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Saturday, July 04, 2020

Carl Reiner, R.I.P.

Wanted to just quickly note the passing of Carl Reiner at age 98 earlier this week. At this point a lot of people who know his work a lot better than I do have already spoken of his work. I suppose my first encounter with him was on repeats of THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, which he created and worked on from 1961 to 1966. It was less frequent on the syndication circuit than many of the other shows I watched, but I enjoyed it when I saw it, and in recent years I've been revisiting it (I've seen about half of the episodes so far), and frequently I see something that brings back a rush of memories. While some sitcoms from the 1950s, like I LOVE LUCY and THE HONEYMOONERS, remain enjoyable, they very much are period pieces. THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW is probably the earliest that still feels thoroughly modern, and very much set the template for many of my favourite later shows.

The next big thing I probably knew from him was something I didn't even realize was from him until after he passed away. Turns out he directed the movie OH, GOD! in 1977, starring George Burns and John Denver. Not sure when I first saw it, but it was definitely on TV frequently for a while, and I remember loving it and watching it several times. Haven't seen it in decades, which I'll rectify soon. I did know about several of his other movies, especially those with Steve Martin in the 1980s, and enjoyed those.

In the mid-1980s, there were a few weekend shows on the radio locally which played comedy bits, stand-up clips, songs and the like, and one of my favourites of those were the Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks "2000 Year Old Man" skits. Just loved those. Didn't realize until now that there was an animated TV special made of them in 1975, which is a lot of fun, and should be embedded below


Although, looking at it, I remember that my local library had a book based on the concept, and looking around quickly I see that it was illustrated in the same style as the animated special.

Anyway, a remarkable talent, I'me looking forward to revisiting a lot of his work for years to come.

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