Rob Reiner Perfected A Comedy Genre That Still Resonates Today

It couldn’t have been easy to be the son of Carl Reiner, creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show, comedy partner to Mel Brooks, and frequent director of the early movies of Steve Martin. But somehow, Rob Reiner, who died tragically in an apparent homicide yesterday, not only met his father’s legacy but arguably surpassed it. 

It started with young Reiner being cast as Hollywood’s resident hippie in several 1960s sitcoms like The Beverly Hillbillies, Batman, and, hilariously, as the long-haired peace lover who turns Gomer Pyle onto the counterculture.

Those roles led to Reiner beating out Richard Dreyfuss and Harrison Ford for the part of Archie Bunker’s meathead son-in-law, Mike Stivic, on the groundbreaking All in the Family. Rob won two Emmy Awards for delivering liberal counterpunches to Archie’s bigoted diatribes.

Like his father, Reiner left television for the director’s chair and went on a movie hit streak that’s rarely been matched. Starting in 1984, he strung together a string of smashes that would be the envy of any director not named Spielberg: This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, and A Few Good Men. The list is as startling for its extraordinary range, from improvised comedies to Stephen King nailbiters to tense courtroom dramas, as it is for its unquestionable quality. Reiner received four Golden Globe nominations for Best Director and directed three actors to Oscar nominations, including winner Kathy Bates.

For comedy fans, Reiner’s lasting contribution will be This Is Spinal Tap, the mockumentary that cut so close to the satirical bone that many early audiences thought the band was the genuine article. The director’s underrated deadpan performance as Marty Di Bergi made him the perfect straight-man foil, the exact role his father played with Brooks in their 2000 Year Old Man collaborations. 

He credited Christopher Guest for the laughs in the iconic “it goes to 11” scene, but Reiner knew exactly what buttons to push. “He’s so in the moment,” Reiner told Rolling Stone last year. “I find that when I put Chris in a corner, he’s great. I’ll challenge him on something and then that blank look comes on his face and I know he is thinking, ‘What do I do?’ It forces him into a place that’s good.”

While the comedy mocks rock musicians, most hold Spinal Tap close to their hearts. “Sting once told me, ‘I watched this movie many times. Every time I watch it, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,’” Reiner said. “Because they do see themselves in it.”

Reiner’s movie wasn’t the first mock documentary, but it was the most influential, inspiring the library of Guest films, as well as a generation of straight-to-camera sitcoms like The Office. “It was a big thing for me,” Ricky Gervais confesses on his website. “When I first saw This is Spinal Tap in about 1983, I immediately watched it again. I can't remember a film I've done that with, before or since.” 

“To get so deep into the genre that they were spoofing, the details of human behavior, and then to do it all in someone else's native accent just blew me away,” he said. “There's just a few things that go to comedy heaven.”