I'm first!!!

[dawsongirl]

Gee, I get to be the first person to post something here. Cool!

I've only seen 2 episodes of this show, but they were both funny. I really want to see the ones from the last season with Richard Dawson, but no, we can't show those

[callmetootie]

When my WB station aired the great all-sitcoms mornings and part of the afternoon, this was on right after The Dick Van Dyke show, which was on at about 5:30. It was pretty funny.

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Andrew Carden

[TV Guy]

Not as good as the original, but a decent follow-up for Dick Van Dyke, certainly better than Lucille Ball's later series. Carl Reiner, who did the original, produced this for a while as well, and that helped.

I remember the local Fox affiliate in Boston ran NDVD in the late 80s, but I don't remember seeing those shows from the last season. I do remember reading that they dropped "New" from the title that last year, and just called it "The Dick Van Dyke Show".

[NCVARick]

Originally posted by TV Guy:
Not as good as the original, but a decent follow-up for Dick Van Dyke, certainly better than Lucille Ball's later series. Carl Reiner, who did the original, produced this for a while as well, and that helped.

I would agree this show is better than Lucille Ball's "Here's Lucy" series, and better than the last few seasons of "The Lucy Show," but the first couple of seasons of "The Lucy Show" are hilarious. This show can't touch that. But there are some genuinely funny episodes (along with a lot of mediocre ones). A couple of the better ones that come to mind are one where Dick's sister (played by Fannie Flagg) is doing a cooking show but (can't remember why) is relying on Dick, who's hiding under the table, to tell her the recipes. Naturally, she misunderstands ahlf of what he says.

Another one I remember -- and someone please confirm my memory on this because I'm amazed that they could have gotten aways with this -- involved a bet that Dick's mother can give up smoking cigarettes. At one point, she is at home alone and finds some reefers her teenage grandson (Dick's son) had hidden in the couch. She thinks they're cigarettes, smokes one and accidentally gets stoned.

[TV Guy]

Agreed on the comment about the early years of "The Lucy Show". That first black-and-white season is excellent, just a notch below "I Love Lucy". Too bad the show fell so far just a few years later.

I don't remember the reefer episode of NDVD, but it wouldn't surprise me. They seemed to want to push the envelope a bit (there was that episode where Dick's daughter walked in on her parents while they were having sex).

[NCVARick]

Originally posted by TV Guy:
Agreed on the comment about the early years of "The Lucy Show". That first black-and-white season is excellent, just a notch below "I Love Lucy". Too bad the show fell so far just a few years later.

I don't remember the reefer episode of NDVD, but it wouldn't surprise me. They seemed to want to push the envelope a bit (there was that episode where Dick's daughter walked in on her parents while they were having sex).

Actually, if you compare the first season of "The Lucy Show" to the first season of "I Love Lucy," TLS is way better. Of course, I hate those early episodes of "I Love Lucy." But by the second season, the characters were well defined, the writers had figured out what they were doing, and it became pure gold. As for TLS, yes, it definitely went into gradual decline after the first season. But by the fourth season when the format changed, it hit bottom. Sometimes during those later seasons, it could be pretty good, but nowhere near what it was in the beginning. Heck, the entire look and feel of the show -- the way the characters were played, the quality of the scripts -- changed so much that it seems like a totally different show than what it was in the beginning. Even the way Lucille Ball played Lucy Carmichael was different. In the beginning, she played her like Lucy Ricardo, shrewed, smart, but eccentric. In the end, she was playing her like Gracie Allen: dumb.

About that reefer episode, there must be some piece of information I'm forgetting, such as that the son *unwittingly* came in possession of the reefer and didn't intend to smoke it. I just can't imagine they would have portrayed him as a kid who was smoking pot; not in that day and age. I hope someone out there can remember this episode. I just remember how funny that scene was with that old lady flitting around the living room, stoned out of her mind.

[TVLanFan]

I'll tell you another episode of the NDVD show that is in absolute classic...

It's the episode in which DVD buys himself a minibike, and goes for a ride in the desert and gets lost...the whole episode consisted of him talking to himself while he was lost...and I vaguely remember that there was some hilarious monologue material about a can of peas that he had with him at the time...that's the episode that really sticks out in my mind...

I haven't seen this show since the 70s, I never saw it in any reruns in the 80s or 90s, but I enjoyed it very much when it was on...and I remember Angela Powell played his daughter, and she was very cute, although she didn't have that big of a part in the show

[NCVARick]

Originally posted by TVLanFan
I'll tell you another episode of the NDVD show that is in absolute classic...

It's the episode in which DVD buys himself a minibike, and goes for a ride in the desert and gets lost...the whole episode consisted of him talking to himself while he was lost...and I vaguely remember that there was some hilarious monologue material about a can of peas that he had with him at the time...that's the episode that really sticks out in my mind...

I haven't seen this show since the 70s, I never saw it in any reruns in the 80s or 90s, but I enjoyed it very much when it was on...and I remember Angela Powell played his daughter, and she was very cute, although she didn't have that big of a part in the show

That's very interesting that you would remember that particular episode because, for some reason, it always stuck out in my mind, too. It dates back to around 1972 and, like you, I also remember when it first aired. I was about nine years old at the time. I carried that memory until I saw that episode rerun in the early '80s (the second time I saw it), but I haven't seen it since. That episode is the one that I remember most from the original run, followed by an episode where Dick appeared in a TV commercial playing something akin to the Tidybowl (sp?) man (I haven't seen that one since it originally aired). There must be some reason it sticks out in both our minds.