The Dick Van Dyke Show - General Discussion

[rmontro]

7 hours ago, chessiegal said:

On-line guide says "S1E1 The Sick Boy and the Sitter. Rob talks Laura into leaving their sick son with a baby sitter while they go to a party at Alan Brady's penthouse."

I've seen that many times.  Not one of their better episodes IMO, it's got a dark somber feel to it and isn't very funny.  Not going to complain though since it's their first try, they were still finding their footing.

[chessiegal]

When I watched the Pilot today, it reminded me of what a terrible child actor Larry Matthews was. He practically laughs his way through the show. I can't believe they couldn't find someone better.

[Bethany]

I recently watched this show (until, sadly, the channel carrying it dropped it) and I noticed by the last year or so they used Richie very rarely.  I don't know why he was cast in the first place as other shows from that era had child actors who could act circles around him but he did hold his own in a handful of episodes.  Not many, but a few.

[Gemma Violet]

2 hours ago, Elizabeth Anne said:

I recently watched this show (until, sadly, the channel carrying it dropped it) and I noticed by the last year or so they used Richie very rarely.  I don't know why he was cast in the first place as other shows from that era had child actors who could act circles around him but he did hold his own in a handful of episodes.  Not many, but a few.

Off the top of my head, he did do well in the duck episode, where he and Rob discuss "selfish love," and maybe other episodes I can't think of, but yeah, the reciting his lines while trying to stifle a grin gets old after a while.  It's a mystery why he was cast.  Maybe Carl Reiner owed Larry Mathews' father a favor or something. 😄  

[rmontro]

Poor Larry Matthews, he sure takes his share of it.  Richie was a perfect child though, most of the time the Petries seemed like a childless couple.  He only appeared when the script called for it.  There's the old saying "Children should be seen and not heard", except a lot of the time he wasn't even seen lol.  

[Egg McMuffin]

I think the challenge for Larry Matthews was that unlike most of the other shows of the era, TDVDS was filmed with multiple cameras in front of a studio audience. And because audio technology was still relatively primitive, actors had to project their lines as if they were in a play. Watch All in the Family from a decade later and they were still shouting their lines.

It takes a lot of skill to project your lines that way and sound natural. And that’s a tall order for child actors, who I think fare much better in one-camera shows that are filmed without an audience. Around the same time of TDVDS, The Lucy Show was being filmed in front of an audience, too. The actress who played Lucy’s daughter was highly artificial and delivered her lines in that same singsongy tone as Larry Matthews. When the same actress was on The Donna Reed Show (single camera, no audience), she was perfectly fine.

Edited January 3, 2023 by Egg McMuffin

[Bethany]

14 hours ago, Egg McMuffin said:

The actress who played Lucy’s daughter was highly artificial and delivered her lines in that same singsongy tone as Larry Matthews. When the same actress was on The Donna Reed Show (single camera, no audience), she was perfectly fine.

Oh interesting. This show recently came on on that same channel that dropped TDVDS and I had noticed that the young actress shouted her lines.  I put it down to her not being particularly good and wondered why she would have been cast.  After all she was into her teens not 5 or 6 where they might have opted for cute kid appeal and not worried too much about whether she could act!

14 hours ago, rmontro said:

Richie was a perfect child though, most of the time the Petries seemed like a childless couple.

So true!  There was an episode where the Petries are getting ready to go to a party and Richie is no where to be seen, no mention of a babysitter and not even a throwaway line that he was at a sleepover or whatever.  It was like they didn't even have a child.

[rmontro]

7 hours ago, Elizabeth Anne said:

So true!  There was an episode where the Petries are getting ready to go to a party and Richie is no where to be seen, no mention of a babysitter and not even a throwaway line that he was at a sleepover or whatever.  It was like they didn't even have a child.

I would have to kind of assume that the Helpers would be watching Richie, but maybe they were going to the party too lol.  

One thing that bugs me about people saying what a bad actor Larry Matthews was, is I like to say that TDVDS is the best sitcom of all time.  It makes for a harder claim if they have one of the worst actors ever on there.

[chessiegal]

2 minutes ago, rmontro said:

One thing that bugs me about people saying what a bad actor Larry Matthews was, is I like to say that TDVDS is the best sitcom of all time.  It makes for a harder claim if they have one of the worst actors ever on there.

I don't think one precludes the other. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I read that Carl Reiner considered this to be his best creation. Maybe Larry did better in auditions than when they started shooting. 🤷‍♀️I find the scenes with Ritchie to be cringeworthy. 

[Bethany]

35 minutes ago, rmontro said:

One thing that bugs me about people saying what a bad actor Larry Matthews was, is I like to say that TDVDS is the best sitcom of all time.  It makes for a harder claim if they have one of the worst actors ever on there.

Larry Matthews may not be the best kid actor that ever was but I have to say I loved the character of Richie.  He was a regular kid.  No special talent, not a brain at school, not even full of smarty pants witty remarks that a 6 yr old would never make in real life.  I do think this is a real strength of TDVDS which is a plus!

Edited January 3, 2023 by Elizabeth Anne

[TheLastKidPicked]

On 1/3/2023 at 4:39 PM, Elizabeth Anne said:

I have to say I loved the character of Richie.  He was a regular kid.  No special talent, not a brain at school, not even full of smarty pants witty remarks that a 6 yr old would never make in real life.  I do think this is a real strength of TDVDS which is a plus!

 

Yes!  And to add to your point, Laura and Rob were perfectly fine to have an "average" kid.

 

[Bethany]

My husband just texted me because his co-worker is sitting near him loudly munching his way through a bag of nuts.  Of course my immediate first thought was of the It May Look Like A Walnut episode.  Classic.  One of my absolute favourite episodes of any TV sitcom.

[Gemma Violet]

Last night, I was watching the episode entitled The Lady, the Tiger, and the Lawyer.  It's the matchmaking one about the good-looking guy living next door who Rob and Laura want to fix up with Sally and Laura's cousin Donna, respectively.  They have a competition to see who the guy will like better, and it turns out he gets along great with both of them.  And then he tells Rob and Laura that he was married three times (twice to the same woman) and he admits that his psychiatrist advised him not to get into another relationship until he solves his problem--he hits those he loves.  Talk about taking a creepy turn.  And there were actually a few people in the audience who laughed when he said that.  

Edited April 17, 2023 by Gemma Violet

[shapeshifter]

26 minutes ago, Gemma Violet said:

Last night, I was watching the episode entitled The Lady, the Tiger, and the Lawyer.  It's the matchmaking one about the good-looking guy living next door who Rob and Laura want to fix up with Sally and Laura's cousin Donna, respectively.  They have a competition to see who the guy will like better, and it turns out he gets along great with both of them.  And then he tells Rob and Laura that he was married three times (twice to the same woman) and he admits that his psychiatrist advised him not to get into another relationship until he solves his problem--he hits those he loves.  Talk about taking a creepy turn.  And there were actually a few people in the audience who laughed when he said that.  

We discussed this episode in February of 2022:
https://forums.primetimer.com/topic/70033-the-dick-van-dyke-show/?do=findComment&comment=7308983

 

[rmontro]

On 4/17/2023 at 7:37 PM, Gemma Violet said:

Last night, I was watching the episode entitled The Lady, the Tiger, and the Lawyer. 

Here and on other forums, that episode gets a lot of comments, for obvious reasons.  Well, they certainly do not condone the guy's behavior, but the tone is off.  I suppose because it's a sitcom.  He's taking care not to let it happen again, at least.  I'm almost more disturbed by Rob and Laurie's continuous pinching each other on the shoulder throughout the episode.  IIRC, I think Rob even lightly punches Laura in the arm at one point.  Lightly, but enough to make her say "ow".  The consensus is that it's a weird episode.

[shapeshifter]

13 hours ago, rmontro said:

IIRC, I think Rob even lightly punches Laura in the arm at one point.  Lightly, but enough to make her say "ow".  The consensus is that it's a weird episode.

Since the behavior of Rob and Laura punching and pinching each other is limited to that one episode out of 158 episodes, I want to believe the writers were primarily shining a light on an often hidden subject.

[rmontro]

12 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Since the behavior of Rob and Laura punching and pinching each other is limited to that one episode out of 158 episodes, I want to believe the writers were primarily shining a light on an often hidden subject.

My memory isn't good enough to get specific as to which episodes, but I'm pretty sure there are other episodes where Rob and/Laura get "lightly physical" with each other.  The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Laura digging her hand in to Rob's shoulder at an auction to get him to buy the "thing", but I'm sure there are others.  I can't think of another episode where there is as much of it as there is in the lawyer episode, though - not including the one where Laura proves she can "beat Rob up", but that was different.

[TheLastKidPicked]

Stumbled into this picture on accident.

Our very own Richard Deacon in an advertisement with double meaning.

[rmontro]

Speaking of Mel Cooley, was he ever married?  I don't think he was.  I wonder why not?

The other day I was watching the "Teacher's Petrie" episode, and noticed something strange.  Sally said "You think you got problems?  Try being  a 27 year old woman with a figure like this and living with a cat".  And I immediately thought there's no way she was 27.  So I looked it up and Rose Marie would have been about 41 at the time, which was about what I guessed her at.

So maybe she was 41 playing a 27 year old Sally.  Or maybe Sally lied about her age, which was common at the time.  Mary Tyler Moore was probably close to 27, but not Rose Marie.

[Maverick]

Yes, he was Alan Brady's brother in law by marriage to Alan's sister.  

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, rmontro said:

Sally said "You think you got problems?  Try being  a 27 year old woman with a figure like this and living with a cat".  And I immediately thought there's no way she was 27.  So I looked it up and Rose Marie would have been about 41 at the time, which was about what I guessed her at.

So maybe she was 41 playing a 27 year old Sally.  Or maybe Sally lied about her age, which was common at the time.  Mary Tyler Moore was probably close to 27, but not Rose Marie.

Without seeing and hearing the line in context, I can't be sure, but my guess would be that the character of Sally was lying about her age as a joke. 
Again, without looking it up, I can't be sure, but I think Sally was supposed to be in her 30s, possibly even 37. It would have been a bit of a meta, breaking-the-fourth-wall joke, since Rose Marie was a comedienne playing a younger comedy writer who was pretending to be younger.

Around that era it was assumed that women would not reveal their real ages and it was rude to ask, but it wasn't really much different for men. Jack Benny had a running joke that he was "39" for about 30 years. Game show host Gene Rayburn blamed his being let go on his real age being outed when he was in his late 60s. 

[Gemma Violet]

2 hours ago, rmontro said:

Try being  a 27 year old woman

I also took it as a joke.   That part of the joke didn't really land because, to me, the main joke was that she lived with a cat, and her saying a "thirty-(something)-year-old living with a cat" would have probably been funnier in that time period than a 27-year-old.

[rmontro]

2 hours ago, Maverick said:

Yes, he was Alan Brady's brother in law by marriage to Alan's sister.  

You've got that backwards, Alan was married to Mel's sister.

 

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

Without seeing and hearing the line in context, I can't be sure, but my guess would be that the character of Sally was lying about her age as a joke. 

I was going to mention that as a possibility, but I forgot.  But I don't see anything in her manner or in the scene suggesting she was joking.  Buddy's reply to her was "Don't do it".  Still, you could be right.  If you want to check out the scene, it's at about the 13:55 mark on this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjvDYFcxt8Q

Edited to add:  I notice several of the comments on that page were also about Sally claiming to be 27.   None of them seemed to think it was a joke either.

Edited June 14, 2023 by rmontro

[shapeshifter]

47 minutes ago, rmontro said:

I was going to mention that as a possibility, but I forgot.  But I don't see anything in her manner or in the scene suggesting she was joking.  Buddy's reply to her was "Don't do it".  Still, you could be right.  If you want to check out the scene, it's at about the 13:55 mark on this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjvDYFcxt8Q

Edited to add:  I notice several of the comments on that page were also about Sally claiming to be 27.   None of them seemed to think it was a joke either.

Thanks. Yeah, I guess it was supposed to be funny but didn’t work? I can imagine a lot of possibilities, but we can’t know for sure. Like maybe there was originally another line or two between Sally and Buddy about Sally’s “real” age that was cut for time?

I can’t find any mention online of Sally’s age. 
If anyone catches another mention of Sally’s age in another episode, let us know.

[Starleigh]

I think I read that the Mary Tyler Moore show was planned to be a more modern update on the Sally Rogers type character. So, I'd assume that Sally was meant to be somewhere in her 30s. I also would figure the "27" comment was meant to be sarcasm, the way people will say they are 29 or 39 in a joking way when asked their age. I also don't think they'd have such a young comedy writer on the team! Was Rob's age ever mentioned?(I know Mary Tyler Moore at first didn't want him to know her age because she thought he'd object that she'd be too young to play Rob's wife because of the age gap.) I assume he's in his 30s and Buddy is, like, 50ish?

[rmontro]

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

I can’t find any mention online of Sally’s age. 
If anyone catches another mention of Sally’s age in another episode, let us know.

I'm guessing Rose Marie is playing a 27 year old Sally, just like you often see 30 year olds playing high school students.

[shapeshifter]

4 minutes ago, rmontro said:

I'm guessing Rose Marie is playing a 27 year old Sally, just like you often see 30 year olds playing high school students.

Possibly. In the 60s a 27-year-old single woman might be anxious to find a fella. Actually, today a pregnancy is considered “geriatric” if the mother is 35.

If Rose Marie’s voice was less raspy, she would have come across as younger. Was she just a smoker, or was there some other reason?

Plus, there was no Botox back then. Julianna Margulies was 42 when they started filming The Good Wife; she could have easily passed for 10 years younger in hi-def — although the character didn’t require it.

[Starleigh]

4 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

P

If Rose Marie’s voice was less raspy, she would have come across as younger. Was she just a smoker, or was there some other reason?

 

I read her memoirs a few years ago...I think she just had a very distinct voice. She started singing and  performing at a young age, and she got a lot of attention because nobody expected a tiny little girl to belt songs out with such a powerful and adult sounding voice. 

At least according to her memoirs, it sounded like she led a vice-free life. (Although smoking wasn't considered a vice back then, was it??)

[shapeshifter]

17 minutes ago, Starleigh said:

(Although smoking wasn't considered a vice back then, was it??)

Yeah, Rose Marie came of age when smoking was accepted most places except inside most places of religious worship. 
But now I'm wondering if the demands on her vocal chords as a child effected the quality of her speaking voice as an adult. Seems like a possibility.

[Bethany]

With regard to Sally only being 27 it seems unlikely to me given that in the flashbacks when Rob is first hired to work for Alan Brady Sally and Buddy are already seasoned staff writers.   This would have to have been at least 5 years before the show officially starts as Richie was born (again in a flashback episode) and Rob is already working on the Brady Show.  Unless Sally was a teenager when Alan hired her there is no way she is 27 at any point in the run of the show!

That said keep track of how old the characters are meant to be isn't exactly a strong suit of the show.  

[rmontro]

6 hours ago, Bethany said:

Unless Sally was a teenager when Alan hired her there is no way she is 27 at any point in the run of the show! 

27 isn't far off from Mary Tyler Moore's age, although that doesn't negate your point.  But we don't know that the seasons happened in real time - each season wasn't necessarily a year, and the whole series didn't necessarily represent five years on the show.   

Or Sally could always be a liar, that's not an unlikely scenario.

[sharmar]

In Season 1 "Buddy Can You Spare a Job?" they said that Mel married the star's sister.  In Season 5 "Obnoxious, Offensive,..." Mel said that Alan was married to his sister.  I never understood why they made the switch.

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, sharmar said:

In Season 1 "Buddy Can You Spare a Job?" they said that Mel married the star's sister.  In Season 5 "Obnoxious, Offensive,..." Mel said that Alan was married to his sister.  I never understood why they made the switch.

Both could be true. 
Or it could be a mistake. 
Or…

[Driad]

In the episode in which the writers and Mel went to Alan's house to retrieve a script, Mel found evidence that Alan was cheating on his wife.  This didn't appear to bother Mel, which implied that Alan's wife was not Mel's sister.

[sharmar]

10 hours ago, Driad said:

In the episode in which the writers and Mel went to Alan's house to retrieve a script, Mel found evidence that Alan was cheating on his wife.  This didn't appear to bother Mel, which implied that Alan's wife was not Mel's sister.

That's "Obnoxious, Offensive,..."  In that epy, Mel said he could visit his sister's house any time Alan wasn't there.

[Driad]

The writers of the show may not have felt a need to be consistent, since they didn't know about us.  😀

[TheLastKidPicked]

On 6/20/2023 at 6:33 PM, Driad said:

The writers of the show may not have felt a need to be consistent, since they didn't know about us.  😀

 

That demonstrates how well the show holds up overall.  It's one thing to watch it in the original run.  And it's another to watch the reruns so you see the same episode twice.

It's a whole new level when we have cable TV, the internet, and youtube.  Think about how many episodes you have watched multiple times and they still feel fresh.

 

Edited July 7, 2023 by TheLastKidPicked

[Starleigh]

On 6/19/2023 at 10:04 PM, sharmar said:

In Season 1 "Buddy Can You Spare a Job?" they said that Mel married the star's sister.  In Season 5 "Obnoxious, Offensive,..." Mel said that Alan was married to his sister.  I never understood why they made the switch.

In the episode "The Bottom of Mel Cooley's Heart" there are at least 3 references to Alan being married to Mel's sister, including one where Mel said Alan made sure he wasn't invited to his own sister's wedding. I guess the writers figured it would be a bit more dramatic and make Mel's situation a bit more precarious than if his wife were Alan's sister (you'd figure his own wife wouldn't stand for her husband being mistreated by her brother and she'd encourage him to get a job somewhere else).

Going back to Sally's age, I was reading some comments on a youtube video yesterday and someone commented that Rose Marie was 38 when the show started filming. I think that age makes sense for Sally--she certainly isn't written as though she's the same age or younger than Laura, and she seems to be about halfway between Rob's and Buddy's ages.  The video I was watching was "Sally and the Lab Technician" and Laura was asking things like, "Rob, why hasn't Sally ever married all these years" which certainly makes it sound as though she is older than Laura and not her contemporary (assuming Laura is supposed to be in her upper 20s or maybe 30ish based on Richie's age and her age when she and Rob married).

 

 

[HyeChaps]

Remember Laura was only 17 (!) when she married Rob

[Starleigh]

24 minutes ago, HyeChaps said:

Remember Laura was only 17 (!) when she married Rob

True. And assuming Richie was born a year later, and that he was about 6 or 7 when the show started, Laura was supposed to approximately 24 or 25 at the start of the show. But it's pretty clear to me that Sally was supposed to be older than Laura, especially with Laura asking Rob why she "never married all these years" and to me (for those times!) it sounds like a woman in her 30s.

 

[rmontro]

9 hours ago, Starleigh said:

True. And assuming Richie was born a year later, and that he was about 6 or 7 when the show started, Laura was supposed to approximately 24 or 25 at the start of the show. But it's pretty clear to me that Sally was supposed to be older than Laura, especially with Laura asking Rob why she "never married all these years" and to me (for those times!) it sounds like a woman in her 30s.

Okay, so Laura is 24 and Sally is 27, just like she claimed  😄

I don't think Laura wondering why Sally hasn't been married necessarily points to her being in her 30s.  In those days, most women married in their early 20s.  Laura and Millie were both old hand housewives and mothers by that time, where Sally was more of a career girl. 

The thing that makes me think Sally is older is she seems so familiar with some of the old vaudeville, radio, and early TV acts.  Heck, she wrote for some of them.  Other than the fact that Rose Marie looks older, talks older, acts older, and actually is older.  But that doesn't mean her character is as old as she is (not trying to make her sound like a dinosaur).

Edited July 21, 2023 by rmontro

[Charlie Baker]

Rose Marie was born 100 years ago today.

Rose Marie on IMDB

[Fool to cry]

Everytime I see it's a flashback episode to 10 years earlier and I see Laura has a 60s flip bouffant hairdo in the 50s.

[rmontro]

2 hours ago, Fool to cry said:

Everytime I see it's a flashback episode to 10 years earlier and I see Laura has a 60s flip bouffant hairdo in the 50s.

Maybe she was ahead of her time?

[Laura Holt]

Whenever I see this thread open I think it's bad news about Dick Van Dyke!

[rmontro]

2 hours ago, Laura Holt said:

Whenever I see this thread open I think it's bad news about Dick Van Dyke!

Nope.  Just exasperated muppets.

[Laura Holt]

I am doing a little happy dance here - I just checked our local station that airs golden oldies during the day and they are going to start airing The Dick Van Dyke show starting next week!  They were showing 3 back to back episodes of I Love Lucy and are reducing that to 2 episodes.  So huzzah!  Maybe eventually they'll bring back My Three Sons and The Andy Griffith Show as well.  But if I had to choose it would definitely be the best sitcom ever made - TDVDS 😃.

[chessiegal]

Sundance TV shows a lot of The Andy Griffith Show. MeTV shows Andy weekday early evening. MeTV shows 2 Dick Van Dyke late Sundays.

[rubaco]

Pluto.tv (which is free streaming, although with commercials) shows The Dick Van Dyke Show on a continuous loop (at least I think it's continuous... I'm usually tuning in late in the evening). It's in their Classic TV section. I put it on last night and caught "Show of Hands," which is the one where Rob and Laura end up accidentally dyeing their hands black. Then Rob worries how they're going to look when they go to accept an award at the Committee for Interracial Understanding. They both decide to wear gloves. I've seen the episode a ton of times but last night was the first time I thought to myself: wait, how would you get permanent black dye off your hands? If that sitcom situation were to happen to me, I'd have no idea. By the magic of television, the Petries didn't have any trace of black dye on their hands in the next episode.

[Tom Holmberg]

21 hours ago, rubaco said:

Pluto.tv (which is free streaming, although with commercials) shows The Dick Van Dyke Show on a continuous loop (at least I think it's continuous... I'm usually tuning in late in the evening). It's in their Classic TV section. I put it on last night and caught "Show of Hands," which is the one where Rob and Laura end up accidentally dyeing their hands black. Then Rob worries how they're going to look when they go to accept an award at the Committee for Interracial Understanding. They both decide to wear gloves. I've seen the episode a ton of times but last night was the first time I thought to myself: wait, how would you get permanent black dye off your hands? If that sitcom situation were to happen to me, I'd have no idea. By the magic of television, the Petries didn't have any trace of black dye on their hands in the next episode.

I would guess it "wears off." If you get henna tattoos or accidentally get an ink mark on your skin, it not permanent. The top later of your skin isn't permanent.