You may be right about that. There is a chemistry. Carol Cleveland (_Monty Python's Flying Circus_) would probably be great with Dick Van Dyke. In fact, Dick Van Dyke would have been a great Python!

Karen Morrow?

Doris Day had her own show, Mary Tyler Moore Show and the Partridge Family starring Shirley Jones. Most times, it’s best just to quit while you are ahead. You can’t keep updating an old series.

Great point. I never thought of that, he was one of the rare ones that duplicated the success of his series. Lucy was another, but I'd be hard pressed to name another.

I liked Newhart much more than the original show. It had more memorable characters and a better setting as far as I’m concerned.

@@josephbrown9685Me too.

The second show "Newhart" struggled at first until new characters like the ones played by Julia Duffy and Peter Scolari came on board a few seasons in and we're perfect satire on 80s yuppies. And of course Larry, Darryl and Darryl!

I recently started rewatching Newhart and was amazed that the network stuck with it until they found the secret formula for that particular show. It wasn't until the 3rd season that Newhart hit its stride with stereotypical characters that made the show work. I guess it just goes to show if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

ten years later, she sobbed "OH MR GRAAAAAAANT' 😅😅😅😅😅😅

Good one!@@farrellmcnulty909

That's not true. Dick Van Dyke has had plenty of success in other projects without Mary Tyler Moore.

I know he had a lot of success outside the Dick Van Dyke show. I was just referring to the Dick Van Dyke Show itself.

Very true!

True. Some perfect examples of that would be "The Blues Brothers"; "Bladerunner"; "Willie Wonka and The Chocolate Factory"; "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas"; "The Cat In The Hat"; and "The Pink Panther"; just to name a few.

You said this better than me, I wrote a whole paragraph lol

@@TonyBoyOhBoy your right Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore had great chemistry was so great....you did think they were married in Real life.....having been Born in 1967.. all the classic TV Shows of the 1950's , 60's and 70's I saw in Reruns during my Teenage years in the 1980's and loved them..

I Did Not Know That! Good one!

Don't forget his infamously miscast slot in the Carol Burnett Show after Harvey Korman walked off. it was 7 to 9 months of "what's he doing there?"

@@TonyBoyOhBoyanother interesting tidbit about the 1988 “The Van Dyke Show “ is that once again , CBS had Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore back to back on their 1988 fall schedule. The Van Dyke Show aired right before “Annie McGuire” starring Mary Tyler Moore.

@@CaliforniaGuy888 Just yesterday I was watching a clip from The Mary Tyler Moore Hour" and they recreated their roles of Rob and Laura.

You just explained why he didn't mention it lol

Great post and I totally agree about TV today. I finally just stopped watching it and watch old shows or news programs like Dateline or 48 Hours.

Well when you think of the time period, households could only receive about 5 TV stations, so the competition for slots had to have been pretty fierce. But then again, there were no reality shows either...actors actually had to be high quality. Nowadays with thousands of available channels and streaming services, shows can be made extremely cheap by pulling any face off the street.

Well, IF the shows of today are NEW, then you are criticizing for something you just criticized networks for. You have to watch for a few years til they find their feet. I think the first seasons of Seinfeld were idiotic, and we know it stayed on just because they had nothing else. I think the first season of cheers is the best, but it ranked lowest of all shows, so I have the dubous position of disagreeing with audiences and siding with executives. Again, the response was "do we have anything better". Its been ages since I even watched television so can't comment, but only til you get to a certain age do you realize MOST television has always been garbage. The eighties shows now are mostly painflul to watch, paritcularly family shows. I only watched them because they always had hot mothers and cute daughters. Ah hormones, how wrong you have steered me. But for some reason they always focused on the boys and men, not sure why that was, but I always hated it. They were always idiots.

@@TonyBoyOhBoy I hate how dateline does a murder investigation and they drag it out longer than it needs to with forced dramatic twists and turns.

Yes, sometimes for 2 hours.@@ironfist7789

It's all perspective. If the show had been a resounding success, it wouldn't have had to basically recast almost everyone, change the main character's occupation and move it from a coveted timeslot. Those things are done when a program is not working and in trouble. While Lange and the others are good actresses, they simply aren't in the same league as someone like Moore when it comes to comedic talent.

Three years, but it was never up to the legacy of the original Van Dyke Show. The new show has been largely forgotten.

@@TonyBoyOhBoy I think it has more to do with the writing rather than comedy performance of Hope Lange. She won an emmy for the Ghost and Mrs. Muir and that whole series was really fun. She and the lead actor had great chemistry.

She was great in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.

Lovely woman.

I heard she even dated Elvis for a time. But it seems like just about every actress of that time dated Elvis.

And Jackie Gleason and Art Carney.

Bob had two GREAT series. Bob played a likable 9:20 "everyman" in both shows, AND both shows had excellent supporting characters. Griffith's and Van Dyke's comeback series relied too much on the star power of their main characters, the supporting casts were bland, and the writing was mediocre in both shows.

@@raydavison4288 that was the problem for Bob Newhart's third series "Bob". He was still funny but the cast added little, and as a straight man reactive comic, you need whacky talent with good timing around to make that part work.

Mary Frann didn't have much to do at all on Newhart, and she was nowhere near as good as Suzanne Pleshette.

@@Mr21scott people say that, but she was a major plot point in many of the episodes in S1 and 2...conflict with small town ideas of a woman, the witch episode, dealing with the introduction of Stephanie, calling out Dick's quirks and evasiveness. If anything Plechette was underutilized in the first series based on her resume in the 60s. She mostly did the calling out of Bob's quirks and answered the door for the neighbor to reprise Roger Healy.

@@Mr21scott eventually Stephanie, Michael and Larry, Darryl and Darryl took over the show as happened in the last four years of Andy Griffith with the towns folk. Dick and Joanna just did the intro and conclusion on many episodes in the last years

The Morning After was an outstanding TV movie and Van Dyke was phenomenal. Comedians seem to be able to do any sort of drama, but not all dramatic actors can do comedy (just my own opinion!).

His acting chops did not blow me away when he did "The Runner Stumbles".

@@philiphatfield5666 oh my that movie was a mess, the nadir of Stanley Kramer long career. After the fall of production code, and all subjects were now on the table for everyone and TV movies like ‘Morning’ were doing the controversial subject matter better and cheaper, Kramer’s cache as producer no longer existed and his limitations as director couldn’t keep up with the Nichols, Cassavetes, Penns, Altmans, Mazurskys, etc in the 1970s. “Runner Stumbles” even makes Maureen Stapleton look amateurish.

"By his own admission he was drinking heavily during this sitcom; he had a room he would sneak in to drink by himself so no one one would know." Got a source for that, by any chance? I watched an interview that he did with Dick Cavett where he addressed his alcoholism and what he said there doesn't match up to what you've presented. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jsenfbODz7G1poU.htmlsi=el1QJPAfMs5SCM5P I haven't seen the interview in a while, but if I recall correctly, Dick said that he never drank on set, always in a social setting, and never to excess.

I hated that Cosby show wherein he played an unemployed plumber, or something... I'm glad it didn't last long. It wasn't funny. Who's idea was it, and how much drugging the studio execs did it require to get that project greenlighted (or should I say gas-lighted)?

And remember that she had been an Oscar nominee for Peyton Place.

It's on my list. One problem is the only clips I've seen are in such bad shape they'd be hard to use. I don't have to necessarily use video but it makes it more entertaining I think.

I really like the Ghost and Mrs Muir. Also not as good as the movie, yet it was a good show.

You just stole my post. That's the only episode I remember from that series and it was hilarious. I think he was hungry and the only food he could find was a can of peas.

@@comicus6769 And the best part was, he tried to open the can of peas with the fangs of the snake. And then he said "wait, I'll poison my peas!". 🤣

I agree. It caught lightning in a bottle, just like The Andy Griffith Show and The MTM Show. There are so many variables that create shows like this it's impossible to recreate.

@@TonyBoyOhBoy IMO rebooting a show that's not working almost never works [it's already broken] with a few exceptions [like Doris Day's show worked for a short while] Bob Newhart's 2nd show was NOT a reboot so that does not count. Even Lucille Ball's shows to me were not reboots so much because they were changed when the show was highly rated and very successful....not failing...they were mere continuations of the same "Lucy messes up" character in general, just a different last name, new job, new city with the same blustery boss, and similar supporting characters and big name guest stars. Yes after Here's Lucy she tried a new series or two that flopped, she was getting old and so was her supporting players and writers. After the cancellation of rural comedies and the success of All in the Family and Mary Tyler Moore had thoroughly changed the landscape of TV sitcoms, Lucy, Van Dyke, and Griffiths were out of the sitcom business. CBS was crazy to attempt to relive the glory days bringing these folks back on a series. Thanks to Columbo and the NBC movie series with the other shows like McCloud and MacMillian and Wife, [perhaps other shows that followed this pattern] and later the show Murder She Wrote, a new door was opened for Griffith and Van Dyke to do similar series of light drama with comedy thrown in that attracted a mostly geriatric type audience.

Interesting comment. From all the articles I came across, I never got that impression that CBS was happy with the show. That's not to say yours is not correct, just that I never read that angle. I'll do some more reading and see if I can find out more. Do you have any links that CBS wanted a fourth season?

Agreed!

The "artistic difference" was a script in which the characters of Dick and Hope were doing you-know-what, and their young daughter unexpectedly walked in on them in their bedroom. When CBS got wind of it, they wouldn't broadcast that episode. I was very much around at the time and remember the kerfuffle. I don't know if Carl Reiner was so miffed that he wanted to walk, but Van Dyke had a melt-down about it... you know, how DARE they? And quit. The show was a tepid remake of the original DVD show- perky wife at home and wise crackers at the office. It stunk in comparison to schedule neighbor Mary Tyler Moore.

& The Nanny grandma.

It's easy to forget that he was part of that cast; it didn't work at all, and he was gone long before the end of the season, which I think was the show's last.

Thanks for the sub! I'm honored, The Life and Sad Ending is one of he great channels!

I would have been tempted to pull up and say "hi", but I'm sure security would blast me out of there.

Totally agree.

This is a very good point.

🤣

Thanks so much, I love your channel too!!!

I haven't seen that!

It was S1E8, and a couple of years ago, it was the only episode I could find on KZfaq. I just looked, and now it seems to be one of the few I can't find on KZfaq.

"There's a whole survival kit in that can of peas!" For some reason that line has stuck with me over the years.

@@BELCAN57 "Now I'm REALLY thirsty!"

This is why we no longer have plays.

I had the same reaction back in the day. It's really hard for these actors to stop being identified with the roles that made them famous. I recently saw Alan Hale Jr. in a Kirk Douglas film from the 70s and he did a fine job. But I couldn't stop seeing him as the Skipper. Funny, I watched my first episode of Cade's County recently and I really liked it. That started me watching some old Glenn Ford films. I'll look into it.

@@TonyBoyOhBoy Oh wow, that is funny. Very cool thanks.

@@TonyBoyOhBoy Cade's County was a victim of renewed controversy over televised violence. It, & O'Hara, U.S. Treasury, were sacrificed so that higher rated shows like Hawaii Five-O, would not be affected.

That was a great Columbo episode with Dick VanDyke! I think it was the only time I saw him play a nefarious character. Maybe that's why he wore that ridiculous beard that made him look like an overgrown lawn dwarf, to help differentiate himself from his good-guy image.

He's a nepo baby. 3shows of Dicks he was in.

When I showed my wife that first episode she said, "What?? This is giving me a headache!" 🤣

Yes, a great episode!

I thought the character was based on Hugh Hefner...

I worded that wrong. The actresses I mentioned are fine actors but aren't known for doing wacky comedies and weren't good fits for that type of show. Shirley Jones has an Oscar.

Thanks!

Yes, that's the one. Maybe they released it later or on a DVD. Reiner vowed to never do TV again, but I think 4 years later he jumped back in.

From Rob and Laura sleeping in separate beds, to Dick and Hope doing it in the same bed. How America progressed in 10 years!... Well, Canada did.

I never saw that episode, but I remember VanDyke saying that it was very tastefully done, and nothing was seen.

Very true.

I agree. It's an almost impossible task. I did another episode on how closely The Mary Tyler Moore mimicked so much of the The DVD Show. But even so, without the right actors, it wouldn't have worked.

I loved Hope Lange.

I just saw an interview with him on the set of Days Of Our Lives - he's doing several episodes as a hospital patient which starts this Friday, Sept.1 (on Peacock).

Or "The Old Dick Van Dyke Show," since he's 97. 🤣🤣🤣

@@tj10017 According to legend, a magazine was doing a story about Cary Grant, and needed one piece of information. The editor sent the famous actor a telegram, “How old Cary Grant?” He received a reply from Grant, “Old Cary Grant fine. How you?”

Pat Boone is 89, Kim Novak is 90 Clint Eastwood is 93

I actually did a whole episode on him falling over that ottoman!🤣kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pZNplNh32Zm0mmQ.html

I have both DVD and MTM series on...well, DVD, and I enjoy going back and forth between "Laura" and "Mary" to see similarities.

Yes, it was crazy - I think it was 10 episodes. Here's the link kzfaq.info/get/bejne/qJuaq5t_35q4kqM.html

Great post!

Carl Reiner was careful not to use slang that would date the original Van Dyke Show, one reason it probably remains timeless.

@@TonyBoyOhBoy Yes, your original post and video!! Haha! I really appreciated the video because although I was aware of the show, I only had seen the Christmas episode where he is hauled into jail for speeding. The video raises a great question. Even though episode that CBS must not have been broadcast in the original run, it must be on DVD as it is on youtube elsewhere. I watched it after this video because I was trying to grasp how they handled this plotline (very racy for someone whose previous TV character was sleeping in a separate bed from his wife only seven years earlier), as well as what Carl Reiner had put together that he stood by it to the point of quitting. One thing I must say is that Dick Van Dyke is just as funny whether he is Rob Petrie or Dick Preston. Maybe too much of the show rode on his back? I don't recall the extremely talented Fannie Flagg getting much focus in the Christmas episode. Overall, the other characters and actors (despite their talent) seem to be window decorations for all of Dick's funny physical comedy. That was not the case on the Dick Van Dyke show where Mary Tyler Moore could carry a show (God, I love "Coast-to-Coast Big Mouth" and sometimes like to say "needy bald people"!), Rose Marie's performances carried weight, Morey Amsterdam's cracks caused spontaneous combustion-like laughter, and even Richard Deacon as the pompous straightman took it like a champ. And Carl Reiner as the mercurial, short-tempered, loud boss was a recurring character who you couldn't get enough of, especially when he was just the profile and not seen! Alas, The New Dick Van Dyke Show would inevitably be compared to "The Dick Van Dyke Show". You often can't repeat the same formula and get the same success, yet changing the formula too much underscores such a dramatic contrast. I think of a line that Michael Caine once said about making the film "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" with Steve Martin. The film was based on a box office dud from 1964 called "Bedtime Story" with top talent Marlon Brando and Shirley MacLaine. I never have seen it, and don't recall it being on TV. But as Sir Michael very wisely pointed out something along the lines of: "Why do a remake of a great film when you can do a remake of a bad film that has potential for greatness?"

I think the secret of success is in the supporting cast. Take "Mary Tyler Moore," for instance. At work she had Mr Grant, Murray, Ted Baxter, Sue Ann Nivens, Gordy the Weatherman and, referenced but rarely seen, Chuckles the Clown (who features prominently in one of the greatest sitcom episodes of all time). At home she had Rhoda and Phyllis, both of whom ended up in their own spin-offs. And while the focus was ostensibly on Mary the single woman, relatively few episodes focused on her love life -- the producers wisely avoided the third rail of having her end up in a relationship that would have changed the dynamic of the show. All of the other shows mentioned positively in this thread share the same characteristic, a strong supporting cast of characters even in very minor roles. It's hard to think of Mayberry without Floyd the barber, Otis the town drunk or Gomer the mechanic. And Dick Van Dyke had Sally, Buddy, Mel, Alan Brady, the neighbors, etc. I think "Newhart" really took off when the cast was expanded to include the kooky townspeople because they gave Bob a chance to play the straight man slowly losing his sanity -- a part he plays to perfection. Among my favorites was the perpetually horny town librarian (played brilliantly by Kathy Kinney), the mayor and his squabbling sidekick, the sheriff who thinks he's patrolling mean streets, and others. I liked the characters of Michael and Stephanie (Peter Scolari and Julia Duffy) but I felt they were featured too prominently in later seasons. Ditto Larry, Daryl and Daryl. A little goes a long way, but there's no doubt the studio audience loved the them. Apropos of nothing, I was really sorry the reconfigured "Newhart" never featured a Christmas episode, because they had plenty of material to work with. They did a fantastic Halloween episode ("Take Me to Your Loudon" -- it's on KZfaq and well worth checking out) and a decent Thanksgiving episode ("Thanksgiving for the Memories"). My favorite episode, for anyone who might care, is "Murder at the Stratley," where Bob is accused of killing his wife. It's hilarious.

I actually made one on that show a few months back and the day before I was going to post it, my computer crashed and I lost it. Still hoping I can find someone to get into my old hard drive and get it.

Don't forget his failed sitcom from 1971-72, "The Jimmy Stewart Show." I remember watching that one.

@@orbyfan wow I have no recollection of that one

Yes, I like Hope Lange, but he needed someone with better comedic talent to bounce off of. His original show was full of people who played so well against him - from Alan Brady to Buddy to Laura. It had a once in a lifetime cast, just like The Andy Griffith Show.

I've wondered that myself. I've thought about doing an episode on it.

Bit of trivia: Jerry Van Dyke was the first choice to play the title character on "Gilligan's Island," but he turned it down for "My Mother the Car" -- generally considered one of the worst shows of all time. However, he finally struck gold -- and earned four Emmy nominations -- playing Luther Van Dam on "Coach," a good show that, with a few tweaks, could have been a great one. Dick Van Dyke makes a cameo appearance in "Coach" when Luther attends a family reunion.

cuz its trash tv.

and Dick's kid(s) in the second one were pretty bland. Been so long, I can't remember how many he had, but there was a blond girl, I think. She was nothing. Was it Melissa Sue Anderson?

@@farrellmcnulty909 In the original Dick Van Dyke Show, they occasionally had a son named Richie, who was sometimes on the show, sometimes in Rob and Laura's life.

Mary tried 3x & failed after MTM show.

it lasted as long as Newhart wanted it to. From what I hear, he's the one who wanted to walk away.

It depends on how you look at it. I'd say having to dump the entire cast is troubling and then removing it from a very desirable timeslot were not signs of success. Plus, the network discussed canceling it. But technically, lasting 3 years would be a sign of success.

Star trek was 3 seasons Kirk spock mc coy

It was a failure. The only reason it lasted three seasons was due to the fact that dozens of shows failed far worse than it did!

I noticed him on an episode of The Mod Squad.

He was actually on 2 Mod Squad episodes - different characters, different seasons. Did you see the one where Lee Grant was his mom? That's one of my all-time favorite TV performances he did.

Yep, I found that out afterward. My mistake, I misread something in an article.

I agree with you. In the 1970s and beyond, much of the humor involved little more than insults, name-calling and silly catch phrases ("meathead," "stifle yourself, :kiss my grits," etc.) It was hard to tell if the characters even liked one another (no apparent reason why they should). In the original Dick Van Dyke and Andy Griffith shows, on the other hand, you could feel the warmth between the characters. I was stunned to learn that the actress who played Aunt Bee on Andy Griffith didn't care for her colleagues; the animosity certainly didn't show. With The Bob Newhart Show and Mary Tyler Moore, the characters seemed to genuinely like one another (and the first few seasons of MTM, with Rhoda and Phyllis, were phenomenal). But most of the other sitcoms from that era lacked warmth -- and they've aged terribly. Virtually unwatchable today, in my opinion.

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