You probably already know this but there's a wonderful trove of oral histories about television online. The Archive of American Television has interviewed just about everyone they could get their hands on who was important on any TV show more than a decade or two ago.
Here's close to twenty minutes of excerpts from interviews about my favorite program, The Dick Van Dyke Show. You can believe everything these people said except that Sheldon Leonard got the name of the original pilot wrong. It was Head of the Family…
And speaking of that show, you may know that a life-changing moment in my life was when my parents and I attended the filming of an episode of that series. I wrote about it here.
The episode was called "Your Home Sweet Home is My Home Sweet Home" and it was filmed on Tuesday, February 2, 1965. How do I remember that date? I don't but my pal Vince Waldron recently sent me a copy of the call sheet for that filming. You can view the whole thing by clicking on the image below.
A few notes: Eddie Ryder played the accountant in that episode. I was so engrossed that evening staring at Mary Tyler Moore than I didn't recognize Mr. Ryder as one of the traffic controllers in my fave movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. He was on the Van Dyke show several times playing different roles.
And as you can see, the schedule says they would start work the following Thursday on the next episode to be rehearsed and filmed, "Anthony Stone." Years later when I worked on sitcoms, the cast never got a day off after a mid-week day of taping or filming.
Vince Waldron knows just about everything about The Dick Van Dyke Show and he put an awful lot of it in his book, The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book. It is highly recommended by me and it can be ordered for a very reasonable price here.
I also recommend Vince's newly-published reissue of Be My Baby, his collaboration with the late girl group singer Ronnie Spector. It's an amazing look into her life and the music business of the day. You can order a copy of that one here. Vince does nothing that is not recommendable.