Last night, a great many lovers of The Dick Van Dyke Show converged on the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood for a 50th anniversary celebration under the auspices of the American Cinematheque. The evening took its cue from the fine new book about that show by my buddy Vince Waldron and Vince was present to sign copies of said book and to emcee most of the proceedings. A lot of that amounted to introducing about a third of the audience because the place was packed with folks who'd worked on that great sitcom or were related to people who had.
They ran three episodes and a smidgen from a fourth. Carl Reiner selected them and the choices were interesting. I'd guess that if you asked most fans of the show to pick three episodes they'd have picked "It May Look Like a Walnut" (the one were Rob woke up in a horror movie with walnuts everywhere but no thumbs), "That's My Boy" (the one where Rob became convinced he and Laura had brought the wrong baby home from the hospital) and "Coast-to-Coast Big Mouth" (the one where Laura went on a TV game show and blurted out that Alan Brady was bald).
Well, they ran "Coast-to-Coast Big Mouth" but the other two were "The Lives and Loves of Joe Coogan" (the one where Laura discovered her old boy friend had become a priest) and "Very New Shoes, Very Old Rice" (the one where Rob and Laura had to go get married again). Interesting picks…but not unwelcome because they reminded you how funny the show could be no matter what the plot was that week. They also ran a brief excerpt from "October Eve" (the one where a nude painting of Laura turned up in a local art gallery). The audience laughed heartily throughout all the episodes and cheered the appearance of anyone they knew was in the room.
Among those present: Carl Reiner and Dick Van Dyke were up on stage after and Carl gave a nice talk before. In the audience were regulars Rose Marie and Larry Matthews, as well as several guest actors including Sue Ane Langdon, Doris Singleton, Jack Larson (not the one who played Jimmy Olsen; the other Jack Larson), Michael Forest and Dick Curtis. Forest was the gent who played Joe Coogan and Curtis was the game show host who tricked Laura into disclosing the dark, hairless secret of Alan Brady's toupée.
Also present was Garry Marshall, a prolific writer for the show (and occasional actor) who went on to become one of TV's most successful producers and top film director. He hosted a disorganized Q-and-A after the screenings. It actually started well with Dick and his vocal group, The Vantastix, performing the show's theme song. Then the Q-and-A went…well, this is hard to criticize because it was very funny and I suspect most of the audience had a very good time. But you know, sometimes it's also fun to watch things go wrong.
As I've said here before, I don't usually like it at a public event when they throw the floor open to questions from the audience. Too often, it means that control of the discussion passes from a skilled interview to random strangers in the audience who rarely ask good questions and often ask the self-serving kind. Last night, we didn't have that jarring changeover because Garry Marshall's many skills do not include being a skilled interviewer. I'm sure he'd be the first one to admit it. He didn't even have any questions for Dick or Carl and he wasn't able to extract too many good ones from the house. I don't recall a single thing worth quoting here.
The Egyptian Theater is a beautiful structure with comfy seats. Great place to see a movie. Lousy place to see a panel. The front rows have a negative rake, meaning that each row is a bit lower than the row in front of it. When you're looking up at the movie screen, it's fine. When you're looking at a bunch of old guys sitting on chairs in front of that screen with a video crew between them and you, you can't see them. Carolyn and I were in Row 7, which had been taped off for V.I.P. seating. I'm 6'3" and unless I sat up ultra-straight on the edge of my seat, I couldn't see more than the top of Carl Reiner's head. What was worse was that they couldn't see us. I spoke briefly to Garry Marshall after and he said that he couldn't see half the audience because they were in pitch-black and couldn't see the other half because the video crew's lights were in his face when he turned that way. There were no microphones for the audience so it was hard to hear them, too.
I don't think Garry Marshall should have been hosting it anyway; not with the world's foremost authority on the show (and a darned good interviewer) Vince Waldron right there. But Marshall didn't even have a chance because he couldn't see the audience to select questioners, Dick and Carl couldn't hear what was asked…and what was asked was generally not that interesting. It was funny because those three men are funny…but come on, American Cinematheque. This is how every one of your programs at the Egyptian seems to go and it's unworthy of an organization that is celebrating creative people and their work. You need some sort of a platform up there to elevate the guests, and someone has to figure out how to light them and the house. Microphones that work all the time would be a nice addition, too.
I feel Grinchlike to be complaining when so many people went home, I'm sure, raving about the wonderful time they had. But when you have Carl Reiner and Dick Van Dyke appearing in front of an auditorium full of lovers of The Dick Van Dyke Show, you can screw up a lot and the audience will still be happy. That doesn't mean you should screw up a lot.
That said, I enjoyed myself tremendously. So take the above for whatever it's worth.