“I Love Lucy” was the defining sitcom of the ’50s, which also means it defined the entire genre. “The Dick Van Dyke Show” (1961-66) was the defining sitcom of the ’60s: sprightlier, less broad, even a bit meta. Ricky, Lucy’s husband was a bandleader, so he was in show business. Rob Petrie, Van Dyke’s character, did him one better: He was a writer for a television show, so he was in the TV business.
“Van Dyke” outdid “Lucy” in another way. It helped spawn the defining sitcom of the ’70s, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” Moore had played Laura, Rob’s wife.
Mary Tyler Moore and and Dick Van Dyke on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” Nick at Nite
Van Dyke’s place in the entertainment firmament is assured, and that doesn’t even count his starring in both the Broadway and film versions of “Bye Bye Birdie” (1963) or, especially, his costarring with Julie Andrews in the much-loved “Mary Poppins” (1964). Playing a London chimney sweep, Van Dyke’s vowels sounded less Cockney, perhaps, than like someone from Danville, Ill., where he grew up. But his performance was so exuberant and cheerful it hardly mattered.
The performance was also winningly youthful, which for a guy pushing 40 was pretty impressive. Youthfulness is as youthfulness does, and Saturday Van Dyke turns 100. Happy centennial, Dick Van Dyke!
To celebrate the occasion, PBS’s “American Masters” presents “Starring Dick Van Dyke.” It airs Friday at 9 p.m. and streams on pbs.org/americanmasters and the PBS App. There are many clips from throughout Van Dyke’s career — fans of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (1968) and “Diagnosis: Murder” (1993-2001) will be pleased to know that neither is overlooked — and a starry roster of Van Dyke admirers and collaborators weigh in.
Dick Van Dyke in “Mary Poppins.”Courtesy Walt Disney Studios
Admirers include Steve Martin and Martin Short (interviewed in tandem), an adoring Conan O’Brien, and a truly adoring Jim Carrey. Among the collaborators are Andrews, Ted Danson (Van Dyke played his father on “Becker”), and Carol Burnett. Burnett shrewdly cites Van Dyke’s suppleness as the key to his physical comedy. With all due respect to Ray Bolger, Van Dyke was the one born to play the Scarecrow in “The Wizard of Oz.”
It’s been an oddly shaped career. There were many unusual credits early on (Van Dyke and Walter Cronkite were on the “CBS Morning Show” together a decade before becoming Dick Van Dyke and Walter Cronkite), followed by all that success in the ’60s, then, well, not much of note, until reemerging in the ’90s as the DA in Warren Beatty’s “Dick Tracy” (1990) and the star of “Diagnosis: Murder.”
Honestly, the documentary might have worked better at 90 minutes rather than two hours. The amount of padding makes it odd that there’s nary a mention of Van Dyke’s actor-comedian brother, Jerry.
Understandably, the film is highly, even insistently, celebratory. That tone makes for a maladroit handling of something well worth celebrating: Van Dyke’s forthright handling of his alcoholism. It’s foreshadowed in the first half of the documentary, when he jokes to Dick Cavett in a 1974 interview about an early failure: “I think that’s when I started to drink.” The quick cutaway leaves an uninformed viewer wondering if Van Dyke was just kidding. A good deal later, the interview is returned to and he candidly discusses his struggles with alcohol.
Much more happily, “Starring Dick Van Dyke” excerpts the music video for Coldplay’s “All My Love” (2024), which might also be justifiably called “Starring Dick Van Dyke.” He and the band’s Chris Martin are Malibu neighbors. Singing “Happy Birthday” must wait for Saturday. In the meantime, “All My Love” does just fine.
Mark Feeney can be reached at mark.feeney@globe.com.
