The Sweet Escape of Classic Television

Do you ever find yourself lost in the virtual reality of classic television? I obsess over classic TV and I am an avid watcher. I’ve burned up valuable time watching “The Andy Griffith Show,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “I Dream of Jeannie,” “Mister Ed,” “Dennis the Menace,” “I Love Lucy,” “The Monkees,” “Ozzie & Harriet,” and a host of others – some really awful – but watchable.

In the past few weeks, I have been overdosing on “My Favorite Martian,” a mid-1960s science fiction TV comedy, which struggled to find an audience and meaningful ratings on two networks in three seasons. I admit to having developed a fondness for Ray Walston and Bill Bixby, who played the Martian (Exigius 12¹⁄₂) and Earthling Tim O’Hara, sharing a loft next door to their attractive yet scatterbrained landlady, Lorelei Brown, (actress Pamela Britton) in suburban Los Angeles.

O’Hara, a roving reporter for the fictional Los Angeles Sun newspaper, was covering an X-15 test flight over the high desert north of Los Angeles when who should crash land from space but “Exigius 12¹⁄₂” (Ray Walston), a Martian anthropologist who nearly collided with the X-15 on a journey to study primitive Earth.

O’Hara winds up being Exigius 12¹⁄₂‘s caretaker on Earth until he can repair his broken spaceship and return to Mars. Because Tim O’ Hara doesn’t know how to explain Exigius 12¹⁄₂‘s presence, he becomes Uncle Martin. The spaceship gets parked in Tim’s garage under lock and key while the two try to keep a bizarre secret. “

“My Favorite Martian” struggled in the ratings though it was a good way to spend 30 minutes. Even with a different network in color, it aired just three seasons.

Another obsession is “The Dick Van Dyke Show” which is another periodic television obsession. When I watch, I just can’t get enough of it. Dick Van Dyke, who played Robert Petrie, was a fictional comedy writer created by the late Carl Reiner that first aired on CBS in October of 1961. The show focused on both the home and work life of Rob Petrie, head writer for the “The Alan Brady Show” which was live from New York – yet we never actually saw the show. The one exception being the “Alan Brady Christmas Show” featuring the show’s writers and the Petrie family.

“The Dick Van Dyke Show” would never have been the success it was without the chemistry it had – conception, writer, direction, actors and its cast of characters. One-line comic genius Morey Amsterdam never missed. Even when he flubbed his lines, he always knew how to save a scene. Poor Sally Rogers (Rose Marie) could never land a fella. Mel Cooley (Richard Deacon) never could get Alan Brady’s respect. Meddlesome neighbors, Millie and Jerry Helper (Ann Morgan Guilbert and Jerry Paris) never stopped being meddlesome neighbors. Son Ritchie (Larry Matthews), was always the incredible low maintenance boy.

Alan Brady (Carl Reiner, the show’s creator) was a mystery until he smoothly segued into the show. At first, we saw the back of his head and heard his obnoxiousness. The peak of his performance was “Coast to Coast Big Mouth” when Laurie Petrie went on a game show and accidentally mentioned Alan Brady was bald. The secret was out and both Mary Tyler Moore and Carl Reiner did their best work as comedic actors. Even Reiner couldn’t control his emotions in that historic scene.

Alan Brady will always remain Reiner’s greatest comedic work.

The “Dick Van Dyke Show” would have aired in color in its sixth season had the show continued for the 1966-67 season. Cast and creator elected to wrap while the show was on top, leaving us with five seasons of incredible reruns.