June 30, 2020 — The DECADES Network will celebrate legendary writer, director and actor Carl Reiner with a special weekend binge of 15-time Emmy award winning sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show. The tribute begins Friday, July 10 at 9p ET with an episode of The Dick Cavett Show featuring Carl Reiner. Following at 9:30p ET, DECADES will present Head of the Family, the rarely-seen pilot that preceded The Dick Van Dyke Show. At 10p & 10:30p ET, The Dick Van Dyke Show will air in its regular time period featuring two of Reiner’s iconic appearances in the series, Coast to Coast Big Mouth and A Day in the Life of Alan Brady.
Then, viewers can relive and celebrate classic episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show all weekend long during the DECADES Weekend Binge, starting Saturday, July 11 at 12p ET and airing through Monday, July 13 at 7a ET. (Complete schedule is outlined below).
Born in the Bronx borough of New York, Carl Reiner appeared in several Broadway musicals including Inside U.S.A. and Call Me Mister before he was cast in the variety show Your Show of Shows in 1950. Throughout the series four-year run, Reiner honed his writing chops alongside fellow comedy writers Mel Brooks and Neil Simon, and went on to write for the variety TV series Caesar’s Hour and The Dinah Shore Chevy Show.
In 1960, Reiner and Brooks began appearing as a comedy duo on The Steve Allen Show, where they performed the iconic sketch The 2,000 Year Old Man for the first time. The duo expanded the popular sketch into a 1975 animated television special and a series of five comedy albums, the last of which earned a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Comedy Album in 1999.
In 1959, Reiner developed a television pilot, Head of the Family, where he was set to star as a suburban family man who worked in show business. The pilot was ultimately rejected, but producer Sheldon Leonard decided to rework the show, famously telling Reiner, We’ll get a better actor to play you. That better actor would turn out to be Dick Van Dyke.
Created by Carl Reiner, The Dick Van Dyke Show followed the work and home life of Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke), head comedy writer for the fictional variety series The Alan Brady Show, starring Alan Brady (Carl Reiner), with plots inspired by Reiner’s real-life experiences as a writer for the live variety show Your Show of Shows and the sketch-comedy series Caesar’s Hour. Mary Tyler Moore portrayed Rob’s wife, Laura Petrie, and earned two Primetime Emmy Awards for her performance. The Dick Van Dyke Show is considered by fans and critics alike to be one of the best sitcoms in television history, as the series earned 25 Primetime Emmy nominations and won 15 Primetime Emmy Awards during its five seasons (1961-1966).
Following the landmark success of The Dick Van Dyke Show, Reiner went on to write and direct feature films, including the cult classic Where’s Poppa (1970), Oh, God! (1977) starring George Burns and The Jerk (1979), starring Steve Martin. Throughout his expansive 70-year career, Reiner continued to appear in television series and films including House M.D., Two and a Half Men, Hot in Cleveland, Parks and Recreation and the Ocean’s Eleven franchise. Reiner is also an accomplished author, having published nearly 20 books, including memoirs My Anecdotal Life: A Memoir (2003), I Remember Me (2012), I Just Remembered (2014) and What I Forgot to Remember (2015). In 2019, The Paley Center for Media presented the icon with a Paley Honors Award for his enduring impact on television comedy.
Carl Reiner passed on June 29 at the age of 98.
DECADES Remembers Carl Reiner schedule
Friday, July 10th
9pm ET The Dick Cavett Show feat. Carl Reiner
9:30pm ET “Head of the Family” Pilot Episode
10pm ET The Dick Van Dyke Show “Coast to Coast Big Mouth”
Laura accidentally reveals that Alan Brady is bald on live TV!
10:30pm ET The Dick Van Dyke Show “A Day in the Life of Alan Brady”
A film crew takes over the Petrie house for an Alan Brady documentary that aims to show the megalomaniac’s “human” side.
Saturday, July 11th and Sunday, July 12th
12pm ET ? The DECADES Weekend Binge: The Dick Van Dyke Show
About Weigel Broadcasting Co.
Weigel Broadcasting Co. is a family-owned media company based in Chicago, Illinois. In addition to producing the new series Collector?s Call, the company owns and operates national television networks, as well as local broadcast stations throughout the country. Weigel is the leader in the multicast television network space with “MeTV,” Memorable Entertainment Television, the number-one rated and distributed multicast network, as well as the “Movies!” Network in cooperation with the Fox Television Stations, the “DECADES” Network, the “H&I” Network and the ?Start TV? Network in association with the CBS Television Stations. Weigel’s local stations include CBS, ABC, The CW, MyNet and Telemundo network affiliates. Weigel and its affiliate companies broadcast network and independent television stations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, St. Louis, Cedar City-St. George, Milwaukee, South Bend and Rockford. Weigel is also the creator of the nationally syndicated music format MeTV FM. For more information on Weigel, visit: https://www.weigelbroadcasting.com/
