Dick Van Dyke: Aging, Joy + Rescue Dolphins!

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another fine edition of the podcast.

That is Sweeping America, Mopping America. We're sweeping America, sucking up.

Our little show is called Really No Really Podcast, where I Jason Alexander, and my friend and co host mister Peter Tilden. We explore things that make us go really no, Really, That's exactly.

What we do. So you don't know.

We're recently talking about projecting forward. What what do we think will be like when we're older, and frankly, we can't get much older than we do. About everything we are complaining, I already have aches and pains that I'm not enjoying. The hair keeps going. I didn't think I could lose more hair, but it's going. More is growing, clipping inside the nose. I have a bad add about everything, and everybody we know that's going through this has become

Titular, The hell are You Show?

The Dick Van Dyke Show in our studio today, A legend and someone who I really am. Just I pinch myself and I'm amazed, and I go, I know this man. Say hello, Peter to uh mister Dick Van Dyke and his lovely wife.

Such a pleasure.

And to Jason's point, I don't think I've ever seen you not happy and not joyous.

You always seem.

We'll talk to Arlene about that.

That's no, but that's that is who that's what you put out. That's the vibe that you put out. And much like my partner here, when people see him because of the role he played on Seinfeld, it doesn't matter where we are in the world, they break into a smile.

It's an amazing way to go through the world. But you know, mine is because I played the biggest schmuck in the world there and they're so But for you, it's because there is real joy. You know, there was intended joy, and particularly in your career, you got to them when they were very young and they have carried that that connection with you all their life. So I have to imagine when when people see you and they light up, you know.

It's wonderful.

Is it a great way to go through?

The greatest feeling in the world.

And Dick, do you ever feel like you have to?

Can you have a bad day out there? Can you?

Can you ever not give them back what they're hoping for?

No?

I always do that, But at ninety seven, sometimes I don't have good days, you know.

Yeah, yeah, but still not in a tabloids. I've never seen a negative I don't Did you hang out with a Hollywood crowd?

Because this is really Hollywood. Everybody I knew in the business is dead.

Okay, wow and clearly normally Yeah, who's one hundred? Right?

And mel Brooks about a year younger than I. The three of them are the only shipbors.

That's that's true.

I mean, that's My mom passed away a few years ago, but she was ninety eight she passed. And one of the things I want to talk to you about today is, you know, you exude this joyfulness. You really do in your career reflects so much of that. But you've gone through some really hard stuff. Oh yeah, really hard stuff. And that's why I really wanted to talk to you today, because you know, we're all going through hard stuff. People

They're having a beautiful young wife that helps, who is a doll and a great sense to him? And we sing. We're a duet. We sing together, and it's it's just it's great. I'm having a second uh youth. Really, I'm having such a ball. I work out three days a week. I go to the gym, and I wrote a book called Keep Moving, you know, about exercising. And when I see I always feel old until I see somebody else my age, and then I feel pretty good.

Yeah, yeah, and you're not. You know, Jason said, I had lunch with Dick. I said, did he do a jig? Did he dance? He said, how did you know? I said, because he always anytime I've been around him, he does a jig. And you're that You're that mobile still too, which is amazing. And I don't know how much that hurts. I just said, when you sat down, I said, when you get older, it used to be when you got up is when you made noise.

Now it's when you sit down.

And yeah, back to the Hollywood thing, and you're joy. How did you navigate that world? He got a three picture deal with United Artists. You had a show named after you. Your first sitcom has your name.

And not only named after you, but I only recently found out that Carl wrote it for himself.

Carl went after he did the pilot.

That, well, no, you never saw the pilot.

I never saw the pilot.

It's not very good. It isn't very good. Carl was not a good actor. He could do comedy, but somehow he was never believable.

He was wrong.

Pretty amazing, but dick. So in a tough business, you got a sitcom that Carl Reiner was supposed to start in and they put your name. How did that happen that your name ended up?

They couldn't think about the title. We sat, we worked, and we could not think of the title. So that and then the first year, nobody ever heard of me, and we were on against Perry Como and they canceled this, and Sheldon Leonard, who was the producer, Yeah, went to Cincinnati and talked to the P and G guys and talked them in letting us, are you pison disappeared?

Amazing?

No, wait, So in the first year of the show, it wasn't It wasn't responding with audience.

So we were on against Perry Como and he got all these.

And he was just he was taking the audience.

Oh, I got Dick, kept saying, Who's Who's Dick Van Dyke?

Right?

Yeah, yeah? What is it? Amazing?

How that what that did for your career.

It's such history and what you guys accomplished. It was such an iconic show. And I understand he wrote six episodes so everybody would know what what the roles were.

Right for the first he wrote all thirty nine s the thirty.

Nine episodes of season. That alone is back then. Wow wow.

And then we got some really good guys, Sam dan Off and Bill Perski, great writers. Yeah, such fun and I always got to help, you know, I could come up with a line thirty.

I'm just trying to think thirty nine episode. Not only was it thirty nine episodes.

Now, sure, half the show was a family show, you know, the family with you and Mary telling more, but the other half was really inside baseball. What's it like inside a TV comedy running room. Nobody would do that today, they would go.

To inside Nobody's gonna care about it?

And by the way, for that time period, Rose Marie was the first portrayal of a single female that didn't need a guy that wasn't making dinner for somebody. It was so ahead of its time, though, another piece of trivia. Because I heard you sing it no more, Amsterdam wrote lyrics to us.

That's right, he wrote, He wrote the lyrics for it.

Do you remember them?

Oh? Sure?

Can you do them a little?

You think that you got trouble, well, troubles uh bubble, So tell will mister trouble to get lost? Why not hold your head up by and stop crying, start sighing, and don't forget to keep your fingers crossed when you know the joy of living is loving and giving. You'll be there when the win they dies are tossed a smile as Jester Frown's turned up, So I down, so smiler, brown or defrost and don't forget to keep your favous cross But.

That's not wrong? Is that great?

By the way, for a second, Mary Amsterdam's the state just got twenty away from something went wait a minute, I didn't want somebody. And much like Seinfeld, there's so many parallelization. As far as Tony winners and as far as Joey Carl decided after five years to pull up, they never wanted to go past five, like Jerry didn't want to go piss on that could the show could have gone on, correct, Yeah, Carl.

Was the only one that didn't want to go on. He wanted to move on into movies and everything and the rest of us.

What was what were you?

What were you thinking when when you're on a joyous hit show and the boss wants to pull the plug?

What were you?

I mean, did you go that's it, I'm done, I'm I'm finished.

Yeah, I didn't know what we were going to do. Everybody and Mary Taylor Moore, you.

Had the movie, you had Mary Poppins in between those did Poppins?

Yeah, that would be big. Was that during the run of the show.

Yeah, uh huh, yeah it was yeah, right, that's right. During the time off we shot it only took four months. Chitty Bang Bank took over a year. Really, we couldn't find any sun in England. Wow, sure, always waiting for the Yeah we got a shot. Wow. A great thing with me was I always wanted to be an entertainer, but you know what happened to me. I wanted to be a working actor. What happened to me is still I'm shocked that I had such wonderful things happened to.

Me, iconic things.

And when you were beginning as an entertainer, because I know you did. You did a pantomime act with a partner, right, a partner and you were a radio host, right, or a television host of something.

I was a radio announcer at seventeen. During the war, everybody got drafted, right, and I got to be a radio announcer at seventeen. I thought that was the future, you know.

And did you do CBS mornings too? Were you on the CBS Morning show for looks? That's unbelievable for a year, I did it and there was no network to the coast. It was an hour and a half show. We'd do it once and then do it again.

I had to do it twice, so it was the second time, second time better. Walter Cronkite was my newsman.

That hack, that hack. What happened to him.

Back when they you know, voyces mint something on and he would They transferred him to evening, of course, and he thought he was firing. And he came to me and said, Dick, what did I do? I should do? I can't fire anything, you know what?

I love it, Dick said, Dick Van like to me saying, Schmuck's the world too.

It's the world to me.

Yeah, but that takes me back to so the reason I was saying, you know, you started in a panami mact and then you were doing you know, sort of announce work. When did musical comedy, singing and dancing? And I think you told me a story that when you got by by Berdie on Broadway, you hadn't really danced.

No, So how did all that?

Who said I can get this guy to dance because you're an iconic dancer, Gower Champion.

I was looking for work. I was auditioning for everything except maybe opera and Shakespeare. I tried out for Tom Poston beat me out of a couple of they. I went in and sang a little song, Yeah, Ray Bolger once a little bit of a soft shoe. And I think Galerg saw himself on the park. We were exactly the same size and shape. Yeah, And it came up on the stage. He said you've got the part and I said, mister Champian, I can't dance. I don't dance.

It was amazing, great. Yeah, I mean I worked with Cheetah on Broadway.

Is she something?

What were you in with it?

I was in the show with her and Liza Minelli called the Rink. They played a mother and daughter.

Yeah, and she a fireball or what? Oh?

She is? She is my idol. She's my idol.

She carried me in that show.

Well you will you tell the story of put on a Happy Face?

Do you remember what you told me?

Well? Yeah, but I just read her book. I'm reading it down because, uh, we were in Philadelphia during tryouts and they came in with put her on a Happy Face for Cheetah, And my impression was she said, Dick's got nothing to do in the first act, why don't you let him have it? So I've always credited her, but in the book she says they took the song and gave it to Dick, and she just was I miffed, no, because I had a lot of other things to do, which is not Yeah, I thought Cheta gave it to me.

Well you know what, that's because the Cheetah we know would have given it to you, I think. But what's what's so fascinating to me is not only did you learn to dance, but but it's almost as if you have your own unique style and your choreographers have figured out how to put a world of dance on you.

I think if I'd had training, it wouldn't have been as unique.

You would have been like everybody else, had my own moves. And there's a joy to that too.

And by the way, I know that you love Stan Laurel and and you can see some of that in everything that you do.

And you did get to be friendly with him.

At one point, yes, I did, and he noticed that.

I really he got it. He really pointed out, that's mine, that's my Oh yeah, wow.

Where was he when you met him? Was he in a picture home or was he returned?

No, he was on at the Oceania apartments in Santa Monica. And then I got to meet Buster Keaton also spend.

A day with him.

Oh my god, tell how you found them, because you told me.

I was looking through the Santa Monica fold book one day for a number, and there it was Stan Laurel in the fold I just called them up and.

He invited me, and then what's And then I got to ask you briefly about the alcoholism because you talked about it before and people hear about it.

You admitting the alcoholism that you went.

Oh back at that point in time, that was pretty brave and pretty amazing to do, because that could have tanked you could have had the public who saw you one way completely changed their attitude about you. It's not like today where people are brave coming out about their addictions and victim is a thing.

This was a major thing. How did you decide that you were going to go public with that?

Well, I just thought I should. You know, I've knew so many people who couldn't get out of it. I was in my thirties and I didn't drink. I moved to a neighborhood out in the island where they had parties every Saturday, and I started to drink with them before I knew it. I was hung up on this stuff. I couldn't believe it. Say it was smoking, But did you use it?

Did you use the alcohol because you had nerves for performing that it help?

No?

No, I never drank at work or before work.

Socially, it was performing.

Social yeah, So it was all social stuff. So do you feel like it It did not ever have an impact on your work.

No, I don't think it did. I remember a couple of times a music man, I was all I did it for a year, Yeah, on the road, and a couple of times you go out at night and I'd have a hangover the next day, right, and doing trouble.

Yeah that is that is trouble.

So that's even more interesting to me because because it wasn't impacting your work, you had to assess, I don't want this in my life. Yes, it wasn't that you weren't going to make a paycheck. It was that you just got to a point where said, oh, this is not what I want to be doing.

You go uh.

An alcoholic will go from a happy drunk eventually into a mean drunk and an unhappy guy. And I was getting test and I just hated it. Right, trying to quit smoking that was twice as hard as.

You got cooked.

I've never seen much worse than alcohol.

How long did it take?

Forever? I'm still chewing still gum? The next team gum in is fifty years, I think. But I went to a place called Shiic. Well, you they put you in like a phone booth with a big tub of sand and you have to sit in there and smoked an entire pack of cigarettes as fast as you can, and you begin to get dizzy and everything. I finally fear said they let me out, and I said, boy, that was and I lit a cigarette and they gave me my money back.

Wow, wait a minute. The sand that was their whole act. That was the whole deal.

That was That was how they were going to break you. And it didn't work.

So did you do? So? You did it? For people that don't know.

You did a movie called Cold Turkey, which is about a town that's trying to go Cold Turkey and cigarettes gonna they're gonna.

Be paid to do it.

Was that while you were a smoker after before it was uh.

I had come to Norman with an idea for one guy and you couldn't whip it, so he made it the whole town. We were both trying to quit and he had a room full of local people. It was supposed to be smoke filled, and every he was smoking one note, lady was not holding it right, and Norman said, no, you have to. And I saw this. He smoked a pack of cigarettes. But we finally both quit. During that During that period it was fun. If you look back to the fifties and sixties.

By the way, they had ads with doctors smoking cigarettes and saying how good it was.

That was also a different times. How to promote that stuff commercials for that.

Very and I did a commercial firm. My god, we regret that.

Who knew?

Nobody knew.

I read that early on you considered potentially going into the ministry.

Yeah, I was very much involved. I out in Long Island. I taught Sunday school and moved out here and became an elder in the Venbeterian Church there on Sandbay City, and I got so involved. They have a layman Sunday where a member of the congregation gets up and does a sermon, which I did all of a sudden, I mean, invited to Pasadena and churches everywhere, and I said, what am I doing? I don't know what I'm talking about? So I gave it. I kind of walked away from

Do you still have what you would think of as a profound faith or a profound.

Specual I think so, yeah, just instinctively, as a kid, I never believed to know a story or any of that. Yeah, No, there's something in me that says it's true. You know, I don't know whether you live after death or anything of the kind. There's some kind of central intelligence. I just it's a sense. I don't know what.

And was was that connection to the spirituality? Was that helpful at all during the times when you were trying to quit drinking or quit smoking or getting through.

The remember asking for help?

Really that may have been an issue for you.

Remember when he's talking about ejiction, he's got joy. But you know what else?

Because I lived in Maliburne for a long time and nobody. They don't publicize stuff, and unless a start of something negative. He shows up at the labor center all the time and hands on money to people and doesn't say anying, doesn't publicize it. I think you did twenty and Almo, if you're still doing it twenty years or thirty years.

Where Midnight mission and the homeless shoulders?

I mean, I gave you a lot of fives with me. And if I see a homeless guy, I pass out five.

Who doesn't start the guy that you gave the five to.

Oh my god, you'll have to bleep this. I walked up to the little guy that and handed him a five. Probably said, God, Dick, I'm not homeless. I'm your neighbor. Said, well clean yourself up.

Wow, you didn't What was he doing? What was he doing when he gave them the fire?

He would just standing on the street.

Oh my god, you looked. You know that.

When I lived in New York, there was a homeless guy. It was a regular, but a homeless guy on the corner. And his whole stick was.

Give me a dollar, I'll tell you a joke.

So I gave him a dollar one time and he told me a joke and I went, well, that was a terrible joke, and he said, well that.

Was a one dollar joke, now, is it true? Regularly? Peck got the role because you turned down the omen I did. Why did you do that?

I did? At the time, the movie struck me as really downbeat, you know, yeah, yeah, it was well worse than that. When I finished Uh Jitty Bangay, Sean was leaving the Bond series and Kubby cade me. He said, would you like to be Bond? And I said, if you heard my my British accent, quick.

That fast, I blew that would you like to be? Listen?

Your your cocky accent has taken a lot.

Of crap over and I never had one.

Well here's the thing.

Actually, I will tell you as someone who has studied dialects, it wasn't as bad as you make it out to be. It was what I would say was it sounded a little bit like someone who had learned how to do it and was still thinking about it, you know, as opposed to it was just natural too.

I have an excuse.

Yeah.

They sent me a guy to teach me named padd O'Malley, an actor who was Irish. He came to my house after dinner one night, spent two hours with me. That was it, And that's and then they were I had, Oh my god, what I couldn't understand. Everybody I worked with on that movie was British, and nobody said yeah.

I was always saying, why wouldn't why wouldn't Julie lean over and go it's actually don't say the h.

On that one, you know, or whatever?

Nobody would help me.

Well, you know what, they because they're British, you know, as well as anybody. The Brits don't like to like insert themselves in people's affairs.

It is a lot nicer to me than the Americans are on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

People may not know that Ian Fleming, who wrote James Bond wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. And when you said Kubby Brockley produced it, that's the producer for the games shows that movie.

Is wrote the script. I wrote the script.

But that's that movie could have been made written by somebody on psychedelics, right that movie When you read that script and you.

Go, what am I looking at?

Why we argued about when we get you know, with Baron Bomburst and Castle and everything, Yeah, is this in our imaginations or is it really happening? And we never really cleared it up either way?

And kids, I would watch it and you go, what am I? Wow?

Am I fat?

Amazing?

You know what Jason has people come up to him the tattoos of his head is do they have what's the strange fans stuff?

Fans? What's the strangest thing that fans have shown you? Or die?

I had a lady with who had my face.

Yeah, oh so you know we talked for You've worked with a lot of kids. But what really strikes me, because I keep trying to do it too, is you work with your kids. You you've put family to work.

I had them all on the diagnosis, you bet.

And and what's your feeling behind that is clearly you're you're all for it. But I think about it all the time about you know, I think my kids are really talented. I'm happy to do stuff with them. I never know what the industry thinks about that.

You know.

I got pitched something the other day. I said I'd love to do it if I could do it with my kid.

You know.

And I don't know if that was a cool thing to say. But did you ever have any pushback on that?

No?

None at all. It was on Diagnosis Murder. Yeah, you know, I signed on to do Diagnosis Murder. Everybody said, nobody's going to watch you do a straight show if you're not doing combed.

It ran for ten years.

They loved it, they didn't none of them wanted to be actors.

Though, really, not even Barry.

They enjoyed it, but Barry didn't really really. His heart was never in it.

Oh that's interesting, So you sort of dragged them into the family business like it was an insurance.

He had a good voice and a good presence, but he just never it wasn't in James. You know, I never had one kid who wanted to really be an actor.

What about your parents? Were they supportive? Did they get to see your success?

Oh? Wow?

And were they supportive all the way or were they show really?

Yeah, they didn't try to tell me what to make of myself. Shouldn't do it? I had my grandmother Van Dyke was still alive when Mary Poppins premiered in Danville, Illinois, and they dressed her up and took her.

How great.

You always knew you would make it.

Dicky, Wait, you on your sketch show that you did Andy Kaufman, that was his first appearance.

Do you remember working with Andy Kaufman? Was that bizarre?

Oh? Yeah? He was a strange one. We were out in the hall, was talking to the writers about something. Everybody was yelling and on the floor was Andy was sitting there across the leg meditating. He was a piece of work.

Yeah. Did he rehearse because I heard he wouldn't rehearse on taxi?

No, he wouldn't do much of it. Really, we just let him go. He gave him a spot and just let him do it. Yeah, well, we The plan was he had always interrupt us in the middle of the number, you know, and make us and we'd say and walk off.

Wow, there you go. Is that one of the ones?

That's one of the ones on the shelf I got.

Time you say the word em I have an Emmy. You don't know what it's for. Yeah, that's right, I do.

I will tell you the story when we're not here, because I don't want to eat time with it. But I have the weirdest Emmy in the world, in the world you should, you really want to enough?

So you know.

I was nominated for Seinfeld six or seven times. I've been nominated for other things.

I've never won it.

I did for the website Funny or Die. They were doing a series of music videos about racist memes in pop culture. They did one about African American pop culture, they did one about Asian and they did one about Jewish. They asked me if I would sing the Jewish one.

I said sure.

Now they go apparently there's an Emmy category for music comedy kind of right, Well, there's never enough to fill it.

So were the only were you the only nominee.

They wanted to know. They wanted to get you know that into the nominees. Now, I guess because nobody, none of the writers were really well known.

They added me to the writing list.

So I have an Emmy for writing, which I did not do on something that never appeared on TV. So it is the most it's the most book Emmy in the world. But I'm taking it.

I'm taking it.

I want to go back to more family with you, your brother, Jerry. You were close both of you. Yeah, I don't mean to be disrespectful. Arguably your career is a brighter star than his. Was that ever an issue?

No, No, Jerry kind of knew what was going to happen, really said. They asked me as a kid if I wanted to be Dick, and I wasn't listening. He was inherently funny, and I can be funny, but the man was just funny inside. He could make me laugh anytime. He was just funny. He never had the greatest material. He got his big break at the at the the Flamingo, which is number one, got a new tux and ever he was headlining, and he took an upper before I went on and did the whole act. His upper lip stuck.

Nobody could off from a glass of water. Johnny Carson almost got the part on the Dick vanduction.

It was between the two of us.

Yeah, not possible. He's not an actor at all.

Well he doesn't sing or dance either.

But OK, you were saved by porpoises.

Oh yes, I was. Nobody believes that story now, although East Coast I think dolphins and porpoises are this.

Yeah, it's hard to tell them what's money. No, not if your a porpoise, you're going to excuse me. Yeah, So what happened?

So it was I was working Virginia Beach. My Pardner and I ran a club and those were the days of the ten foot boards surfboards.

Yeah.

I was trying to room to serf and not doing very well. And I got up beyond the breakers and just and fell asleep, just fell asleep on it. I woke up and I was not in sight of land. I was at sea, so I would just follow, you know, what I thought was the current. And I started bumping in under the thing, and I started seeing these fins swimming around, and I thought it's over. Yeah, there were dolphins or porpoises and they would bump up against that

Speaking of that your birthday, you didn't know your real birthday for years?

Correct, No, I didn't.

I was conceived out of wedlock. Ah. There's a word that goes by that one. Yeah. There. Yeah. And my parents went to Missouri for a few months and came home and never told her anybody. But they never told me my real birthday. And one day I was my mom was doing this, I was drying. We were talking and I said, you know, I was drawing the war and I said, I'm coming up eighteen. I don't want to be drafted. I want She said, I have here forty you are.

Get it.

Yeah, it's who to this day, I have two birthdays and I get messed up with the Do you know this?

I don't know if you.

Mary Poppins was such a profitable film for Disney. It was made for four point four million that at twenty eight to five words the prophet from Mary Poppins allowed Walt Disney to purchase land in Florida and builds disney World your movie.

In order to get that movie done, he mortgaged his house, borrowed all the money he could borrow to do Poppins Man turned out for him. Who who played the uncle Albert?

That wonderful.

He was a sweet but he would sit and he had a little radio, a little but he never listened to it. And one day I just happened to be looking at him. He opened it up and there's a little a pint of.

That's where we were hiding the stash. And also this is a good moment to point out that lovely fight him in front of you, to tell everybody know what this is.

When you know, Julie rightfully won an Oscar for Mary Poppins. I was nominated at one point and didn't get there. But when she got hers, the crew, the movie crew of Mary Papmas made me this award. It's the only one that exists.

And you know what, if we can, We're going to take a photo of that and put it up on our website because it's really detailed and beautiful.

It's a it's a real work and I've never shown it before.

This is a first. It's fantastic.

Is it true that they were considering Carrie Grant carry Grant to play in Mary Poppins for that role.

I never heard that.

That would have been very different, memory pups.

I also turned out a movie with Carrie Grant really like I did.

Remember you're a lot of your If you don't the book, come telling a big career.

I got a better one than that. My agent called me one name, you said, I had a call from Sophia Lorenz manager. She'd like to do a comedy with you. And I said, you know, like, when do we start? He said, well, I turned it down. I said, you what He said, well, you would have to take second billing. I said, I don't care if they mentioned my name, and you said the money was I said, I'll pay them, but he blew it. I never got to work with Sophia.

And so you know what else is cool? Currently?

So I'm watching WandaVision, No, WandaVision that show Yeah, okay, Dick was a consultant on wand Division on what on WandaVision to show that's about that's a retro.

They did it in the style of the Dick Van Dyk Show.

And yeah, yeah, yeah, so they sat with you to make sure they were getting it right.

Yes, that's right. I forgot I forgot that.

How about that?

And you you kind of pick up like you after Poppins. I think it was after Poppins you got interested in this animation stuff and you still do that.

I don't know how to work.

On my VCR and I still have a VCR.

You.

Yeah, that's a great hobby. Oh my godness, that great hobby.

So do you ever do you show the results or do you know?

I've never I just do it for fun.

Just murdered.

He did you got a credit? You did like a motorcycle or something?

Well, that's right, you know I did a motorcycle jump off a cliff and it was a diagnosis murder. Yes, and I did do that as a special effect. Got it in there.

That's a special affection. Yeah.

I do want to ask you because I've enjoyed and this is the second time I've been able to sit with both of you. This is a very special marriage. I mean, I'm sure you must get kidded about it a lot, but how does how what are the joys of this for both of you? I mean, you're clearly you are a great couple, and it just takes sitting with the two of you for a minute or two. But how does this work for you? You met under kind of business circumstances. I'm sure it didn't just start up like like.

I have never I have a great respect for women, but I've also scared the death of them. I've never hit on a girl in my life. And I was at an award show in the green room and she walked by, and something in me. I just got up and said, hi, I'm Dick and hired her. She was makeup artists, so I hired her and the wound her from there. But it's the first time in my life I had the guts and it was meant to be. We've been together eleven years.

We've been married eleven but I've known you since in two thousand and six.

It's great. She takes good care of me and we sing together all the time.

Well, you know what you are doing exactly now. My wife is three years older than me, but you are doing exist. The two of you seem to have. The age doesn't seem.

To be a thing.

They are doing exactly what my wife and I do. You play together, you laugh together, you travel together, you work together. The yin to the yang. If you forget something, she reminds you.

If you you know it's it's.

Do you ever get bothered by people's first reactions to the two of them?

I forget, I really do, and then they'll do, you know, the typical whatever, gold digger or whatever, and it's like, really, I mean, if I feel sorry for you that you see if you can't see it, then I feel like there it's on you because it's like hard to deny our whatever we have is special and people like to be around it.

And then they I don't know, Well, you know.

What Jason said coming in that he's got joy and you you're you can't fake laughing at somebody and enjoying somebody else's experience. And I watch you enjoy his, he enjoys yours and Dick been put together for anar and you're right, we're never going to be that guy.

Before I let you go, and I know you're not.

You're not really an advice giver because I've asked you a couple of times. But is there do you feel that other than just it's who you are? Is there a particular mantra or an outlook on life that allows you to have this spirit, this fullness, this enjoyment of everything At a time when most people Dick, they never get there, or if they get there, their struggle. You know, and you're and you're you're a different soul. Is there anything that is that that makes that true for you?

I don't know. I love to laugh. I love.

It's hard to do something else when you're laughing that.

I always got friends around me who had a sense of humor, you know, who enjoyed themselves. I stayed away from people who.

Were such a You really are a joy and and you spread so much joy. Like I said, with this guy, I love when people smile when they could. It could be somebody in a bad mood and they smile.

Same with you. Everybody here.

This is a studio that sees a lot of celebrities come in, you know, and now that's okay. You walk in, man, and everybody wants to meet you, wants to but there it's also like touching happiness.

It's like happiness.

That you He's definitely rubbed off I It was more cynical before I met him, and he just makes me always see the glass full or half full, and always say I never I love singing privately or like on karaoke. After a couple I would never sing in public ever, And I sing all the time out and that that's magic.

Yeah, well I want to I'm gonna tell you this one last thing.

You probably know this, but you have not only reached ripe old age, you have actually, I think reached immortality because that man that I introduced you to before we sat down, my son, Gabe, who's thirty one years old, when he was two years old, he watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bank for the first time and he became mesmerized

Oh my god.

And he knows just about everything you've ever done. And he's a new dad. I have a seven month old graduates. He's exhausted. He's right, he said. Mom told me Dick Van Dyke's coming into the studio today. I said, that's right. He went, is there any way? It would be okay if I so. That is true of children you will never meet, You will be what you have done.

And it is the reason.

Why I could tear up when I'm talking to you.

I think you remember this.

You came to see Marty's short and I did the producers here in Los Angeles for almost a year. This is Hollywood. We had celebrities in the audience every night. We were thrilled, but we never acknowledged them. We didn't, you know. It was like we didn't want to embarrass them. The night that you were at the show, we found out at intermission you were there, and Marty came into my room and he went, we have to and I went,

It went for two minutes.

My god, and remember that part, Dick Van Dyke.

I am just going to tell you the world. The world loves you. And I don't know how many people that can be said of. And I'm by half of my childhood, my children's childhood, my grandson's childhood. God, thank you for a body of work that is extraordinary and it was well you certainly made it effortless.

My friend.

I have to tell you that you guys did your show with no audience.

But we did have an audience. We didn't have an audience.

Yeah, I've always inmired people who could work without an audience. We had an audience. I don't know what to do. Yeah, I don't have an audience.

We actually did half and half anything we shot outside we didn't have an audience, but then anything on a set or we had a live because we I was working for stand up comics and they wanted to hear those laughs.

Yes, you know, yeah, I.

Don without an audience, reaction how people You bet. You have to.

Have an audience here, and you have a whole new audience because of the podcast. By the way, you got a kid from Philadelphia in a rowhome who never thought he'd be in LA wanted.

To be in show business because of Rob Petrie. And I remember the.

Episode were you thought you got the wrong baby? Oh yeah, and it was so cutting edge. You went to the hospital and the couple you thought mixed up the baby was an African American.

Nobody's seen that on television either at that.

Time, so that was the longest laugh I've ever experienced. We had to cut the cameras the audience wouldn't stop, and the network was against us doing that show. They said, yeah, Brad, couple walked in and they exploded. I wanted to minutes.

I wanted to be in television.

And my friend Rick Okay, who created Major Dad, he said, I used to watch Dick Van Dyke and his mother used to say, go to your homework, and he'd say, this is my homework.

The impact ladies and gentlemen, Dick and Arleann, thank you for having fun.

Well, sir, that was as good as it gets. Right. Yeah, he's pretty.

I don't know if people listening or watching will get it, but a ninety seven year old man who's got to be challenged sat there smiling.

It's what you thought he would be, and joyous.

From the minute he came through the door in the studio and to the minute you know he's gone. It's well, listen, he's everything. It's one of those things. We were just mentioning the other day about Fred Rogers, and it's one of those things where you go, it can't be in radio.

I was cutting up the fact, you know, because back then then they shock chocky jays. You're cutting hahaha, making jokes. He came in studio, I became a nine year old boy. Yeah, because when somebody is a guileless and it's real, it is, it takes you over. It's hard to not He's so commanding and they're so quiet. Hi, Peter, why would you do it?

And oh my god, it was such a I'll tell you a story about him in a second that will tell you what he's really just fully like. But David, any revelations from our time with mister van Dyke and his lovely wife, Well, first of all, that was that was amazing.

It was great to just be a part of that.

But you know, it's interesting.

I was writing an intro to this segment and I was going to refer to mister van Dyke as an octogenarian. But then I realized octogenarian means in the eighties, right in the eighties, because generally I thought that it was like just referred to an old person.

So octose eight and Lena.

So what do you call someone in their nineties?

Rare?

It's not sep, it's not oc it's a I don't know, it's a nonagenarianogen right, that's right.

But that makes it sound like you didn't make it, yeah, rite.

But gee he did.

And that sort of got me to think, what are some of the other nonagenarians out there that have contributed greatly in their nineties? Okay, Tony Bennett, who was actually ninety six right now, who was performing and doing albums into his nineties. In fact, is the latest release, which was twenty twenty one's Love for Sale with Lady Gaga, peaked at number eight on the US Charles.

Love for Sale advertising love US. I don't know that, were you goga? Yeah? No, I don't get that. But how beautiful? Is that that she honored him to pretty many? Yeah? Oh, and he apparently adores her.

That was a love Tony Bennett.

We also have one of mister van Dyke's contemporaries, a David Attenborough, who is also ninety seven, the British naturalist.

The world the world goes to bed standing up as do I.

I can't wait to see how many impersonations stas of I'm David.

I gotta have to do the rich little thing of announcing who I am, so there's no mistake.

Who else can I do? David?

Well?

It gets a little more tricky here. I'll also have fashion icon iris Atfell.

Who iras that Feld? I is sad Feld I invented the button.

That's pretty good, right, that's pretty good if her she's very lady with giant glasses.

Yet and what a character, and she's fashion yet you bet I am?

That's right now.

I think I'm doing a little interesting.

She actually ran Back is a centenarian.

Because she's less.

Yes, she's one on one in her nineties.

She was actually signed as a model by the talent manage company I AMG at the age of ninety seven, so she was I.

Remember her Sports Illustrated Swims cup.

Go on, David, Yes, I believe that was Martha Stewart. But right, that's right, but not quite not quite her in her nineties yet. Yeah, we have another one. Gladdie's Burrow, who is better known as the Gladiator, is the oldest.

Woman ever to finish a marathon at ninety two.

I'm not gonna lie. I don't know what her voice sounds like. Right, I'm hard. How long did it take her to finish themarsa right days? Nine hours?

That's exactly right. That's exactly what they said at the thing.

That's amazing.

We also now get this because Jason, I think that this might inspire you.

It might inspire you.

You Shearra Mirah, who is a Japanese mountain climber, became the oldest person to reach the summit of Mount Everest at the age of eighty.

But then again, he did it at ninety to find his hand.

I ten years ago, I might have attempted that invitation, but now we'd be off the air.

I thought were saying he actually climbed. Ever at eighty seven, I guess small credit because he didn't come down till my.

Wow.

Yeah, that's very impressive. I I it's amazing that people don't have this the fear that you know what I'm not. It's like shot or they do stuff and they're not worried that I'm not going to make it. They just attack the day. It's pretty amazing.

Well, that's what I was going to say.

I would like, here's my goal after after you know, chatting with Dick Van Dyk. I'm a pretty blessed guy right now, at sixty three.

I feel good.

I go to my doctor every year. He goes, You're terrific. There's nothing going on that I'm concerned about. I work out, I have a lovely family. I adore my wife of forty three years. I think I already think I'm kind of an adorable grandfather, right, best friends working with my best friend? Right, yes, you bet you and and you know, years ago they said to me, what do you see

I have cute stories. I'm and entertainer.

That should be good, right, So I keep thinking when i'm if, i I'm knock. What if I get to be in my nineties the way both my parents were when they passed, I would like to think that I could be an effervescent, mindful, joyful, contributing, kind, generous person that spreads the kind of good will and love that an icon like Dick Van Dyke is able to be and has been all his life. But at ninety seven he is the platonic ideal of joy and grace.

It's not gonna happen anyway. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it.

Wow wow, Well, I don't want to say your expectations you devastated.

And what do you see yourself doing? At ninety seven you're saying, where are you? Where are you? Picked me up a bit? You're gonna pick me up lunch?

If this is what I have to look forward to at ninety seven, I'm pulling the plug. At ninety you know what I'm gonna get off your Oh god, Now I'll end the show the way I probably would at aged ninety seven.

Thank you for listening to What is the show really? Whatever?

If you want to watch it again, we come out every what day? Tuesday Tuesday, every tuesdays, Well, you can watch it on the hard app the apple. We'll eat an apple wherever you get, whatever you got. If you're watching it on the tube with a with a you like it and pick it up so you can watch it again. And then there's a website. I don't know what it's get there. I don't know how to get there. I've never looked at it. I'm ninety seven. I've never seen it. I never people write in, I never write back.

And you did anybody else work on the show who we can't pay?

What's your name? Peter? That's right, Peter. Thanks for watching that movie comes true. If this comes true, we are I'm a day away. I'm a day all.

Thanks mister van Dyke. I'll tell you, oh one last thing about Dick Van Dyke. This is my parting shot. You ready I do the movie of Bye by Bertie for television. I'm in my thirties, of the early thirties, forty. I do they call, They say, we want you to do the movie of Bye by Bertie.

I go sure?

I think they're talking about the Paul Lynde role. They give me his role. I play Albert Peterson in the TV movie of Bye Bye Bertie with Vanessa Williams.

I do the movie. I've never met Dick van Dyke at that point.

The next day after it airs, a bottle of champagne and the bouquet of roses winds up at my house. I don't know how he got my address with a card that says, dear Jason, now I know how to play the part.

You were magnificent, love sick man. That is an amazing guy.

That is grace, and that's why this has been special. Thanks for being with us. We'll see you next week.