PIONEERS OF TELEVISION

SITCOMS

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM

Rediscover television comedy classics, as this episode focuses on five key sitcoms: “I Love Lucy,” “The Honeymooners,” “Make Room for Daddy,” “The Andy Griffith Show” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

Actor Dick Van Dyke grew up on a steady diet of Laurel and Hardy slapstick comedies, so when writer and producer Carl Reiner cast him as the stumbling husband, Rob Petry, next to newcomer Mary Tyler Moore, in his new program, “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” the young actor got the chance to use his physical comedy abilities.

“Rob Petry wasn’t supposed to have been a klutz in the beginning,” recalls Van Dyke. “Carl [Reiner] knew I loved to do the physical stuff, and he wrote that in, or he would just say ‘Dick does five minutes here’ and let me come up with something.”
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