The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited – To Wince Or Not To Wince…


Congrats to CBS for kowtowing a couple times (tonight and tomorrow night) during this sweeps to a graying demographic, via two comedy blasts from the past. The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited airs tonight at 9pm, an hour-long what they’re calling the 159th episode, forty years after the first batch. As somebody who’s loved the show for a long time, and who used to a have a great time programming the classic shows overnight when I was back at KTLA in Los Angeles – don’t let anybody tell you that TV Land discovered the show – I should be first in line to catch this nostalgic hour, but I would say modest expectations of anything truly entertaining should be in order. It will probably be sweet, awkward, weird, and tinged with the reality of mortality, and if that isn’t enough of a downer, CBS has shoehorned its own Ray Romano into the mix. Romano’s already got his 40 million dollar paycheck from the network; can’t he keep his nose out of this tribute to a bygone show? Do we need his presence to add relevance? Hardly. It’s annoying and unnecessary when the show is The Dick Van Dyke Show.


Of course, you’ll have to either record the Petrie’s reunion or Jack’s deadly virus adventures on 24 over on Fox, and I’d certainly recommend not missing 24 as it’s been pretty good the past few weeks, once they got that baby out of the office. I especially enjoy the sad sack hardworking character of Chloe, as played by Mary Lynn Rajskub. (For another terrific Rajskub portrayal, catch her as Adam Sandler’s sister in Punch Drunk Love.)


(And if you’re a fan of Carol Burnett – which I’m not – you’ll want to tune in tomorrow on CBS at 10pm for the second reunion of her cast members, the first of which got surprise huge ratings a while back. This one is centered around her audience interactive segments, thus the title “Let’s Bump Up The Lights.” Now, if it were called “Let’s Bump Off The Cast” – then I’m there. Never liked her, never will.)



The internet is full of good Dick Van Dyke sites, such as these:

The Official site, from show original participants Carl Reiner
Bill Persky & Sam Denoff and Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore.

The current TV home of the show, TV Land.

This cute fan site, done with obvious love and considerable knowledge.

A great critical essay on the show from the Museum of Broadcast Communications.

Some nice show photos here.

Even the BBC pays tribute to the show on this website.

The always helpful TV Tome has an extensive and informative listing on the series.

Don’t miss this terrific site on the Dick Van Dyke comic book that never was.

And CBS has a nice site about tonight’s special.