Rob and Laura Return

Here's a CBS press release that feels like it should be quoted on this site…

Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, Carl Reiner and Rose Marie reunite for The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited, a new television special to be broadcast Tuesday, May 11 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Other original series cast members Larry Mathews (Richie Petrie), Ann Morgan Guilbert (Millie Helper) and guest stars Jerry Van Dyke (Stacey Petrie) and Bill Idelson (Herman Glimcher) also return for a new episode of the series set in 2004. The special catches up with Rob and Laura Petrie, in the present day, 40 years after the series was originally broadcast. Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond) hosts the 159th episode. In the new episode, writers Rob and Sally each receive a phone call from Alan Brady with a strange request: Alan, who admires the eulogies that the pair wrote for Buddy and Millie's late husband's funerals, wants them to write his eulogy before he dies. He rationalizes the request by telling them that he wants to know what they will say about him and he also wants the chance to do a rewrite. To induce them, he offers to pay a very large fee for the dubious job. Rob and Sally are uncertain that they can actually complete the assignment given their real feelings about Alan, but they reluctantly agree to try…for the money! Classic clips from the original series will also be seen.

Hey, here's a coincidence: While I was formatting the above, I was interrupted by an occasional performer on The Dick Van Dyke Show…Lennie Weinrib, who was in three episodes. (He was the accountant friend of Buddy's who made Rob dismantle his phone and "scream like a chicken." He was the comedian who got injured at the lodge so Rob and a pal had to fill in for him by doing their Laurel and Hardy impression. And he was the insult comic who replaced Buddy and hammered Mel Cooley so thoroughly that he agreed to re-hire Buddy.) Lennie's living down in Chile now and seems very happy.

[UPDATE at 6:39 PM: Fixed a great typo that said Lennie was living in Chili. Sounds messy.]