THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 21, 1995 TAG: 9510200067
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CRAIG SHAPIRO, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
CARL REINER and Alan Brady the caustic comic he played on ``The Dick Van Dyke Show'' - have been inseparable since JFK was in office. It wasn't always that way.
During the show's first season, viewers heard Alan Brady. Sometimes, they glimpsed the back of his head. But they never saw him.
Secrecy had nothing to with it. Reiner said it was ``a dumb conceit.''
``I did it because when I wrote the character I didn't expect him to be in the show very often,'' he said. ``I expected him to be a voice that frightened, that pushed - the person who makes you quake. Your boss.
``When I first needed him, I said, `Who's gonna play this part? I wanna have someone who looks like a star.' ''
A self-described second banana, Reiner ruled himself out.
``I wanted him to be a top banana like Berle or Phil Silvers or Jackie Gleason or Sid Caesar. So I decided to play a nasty guy and not show who he was because if I turned around, they'd say, `Oh, that's Carl Reiner. He's not such a big star.'
``Then the writing got more complicated and it was unfair to the material not to turn the man around and see his reactions to things. It was like acting with your hand - with your face - tied behind your back. So I turned him around the second year.''
Reiner the creator is also Reiner the fan. Thirty-four years after his baby premiered, he loves to talk about it. And watch it. He even has a favorite episode - ``Coast-to-Coast Big Mouth,'' when Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) goes on a game show and tells the world that egomaniacal Alan Brady wears a toupee.
``It's like when I was a kid,'' Reiner said. ``I used to listen to Caruso (recordings) every day when I was 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. I never didn't listen, because it was good.
``Their performances sometimes tickle me so. I say, `Look at what they're doing.' I love it.''
``Their'' is the key. Reiner developed the series; making it work, though, took collaboration between cast and crew. Everybody, especially the limber star, brought ideas to the set.
``I had done the pilot as an actor myself years before and it would never have been the same show,'' Reiner said. ``The fact that Dick could dance and sing, and his body. . . . You know, I don't think he had connective tissue. It was all loose and angular. The same with Mary. She was a dancer and was so totally graceful.''
A solid argument can be made that ``The Dick Van Dyke Show'' remains television's finest half-hour. It was the first ``adult'' sitcom, but whether it would get the go-ahead today, when copycat comedy is corporate policy, is anyone's guess.
Reiner says yes. After all, good writing is good writing. In fact, he thinks it would be even better.
``Why? Because we have the experience of the world as it is today,'' he said. ``And we'd probably have an easier time discussing the subjects that we wanted to discuss but couldn't, which were birth and death and sickness. We had less words to use then. We couldn't use `pregnant.' We couldn't use anything.
``We couldn't even have a double bed. I had one written in but they said, `No, you can't show two people in bed together.' I said, `Why not?' It was a big fight, but I wanted to get the show on. In those days I didn't have what we call `screw-you money.' ''
Censorship also led to Reiner's departure from the series he'd created and nursed. In the early '60s, he said, they could perform anything they wanted. The catch was the network, CBS, could decide not to air it.
``It was a subject that was very important: What do you say to a kid who pops into your bedroom when you're making love? It was a hilarious show with its heart in the right place.
``One person at the network, the president, decided not to put it on,'' Reiner said. ``It was a valid show and they didn't put it on. We didn't come back for the fourth year because we said, `That's it. If we're gonna do our best shot and you're not gonna' . . . That wouldn't happen today.'' MEMO: Main story also on page B1
ILLUSTRATION: Photo
The Dick Van Dyke Show
by CNB