The Final Episode #108: The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961 - 1966)

 

I like to keep things fresh around here. I like to make sure that I'm never talking about the same kind of show too many times in a row. I make sure the cartoons are different enough when I talk about a bunch of them in a row. I like to make sure I talk about shows from different decades because as I've said before in the 1990s you would easily come across movies and tv shows from different decades and you'd watch them because Mega Man II was pissing you off and you didn't want to hang out with Robert the big eared kid from across the street so you watched the black and white Dennis the Menace sitcom (which YTV did air in like the 1990s but I remember the cartoon by DIC so much more. I'm just using it as an example). Syndication filled up all the spots with stuff from the past that I would watch all the time including Bewitched and The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. I don't think The Dick Van Dyke Show ever aired anywhere on the channels we got here in Newfoundland during the 1990s but I cannot be sure. Anyway I picked The Dick Van Dyke show because I have never seen it. Also because I haven't talked about a show from the 1960s since The Munsters in Halloween of 2021.

Anyway. Dick Van Dyke. What can you say about the man. Well I can say that I really liked his younger brothers antics on the 1990s sitcom Coach a whole hell of a lot. He and Patrick Star really worked together very well to annoy Craig T Nelson to the delight of my child self. Dick Van Dyke however I never saw anything of him until I was well into adulthood and it was mostly his movies. I really enjoyed Fitzwilly and the silly ass Disney live action comedy Never a Dull Moment. The man started his career in 1947 at like 21 or 22 years old and is apparently in a movie called Capture the Flag that is coming out this year. That's a 76 year fucking career! The man's more active than I am and he's 97 years old at the time of this post! He started on stage with an act called Eric and Van the Merry Mutes. I love that name and I just had to mention it. I also have to mention that he has an a capella group and that just reminds me of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? and I just find that delightful.

It is now time to talk about the TV show that he's still probably most remembered for. The Dick Van Dyke Show (can I say that some of the best sitcoms were just The [Insert Actor Name Here] Show. It's a good idea to look for shows like that.). It starts Dick Van Dyke as Rob Petrie a writer and Mary Tyler Moore as his wife. The show was created by Carl Reiner who I think most people know as Mel Brooks' buddy but he made some great movies himself. I myself very much enjoy Oh, God!, The Jerk and The Man With Two Brains a great deal and think they are cool and good movies. Rob works as a writer for a comedy variety show, a kind of show that does not exist any more but my dad will blather on about how great Red Skelton was! I wonder how one would talk about a Final Episode of a show like that.  Maybe I should try and find out. He works with other people and WILD ANTICS insue! 

Now I will discuss The episode "The Man From My Uncle". The 27th episode of the fifth and final season of this show. It starts with Rob wanting to talk to his wife who is reading a magazine or newspaper article (You see these were things people read to learn about things before the internet) and to get to her to talk to him he puts two glasses of water on the backsides of her hands so she cant remove them. I really get the feeling some extreme left wingers are now writing think pieces about how problematic this is because they can't laugh at the most innocent of silly husband-wife jokes because all extremists are miserable people. Uh, my political statement aside, a knock at the door happens and it's a G-Man! You see that's what they called government agents back then. I think we should bring it back. I like the way it sounds! Anyway they want to use the house so they can look upon another neighbour whos nephew is a criminal agent!

The G-Man in this episode is played by Godfrey Cambridge, an underrated African American comedian/actor from the 1960s and 1970s.  I enjoy seeing him pop up in things and always thought he was a funny guy that worked with with other actors. It's a shame he passed away at only age 43 in 1976. He plays Harry Bond ("Please no jokes") and is pretty much annoyed to shit by Rob who is so fucking exicted that a G-Man is in his house! All kinds of very amusing stuff happens and I don't actually want to ruin it. I would just recommend you check out this episode. It's a lot of fun.

The Final Episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show was entitled "The Last Chapter" and was aired for the first time on June 1st, 1966. It was the 158th show done for the TV program. You see back in the 1950s and 1960s they pumped a show out like there was no tomorrow so you'd end up with like 158 episodes in like 5 years instead of 8 or 9. Anyway speaking of pumping out large amounts of material, the Final Episode is something we call a clip show. A clip show is just what it sounds like a episode that just shows clips from older episodes. It was done a lot up until the 2000s. Like even in the 1990s and 2000s you'd think they wouldn't be able to get away with it but they did. Even into the era of VCRs that people used to tape every episode of a show! I'm pretty sure the last Clip show was an episode of the Simpsons called Gump Roast. I don't know why they called it that because I saw it once and I don't care to see it again.

The big problem with clip shows these days is that you have the entire show at your finger tips and can easily watch it all from beginning to end. If you like say the show I'm talking about right now you can easily go through it in a matter of days or even a few months just watching an episode or two a day. You'd easily remember the clips from this Final Episode by the time you got there. It was fine in 1966 but not so much today. The only clip show episodes I can even think of being worth watching was an episode of Duckman making fun of clip shows. An episode of Clerks the Animated Series making fun of clip shows and The Simpsons 137th Episode Spectacular.  They were just usually lazily done and I'd rather have a narrative ending to the show. (To be fair to this episode the clips they do show are hilarious but I'd have rather seen them in their actual episodes when they original showed up.) 

The other big problem is that when you do a weird silly ass series of blog posts. It's really hard to talk about clip shows. The new material in this episode is Rob giving his wife the manuscript of his autobiography on the wild stuff that has happened to them while they had been married. Mary Tyler Moore thinks of some old clips from episodes and then at the end Carl Reiner's character Alan Brady says they are gonna make a TV show out of it after the book people Rob sent the book too said it was terrible. That's it. That's not a lot to talk about. It feels weird to discuss the clips to me. I dunno. Clip shows are just a insanely dated topic that I do not think can or should be done today. It's a completely outdated concept in our streaming world. Hell it was honestly completely outdated the second Syndication became a thing and EVEN more outdated when VCRs became a thing! I don't have enough material here and I just want to complain!

FINAL VERDICT: Clip shows are not my favorite thing but I still had some very good solid laughs and that's always a good time. I will definitely becoming back to this tv program.