This actor is turning 100. Let’s honor his legendary TV comedy | Opinion

“The Dick Van Dyke Show” premiered in October 1961, a few weeks before my fourth birthday. I was too young to remember that broadcast on the night it aired, but my life since then has been filled with profound gratitude for the 157 episodes that would follow.

On that first show, Rob and Laura Petrie are preparing for their first big night out as parents. Five-year-old Richie’s separation anxiety drives him to fake an illness. Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) balks at leaving him with the sitter, but when Rob’s co-writers Buddy and Sally (Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie) arrive to pick them up, they immediately suspect Richie is putting on an act.

The attempt to confirm Richie’s illness leads Rob to test a thermometer that Richie has heated under a lamp to boost its temperature. The scalding reaction is but the first of countless moments of sublime physical comedy that would delight America for five seasons. I remember watching many of them with my parents. The fact that I find them as hilarious now as I did in elementary school is a testament to the gifts of the man in the show’s title. As Dick Van Dyke turns 100 this month, an appreciation is in order.

Van Dyke’s talent for slapstick was not the prime engine of the show. Propelled by the scripts of Carl Reiner, Rob Petrie was a new mold for TV husbands and fathers — a loving husband, a clumsy dreamer, a man who could be brilliant at work and sometimes comically helpless at home. The empathy and intelligence that informed his performance is an oasis in a desert of sitcom portrayals of husbands as one-dimensional, or simple imbeciles.

In an episode I would appreciate after repeated viewings into adulthood, a flashback portrays Rob’s panic as he becomes convinced that they have brought home the wrong baby from the hospital. As Laura protests, he arranges for the similarly named Mr. and Mrs. Peters to pay a visit to sort out a potentially life-changing dilemma.

How a ‘Dick Van Dyke Show’ episode relieved racial tensions

There is a theory that laughter is a release of tension. As the doorbell rings and the tension crests, the unseen Peterses introduce themselves. Van Dyke’s expression of shock, surprise and ultimately relief is an all-time TV history moment and one of TV’s longest studio audience laughs as the couple is welcomed inside — we see that they are Black.

This willingness to deftly inject a racial angle into a sitcom script amid America’s civil rights awakening is part of what made the show more than just a laugh factory for me. Van Dyke and that cast helped shape the first drafts of what became my sense of humor: an appreciation for language, relationships and self-deprecation without low buffoonery.

At the crest of his TV show’s popularity, Van Dyke played Bert the chimney sweep in “Mary Poppins” alongside Julie Andrews, adding to his aura as a performer who could do anything — with the possible exception of a Cockney accent. In search of a versatile and likable star as a possible successor to Sean Connery, James Bond film producer Albert Broccoli considered Van Dyke, who declined, sidestepping the risk of further dialect challenges.

He found other ways to expand his skill set, in the 1969 film “The Comic” as a silent film star who stumbles into alcoholism and self-doubt as the film industry passes him by. That underseen and underappreciated film should have set him up for one of those careers attracting broad praise for portrayals ranging from comedy to drama. For nearly 25 years, it didn’t happen.

Then, famed TV executive Fred Silverman hatched the concept of a crime-solving doctor, a role requiring an appealing, seasoned actor. They envisioned Van Dyke from day one and asked about his level of interest in “Diagnosis: Murder.” Enjoying retirement in his mid-60s (and apparently having invested well), he nearly turned it down. Eight seasons later, he wrapped one of the happiest and most lucrative chapters in his unforgettable career.

Dick Van Dyke on how he achieved longevity

As his 100th birthday on Dec. 13 approaches, Van Dyke has been asked often about longevity, thoughtfully remarking what an odd candidate he is for centenarian status. He was a heavy smoker for decades and struggled for 25 years with alcoholism, even spanning the years of “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” As recently as last year, California wildfires tried to do what liquor and cigarettes did not, and he survived those as well, including a harrowing day when neighbors had to carry him out of his neighborhood after finding him crawling to his car.

The stumble I will never forget is the spill over the living room ottoman as he arrives home in the “Dick Van Dyke Show” open. In later seasons, he would deftly sidestep the furniture hazard, but episode after episode would provide a stage for the physical comedy mixed with smart writing that would be a hallmark of TV history.

One single routine, honed on stages and TV variety show appearances prior to his sitcom stardom, shows the marriage of mind and body for comic brilliance. With an established skeleton of rubber capable of soaring comic physicality, he would announce: “Ladies and gentlemen, my portrayal of a drunk walking in an earthquake.” He then takes several smooth, brisk, graceful steps. The notion of the shifting ground precisely canceling out what would have been his impaired gait has made me laugh for just about my entire lifetime.

An interview just published in the Times of London may offer advice on how we might extend our own lives: “No one is genetically miserable,” he said. “No matter our current circumstances, we all have the capacity for a joyful life. I’ve made it to 99 in no small part because I have stubbornly refused to give into the bad stuff in life — failures and defeats, loneliness and bitterness, the physical and emotional pains of aging. For the vast majority of my years I have been in what I can only describe as a full-on bear hug with the experience of living. Being alive has been doing life not like a job, but rather like a giant playground.”

Mark Davis hosts a morning radio show in Dallas-Fort Worth on 660-AM and at 660amtheanswer.com. Follow him on X: @markdavis.

This story was originally published December 4, 2025 at 9:23 AM with the headline "This actor is turning 100. Let’s honor his legendary TV comedy | Opinion."