Sunday, August 7, 2011

Dick Van Dyke & Hope Lange in The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1971)

Everyone remembers the iconic series that launched the television careers of Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. The Dick Van Dyke Show has a place in the American culture for numerous reasons. Most people, however don't remember Van Dyke's sophomore series television effort, The New Dick Van Dyke Show. Dick Preston (Van Dyke) is a local television host in Phoenix, AZ with a wife (Lange), daughter, and an egomaniacal boss (David Doyle). The situations revolved around both his home and work life. In the third season they revamped the show because of flagging ratings, moving production from Arizona to Hollywood and giving Dick Preston a role in a soap opera.

The episode above is The Harry Award. Dick is given an award, but must decide whether to accept it at a banquet held in a restricted country club. It was uploaded to YouTube by liarsclub75.

Obscurity factor: 7 (successful in its first run, rarely seen since, not on DVD, available on YouTube)

6 comments:

  1. I liked this show. I especially liked Nancy Dussault and Fannie Flagg. I do recall that at the time of its premiere, the weekly TV insert in my local evening newspaper had a photo of Hope Lange on the cover, and the headline was "The Ghost of Mary Tyler Moore."

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  2. Hmm, interesting, considering that the Mary Tyler Moore show was a big hit at the time.

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  3. I remember liking this show as a child and being weirdly obsessed with Hope Lange running across the desert with the phone as shown in the credits. It seems very average 40 years later.

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  4. I dunno, that would have to be a pretty long phone cord...

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  5. Ah, yes, my family watched every season, even if it couldn't possibly top his original show. Flagg was definitely the draw. Between this, and "Match Game," she was loved in our house. (And by me, years later, with her novel "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.")

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  6. It would be hard to top his original show - MTM certainly equalled it.

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