Research Report
In the dawn of the sitcom, most ideas were, by virtue of the new medium, novel concepts for television shows. But from 1961 to 1966, one show in particular stands out as both a seminal classic and demonstrably progressive in both writing and execution. The Dick Van Dyke Show, created by Carl Reiner and produced by Sheldon Leonard, is as revolutionary as it is representative of that era’s best television. For its time, the combination of workplace and home-bound comedy – in addition to the unorthodox job the main character held – was an as-yet untried combination. Carl Reiner used his own experience in well-loved television programs such as Your Show of Shows and Caesar’s Hour to craft a comedy show that appealed to audiences across the board – slapstick mixed with smart dialogue and traditional values met new ideas to form a delicate balance that constantly eased, then vivaciously engaged viewers. How did this combination come about? And how was Reiner able to get away with his forward-pushing casting and writing decisions, frank sexual gags, and occasionally irreverent treatment of traditional masculinity?
The story of The Dick Van Dyke Show rightly begins in 1950, at the outset of Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows. Young performer Carl Reiner played second banana to Caesar’s comic genius, slowly garnering respect with the writers and inserting himself, uncredited, into the writing team for the show. After the age of the sketch/variety show petered out, Reiner was looking for his next step in the television industry. When it finally came to him, it was an opportunity realized rather than offered:
“I remember exactly where it happened – it was on 96th Street by the East River in New York. I was driving my car downtown from New Rochelle, wondering what ground do I stand on that no one else stands on? I though, I am an actor and writer who worked on the Sid Caesar shows. That’s a different milieu: the home life of a television show writer.”(Weissman, 1)
That very milieu would provide the basis for Head of the Family, the unsuccessful pilot that would later spawn The Dick Van Dyke Show. Reiner, ironically deemed ‘not right’ for the part based off of his very life, would graciously step aside, making way for producer Sheldon Leonard to recast and revamp the show, teaching Reiner to be a producer along the way. The final product, The Dick Van Dyke Show, was a use of experience that hopped on the sitcom bandwagon while retaining many of the small musical and comedy bits that paved the previous years of television history. Dick Van Dyke’s first episode – “The Sick Boy and The Sitter” – rollicks between characters and includes a short variety performance seamlessly into the narrative – fully taking advantage of both Reiner’s experience writing smaller bits and the cast’s experience in theatre and early t.v. The intended first episode of Head of the Family is comparably dry and narratively unchallenging; while it was clearly in an autobiographical vein and drew from Reiner’s life, his true expertise remained largely untapped. Truly, the concepts in both series remain the same – the Dick Van Dyke cast was certainly more dynamic onscreen, but even that may not have been the underlying saving grace of the show. From the beginning, it was clear that television was “ a natural medium for variety shows.” (Boroff, 106) Sitcoms were moving farther and farther from this, and yet variety was where Reiner had cut his teeth. “Your Show of Shows was called a revue because of its continuity of stars…writers …and composers”; constant ingredients, stirred in new ways were the essence of Reiner’s experience. (Boroff, 106) America was moving forward, from variety to sitcom, by virtue of experimentation. But they were not completely through with television’s first natural content. By using throwbacks to the early days of television, Carl Reiner brings The Dick Van Dyke Show a unique energy that acknowledges and reveres its history while changing and evolving with the times. For a post-war, new-consumer society steeped in equal parts progress and historical awareness, it was a potent combination. From the very first episode, The Dick Van Dyke Show used that combination to the fullest.
A very quick review of a few iconic episodes clearly illustrates this. In the first episode aired, the aforementioned “The Sick Boy and The Sitter,” main character Rob Petrie and his coworkers Buddy Sorrell and Sally Rogers are called upon at a party to entertain. They do so by putting on a very brief, condensed vaudeville show – beginning with a brief song, progressing to improv jokes, then to a song, impressions, and a final musical production that humorously calls back to their opening. Right from the beginning, the cast was doubling as both portrayers of characters and variety pros. Several episodes in following seasons, notably “The Talented Neighborhood,” “Somebody Has to Play Cleopatra,” “The Sam Pomerantz Scandals,” “Too Many Stars,” and “Alan Brady Presents…” heavily feature a variety show set-up, or center around the putting together of an actual variety show. Still others center around reviving old stars of radio, early t.v., and theatre as the narrative of the episode – see “The Return of Happy Spangler” and “The Return of Edwin Carp” for examples. The ‘old way’ of doing things was kept very much alive through The Dick Van Dyke Show, and rather than date it, it was a revelation of innovation, combining the best of the old with the best of the new.
Your Show of Shows’ spirit and humor lived on, too, in the characters of Rob Petrie’s workplace. The much-loved Buddy Sorrell and Sally Rogers were “loosely patterned after Show of Shows writers Mel Brooks and Selma Diamond.” (Cullum, 700) Both powerful writers and performers, each was recognizable to the public, and the performances by Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam “evocatively conjure[d] visions of Mel Brooks and Selma Diamond in a Max Liebman writer’s room.” (Marc, 91) Reiner’s own name brought people to the show riding on the Laurels of Show of Shows – in Prime Times: Writers on Their Favorite TV Shows, writer Richard Bausch speaks of what initially drew him to The Dick Van Dyke Show :
“ I stumbled onto it on one of those mornings while stalling for work. The show was ending and in the credits I saw that it had been written by Carl Reiner. I knew that name quite well. As a boy, I had, along with my whole family, gotten great pleasure out of the old Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows. I had a pretty thorough knowledge of the people connected with it, including Sid Caesar himself, and Carl Reiner. So, seeing the name, I marked it, and the next morning, at ten o’clock, turned the Motorola on and sat down on the foot of the bed to watch.” (Bauer, 116-117)
While The Dick Van Dyke Show could certainly stand on its own merit, its roots in and clear reference to the beloved Your Show of Shows only helped it to further its own creative and socio-political goals.
That a sitcom could even have such goals is a lofty claim indeed, and one that might not be easily corroborated on brief overview. The premise of the show seems like any other black-and-white Middle-American television depiction: an attractive young upper-middle-class white man and his attractive young white wife raise their quirky, yet well-behaved white son as they deal with the trials and small comedies of every day life. In summary, it reads like it would have all the racial and gender sensitivity of Archie Bunker. But Carl Reiner designed a far more intelligent and tolerant show than that – true, there are moment of uncomfortable anachronism, where wives are expected to cook and Father occasionally has the last word. But these moments are fewer and farther between than one would expect, and when Father has the last word, it’s more often than not a clear comedic set-up to disaster. Richard Bausch, again from Prime Times, described the strange mix of traditionalism and liberalism that radiate from the show:
“It has always been hard for me to realize that in fact Rob and Laura Petrie, with their house in the suburbs and their little boy, are more of my parents’ generation than mine. There is something persistently contemporary-feeling about it, even with all the changes we as a country have been through.” (Bauer, 119)
Why this contemporary feel? How, through the thick tradition of the show’s premise, does this modern feel break free?
A very good analogy for the entire attitude of the series can be found in the opening credits. David Marc, author of Comic Visions: Television Comedy and American Culture, took a close look at this iconic opening sequence and found many examples of subtle, yet distinct steps towards more progressive television. First, the infallibility of Father is diminished in Dick Van Dyke’s entrance – he greets his wife and son according to t.v. lore, and then immediately, “the white-collar dignity of his suit and tie is…betrayed by a slapstick pratfall over the ottoman.” (Marc, 84) This single moment of tradition followed by obvious, ‘dopey’ comedy is typical of Rob Petrie’s curious combination of father figure and clown – he is well-meaning and firm in his beliefs and decisions, and yet can be seen on occasion as nigh-on bumbling. Secondly, the white-picket general consumer trappings are missing on this series – no fenced, well-kept greener pastures are pictured, instead, the Petries’ class status and aesthetic preferences must be “gleaned instead from the more subtle connotations of interior decoration: their contemporary sectional sofa; their quasimodern objets d’art; their breakfast counter; their elaborate but unused woodstove fireplace. In this way, the Petrie living room transcends the traditional sitcom standard of family comfort, introducing notions of personal taste.” (Marc, 83) Beyond these visual slights undermining the conservative forebears of television family, the sanctity of the pure, WASP, blood-ties image is further deconstructed by the addition of Buddy and Sally to the picture – as Marc says, “ a Jew and an unmarried career woman.” (83) Welcomed into the home, these office buddies become part of an extended family, and thus, and extended paradigm that includes racial and religious diversity, as well as warmth and respect for an upwardly mobile, work-minded single woman. By opening the Petrie home – and thus, the homes of the American audience – to these ‘minority’ characters from the beginning, the culture of the audience is opened to accept more into the American ideal from the get-go, paving the way for ever more progressive steps in the episode following. Admittedly, not all episodes pushed the envelope of progress onto the American public – if every episode slogged forward in such a manner, the balance of 1950s perfection and the more open-minded way of the future would be upset.
First to fall under the sword-like tip of Reiner’s pen is the sanctity of American manhood. Not one male character on The Dick Van Dyke Show is without his foible. For neighbor Jerry Helper, it’s over-assurance of his own power, for Buddy – lovable, but also laughable. His tragedy is almost as simple as saying he isn’t Rob Petrie. Rob, on the other hand, possesses the enviable, yet distinctly ‘unmanly’ failing of naiveté. Easily swept into wild assumptions (“That’s My Boy?” is an excellent example – under the pressure of new fatherhood, he believes the hospital accidentally swapped babies), overcome with the desire to help and to please – both others and himself, and convinced of the certainty of projected outcomes, he constantly puts himself in outlandish situations that leave him as the smiling, hapless, good-natured butt of a joke. An excellent example can be seen in “The Ballad of Betty Lou,” where his childlike enthusiasm blinds him to the hazards of his sailing ambitions to both his health and relationships. Mary Tyler Moore’s Laura Petrie has ample opportunity throughout the series to tell her husband “I told you so,” and often does, with relish. Too often, Rob’s sudden whims to enforce his masculinity in the home end in futility. In “Washington vs. The Bunny,” he stands up to wife and son after being issued a short-warning command from work to leave home on the eve of his son’s play – only to find that the work waiting for him in Washington has been made impossible by a performer’s sudden bout of laryngitis. Narrative undermining of Rob’s more dictatorial husband moments is a constant throughout the series. Reiner further emasculates the image of the American male via Rob Petrie’s position. Though head writer, he is an underling to the sycophantic producer of the Alan Brady show, and to Alan Brady himself – an egotistical and demanding boss. In “The Making of TV Father Figures in a Changing America,” Zhengkang Wu notes:
“ Allen Brady, the boss of the show for which Rob writes, often humiliates Rob both as an individual and as an employee. …Rob as an individual is so emasculated at times that a whole episode is devoted to an imaginary fight between him as a sheriff and Allen as an arch-villain. This humiliation of Rob Petrie by his superior at work represents one aspect of the middle American’s life that was not emphasized or dramatized in previous shows. …” (107)
It is in such ways as these that Reiner shows his disdain for the tradition image of manliness in America. In his depiction of women, and marital relations, he attempts to build a different image – one of combined strength and weakness. It is through women and their interactions with men that Reiner gives an image of gender equality and partnership in family matters.
The women of Dick Van Dyke run a wide gambit – while each regular character fills a defined stereotypical role, two – Laura and Sally – illustrate the depth that goes beyond their ‘type.’ Laura, in particular, is a rich character. Attractive, young, and capable, she gave up her dance career of her own volition – though she still dances, sings, and performs in many amateur and professional capacities through the run of the show, as well as working alongside Rob in the office on rare occasion. While Laura relinquished her career proper in favor of family, “ If she is defined by her husband, at least it can be said that she has made the most enviable ‘catch’ of the men in the series. …That Laura gave up her career as a dancer is less important than the fact that she could have been a dancer had she wanted to be anything other than Rob’s wife and the mother of his children.” (Marc, 94) Again, rooted in the traditional values, Reiner crafted a female character that exercises volition in the decision of ‘domestication,’ who still posses the talent, craft, discipline, and will to work from time to time – when and how it is most fulfilling for her. Judy Kutulas’ article “Do I Look Like a Chick?: Men, Women, and Babies on Sitcom Maternity Stories” espouses some enriching view on Laura Petrie and her marriage:
“ Laura was a housewife, but with her tight capri pants and glamorous demeanor, she hardly fit the retiring June Cleaver mold. The Petries’ was a different marriage than any presented in a previous sitcom. It was a deft version of McCall’s “togetherness” ideal, a partnership of equals who co-negotiated the challenges of an outside world, co-parented, and actually seemed to have sex. …The tensions parenthood brought were not between Rob and Laura, but between them as…The Dick Van Dyke Show voiced the quiet rebellion of a postwar generation seeking independence from its old-fashioned parents and finding solace in a homogeneous, suburban, consumer-oriented society. …Reiner’s characterization of the Petries as modern, perhaps even permissive, parents eliminated much of the gender tension of earlier sitcoms…” (17)
The relationship was progressive enough that, “Carl Reiner..fought censorship to bring a contemporary feel to the marital relationship in The Dick Van Dyke Show.” (Dassanowsky, 116) To be sure, Laura and Rob were not wholly the new ideal of gender equality. But it was certainly a start, and next to the two-dimensional, shrill-but-endearing neighbor Millie Helper, Laura was a dazzling new form of Rosie the Riveter. The most disheartening aspect of Millie is that there is truly very little to say about her – and what little there is to be found on Mrs. Helper is strictly in relation to Laura – “ Millie Helper …helps define Laura as a “modern” woman by offering the contrast of a familiarly zany sitcom hausfrau. Millie’s talents in life are strictly domestic. She is hyperemotional and unable to function outside her prescribed role.” (Marc, 95) Millie is possibly the clearest example of The Dick Van Dyke Show’s roots in traditional sitcom families. A laughable sidekick at best, Millie serves to both reassure the more conservative elements of the time, as well as highlight Laura’s character as progress towards something more. Sally Rogers, on the other hand, produces much more material to delve into. A dichotomy of a stereotype, Sally is both empowered in her career and talents, and crippled – both personally, and as a character in a narrative – by those same talents in conjunction with the time period and her perennial state of singleness. In Marc’s examination of the women of Dick Van Dyke, he has an illuminating, and saddening paragraph on dear Sally Rogers:
“…Sally is a bull in a china shop. Too assertive, too aggressive, too willing to use her “unfeminine” powers… She suffers much more for her excess than Milli suffers for her passivity. The only men who can accept her are her co-workers; the know how to harness her sexually ambiguous eccentricities for productive purposes. Some of the single men Sally encounters are emasculated by her verbal powers; others can only see her as a source of the valued commodity of humor. None can accept her as a woman….The archetypal career woman of the pre-Mary Richard era, [Sally’s] significance radiates strictly from gender. Sally’s lack of a husband hangs over her like a dark cloud, adding an element of pathos that is lacking in any of the other characters.” (95)
Whole storylines circle Sally’s female bachelorhood and her ‘masculine’ talents and powers of speech. One episode in particular, “Sally Is a Girl,” is extremely blatant in stating ‘the trouble about Sally,’ and could almost be seen as a sexist dismissal of Sally’s legitimacy as a character and human being. Yet Laura’s protestations of Sally’s unfair treatment can be seen as the true story of the episode – not to laugh at Sally’s state of affairs, but to treat her both with respect and with the knowledge of her femininity.
The Dick Van Dyke Show also contained a surprising amount of reference to sexuality. It’s very first episode ended with a for-the-time provocative moment where Laura seductively removes a necklace and walks offscreen, smiling, as she says, “Darling…I’m a woman.” Dick Van Dyke’s giddy grin, tie-loosening, and ecstatically drawn out “Yeah!” in response is enough to raise an eyebrow or two today. In “Happy Birthday and Too Many More,” he interrupts Laura’s planning of their son’s birthday party to flop down on the floor next to her and grin, demanding, “Let’s neck.” Laura’s response of “Oh, Rob, be serious!” is met with a taken aback “I am serious! I wanna neck!” Within the confines of a marriage, realistically, this is not surprising behavior – it is, in fact, quite tame. But for a show of the time, such specific references were startling. In actual bedroom scenes, Rob and Laura slept in separate beds – perhaps grounding the audience in conservatism in the literal bedroom allowed Reiner a little more leeway in constructing a more realistic implied physical relationship outside of it. This does not account, however, for other, more explicit, and less socially acceptable material in the show throughout the seasons. In “The Third One From the Left” Rob, a married man, is repeated kissed and embraced by a girl on the show who has fallen in love with him – under Laura’s tutelage, in an attempt to get rid of her, he makes advances on her of on his own, as well. More ideologically scandalous than unseen on t.v., the episode is nevertheless surprising. More surprising, is the episode “Draw Me A Pear,” which Marc describes excellently:
“In “Draw Me a Pear” (a risque pun on “pair”), Rob and Laura take art classes from a devious female painter who praises Rob’s work in an attempt to seduce him. Laura sees through the ruse from the start… The seductress-in-a-smock invites Rob into the city for “private lessons” at her Greenwich Village studio. After giving him a phony line about “freeing himself from his inhibitions,” she makes her move. Instructing Rob to feel her face with one hand while sketching it with the other, she fondles Rob’s fingers with her mouth, an extraordinarily frank bit for an early sixties sitcom. Perhaps more extraordinary, the sexually aggressive homewrecker is not made to seem either excessively evil or pathetic. Her personality flaw is revealed as deviousness, not hyper-sexuality.” (87)
Even in one of the most explicit moments of the show, Reiner still refuses to sink to demonizing women’s sexuality – an admirable, difficult, and risky move in the time of the episode’s broadcast.
It was not the riskiest move of the series, however. Although it could be said to be primarily totemic, The Dick Van Dyke Show made great efforts to integrate the cast of the show, in the midst of the civil rights struggles and in the face of the issues those struggles addressed.
Marc mentions that this integration is part of the reason the show can still giving an air of modernity – due… to the inclusion of black actors as extras in crowd scenes at public places and private events, such as museums and parties. Reiner was by no means the first sitcom producer to attempt to integrate his cast…. But Dick Van Dyke…was about suburban family life and even token integration stood out as extraordinary.” (Marc, 85) This kind of integration can be seen throughout the show, examples to be found in “I’m No Henry Walden!,” and “Happy Birthday and Too Many More” – more notably, black actors are key characters in “A Show of Hands,” “The Sound of the Trumpets of Conscience Falls Deafly on a Brain That Holds Its Ears…or Something Like That!” (wherein the actor plays a police officer), and “A Show of Hands.” There were still no regulars on the show with an hint of African American heritage, and when extras of a different ethnicity can be spotted, they’re generally the only speck of diversity in the bunch – yet, as Marc said, “[Reiner’s] commitment to achieving a modicum of racially integrated cosmicity and ethnic representation distinguishes the sitcom from other early sixties prime-time hits…” (95-96) Producer Sheldon Leonard also stated that “one racially themed episode, “The Hospital,” specifically allowed him to cast I Spy with Bill Cosby, in turn the medium’s first superstar of color.” (Cullum, 702) While The Dick Van Dyke Show will certainly never be called the stick of dynamite that blew apart the racism inherent in the time’s popular television’s conventions, Reiner did make an effort to leave a door open behind him for others to pass through.
To quote Marc’s remarkably in-depth look at The Dick Van Dyke Show one final time:
“..the Petries were perhaps the last sitcom couple who could simultaneously take for granted the unnamed (and, on television, unnameable) white/middle-class/heterosexual advantage and still manage to exhibit a kind of quasi-sophistication and personal warmth that imply sympathy for civil rights and possibly even advocacy of welfare-state measures.” (85)
In light of all the information reviewed, one wonders if this isn’t a purposeful legacy, authored by Carl Reiner. He created a sitcom only to remind us of the sketch and variety gold we left behind. He wrote a romantically unfulfilled career woman and a dumpy Jewish curmudgeon only to build them up into timeless, deeply loved characters. He created a typical housewife only to imbue her with talent, grace, a will of her own, and a killer pair of capris. He created an upper-middle-class, socially powerful American father figure only to gleefully trip him over an ottoman the first chance he got. It could very well have been his purpose, by rooting his television show’s progress in the comforting docility of past conventions, to erase those conventions for good with the other side of The Dick Van Dyke Show – and thereby sow the seeds of equality in gender, race, and religion on the programs we invite into our living rooms, night after night, year after year.
- Caitlin Obom
