Happy 100th, Dick Van Dyke

Dick Van Dyke turns 100 on December 13th. I have selfish reasons for hoping he lives another 25 years. I'll try to explain why.

"The Dick Van Dyke Show" remains my favorite TV show, a perfect blend of sophisticated verbal humor and, mostly in the person of Van Dyke, outstanding physical comedy. I've made my kids watch it. I've made my grandkids watch it. (Not like it was torture -- they seemed to like it.)

The show premiered in the early 1960s, when I was a kid. It aired on Wednesday nights, immediately following "The Beverly Hillbillies." I may have been only a kid at the time, but I knew what I didn't like on TV, and what I didn't like was "The Beverly Hillbillies."

That show drove me crazy because almost every episode was based on a silly misunderstanding that could have been cleared up in two minutes instead of dragging on for 30 minutes, minus the commercials of Jed Clampett lighting up a Winston cigarette.

Here's an example -- the Clampett family, simple folk from the Ozarks, have struck it rich and now live in a Beverly Hills mansion. But they are unaccustomed to elegant living -- they think the billiard table is a place to have vittles, using the pool cues to pass the kettles. And the doorbell, to them, is a ghostly signal that guests are waiting outside.

At my house the scene played out like this:

Jed: There's them weird noises again.

Me to TV: IT'S THE DOORBELL!!

(I may have been a bit tightly wound as a kid.)

My point is that, as silly as "The Beverly Hillbillies" were (and are), "The Dick Van Dyke Show" showcased comedy with roots in actual human emotion and behavior. The show's creator, Carl Reiner, knew whereof he wrote, after a career as a writer and performer with Sid Caesar for most of the 1950s. And Van Dyke was his perfect collaborator, with the grace of a dancer and the comic genius of a great clown. Beyond their performing skill, he and Mary Tyler Moore (who played his wife Laura) were just about the best-looking couple on TV.  

Another reason I love the show is more personal. At about the same age that I discovered "The Dick Van Dyke Show," I also became aware of a gulf between my parents that stemmed from my father's drinking. Wednesday night was one in which he'd typically get home late, after a stop for a few beers, and when we would hear his truck pull into the driveway, tension would begin to fill the air.

Except for one small thing -- my mom also loved "The Dick Van Dyke Show." It made her laugh, and the laughter seemed to lighten the atmosphere a bit, for me at least.

I've carried that affection with me for more than 50 years, and when people talk about how infantile television was in the 1960s, "The Dick Van Dyke Show" is the weapon I use to fight back against that oversimplification.

Beyond its quality, the show was on the right side of history, using black actors and actresses whenever possible in non-stereotyped roles; it also featured one of the only Jewish TV characters in co-writer Buddy Sorrell, played by Morey Amsterdam. (One episode even dealt with Buddy's unorthodox Bar Mitzvah.) Above all, the show trusted the intelligence of its audience, something very rare in the TV world of the 1960s, much of which was dedicated to timidity and bland obviousness.

I don't know what kind of life Dick Van Dyke leads today -- he appears to be at peace and in amazing physical shape, and I truly hope that appearance reflects reality. Because when he passes, it's going to be a loss keenly felt.