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Carl Reiner had no idea that reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show would still be on television today
Reiner was keen not to include any slang of the time in The Dick Van Dyke Show.
Even if you're a part of something great at the time of its conception, you can truly understand just how great it will be. Even if you're aware that you're onto something special at the time, it can be a bit rare to be fully aware of the future potential of something.
Such was the case for Carl Reiner, who knew that he had something amazing in The Dick Van Dyke Show, but did not know yet of the show's longevity. In an interview with The Daily News, Reiner discussed the beginnings of the series, including the intentional choice to eschew any attempts at using the current slang of the time period.
Reiner stated, "With The Dick Van Dyke Show, from the very inception, I wrote it without using any slang... There was no 'splitsville,' 'going ape,' whatever it was at the time because I knew it had a quality that would allow it to be rerun." Reiner added, "Reruns were the only way you could make extra money in those days."
But when Reiner was imagining viewers checking out reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show, he certainly wasn't imagining it happening decades later. At the time of the interview, 1995, Reiner explained his earlier thought process. He said, "This is forever, I said. But I thought that meant five reruns, ten reruns, four or five years. I never knew 30 years later, they'd still be running them."
So, we can thank Carl Reiner, at least in part, for the timeless nature of The Dick Van Dyke Show that we know and love. More importantly, we can also thank Carl Reiner for not making Dick Van Dyke say "splitsville" on camera.
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