Tag: dance

The Dick Van Dyke Show can be seen as one of the first sitcoms that resembles our modern conception of the genre. The show strayed from its predecessors, with Mary Tyler Moore’s spunky take on the housewife role and a new mobility evoked between home and work. At the same time, The Dick Van Dyke Show has roots in the older Vaudeville-variety style of the 1950s. This in-between existence is perfectly exemplified in the season one episode “Oh How We Met the Night We Danced.” The popularity of this episode most likely stems from Van Dyke and Moore’s incredible comedic and dancing talent, both of which were hallmarks of the show. However, this seemingly simple episode reveals much about the historical, political, and industrial contexts of the series.

One of the most popular episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show, “Oh How We Met the Night We Danced” reveals how Rob and Laura Petrie, the protagonist couple, first fell in love. When Laura comes upon Rob’s old Army boots, Rob tells the story to their son Richie (played by Larry Matthews) through a series of flashbacks. The scene opens on a dance number for the USO during World War II. Rob is working as an emcee for the stage, and meets Laura during rehearsal. For him, it’s love at first sight, but Laura is utterly disinterested, prompting Rob to go to great lengths for even a second glance–but, of course, ultimately winning her over in the end.

This episode heavily spotlights Mary Tyler Moore, whose take on the housewife character offers insight into the changing representations of women throughout the series. Given that The Dick Van Dyke Show premiered the same year the National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded, the nascent radical feminist movement is nowhere evoked in the show. Instead, one can glean progressivism with regards to gender roles from certain creative choices behind the show.

Even today, Laura Petrie remains iconic, from her warbling exclamations of “Oh, Rob!” to her fashion-forward cigarette pants. This sartorial decision in particular–apparent throughout “Oh How We Met the Night We Danced”–is symptomatic of the understated feminism throughout the series. Originally, Moore was supposed to wear the classic pearls and dresses of the 1950s, but at her insistence that this would not be an accurate representation of the modern housewife, the costumers agreed on her soon-to-be ubiquitous pants. This decision to break away from previous tropes, however trivial, foreshadows the atypical housewife that Laura would prove to be. Unlike the unobjectionable domestic goddesses of The Donna Reed Show and Leave it to Beaver, Laura had a more fully developed personality. Like Lucille Ball’s Lucy, another exception, Laura was depicted as sarcastically funny, physically attractive, and domestically gifted, all simultaneously. Also like Lucy, she sometimes longed for a life beyond the kitchen, fondly remembering her days dancing in the USO, as seen in “Oh How We Met the Night We Danced” (and in one early episode even going back to work as a dancer). Though she was by no means a major agent in the then-burgeoning women’s liberation movement, Laura presented her own discreet, feisty, sharp-witted kind of feminism.

Though The Dick Van Dyke Show can be seen as politically progressive, it should be noted that stylistically it bridged the gap between the classic vaudevillian-comedy shows of the 1950s and the more realistic products of the 1970s, but often retained some of the increasingly old-fashioned comedic devices of the former. Throughout “Oh How We Met the Night We Danced,” the influence of vaudevillian comedy is particularly evident. First, the flashback opens on a soft-shoe sequence, one of several such scenes. This focus on stage performance hints at the traditions of old-style variety shows in which dance numbers were a major attraction. The climax of the episode occurs when Rob and Laura finally dance and sing together, strengthening the importance of the stage through the show. Perhaps even more revealing of vaudevillian influence is Rob’s comedy intro to the dance performance, a programming format directly derived from variety shows. With slapstick physical comedy, Rob entertains the troops before turning the stage over to “The Idaho Potatoes,” a jazz band, thus alluding to the show’s vaudevillian origins. To heighten this similarity, the scene is shot head-on, effectively putting the viewer in the dance hall audience’s position. It is unsurprising that the show features vaudevillian characteristics, since many show regulars, including Rose Marie (Sally) and Morey Amsterdam (Buddy) started their careers on the vaudeville stage. Carl Reiner, the show’s producer, also sometimes sent scripts over to radio scribes and vaudeville fixtures for “punching up.” With this continued influence of variety, it’s clear that The Dick Van Dyke Show was truly between eras.

Many sitcoms that followed this iconic series borrowed ideas that either originated from or were made popular by The Dick Van Dyke Show. This sitcom was one of the first that explored the meta-subject matter of a show-within-a show. Largely basing it on his experiences with Your Show of Shows, producer Carl Reiner created the predecessor to 30 Rock and The Larry Sanders Show, which also followed the behind-the-scenes of fictional TV shows. Like these later iterations, The Dick Van Dyke Show used self-referential humor to poke fun at the entertainment industry in a refreshing new brand of comedy.

The Dick Van Dyke Show was also original in its focus on both the home and the workplace. Previously, sitcoms such as I Love Lucy mainly followed domestic life. In this series, however, Rob moves freely between home and work, as plotlines weave among all the characters. In “Oh How We Danced the Night We Met,” the story shifts from the home to the professional pasts of both Rob and Laura. Indeed, Laura’s background as a dancer, an unconventional career for a sitcom housewife, is a surprising variation from her wholly domestic predecessors. This mobility is representative of the increasing movement of women between the public and private spheres occurring on a larger societal scale. In terms of sitcom history, this mixture of settings paved the way for future shows to provide insight into the workplace and the home, a feature prominent in modern television.

Perhaps the strong influence that The Dick Van Dyke Show still has on modern sitcoms is the reason for its ability to withstand the test of time. Over fifty years later, “Oh How We Met the Night We Danced” continues to be utterly hilarious. Van Dyke and Moore delight audiences with good-natured sarcastic banter and charming chemistry. The dance numbers, though they were actually challenging for Van Dyke and Moore to master, look effortless and hold timeless appeal. Like the rest of the series, this episode feels both modern and decidedly vintage, as universal humor mingles with classic vaudevillian presentation. A time capsule from the Camelot era, this upbeat, sharp-witted show will remain a classic worthy of its place in the annals of television history.