"I think laughter may be a form of courage. As humans, we sometimes stand tall and look into the sun and laugh, and I think we are never more brave than when we do that." Dick Van Dyke
In 2023 and 2024 the Emmy Award for outstanding television comedy went to two shows that are not funny- The Bear and Hacks. Both are serious shows with occasional comedic elements, but they reflect the trend away from situation comedies towards 30 minute dramatic "comedies". As a long-time lover of comedy, I find this development sad and disturbing. Our abilities to laugh at ourselves and life seems to have been curtailed in popular culture, in favor of characters who take themselves much too seriously.
I recently binged on five seasons of the Dick Van Dyke show, winner of the Emmy for outstanding comedy for four of those seasons. It came from a different time- the early 1960's and was in black and white. During the show's production America experienced several tragedies- JFK's assassination, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam War. The Dick Van Dyke show was a silly, funny counterweight to those troubled times. We don't have an equivalent escape here in the 2020's.
The show made stars of its cast members- Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, both of whom would go on to bigger and better things. It showcased the life of a television writer while exhibiting great writing itself. It was the brainchild of Carl Reiner who based many of the plots on his experiences as a writer for the popular Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar. Reiner wrote a pilot in 1958 that was rejected because he had cast himself in the starring role. The pilot was recast in 1961 with Dick Van Dyke (though Johnny Carson was a finalist) and history was made.
Women of that age were not given much to do, but thanks to Lucille Ball, they could excel in comedies, which Mary Tyler Moore took advantage of. Originally thought to be a minor character, the producers focused more and more on the couple's home life, giving Moore a chance to shine. Its focus on the writer's room and the show within a show became one of the first workplace comedic settings, and the two aspects worked great, mostly thanks to Dick Van Dyke's comedic talents.
The show's characters were funny, its plots silly, and its writing excellent. I was too young to appreciate it when it first came out, but thanks to streaming, all five seasons are available to watch. Tastes have certainly evolved over the past 60 years, but everyone still needs a good laugh, and I wish movies and television provided more of that. Now we have reality shows and drama after drama. What happened to the comedies? Thank goodness for shows like Saturday Night Live, Ted Lasso, and Abbott Elementary - my last refuges against the darkness that hangs over us. And thank goodness for older streaming comedies that help me remember that entertainment used to be lighthearted and funny occasionally.
Escapist comedy like the Three Stooges, Monty Python, or Green Acres doesn't minimize the problems of their times. People still had to deal with the issues of the day, but to have an escape valve to see people enjoying life and being good human beings is refreshing to the soul, even if we all know it isn't real.
Here, then is an excerpt from the number one rated episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show, a Twilight Zone parody called "It may look like a walnut." Enjoy.
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