The Daily Stream: Six Decades Later, The Dick Van Dyke Show Is Still A Breath Of Comedic Fresh Air
(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)
The Series: "The Dick Van Dyke Show"
Where You Can Stream It: Peacock, TubiTV, Freevee, Crackle
The Pitch: Carl Reiner's classic 1960s sitcom taps a comedy vein that's still familiar today. In it, TV comedy writer Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke) juggles a chaotic work life spent writing jokes for a variety show with a chaotic (if still idyllic, in that shiny '60s way) home life with his gorgeous wife Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) and cute, precocious young son Ritchie (Larry Matthews). It's a type of still-popular sitcom premise — a hybrid family comedy and show biz meta-comedy — that "The Dick Van Dyke Show" pioneered across its five seasons, and that's not the only way it broke ground.
While hyper-traditional in many ways (married Rob and Laura famously slept in two twin beds), "The Dick Van Dyke Show" continued what "I Love Lucy" started by making prime-time TV a vehicle not just for advertising space, as it had been in its infancy, but for wildly wacky and funny situational comedy anchored by tremendously all-in performances.
Why it's essential viewing
The 158-episode run of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" is still a treasure trove of comedy even sixty years later. The black-and-white series shows the limits of the form's early days in its studio-bound antics and mostly squeaky-clean comedy, but its two talented leads also give a master class in working with what you've got. While Moore, still nine years away from "The Mary Tyler Moore" show at the series' start, mostly plays the concerned straight woman to Rob's wacky clown husband, she still steals plenty of spotlight with a graceful and often hilarious performance. Van Dyke, meanwhile, is an all-time-great talent who throws his whole body — and every muscle of his expressive face — into memorable stunts and gags.
"The Dick Van Dyke Show" wasn't a bastion of progressivism, nor was it even particularly countercultural, but the show sneaks up on modern viewers with small but significant details that still demonstrate a certain moral clarity. Laura is a stay-at-home mom, but had a burgeoning career as a U.S.O. dancer before she met Rob. In a Television Academy interview, Moore once said she pictured Laura as a dance teacher in the future — after the character, who was first written before the publication of Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique," finished raising the kids, of course. Laura may be an image of domesticity, but she's assertive and outspoken; a season one episode, for example, features an early conversation about on-screen representations of women when she fears a version of her in a skit Rob wrote for "The Alan Brady Show" seems shrill and stereotypical.
An endearing sitcom time capsule
Plus, Rob himself is a great dad the likes of which are still in short supply in sitcoms today. When I was growing up (decades after "The Dick Van Dyke Show" era), a common refrain was that real-life dads of a certain, recent generation didn't change diapers or even talk much to their own kids. Yet here was Van Dyke's Rob, playing with his son or asking him about his feelings nearly every week for five years on prime time. Rob's own finely tuned sensitivity may be one of the show's greatest strengths, as he's the try-hard, charming, goofball antidote to the grousing, recliner-bound husbands who became a sitcom staple again by the '90s and 2000s.
Of course, there are obvious creative and political limits to the show whose grayscale sterility would later inspire a prison of the imagination in Marvel's "WandaVision," but on the whole, a 2022 "The Dick Van Dyke Show" watch is a lot less dissonant for modern viewers than expected. Even when it does show its age, the show's comedy is often timeless thanks in large part to its two powerhouse leads and the comedic high-wire acts they're able to balance. Rob and Laura are the couple who'd make you jealous if you were their neighbor or coworker; they're stylish and super in love and they're that hilarious? Set the bar high, why don't you!