100-Year-Old Dick Van Dyke Inspired Generations of Comedy Minds

As a kid who grew up watching reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show, I always thought that Rob Petrie led one helluva life. Not only was he wed to a charming wife who, unlike those other stodgy sitcom spouses, danced around in kicky Capri pants, but he had the best job I’d ever heard of. Arriving each day at the offices of The Alan Brady Show, Rob would hang out on the couch with best pals Buddy and Sally, making each other laugh while dreaming up another round of hilarious comedy sketches. People actually get paid for this? 

I do the work I do in part because I wanted to be like Dick Van Dyke’s fictional alter ego, putting funny words on paper for a living. And I’m far from the only one. Original Saturday Night Live writer Alan Zweibel told Cracked that he adored the show as a kid, informing his parents, “I want to do that. I want to be that guy.”

“That show was very, very influential and seminal,” Zweibel said. “It introduced us all to the process, to the lifestyle, and it was so engaging and so funny. We all wanted to live a version of that life.”

So did Tom Kenny, Mr. Show comic and the voice of SpongeBob. “I used to watch The Dick Van Dyke Show when I was a kid, and I'd go, ‘Wow, that's what I want to do. I want the kind of job where you're just hanging around with funny people,’” he told Entertainment Weekly. 

“The biggest thrill I get is young, successful, brilliant writers coming up to me, saying, ‘I'm a writer because of watching your show,’” Dick Van Dyke Show creator Carl Reiner once said. “That happens all the time. You see them inspired by what we did, but taking that and breaking down new barriers.”

None of this influence happens, of course, with the easy-going charm of Dick Van Dyke, who reached the delightfully ripe old age of 100 today. “What’s a Dick Van Dyke?” asked Rose Marie when she was approached to play Sally Rogers. Producer Sheldon Leonard wondered the same when Reiner proposed naming his new sitcom after the relative unknown.  “After they see the show,” Reiner promised, “they’ll know how charming and multi-talented he is.”

Van Dyke inspired as many comic performers as he did aspiring comedy writers. “Dick Van Dyke has always been one of my heroes,” confessed Ted Danson to Men’s Journal. “I grew up without a television, but when I was a freshman in college, I bought this old black-and-white console. I crawled up on the roof, patched into a teacher’s antenna, and snuck back into my room. What came on was one of the first reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show in 1967—I was hooked.”

Danson, of course, was not alone. Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Conan O'Brien, Jim Carrey, and Bryan Cranston are funny guys who point to Van Dyke as their north star. “Seeing him in not just The Dick Van Dyke Show but seeing him in Mary Poppins when I was a kid really made me want to do this,” O’Brien told Carrey. 

“He’s just never stopped,” marveled Carrey.  How many other comics are singing and dancing on Instagram after a century in the business? 

As Van Dyke aged, he tap danced his way through his senior years with unimaginable grace. Chris Martin of Coldplay channeled the wannabe comedy writers, the kids who wanted to grow up to be gangly, lovable comics, and all of us who simply reveled in the man’s joy for life when he penned a song for a chance to dance with Dick Van Dyke.

You got all my love

Whether it rains or pours, I'm all yours

You've got all my love

Whether it rains, it remains

You've got all my love

Happy birthday, Dick, with love from everyone you inspired.