by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Comedic actor Jerry Van Dyke died this past Friday at his ranch near Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was perhaps best known as Craig T. Nelson's sidekick and assistant on the television show "Coach" which ran from 1989 through 1997. He also once famously turned down a role in "Gilligan's Island" so that he could instead star in "My Mother the Car," a short-lived (one season) show which TV Guide famously rated as the second worst program in television history. (Top honors for that achievement went to "The Jerry Springer Show.")
Jerry Van Dyke was also known for being the younger brother to comedian Dick Van Dyke - a native of my town, West Plains, Missouri.) My first memory of the younger Van Dyke brother was when he guest-starred on the elder brother's hit television series, "The Dick Van Dyke Show" in the early 1960's. In the four episodes in which he appeared, he played Stacey Petrie, the younger brother to Dick's character, Rob Petrie - and he played a mean banjo in those episodes!
Jerry Van Dyke was eighty-six when he passed away. Older brother, Dick, now ninety-two, still survives in California.
Less than two weeks ago another cast member from "The Dick Van Dyke Show" died. Rose Marie, a former child actress in the days before Shirley Temple, died at home in California at the age of ninety-four on December 28th. She played comedy writer Sally Rogers on the show.
Mary Tyler Moore, the actress who played Dick's wife, Laura Petrie, also died in 2017 - in January - at the age of eighty.
Morey Amsterdam, who played Sally Rogers' writing partner, Buddy Sorrell, passed away more than twenty years ago, as did Richard Deacon who played the bald and hapless producer, Mel Cooley.
Only three of the main cast members of the classic television sitcom, "The Dick Van Dyke Show," now survive: Dick Van Dyke, Carl Reiner, the show's creator and one of its stars (currently ninety-six), and Larry Mathews who played the Petrie's son, Richie. Little Richie is now sixty-two-years old.
"The Dick Van Dyke Show" premiered in 1961 and ran through the 1966 television season. It was one of the most watched shows on television the entire time that I was in high school, and it was one of the few programs that my family would gather regularly to watch. It was more than a funny show, it was cutting-edge funny, expanding well beyond where Lucy and Desi had dared to take television comedy. Its clever premise of comedy writers sitting around an office swapping ideas and insults as they came up with skits for a weekly television comedy series provided endless opportunities and targets for humor. Rose Marie once told an interviewer how she rushed to get to work because working on the show was so much fun - and that fun came across to those of us who were at home watching!
The program was awarded truckloads of Emmys.
The people who starred in "The Dick Van Dyke Show" were true stars - and now they are quietly twinkling out. But as long as my generation hangs around, those stars represent one constellation that will not be forgotten!
Citizen Journalist
Comedic actor Jerry Van Dyke died this past Friday at his ranch near Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was perhaps best known as Craig T. Nelson's sidekick and assistant on the television show "Coach" which ran from 1989 through 1997. He also once famously turned down a role in "Gilligan's Island" so that he could instead star in "My Mother the Car," a short-lived (one season) show which TV Guide famously rated as the second worst program in television history. (Top honors for that achievement went to "The Jerry Springer Show.")
Jerry Van Dyke was also known for being the younger brother to comedian Dick Van Dyke - a native of my town, West Plains, Missouri.) My first memory of the younger Van Dyke brother was when he guest-starred on the elder brother's hit television series, "The Dick Van Dyke Show" in the early 1960's. In the four episodes in which he appeared, he played Stacey Petrie, the younger brother to Dick's character, Rob Petrie - and he played a mean banjo in those episodes!
Jerry Van Dyke was eighty-six when he passed away. Older brother, Dick, now ninety-two, still survives in California.
Less than two weeks ago another cast member from "The Dick Van Dyke Show" died. Rose Marie, a former child actress in the days before Shirley Temple, died at home in California at the age of ninety-four on December 28th. She played comedy writer Sally Rogers on the show.
Mary Tyler Moore, the actress who played Dick's wife, Laura Petrie, also died in 2017 - in January - at the age of eighty.
Morey Amsterdam, who played Sally Rogers' writing partner, Buddy Sorrell, passed away more than twenty years ago, as did Richard Deacon who played the bald and hapless producer, Mel Cooley.
Only three of the main cast members of the classic television sitcom, "The Dick Van Dyke Show," now survive: Dick Van Dyke, Carl Reiner, the show's creator and one of its stars (currently ninety-six), and Larry Mathews who played the Petrie's son, Richie. Little Richie is now sixty-two-years old.
"The Dick Van Dyke Show" premiered in 1961 and ran through the 1966 television season. It was one of the most watched shows on television the entire time that I was in high school, and it was one of the few programs that my family would gather regularly to watch. It was more than a funny show, it was cutting-edge funny, expanding well beyond where Lucy and Desi had dared to take television comedy. Its clever premise of comedy writers sitting around an office swapping ideas and insults as they came up with skits for a weekly television comedy series provided endless opportunities and targets for humor. Rose Marie once told an interviewer how she rushed to get to work because working on the show was so much fun - and that fun came across to those of us who were at home watching!
The program was awarded truckloads of Emmys.
The people who starred in "The Dick Van Dyke Show" were true stars - and now they are quietly twinkling out. But as long as my generation hangs around, those stars represent one constellation that will not be forgotten!
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