‘TV Guide Magazine’ Captured the Early Days of Dick Van Dyke’s Television Fame
“What’s a Dick Van Dyke?” That’s what the Dec. 9, 1961, issue of TV Guide Magazine asked in its cover story headline only two months after the premiere of The Dick Van Dyke Show. The answer in the magazine: “He’s a physical comedian, a worrier and — thanks to some breaks — a star.” And star he became as he went on to grace over eight covers!
The generally little-known actor who’d starred on Broadway in Bye Bye Birdie and subbed for Jack Paar on The Tonight Show was nevertheless ready for his close-up … at least according to his bosses on the CBS sitcom, and despite how humble he was.
Larry Schiller/TV Guide/courtesy Everett Collection
As TV Guide reported, “He is a long, elegant string bean of a man with a knack for doing almost everything interestingly, whether playing a love scene or taking the most exploding falls since Buster Keaton. Whatever he does, he evokes strong images for people. His producer, Carl Reiner, who trained under Sid Caesar, sees a man with ‘the true comedic sense’ — like Chaplin. ‘He is not a here-I-am-come-love-me kind of comedian,’ says Reiner. ‘He’s an attitude man, he gets harassed interestingly and he has made me the happiest baldheaded producer in Hollywood.’”
What the TV Guide Critics Were Saying About Dick Van Dyke
A year later, with the series well into its run as a top-rated hit, TV Guide once again put Van Dyke and his lovely TV wife, Mary Tyler Moore, on the cover, and while his costars sang his praises as the nicest guy imaginable, the series’ main star was having none of it. “I do a lot of things just passably,” he insisted. “I hate that. I smoke too much and I drink too much. Also, I’m lazy.”
Larry Schiller.TV Guide/courtesy Everett Collection
Such a description would surprise anyone who watched the indefatigable star perform. (The only exception would be the claim to drinking; in 1974, he announced that he’d conquered that addiction two years prior after years as an alcoholic.) But he did go on in that story to praise the normal upbringing that had grounded both him and his brother Jerry, who also became a TV star. “My dad and mom were very happy together,” he said, “and Jerry and I were too. We had a family orchestra. We must have been dreadful, but we thought we really swung. We had a great time.”
After enduring a number of failures under the lights, including working as half a comedy duo, he finally got some breaks that led — thankfully — to his biggest one, and we in TV land were the richer for it.
But as TV Guide writer Richard Gehman reported in that same story, “The fact is, there are more important things to Dick Van Dyke than being an entertainer. Indeed, he gives the impression that entertaining is only a small part of his life. He may not, therefore, go down as one of the great comedians of his time, but his ultimate accomplishment of remaining a decent, integrated, thoroughly engaging human being may turn out to be far more meaningful.”
TV Guide/courtesy Everett Collection
Is it possible for one to have both decency and success? Dick Van Dyke has proved that again and again. And in the May 9, 2004, issue of TV Guide, he recalled the joys of the series while marking a reunion episode 40 years later called The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited. “Rob Petrie was me, a guy who meant well but who was full of every kind of anxiety and phobia, was very unsure of himself but who tried very hard. That’s what made him funny.”
100 Years of Dick Van Dyke
April 2025
Dick Van Dyke is a trailblazer like no other and one of the greatest of the golden age of television.
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