Dick Van Dyke Show - Season 4 - IV

Young man with a Shoehorn - **
Plot: Buddy and Rob invest in a shoe store and have to deal with salesman who's rude to Laura and Millie

Best Buddy Insult: I knew it the minute I saw a guy with a head like a light bulb, it was bound to light up

Another filler episode. The snarky Jewish shoe salesman (the wonderful Milton Frome) is a delight. but he's only onscreen for about 6 minutes. The rest of episode is dreary and very forgettable. Low point? Buddy/Rob try to sell shoes in a tired, very routine, comedy bit. Also bringing down the average: Lou Jacobi playing his standard "Lovable Guy" . This guy always reminds me of an cloying, overly sweet bit of cotton candy. Oh, and there's lot of Mille.

My Two showoffs and Me **
Rob thinks having a reporter watching himself, Buddy, Sally in action will be a disaster, and yep, boy is Rob right.

This episode shows up two common flaws of the show.

• The meat of the episode, the actual funny part (Sally/Buddy showboating for the writer) is only 6 minutes. The remaining 19 minutes is a long setup and a long last act. A modern comedy would oncentrate on the funny part, and shorten everything else. I've seen this same pattern in many episodes. No doubt it was due to churning out 31 episodes a year. The attitude seems to have been: "we've put enough comedy in this one, its good enough - lets move on".
• Morey Amsterdam's lack of acting ability - when he's annoyed and shouting at Rob, its not in a comic way, its too real. You need to be a good comic actor to be funny/angry and Amsterdam isn't.

Girls will Be Boys *
When Ritche is beaten up by a girl. Rob and Laurie must decide to let him fight back or stand by the rule of "Never hit a girl"

Best Buddy one-liner: Gee, when I was a little kid there was one girl who beat me up all the time. Really, who? My mother.

Ugh, a Ritche episode. Usually, this would be zero stars, but I give it a one * due to the Guest star: British actor Bernard Fox, who's quite amusing as Pricillia's father. Further, Rob/Laura get most of the screentime, not Ritchie. The situation is extremely dated, as the Petrie's over-the-top obsession with "Don't hit a girl -ever" doesn't exist today, assuming it ever did. If 40 years ago a girl tried to beat me up, my parents would've had the common-sense reaction:. Defend yourself. They wouldn't have thought twice about it.

Anothy Stone **
Rob and Buddy uncover a shocking secret about Sally's rich boyfriend and must decide whether to tell her.

Rob's Best Line: Buddy, we have no right to pry into Sally's private business. It's just not right.
Besides, Laura's pumping her right now.

Another "A Sally love affair gone wrong", but better than usual. Faint praise indeed. The first 15 minutes are about Laura/Buddy/Rob trying to find out more Anthony Stone. And then we find out why Sally has been so closed-mouth: He's an undertaker. Its only at the end that Sally is told the 2nd uncovered secret: Stone is alredy married. Sally takes it with good humor. We get very few scenes between Stone and Sally. Thank God.

Bupkis - ** 1/2
Rob gets upset when hears one of his old songs on the radio. It seems he may have given away all his rights

Highlight: The weather song. Nighttime, daytime, summertime, wintertime, it's always time for the weather. Weather, weather, weather, weather, weather, weather, weather, weather, weather, weather, weather, weather, weather, weather, weather, weather. Nighttime, daytime, summertime, wintertime.

I'm ambivalent about this one. Gave it two-and-a-half stars but was thinking about two. An uneven episode full of good and bad. The story idea is good, Rob has given away his rights to an old song, now a hit, to his old co-writer "Jazz Potter". Did "Jazz" trick him? If so, should Rob sue? We get a good setup, and some good interaction between Rob/Laura and Buddy/Sally over what to do. "Butkis" itself is suitably absurd and comically bad. And there's a hilarious satrical "Weather song" at the start.

But, the casting is terrible. The actor playing "Jazz" is incredibly annoying. I mean memorably, incedibly, fingernails on a chalk-board. annoying. And Garrett Morris isn't funny. Couldn't they have found a FUNNY black actor?

Further, the whole thing is padded out. Examples? Twice Rob gives us a long explaination as to what the word "Bupkis" means. In another scene, Rob beats around the bush for two minutes before telling Laura, he gave away the rights. Further, we get too much Ritchie. The scene in the Music business office isn't funny. And Jazz/Rob sing several unfunny songs. Bottom line: There are some good jokes, but we needed more of them.

Your Home Sweet Home is my Home - *
Rob tells his new accountant the story of how he and Laura found their new house.

Boring Millie-Jerry filler episode about the two families buying their houses in Westchester. Low on laughs. Padded out with the usual "Let me tell you the story why I..." setups/flashbacks. The only funny scene comes when the real estate agent (Stanley Adams) shows the Pretrie's the basement and tries to ignore the enormous Rock. Again, Jerry Paris is very bland, and Millie can get annoying fast.