The best television show ever made.

0:00 Eva The internet wants you to know a little about everything.

0:03 Pamala Headline here, a trending topic there.

0:05 Eva Just enough to have an opinion.

0:07 Pamala But never enough to understand.

0:08 Eva This is you know, too much.

0:10 Pamala A show about the opposite.

0:12 Eva The people who go all the way down the rabbit hole.

0:15 Pamala The collector.

0:16 Eva The overthinker, the obsessive. Every episode we sit down with someone who knows too much.

0:22 Pamala And find out why it matters. Follow along on Instagram and you know too much media.

0:27 Eva Stream on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube because the best.

0:31 Pamala Stories.

0:31 Eva Come from people who know way too much.

0:36 Danny I'm Danny Robinson, and I know too much about why the Dick Van Dike show still holds up over 60 years later.

0:43 Pamala Brilliant. Thank you.

0:44 Eva Love it.

0:45 Pamala You're welcome. Yeah. Tell it. We need to know more. Tell us more.

0:51 Danny When you asked me and I started thinking about things I know something about. And I've always. I've always been the person who knows a little bit about a lot of things. So I'm good at trivia, but I'm not really good going deep on anything. So I had trouble thinking about that, including things that I enjoy. And this was the only thing that popped up that said, if I were in a trivia contest against the Van Dike lovers there, I could compete.

1:17 Danny But something about the show, unlike a lot of shows that I watch. So when I was a kid and I watched a lot of television, I mean a lot it's a lot of television. Okay, something about this show outlasted all those others and if I start to interrogate it, I think it is a combination of things. But the first thing is, is the writing.

1:39 Danny I do think it's one of the best written shows ever. And Carl Reiner.

1:44 Pamala Was the writing producer. Was the writing different from back then?

1:47 Danny And yeah, yeah, it was smarter than most shows. I mean, a lot of shows back then were either idealized versions of home life, like, like Father Knows Best or Leave It to Beaver, or just really broad slapstick gags, stuff like I Love Lucy or The Munsters or Addams Family, which was pretty well written. But this show, this just for me, it was this show was it was real and it was smart.

2:14 Danny And it was even though it was slapstick at times, the humor was never broad, and it just felt it felt authentic in a way that other shows just did not. It was it figured out a way to do comedy smartly. And it wasn't about the gag, it was about real life.

2:29 Eva Have you come back to the writing then? Right? It's got to be. Really? Yeah.

2:33 Danny Ultimately, every show really ultimately comes back to the writing and maybe a little bit of the acting. But the writing is the thing that makes that show and the and the and I remind people, Carl Reiner is a heck of a writer. Heck of a comedian.

2:48 Pamala Yeah, absolutely. And the shows I feel like the show had, like, were people already legends when they did the show or did they become legends from doing that?

2:57 Danny No, no, no, none of them really. I think Carl Reiner was the only one who anybody probably knew, and he didn't. He was on the show, but he didn't appear. You didn't see his face until probably five seasons. Four seasons. And Dick Van Dike, and certainly people knew him. But Mary Tyler Moore was a child. She was like 21 years old and think she had done anything really.

3:17 Danny And the and the supporting cast members were kind of big players.

3:22 Pamala Yeah.

3:23 Danny I don't know that anybody knew anybody by name before that show.

3:26 Pamala Okay. And did you watch like were you always just sort of looking into it throughout life or did you like at one point be like, I'm rewatching everything again from episode one or have you done it all times?

3:39 Danny Well, I there was a time, probably in my late teens 20s where I watched it quite a bit, or maybe earlier, maybe I junior high school, high school, which was quite a bit, but you couldn't really. You can only watch it when it came on television, wherever that whenever that was, wherever that was. So that was occasional then it when it was on TV land, if anybody remembers that channel.

4:00 Eva Was trying to explain syndication to people all the time and fields. Yeah, like that was such an impactful thing. We didn't get to make that choice for ourselves, right? Whatever it was on.

4:14 Danny So I could only watch it when it came back. It was on TV land. And then, but so my joy and then it went away and it took, they took it off TV land. And then I guess TV land maybe went away, but they took it off TV land. So my wife bought me the set five this season DVD for people who know what that is.

4:37 Danny And so.

4:38 Pamala I thought you were going to say Blu ray. I thought that's.

4:40 Danny Enough. Yeah. And so I watched it. Then I was I watched one episode every day. I went through the whole season and then kind of fell off. And then I found it on Peacock like five years ago. So every night for five years I watched and it was pretty much, if I'm not out of town, I watched an episode every night, my wife and I, before going to sleep for the past five years.

5:04 Pamala Oh my gosh, do you have a favorite episode?

5:07 Danny Of course I do.

5:09 Eva Tell us more.

5:11 Danny I have many.

5:12 Eva Second clear favorite.

5:14 Danny Number one clear favorite, and then a bunch of tubes and threes.

5:18 Eva Yeah, yeah.

5:19 Danny There's a show called All About Eavesdropping. And again, this is an old show. So anybody knows what all about Eve is this was all about eavesdropping was, was is by far my favorite show. And then two through ten are all lumped together.

5:34 Pamala Why is the east of me one your favorite? What is it?

5:36 Danny It is.

5:39 Danny Why? It's incredibly simple. It takes place pretty much in two different places. And everyone, every character, for the most part on the show, is together at the end of the at the second half of the show, and it's just it's really a really smart, funny, surprising story about Rob and Laura, who are main characters married to each other, overheard their neighbors talking about them in a not nice way.

6:09 Danny The night that they had to go over to their house for a dinner party. So they went over to their house, not happy, but they had to go over because two people they invited were at that party, so they had to show up. So they they came in very cold and called the entire show. And it was just, just we all know eyes viewers and they nobody, nobody understands what's wrong with them.

6:28 Danny And it's just they played it incredibly well and then they played a game of charades. You have to see the show to understand.

6:34 Eva Yeah.

6:35 Danny It it's a good show. It's a good episode.

6:38 Eva Oh, good. I'm gonna watch it tonight. Okay. And.

6:41 Pamala Yeah. Would you say this had any sort of impact on where you went in your life? Career wise?

6:49 Danny I know it's funny. Maybe. I mean, this this show is about a show. So the Dick Van Dike show is about Dick, who works for writing for a comedy show. So it's very meta.

7:05 Pamala Oh, that.

7:06 Danny Right? He writes for The Alan Brady Show. Yeah. Carl Reiner is Alan Brady, and he writes for The Alan Brady Show. So the a lot of the show was in a writers room with two other writers going through the process of writing. And the I think one of the reasons is real is Carl Reiner took that from his time writing for a comedy show.

7:25 Danny So it's a very meta show. He he produces a show about a writer on a show that he's the host of. Yeah, and he took that from writing on the show. Your host of host, where he was a writer and a writer. So I maybe I mean, I often credit Bewitched and Dick Van Dike with forming my thoughts about what I might do as a career.

7:50 Danny Well, because he was a writer, a comedy writer. And then Darren Stephens on Bewitched wrote, was was a I guess he was in art we weren't sure was an art director, a writer, but he worked for an ad agency. And both of those shows were one of two of my favorite shows. So maybe subconsciously I didn't really know what advertising was, but.

8:10 Danny Or comedy writing. But maybe subconsciously.

8:13 Pamala Yeah, interesting. I think I, you know, it's so interesting because I know I love Lucy forwards and backwards like I grew up with a grandmother. We watched I Love Lucy and then we watched Wheel of Fortune, and that was like what we did. So I know every I Love Lucy episode like forwards and backwards.

8:30 Danny I do too. We can have that conversation.

8:33 Pamala Some people are always like, oh, Lucy walks. So that Dick Van Dike show could run and I feel like I haven't seen, I really haven't seen a lot of the Dick Van Dike show, but it does feel like both of those shows were sort of talking, talking about, like you said, like the constructs of marriage and sort of that traditional realm.

8:54 Pamala And how does it break out from that. And then there was always sort of you're right. I mean, Lucy was much more shenanigans, like the way.

8:59 Danny That with those gags.

9:01 Pamala Yeah. And gags and comedy in that sense. What else would you say that the dick Van Dike show sort of played on and like, kind of made contributions in a cultural sense?

9:12 Danny Well, if you if you look at Mary Tyler Moore, is character. Probably the first time that a housewife use that phrase wasn't stereotypical. She had a point of view. She wasn't subservient. She wore Capri pants.

9:28 Pamala Yes, my grandmother used to say that. Like always wearing pants.

9:31 Danny Yes. Women didn't wear pants on television. Certainly housewives wore dresses. She changed her hairstyle over the years. Every season she cut, she. So she went. She was a progressive female character on that show in a way that that if you look at the Housewives previously, they were stereotypical housework. I mean, they, they cooked and cleaned and she did that too.

9:54 Danny But she also had a career before she was married. She was a partner, usually smarter than her husband. And that is that is a different I think that opened doors for the way women were portrayed on television.

10:07 Pamala Because her and her next moves was The Mary Tyler Moore Show, right?

10:14 Danny I maybe that doesn't make I mean, it probably doesn't make sense of the show went off in 60.

10:22 Danny That's the six. It's a long time between gig. I can't think of her on another show.

10:28 Pamala Yeah, she did, she did movies and I'm sure there was a few different films in between that, but I think, yeah, I also remember The Mary Tyler Moore Show just being so like feminist sort of.

10:38 Danny Yes, very much so. Like changing the single woman.

10:43 Pamala A single.

10:43 Danny Woman with a job.

10:44 Pamala Finding out I'm not depending on a man. Right. Got married and had a club.

10:49 Danny Yeah.

10:49 Eva Yeah that's like.

10:50 Danny That. And then they have a child.

10:51 Eva After housewife right. Yeah.

10:53 Pamala Yeah yeah. Interesting.

10:55 Danny So I yeah there's that. And the other thing is I think characters were developed on this show, had their own stories and own backstories and most of the shows before them, you didn't, you know, you, you know, the characters, secondary characters, aunts name are, you know, what they did before they were working on this show, on the Dick Van Dike, on The Alan Brady Show.

11:16 Danny You know, you knew backstories and they were fully developed characters. I think a lot of shows, even Lucy, Fred was Fred. But you know anything about Fred.

11:26 Eva Right?

11:27 Danny You know, think about Ethel. You know, where she came from. Who? Where she you didn't know anything about the characters before the show. And this show has spent a lot of time helping you understand who these people were. So it just it did things that that show that the time didn't do. And they and shows today do a better job of.

11:45 Eva And we'll be right back after this. We spotted mindless drinking patterns that didn't elevate your experience. That's why Yasha developed clean beverages that support how you want to feel without alcohol, THC, or mushrooms. Visit us at Drink Ocean. Com Madison built only olive because every chili crisp on the shelf was made with seed oils and additives. Now it's in three flavors made with 100% olive oil.

12:13 Eva By now at eat only olive com.

12:16 Pamala And now back to the show. You're going to be creating an advertising show soon, Sam.

12:21 Danny Not too.

12:21 Eva Soon.

12:22 Danny Yes. Decades isn't.

12:24 Pamala Yeah. I mean, I guess the thing is, it's like, what? What do you want us to take away? I mean, I love that you know too much about this. I'm now super interested. I would say the only clip I know from that show.

12:38 Pamala Mary Tyler Moore's character hitting the pool shot. Oh, there's.

12:43 Danny A foot that's that.

12:44 Pamala You know that's the only clip I know. Like I don't know why. I don't know why. We went from I Love Lucy to never watching the other, you know the Dick Van Dike show. And the only thing I know and I'll set this up for you, even if you haven't seen it, is basically her and her husband are playing a game of pool.

13:00 Pamala She's like, I got to go. And he's like, please just just finish this game. Just finish this game. And she's like, okay, fine. And it's essentially like these blue balls are all like kind of pushed together in one part of the pool table. And the whole thing was that she would shoot it and it was a trick shot and that she would make it, but originally they knew that she wouldn't make it.

13:17 Pamala She doesn't play pool, and that they would just do a cut away from a professional having done it. But in the shot, she hits it and it is a trick shot and it all works. And so you could just see, like her face, his face, the audience, like it's like such that one golden moment in television where all the things just work out right.

13:38 Pamala And so and so. She gets to be sly and coy and witty in her response. But also it's even better because she actually makes the shots, which no one was expecting.

13:49 Danny Hilarious. That's the one show that was the last scene of the show.

13:53 Pamala Really?

13:54 Danny Well, yes, that was the last scene. That was it was always has hustler, hustler. But his brother Blackie was a pool shark and couldn't convince buddy that he was that he's reformed. So what he did was he hustled Rob into a pool game and lost a lot of money to him. Rob lost all the money, and then buddy came in and he tore up to check them to show him that he's a changed man, but that that was the very last saying that they were still down in the basement together.

14:24 Pamala And the only other thing I know of is like something about walnuts, that's all. Like there are some walnuts. Phenomenal. They I don't just.

14:31 Eva That just that was,

14:33 Pamala I don't know, she figured on this with Danny so that you could explain. What? It's the walnut thing.

14:38 Danny It is that that was their Emmy winning one, that they won 15 Emmys. I think that was their Emmy winning show. It was, it was a fever dream about. Well, it's I think it's Rob Reiner watched a TV show before going to bed about two complicated to explain. He he watched the show, he watched a horror show.

15:01 Danny And walnuts was part of the show. And he had a dream about about walnuts. It's these famous saying he opens a closet door and Laura, Mary Tyler Moore comes swimming out in a sea of walnuts. Yeah, that that's a that's a well known show. That's probably the best known show. It's not my favorite.

15:17 Pamala But okay, where is that in the five.

15:20 Danny Season that's probably 2 or 3. 2 or 3.

15:25 Pamala Wow. Man, I really could put you on a trivia team. I feel like it'd be like. And the name of this episode was this what season?

15:32 Danny Oh, I can I can name almost every episode if you give me the log, like, oh, yeah. I spent a lot of time with that show. So if you're keeping score, watch all about eavesdropping.

15:43 Eva Yep.

15:44 Danny Watch three letters from one wife, my second favorite. And coast to coast. Big mouth.

15:50 Pamala Okay. Is there anything else you want the masses in the world to know about the Dick Van Dike show?

15:57 Danny Well, you know, other than than it was really a blueprint for what sitcoms could be. It had heart, right? It was. It felt realistic. It wasn't about the gag. It was about the story. And and, you know, home life, working life. But, but friends, friendship kind of overlaid on top of all of that. And yeah, I, I will always go back to how, how well it was written and how perfectly cast it.

16:27 Danny It was as everybody's character was everyone was really good, you know, not a not a weak character in the show. And yeah, if you look at shows that preceded that, that followed it, it's clear that it had an influence on the way shows were written. And it so it does a lot of weirdness in that show that the parents of Rob and Laura changed throughout the seasons, and the the same characters would show up in the show as a different person later.

16:58 Danny And they did all this intentionally, I guess, and you and a lot of weird in and some non continuous storylines, but none of it mattered because it all felt like it was done purposefully and just really, really good at all.

17:14 Eva Worked.

17:15 Danny I suggest any anyone wants it to. Anyone wants to be a writer, watch the show, look at the timing, see how jokes work, and then you can't beat the physicality of Dick Van Dike. It's just to me that without that, the show is is maybe not my favorite, but you layer on top of all of that what he does with his body and his face and timing, that is, is the reason that show is so great.

17:41 Pamala I love that. That's awesome.

17:43 Danny And it's very specific. The is with specificity comes universality, right? The more specific you get, the more people universally get it. They were really, really specific about things, and that's because they were good writers. It's just really well, that nothing was taken for granted. Nothing was. Nothing was. Nothing was found in.

18:03 Pamala I love that. Yeah. Well, do you have any thoughts or questions? Anything further I.

18:09 Eva Just well, I am curious now that you're, you're into your even even more unbothered phase of your life, are you still doing an episode of night and is it in succession or do you skip around? It's oh no, no, not at the very end. Well, we got a frozen day and he's come back, Danny, so unbothered. He went into that was that that was the word those a as the buzzword.

18:40 Danny Okay. I said you guys, I thought you were frozen. So I've already watched it in succession that many times. So now. But yes, the answer is yes. Absolutely. That's what I go to sleep well, but not in order.

18:53 Eva Okay.

18:54 Danny As I said, as long as Peacock has it, there are 153 episodes and it seems like every single one I've, I've seen yesterday, I keep every time I try to find one set. I think I just saw that it of course I did not. I think I've seen it watch too many. That's what it feels like.

19:11 Pamala Drained into your brain.

19:13 Danny It's on. I may take a break.

19:15 Pamala Yeah. I mean, I have friends, I have, I have friends who like, in the morning they will get ready to Seinfeld or whenever they're like, you know, doing, getting ready for work or going, going to go out. They'll turn on an episode of friends. I just I've never I've never done that. I don't have a show. I think I've, I think I Love Lucy might be the only thing I've seen more than once ever.

19:37 Pamala It's like rare that I see anything a movie, a show, anything. I will not see anything twice. So I love that people have this, like, sort of comfort. They have like a comfort show. Yeah, right. Yeah. The fact that you watch it before you go sleep, you know, the other examples, I don't know even. Do you have a show?

19:53 Eva I can definitely recite copy from Law and Order.

20:01 Danny Law and Order.

20:02 Eva So it's, Oh, once again, it's like the syndication of it. I it just caught me in a time in my life where there was access to all of that before I could choose whatever I wanted. And so having it on in the background can feel pretty comforting. But like early era Lennie Briscoe, you know, first few seasons are are what warms my heart the most.

20:31 Danny And you can recite lines from Law and Order. That's the I don't know how you there's no rhythm. It's a comedy. There's a rhythm. There's no rhythms and law and order.

20:41 Eva And he had some. He had some classic one liners. Yeah. Okay. Maybe. Maybe not. Dialog from the episode, but certainly some good one liners for sure.

20:51 Danny That's hilarious.

20:52 Eva Yeah.

20:54 Danny Well Pamela, I, I, I've tried this with other shows and nothing works and shows I like, but I can't, I don't, I try and no nothing sticks. So you maybe just haven't found it yet.

21:07 Pamala Maybe. Maybe I don't know.

21:10 Danny Maybe you don't want, maybe not.

21:12 Eva I also have the the Disney version, the animated Robin Hood I watched every morning before school. Oh, in 1985 ish. So I like that when that comes back on it, it you can see something in my deep, deep brain. Yeah.

21:32 Danny Good.

21:33 Pamala Oh my gosh.

21:33 Danny Yes. Well we are we are at the point where pretty much just saying that just saying that the show during the show, I mean just every every like every like there's no, there's.

21:45 Pamala It's so good.

21:46 Danny You give me a line, I'll tell you the show. You know, a sentence that no matter where is in the show at this point, I think there's a that might be a problem.

21:53 Eva If we're going to do a follow up episode after a promo and I get a few more episodes under our belts, and we can do is follow up.

22:02 Danny Yeah, well, you better go very deep now.

22:06 Pamala I have to go subscribe to another. Another.

22:08 Danny Very good. I mean, I'm yeah. I'm waiting, I'm waiting for the question. I'm sure. There I know the questions. I don't know the answer to which I find, I find that amazing. But I know it's I know there are questions I know the answer to.

22:20 Eva Do you think they ended it at the right time? No longer.

22:24 Danny It actually got better. Well, the last couple of seasons, but Dick Van Dike had to go make he had to go to make movies, went to make Bye Bye Birdie I think.

22:36 Pamala Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

22:37 Danny Though after that. What's good about that movie? Yeah.

22:41 Pamala Yeah.

22:42 Danny I, I loved it.

22:43 Eva Yeah. Classics. Oh yeah. Bye Bye birdie.

22:46 Danny So yeah I could have die. It could have gone a season or two more. But that's. I've been time for me.

22:51 Pamala Yep. Yeah. They broke up the band a.

22:53 Eva Few more episodes.

22:54 Danny Yeah. Just adding.

22:55 Eva To the rotation.

22:57 Danny This week.

22:58 Pamala Oh my gosh. Well, I want to say thank you for sharing the Dick Van Dike show with us.

23:03 Danny You're welcome.

23:04 Pamala Them I really I I'm just so. And I just love it. I love that you know too much about this. It completely tickles my heart. It just makes me happy. And now it's just something I know more about. And now I'm definitely going to go. I think we're both going to go dive in now.

23:21 Danny Check it out.

23:22 Eva Dropping.

23:23 Danny Oh, that is dropping.

23:25 Pamala I'm only going to watch it once.

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23:41 Eva Five.

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