Glenn Ford and Shirley Jones starred in the 1963 romantic comedy THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER. Jerry Van Dyke made his feature film debut in the picture, playing "Norman Jones," a disc jockey who is also a friend of Ford's character "Tom Corbett." In Norman Jones's radio studio, there are black-and-white publicity photos of various celebrities on the wall. One of the pictures is of Jerry Van Dyke's brother, Dick Van Dyke, who was starring in "The Dick Van Dyke Show" at the time the film was made. Vincente Minnelli directed the picture, which had an unreleased score by George E. Stoll.
PALM SPRINGS WEEKEND was set in Palm Springs during a long, fun-filled weekend where several Los Angeles college students flock to spring break. On one of the buses headed for the vacation spot is a college basketball team with its captain, medical student "Jim Munroe" (Troy Donahue), and "Coach Campbell" (Jack Weston). Jerry Van Dyke played "Biff Roberts," a bumbling member of the basketball team.
Norman Taurog directed this frothy 1963 romantic comedy. In the film, co-star Ty Hardin (on guitar) sings with Jerry Van Dyke (on banjo) on Ray Henderson and Mort Dixon’s standard, “Bye Bye Blackbird.” The song appeared with Frank Perkins' score on a Warner Bros. soundtrack LP, which was reissued on CD by Intrada in May of last year.
Jerry Van Dyke has a few choice moments in this trailer for the film (which is missing its graphics):
Maureen O'Hara co-starred with John Wayne in the classic western comedy McLINTOCK. Jerry Van Dyke played "Matt Douglas, Jr.", a Harvard boy whose father is one of McLintock's old enemies. Director Andrew V. McLaglen was the son of Wayne's old friend and colleague Victor McLaglen. Frank DeVol's score for the 1963 film was issued on a United Artists LP, but has never been released on CD. During the soundtrack recording, Patrick Wayne, Stefanie Powers, and Jerry Van Dyke recorded the songs “Just Right For Me” and “Love In The Country,” scheduled for release on a United Artists Records single. (The first song also appeared on the LP.)
In one scene, Matt Douglas, Jr. demonstrates the latest dance steps:
Jerry Van Dyke co-starred with Rick Nelson and his wife Kristin Nelson in the 1965 comedy LOVE AND KISSES. Rick Nelson plays "Buzzy Pringle," a new high school graduate who shocks his family by telling them that he has eloped with "Rosemary Cotts" (Kristin Nelson), a high school junior. Buzzy's sister, "Elizabeth" (Sheilah Wells), is upset by the marriage of her younger brother because her own wedding, to "Freddy" (Jerry Van Dyke), is only a few weeks away. Ozzie Nelson directed and wrote this family affair comedy (from a 1963 Broadway play). William Loose and Jimmie Haskell collaborated on the unreleased score.
"My Mother the Car" was a fantasy sitcom which aired for a single season on NBC between September 14, 1965 and April 5, 1966. A total of 30 episodes were produced. The show followed the exploits of attorney "David Crabtree" (played by Jerry Van Dyke), who, while shopping at a used car lot for a station wagon to serve as a second family car, instead purchases a dilapidated 1928 Porter touring car. Crabtree hears the car call his name in a woman's voice. The car turns out to be the reincarnation of his deceased mother, "Gladys" (voiced by Ann Sothern).
Van Dyke had agreed to star in the series after turning down the lead role in "Gilligan's Island" and an offer to join the cast of the "The Andy Griffith Show" as Don Knott's replacement. Critics and audiences alike derided "My Mother the Car." In 2002, TV Guide proclaimed it to be the second-worst of all time, just behind "The Jerry Springer Show." NBC scheduled the show as counter-programming on Tuesday night at 7:30 PM, opposite "Combat!" on ABC and "Rawhide" on CBS. It didn't work. The only good news, in retrospect, was that both Van Dyke and the show's creators went on to bigger and better things.
Jerry Van Dyke got his chance to act with Andy Griffith when he co-starred in 1969’s ANGEL IN MY POCKET. Griffith played "Sam," a newly ordained minister who takes over his first parish in a small Midwestern town. Upon arriving with his pregnant wife, "Mary Elizabeth" (Lee Meriwether), his three small children, his complaining mother-in-law, "Racine" (Kay Medford), and his shiftless brother-in-law "Bubba" (Van Dyke), Sam's troubles begin immediately.
When Griffith’s film opened in February 1969, it was greeted with mixed reviews, with many critics feeling that the film was out of its time. Roger Ebert, for one, found it to be “a most enjoyable family film” and “a well-made film in the traditional sense, telling an interesting story in a civilized manner.” But Gary Arnold of the Washington Post disagreed, saying that “Parents would be foolish to assume that if they escort the kids to something like ANGEL, either generation is going to have a good time.” Arnold added that the film “goes sour because the men who made it are low on talent, ambition, and feeling.” Joseph Gelmis of Newsday remarked that “this kind of movie was never meant to appeal to nonrural audiences, and it doesn’t. The film is tedious to sit through and even more tiresome to have to remember and have to write about.” But it was the New York Times’ Howard Thompson who summed up the divided critical response by first describing the film as “strictly formula entertainment, with generally broad and obvious humor and all the built-in parsonage gags from other and far better movies,” but then acknowledging that it was “clean, good-natured and often amusing.”
Despite the reviews, ANGEL IN MY POCKET was a modest hit. But the writing was on the wall for these types of films. Griffith would return to television series, TV movies, and mini-series, and not be in another feature for 6 years. For Jerry Van Dyke, he would never appear in a theatrical feature again.
The year after ANGEL IN MY POCKET, Andy Griffith and Jerry Van Dyke co-starred together in a television series called "Headmaster". With this half-hour comedy-drama, Griffith fulfilled his desire to be cast in a television series as something other than a rural bumpkin dispensing folksy wisdom. Here, his character, "Andy Thompson," was the headmaster of a prestigious California private school, the Concord School. His wife, "Margaret" (Claudette Nevins), was an English teacher; his best friend was the school's main athletic coach, "Jerry Brownell" (Jerry Van Dyke).
Griffith'as old network, CBS, programmed the series on Friday nights at 8:30 PM (the slot previously occupied by "Hogan's Heroes"), beginning 18 September 1970. Unfortunately, the show was opposite another new show, "The Partridge Family" on ABC, the 25th most popular show on television that season. "The Name of the Game" was the competition on NBC. By December, "Headmaster" was dead.
CBS retooled the series, creating "The New Andy Griffith Show." This time, the setting was a mid-sized North Carolina town called Greenwood (pop. 12,785, ten times the number of people who lived in Mayberry), with Griffith portraying "Andy Sawyer," a returning hometown boy who instantly becomes the town's new Mayor. The rest of the cast from "Headmaster" was jettisoned, including Jerry Van Dyke. Lee Meriwether, from ANGEL IN MY POCKET, was cast as Griffith's new TV wife. The retooled show only lasted 10 episodes.
Jerry Van Dyke would achieve his lasting fame from his co-starring role on the television sitcom "Coach". The show aired for nine seasons on ABC from February 28, 1989 to May 14, 1997, with a total of 200 half-hour episodes. The series starred Craig T. Nelson as "Hayden Fox," head coach of the fictional Division I-A college football team the Minnesota State University Screaming Eagles. For the last two seasons, Coach Fox and the supporting characters coached the Orlando Breakers, a fictional National Football League expansion team. The program also starred Jerry Van Dyke as "Luther Van Dam" and Bill Fagerbakke as "Michael 'Dauber' Dybinski," assistant coaches under Fox. The role of Hayden's girlfriend (and later wife) "Christine Armstrong," a television news anchor, was played by Shelley Fabares.
"Coach" was slotted in as a mid-season replacement in the spring of 1989 for "The Wonder Years," which was moving elsewhere in the schedule. The series was kept in production but was not on the schedule for the start of the 1989-90 season. It was held in reserve as a replacement show.
"Coach" got its second chance by filling in for the "failed" Jackie Mason comedy "Chicken Soup." "Chicken Soup" was actually the #13 rated show when it was cancelled. Although it had lost audience from its lead-in show (the #1 rated "Roseanne"), it was more likely cancelled because of the controversial Mason's racially inflammatory remarks made during the New York City mayoral race. "Coach" started the season on 21 November 1989, and finished as the #18 rated show for the 1989-90 season. It was renewed.
In 1990-91, "Coach" was #18 again appearing on Tuesday at 9:30 following the #3 "Roseanne." In 1991-92, "Roseanne" moved up to #2, and "Coach" also improved, to #10. It did even better in 1992-93, coming in at #6, staying there for 1993-94 season as well.
For 1994-95, ABC felt that "Coach" could stand on its own, without its "Roseanne" lead-in. They moved the show to 8 PM on Monday nights, where it promptly fell out of the top 30 shows, losing out to CBS' "The Nanny" (#24).
For 1995-96, "Coach" was returned to Tuesdays at 9:30, and followed a new powerful lead-in: "Home Improvement" (#7 for the year), which had bumped the faltering "Roseanne" to an earlier slot. "Coach" returned to the top shows, at #14.
During the 1996-97 season, "Coach" was relegated to the dead zone of Saturday nights, where it dropped out of the top 30 shows again. It was the show's final season.
For his work on "Coach," Jerry Van Dyke received four consecutive (1990, 1991, 1992, & 1993) Emmy nominations in the category of “Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series." Over those years, he lost the award to the likes of Alex Rocco, Jonathan Winters, Michael Jeter, and Michael Richards.
This is always weird. When I saw on a website the announcement, I was instantly thrust back to my early youth and the image of first seeing "Dick Van Dyke's brother" as a guest host on a show with "Celebrity" in the title. And something about Carl Reiner. So I throw Celebrity into the IMDB title search and came across The Celebrity Game from 1964. I was right about Reiner but there's nothing about Jerry. I recall the show airing on Sunday night but may not be correct about that. All's I know is that I really enjoyed seeing so many famous stars. But I'm almost positive the late Mr. Van Dyke was a substitute host.
This is always weird. When I saw on a website the announcement, I was instantly thrust back to my early youth and the image of first seeing "Dick Van Dyke's brother" as a guest host on a show with "Celebrity" in the title. And something about Carl Reiner. So I throw Celebrity into the IMDB title search and came across The Celebrity Game from 1964. I was right about Reiner but there's nothing about Jerry. I recall the show airing on Sunday night but may not be correct about that. All's I know is that I really enjoyed seeing so many famous stars. But I'm almost positive the late Mr. Van Dyke was a substitute host.
Perhaps you are thinking about "Picture This." It was a CBS game show that aired during the summer of 1963 on Tuesdays at 9:30 PM. Jerry Van Dyke was the regular emcee. The show featured two teams, each composed of a celebrity and non-celebrity contestant. One member of each team was given a secret phrase, then had to direct the drawing of a picture which was supposed to provide his partner with a clue to the phrase. The first partner to guess the phrase won for his team, while the emerging picture and the byplay between contestants provided the laughs.
There's no information as to whether Carl Reiner ever appeared on the show, but since it was a summer series, "The Dick Van Dyke Show" would have been on hiatus. This was the first regular series for Jerry Van Dyke.
Oh man I'm not sure but you may be on to something. I mean hey I was like 7-8 years old during the time and am searching the memory banks and the more I search the more the drawing of pictures...I think this may be it!
PS
the 'net never ceases to amaze sonofagun am gonna havta watch this!
