Dick Van Dyke Wanted to Be A Commanding Officer on ‘M*A*S*H’
In the mid-1970s, comedy icon Dick Van Dyke was at a career crossroads. The New Dick Van Dyke Show ended in 1974 after three seasons, which left him considering what came next. Van Dyke had one idea after he heard that a hit sitcom might soon have a job opening.
“When McLean Stevenson left M*A*S*H, I thought, ‘That’s a great spot,’” Van Dyke told the Pensacola News Journal, per MeTV. “You’re working with talented people and good material. I’m about the right age for a commanding officer. It actually flashed in my mind to ask for it.”
Producers never considered Van Dyke for the part — Harry Morgan’s Col. Potter was the character who eventually replaced Stevenson’s Henry Blake.
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Van Dyke opted for replacing another comedy star instead: Harvey Korman on The Carol Burnett Show. “I could have had a show of my own, but I’m getting to that age where I wanted to enjoy myself,” Van Dyke said. “I now do all the things I like to do, but I don’t have to shoulder the responsibility.”
One weird thing about Van Dyke joining Burnett’s show? A year earlier, he’d launched his own variety show, Van Dyke & Company. It only lasted 11 episodes, but despite not making it to Christmas, Van Dyke & Company won the Emmy that year for Outstanding Comedy, Variety or Music Series, beating out… The Carol Burnett Show. One of Van Dyke’s producers was Bob Einstein, later known as Super Dave Osborne and Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Marty Funkhouser. After the Emmy victory, he lamented, “I can’t believe we won, and we’re out of a job.”
Van Dyke’s unemployment didn’t last long. After Korman left The Carol Burnett Show, “suddenly I found myself replacing a multitalented actor who was also the world’s greatest second banana,” Van Dyke recalled in his memoir, My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business.
Unfortunately, the new gig didn’t go much better than Van Dyke & Company. “I was uncomfortable in the skits and unable to find a rhythm among a cast that had been together for a decade,” he confessed.
While Burnett, Tim Conway and others tried to help Van Dyke, “the writers were still producing sketches with Harvey in mind, and I could not on my own figure out where I fit in,” he said.
Van Dyke’s tenure on the Burnett show didn’t last much longer than his own variety show. By the end of November, “I called off the experiment,” he explained. “My final show was December 3, 1977. I blamed it on the difficult commute between Arizona and L.A., saying I spent too many hours in the airport or on the road and too few with my family.”
In reality? “It was sad but a nice try and quite simply not my cup of tea.”
Maybe Van Dyke would have been better off in the Korean War after all.
