The third issue of the Dick Van Dyke Show comic book was a distinct improvement over #2 for a number of reasons. One was the return of veteran illustrator Dan Spiegle to the art chores. Another was the first comic book appearance of Alan Brady although, as was then the custom on the show, his face is never shown. The following season, Carl Reiner would begin appearing on-camera in the role but the comic book continued to only show the back of his head or to otherwise hide his likeness. In the book-length story that fills this issue, horror movie actor Boris Bella has agreed to be the special guest on an episode of The Alan Brady Show but insists that the writers come to his home to discuss the material he will perform.
Based on what he reveals of his career in this story, Boris Bella is a cross between Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, though he looks more like Vincent Price. Laura tags along as Rob, Laura and Buddy go to Bella's mansion for the meeting but then a storm (seemingly) erupts outside and they're stuck there for the night. An array of ghosts scare them, including one that Buddy describes as looking like Mel Cooley but with hair. (SPOILER WARNING) It turns out Buddy's right. It is Mel. He and several stuntmen have played all the scary things, and even Alan Brady himself climbed into a gorilla suit to help out the joke. All of the writers' panic has been captured by hidden cameras as part of a new TV show that Alan's production company has in the works…a Candid Camera rip-off to be hosted by Boris Bella.
The ending works better in the comic than it probably reads here, and it also works better in the comic than it did on the TV show two years later. In the fourth season episode, "The Ghost of A. Chantz," Rob, Laura, Buddy and Sally wind up having to spend the night in a possibly-haunted cabin. Again, it turns out they're secretly being filmed for Alan's new hidden camera show, and it's probably safe to assume this plot was inspired by the comic. The Gold Key story also has a funny ending where Alan is unable to remove his gorilla mask (which has hidden his face from us…a nice touch) and is screaming at Mel as the cameras film his dilemma for possible use on the show. All in all, not a bad issue.
The fourth issue was once again ahead of the TV show on which it was based, in this case doing a Christmas story before the one that appeared on the series. (The cover photo was a publicity shot from the previous year.) This has led some collectors to assume that the comic book stories, which like all Gold Key books carried no credits, must have been written by folks who were simultaneously writing for the show. At least two of the writers who wrote for the TV series had done recently done scripts for Gold Key Comics so there was a connection there. Jerry Belson, working with his then-partner Garry Marshall, wrote ten episodes that appeared in the third, fourth and fifth seasons of The Dick Van Dyke Show.
At the time, Belson was still occasionally writing scripts for Gold Key, primarily for their Warner Brothers and Hanna-Barbera titles. Also writing for the H-B titles was Dale McRaven, who co-wrote one episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show in its fourth season (the one where Rob bought a motorcycle). Neither Belson nor McRaven wrote any of the Dick Van Dyke Show comic books however, nor do they know who did. This particular issue is a book-length Christmas tale drawn by Dan Spiegle and by my calculations, it went on sale around late November or early December of 1962. The TV show would not get around to doing its famous, much-repeated Christmas episode until December of the following year, leading one to wonder if the comic book gave them the idea.
The story is your basic twist on Dickens' A Christmas Carol with Alan Brady filling the role of Ebenezer Scrooge and Rob Petrie as Bob Cratchit. Sally and Buddy have left town for the holidays but Rob has to work Christmas Eve to polish a monologue that Alan has to perform on a big special on Christmas Day. That night, Alan has a dream in which he is visited by three ghosts. The Ghost of Christmas Past looks a lot like Buddy Sorrell, even to the extent of making bald jokes about two of the Three Wise Men. The Ghost of Christmas Present is Sally Rogers (who remarks, "You'd think the Ghost of Christmas Present could get a date for Christmas Eve"). She shows Ebenezer Brady the kind of life Rob Cratchit lives, with Laura dressed in torn, ragged capri pants and Ritchie in the role of Tiny Tim. And the Ghost of Christmas Future is Mel Cooley, who shows Alan visions of his show being cancelled because the public learns that he made one of his writers work on Christmas Eve. In a panic, Alan reforms and gives Rob a frozen turkey and the rest of Christmas Eve off. The story is hurt by the fact that we only see the back of Alan's head as he's going through all this but otherwise, it's probably better than the following year's Christmas episode on the TV show. This is mainly because in the comic book, you don't have to listen to Ritchie singing "The Little Drummer Boy."