The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited

I saw this show recently on TV land . It was very bad. Whoever wrote it had no idea how to realistically bring the characters of Laura Petrie, Rob Petrie, Alan Brady, Sally Rogers, Ritchie Petrie and Millie Helper back together again. It all plays out very badly. First, Alan Brady calls Rob Petrie out of the blue at his old home from that they had in the 1960's to ask him to wrote a eulogies for him when he dies. How realistic would it be for Alan Brady to call a comedy writer to do his eulogy and how realistic is it for him to ask a man who he has not spoken to for 30 to 40 years to write his eulogy , never mind the comedy writer part? Usually, eulogies are written by close friends and after someone is dead, duh. And who calls people and asks for their eulogy in advance anyway? I know the character of Alan Brady is vain but come on. So, he calls the house and somehow Ritchie picks up the phone. So, apparently Ritchie is living in the same house the Petries had in 1960. How unrealistic. He informs Alan that his parents have moved and then not long after the scene cuts to a boring self indulgent scene of mugging and hamming it up from Laura and Rob who both do a dance sequence even though they both elderly. Alan calls them. They met with Alan. Rob and Laura have none of their old spark. In fact, in whoever wrote this seems to have Laura fawning over Alan Brady saying "Oh Alan!" instead of "Oh Rob!" and then they are series of comments from the surviving male members of the cast telling Laura how "fantastic" she looks for a old woman. Most of the clips of her and the guy who played Alan. They even dare to show one scene where the guy played was on the show not playing Alan but guest starring as a painter who painted Laura nude even though she was wearing clothes and showed Laura's nails on chalk board squeaky hyper reaction to it all. I guess they did this because Carl Reiner did not make many appearances on the show and they needed more footage of him. This reunion seemed to be a homage to the two of them. I wondered where are all the funny clips of Buddy and Sally and Mel and Rob. They really made the show. The premise for reuniting them wasn't funny at all. By the end of the episode the issue is not even resolved. Rob does not decide if he is not going to write eulogy or not. After the series of clips runs, Rob and Laura step out of character and return to their 1960's living room and say to each other, "Gee, it was funny being Rob Petrie again." "Gee, it was nice being Laura Petrie again." Gag. Well, I'm glad they had fun because their entire reunion show was a train wreck.

I must disagree with one user's review. Of course the program doesn't have the same magic as the original Dick Van Dyke Show. But common, that was 40 years ago. I have to give them credit for their efforts. I think it's wonderful that they were able to get all of the surviving members of the cast together, and I did find several of the jokes, and most of the story line very funny. As far as Rose Marie "not looking good", what do you expect?! She's in her 80's now! I just think it's difficult for us to see characters 40 years older, especially since we're all so familiar with how they looked and acted in their youth and prime. However as far as I'm concerned, the show was probably as good as it could be considering how much time has passed. I do have to admit however, that Mary Tyler Moore looked unnaturally much younger than the rest of the cast, which can be attributed to the amount of (admitted) plastic surgery she has had.

Over the years, TV show reunions have varied in quality. "The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited" actually comes out quite well. In this one, Rob (Dick Van Dyke) and Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) are retired and living in Manhattan when Alan Brady (Carl Reiner) summons Rob and Sally (Rose Marie) to write a eulogy for him before he dies. So arises the question: how do you write a eulogy for someone like Alan Brady? The characters themselves haven't changed a bit in the nearly 40 years since the original series. Rob is still tense, Laura is still fiery, and Alan is still a jerk. Sally is now married to Herman Glimscher (Bill Idelson), and neighbor Millie Helper (Ann Morgan Guilbert) is dating Rob's brother Stacy (Jerry Van Dyke). A good thing that the reunion did is not try to replace the deceased cast members (Morey Amsterdam, Richard Deacon, Jerry Paris); I think that we can agree that no one throws out hilarious insults like Morey Amsterdam.

So, this reunion isn't bad at all. However, couldn't they have found someone other than Ray Romano to host it? Oh well, it's pretty good otherwise. Still, I would have liked to have heard Buddy make just one more comment about Cooley's bald head.

Did not know this was EVER done, a DVD Show reunion. Saw it 2014. Enjoyed and laughed. I have only ever seen the original show in reruns and didn't understand the show until I was an adult. Something's just did not make sense. First, Sally Rodgers was one of TV's first femmenistsj I would have believed that Sally and Herman were living together. But Married? After the seventies even Sally would have not settled for Herman in marriage. Live together perhaps but not marriage. One would think that Laura would have had her own studio (outside the home) long before, say twenty years. Given that Alan Brady hasn't talked to Rob in thirty years and Rob a successful TV writer would have invested in his wonderful wife's dream years before. Ann Gilbert always a hoot, should have had more banter. With anyone! This reunion could have been done in 1984 and 2004! Perhaps better relationships and timing amongst actors. Everyone loves Raymond? No, we don't. But he's more tolerable than some, Dennis Miller.

I finally watched it with mixed feelings. The only parts I found funny were the "clips" from the classic show. The laughter from the "present" felt forced and after a while the applause got a little annoying. It was really nice to see the cast-why was Ray Romano there?-but the storyline could've been done so much better! It lacked the spark and genius that made the show so successful from 1961-1966.