My Lucky Life in and Out of Show Business_ A Memoir - Dick Van Dyke [76]
“Let’s take a cab to the hotel,” he said. “It’s my treat since you got the jet.”
We cracked up and knew my father would have laughed the loudest if he had heard.
There was more shuffling to be done. Soon after, my father-in-law died and we moved my mother and my mother-in-law into a lovely apartment near our place on Coronado. As housemates, they were the female version of the odd couple. They were either laughing hysterically or fighting. We were constantly mediating one issue or another. Between such real-life details, my nascent feelings for Michelle, and my marriage, I felt I needed to spend a while on the beach figuring out my life.
But suddenly I found myself listening to Bob Einstein and his writing-producing partner, Allan Blye, both veteran writer-producers of the Smothers Brothers and Sonny and Cher variety shows, pitch me an idea for a variety show. Despite asking myself why the hell I wanted to do a TV series when I could spend all day doing nothing, I heard myself, for reasons I did not want to analyze, say, “Let’s try it.”
The one-hour special, called Van Dyke & Company, aired in October 1975 and featured guest stars Carl Reiner, Gabe Kaplan, Ike and Tina Turner, plus a surprise appearance from Mary Tyler Moore. My young executive producers and their crew of hip writers, including Steve Martin, guided me more in the direction of Saturday Night Live than Your Show of Shows, and it paid off. Kay Gardella of the New York Daily News praised the special as “skillfully crafted” and “fresh and offbeat.” Even an admitted non-fan of mine, the New York Times’ John O’Connor, called it “pleasantly agreeable.”
Buoyed by the positive reaction, NBC execs decided to put Van Dyke & Company on the fall schedule as a weekly series. The network seemed confident we could find an audience in the heart of the family hour; I was hopeful, but not as sure since we were opposite three popular shows—The Waltons; Welcome Back, Kotter; and Barney Miller. My manager called that a “suicide” time slot. Then at the last minute we were moved. I wanted to believe this was good news.
“No, it’s worse than suicide,” Byron said.
“Worse?” I asked. “What could be worse than suicide?”
“Thursdays at ten P.M.,” he said. “Nobody is watching a show like yours at that hour.”
But I was too old to care about ratings. After reassuring Bob and Allan and the rest of the staff that I was not afraid to try anything, we premiered the new season with guests Flip Wilson, Chevy Chase, Dinah Shore, and Andy Kaufman, one of our staff writers, who played the loser in a Fonzie look-alike skit that was typical Andy. We kept up the zaniness with Carol Burnett, John Denver, Sid Caesar, Tina Turner, and our own staff, including Andy, Pat Proft, Marilyn Sokol, and Bob, who debuted his “Super Dave” character in a bit where he gets sick on a Disneyland roller coaster.
We amused ourselves more than anyone. In the middle of a production number, for instance, Andy wandered onstage, looking like he had just beamed down to the planet from an alien culture. The confused audience laughed nervously as I tried to figure out why he had interrupted my song. Andy just shrugged. I pretended to be upset by the interruption and walked offstage, leaving Andy to stare blankly at the audience. Of course, it was planned—or at least to the degree you could plan anything with Andy.
My young, smart staff of silly, subversive, upstart writers continued to break all the rules of prime-time variety shows. One skit turned TV itself inside out by examining how an imaginary sitcom titled Honey, I’m Home would be written for three different time slots, and I acted out each variation. At eight P.M., I walked through the front door and my wife said dinner was nearly ready. At nine P.M., I came home and found her kissing another man. At ten P.M., I came home to another man who was fixing us dinner.
My favorite piece was a sketch we did each week about a family of morons, the Bright Family, and the dumber we made them, the