"The Dick Van Dyke Show" made me feel like an adult. It made me smarter. It made me want to write. It made me laugh. And it made me funnier.
And I wasn't even a teenager yet.
Actually, while I watched it as a tyke, I didn't really get to appreciate it until it went into reruns after its initial network run. When it first aired, "The DVD Show" was on Wednesday nights, right after "The Beverly Hillbillies," another favorite that I watched religiously with my grandmother. But, after Jed and Granny went off, my grandmother didn't join me in watching Van Dyke and the gang. She would go off to do other things: wash the dentures, pull down the bedspread, or have a nip of Black Berry schnappes if she needed to settle her stomach. She didn't care for the Petries and I never knew why.
Until I finally got the show myself years later. Because, while there were tons of wonderful slapstick, "The DVD Show" was one you had to listen to. Carefully. Because it was rapid fire dialogue that might have gone a little too fast for my grandmother.
On this list of Top 25 Favorite TV Shows, we are heading into a very sitcom-populated territory, and, indeed, each and every one of them forms a lot of me today. Each one was just another writing class. And "The DVD Show" was essentially Sitcom 101 for me.
There are some episodes that stand out for me more than others and I dip into the complete DVD set at least once a year to sample them anew. The one where Laura gets her toe stuck in the bathtub faucet. The walnut dream episode where Mary Tyler Moore comes sliding out of the closet. Or the show when Rob thinks he took the wrong baby home from the hospital. And the one where Laura, on national television, reveals that boss Alan Brady is bald. For some reason, I love this snippet of Richard Deacon, as the ultra put-upon Mel Cooley, demonstrates perhaps the worst ventriloquist act ever.
There is one episode, however, that has never been seen by me again. It's the one where they throw a birthday party for little Ritchie. When I first saw it, I thought it was awful. Had there been a complete shift in writers? The energy was completely off. The acting was terrible. The live audience was replaced by canned laughter. I never could understand how this mess was actually part of this series.
Until years later. When I learned this particular episode was filmed on Tuesday, November 26, 1963. The day after the funeral for President John F. Kennedy.
Great television can be more than just entertaining. In this one case, it's a reflection of American history.
Dinner last night: Baked Virginia Ham sandwich at Athena Diner after a Met rainout.
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