I received e-mails from Wayne DeWald, Matt Killeen, Paul Balze, Kevin Kozoriz, Ed Coyote and Fred Jacobs, all suggesting that when Ritchie Petrie moved back to New Rochelle, he listed his name as "R. Petrie." Then Alan Brady called Directory Assistance, got that number…and connected with the old Petrie house. That's possible, I guess, but it still seems like a bit of a stretch.
Richard Bensam wrote me to say, in part…
…my favorite part of the show was the one you seem to like the least: the choices for what had become of the various characters all seemed sensible and appropriate to me. I preferred seeing that they hadn't been caught in a figurative time bubble; that they had progressed even while we weren't watching them. The only thing I missed there was some mention of where Rob's career had gone.
To judge from the Petrie's spacious Manhattan home, I imagine he may have written and/or directed at least one very successful film and possibly several, and/or created some successful TV shows…in other words, that he was still an analog of Carl Reiner.
But the image of Rob Petrie as the old man who is computer-literate and amuses himself playing with desktop animation programs is so right, so contrary to lazy stereotypes, that it won me over completely.
Hmm. If Rob Petrie's career had somehow paralleled the real life of Carl Reiner, he would have moved to Hollywood in the sixties and Laura would now be singing in jazz clubs. Ritchie would also have become a prominent actor and director.
Actually, it would have been interesting if they'd picked up on the bit in the last original episode where Rob made a deal with Alan Brady whereby Alan would star in a sitcom based on Rob's life. On the other hand, Brady — being a variety show star in the sixties — would probably have been off TV within a few years and never had another successful series…and maybe I'm taking this too far.
I believe the notion that Rob is now playing with computer animation was based on a current interest of Mr. Van Dyke's. Perhaps the idea of Laura running ballet classes was based on something Mary Tyler Moore has either done or told Carl she'd toyed with attempting. Or maybe it was just an excuse to get her into a leotard and show America that she's still in pretty good shape. I can also imagine Reiner deciding to not make the Petries seem like senior citizens: Rob's into computers, Laura's surrounded by young people. That may have been because he wanted to keep them young or because he had to assure the network that the special wouldn't be 60 minutes of old folks sitting around, longing for The Good Old Days.