the same picture, it's from Ep. 71 ("Big Max Calvada") on Disc 2 of S.3. It shows a color photo of the gang, plus Sheldon Leonard (Calvada) at the office desk. Interesting to see a color shot on the set.

Of course, Shawn, perhaps you refer to yet another color picture. There could be another I haven't encountered as yet in Season Three.

I'm wondering what image will be used too.
Some ideas I thought might be pretty good were:
Rob wrestling with the toy monkey in "My Mother Can Beat Up My Father" ... or Rob's banging up against the bathroom door in "Never Bathe On Saturday" ... or the man-eating bed scene from "The Ghost Of A. Chantz" ... or the scene in "See Rob Write...", in which Rob picks up a chair and crashes to the floor when the chair's legs separate from the seat.

Probably won't be any of these, but we'll see.

I liked it. But it's a far cry from TDVDS. It's kind of interesting seeing Buddy Sorrell popping up on another show.

Anybody take note of how that Danny Thomas episode is virtually identical in storyline to the Van Dyke ep., "Ray Murdock's X-Ray", where Laura gets irate with Rob for having revealed her personal foibles on natl. TV?

Then there's also the mistake of having Buddy writing for someone other than Alan Brady. Because we discover during a S.1 episode that Buddy has an "exclusive contract" to write only for Alan Brady. And yet here we have Buddy apparently moonlighting as one of Danny Thomas' writers.

Yep. Never have seen the appeal of that program.