Funny / The Dick Van Dyke Show

• "Buddy, Can You Spare a Job?":
  • Rob comes up with a plan to convince Mel to reinstate Buddy: hire someone even worse. Sally snarks that she thought Jack the Ripper was dead already.
  • Jackie Brewster, the nightclub comedian who the other writers hire to serve as a more irritating replacement for Buddy, says that he doesn't think Mel will know him; nobody does. In fact, more people know him as "Who's he?" than by name. When Mel comes in and asks who the new guy is, Jackie quips that he knows him already.
• "That's My Boy?":
  • This exchange between Rob and Laura:
    Rob: Did you know that one in every fifty million women has the wrong baby?
    Laura: That's a cute trick; how does she manage it?
    Rob: No, she doesn't have it while she's having it; after she has it, she has it!
  • Rob gets fixated on the idea that they may have picked up the wrong child due to earlier mix-ups at the hospital. They finally contact Mr. and Mrs. Peters, and all suspicions disappear due to racial differences. The audience responded with one of the longest laughs in the history of comedic television. Mr. Peters caps it off when Rob asks him why he didn't just explain over the phone:
    Peters: And miss the look on your face?!
• "All About Eavesdropping": Rob and Laura, having eavesdropped and overheard Jerry and Millie saying some uncomplimentary things about them, ruin a game of charades by throwing in some bizarrely hostile gestures and guesses. Buddy quips that this isn't charades; it's a game of World War III.
• "The Curious Thing About Women":
  • Rob finds that Laura has been reading his mail, so he writes a show about a woman reading her husband's mail. Laura is enraged upon seeing the show, insisting she never did anything like that. However, when a package arrives for Rob, she finds herself repeating everything done by the woman on TV. The crowning moment of hilarity is when Rob walks in and finds the raft leaning against the wall with Laura hiding behind it, trying to contain her tears of shame.
  • Millie and Jerry find the show hysterical and go home laughing after the package arrives. Later, they return to apologize for the ribbing they gave Laura, only to be reduced to helpless laughter at seeing her with the raft.
• One episode features a man who claims to be Rob's old army buddy, but Rob does not recognize his face or his name. The man and his wife show up at the Petries' home and act in ways that make Rob and Laura suspect that he is a thief, prompting them to call the police. By the time the police get there, however, Rob has finally remembered who the man is and they've even bonded over their past experiences. Then the police officer arrives. At a loss for words, Rob has to improvise a quick, hilariously terrible reason for calling the officer over while still saving face with his army buddy.
  Police: Sheesh.
  • Their snooping around to figure out the alleged army buddy's intentions is pretty hilarious too, like Rob trying to snoop using a glass of tomato juice and holding it the wrong way—and getting tomato juice in his ear when he holds it the right way.
• "It May Look Like a Walnut,"
  • Rob has a nightmare about a horror movie (starring Danny Thomas) in which aliens with eyes in the back of their heads invade and use walnuts to turn humans into aliens. The most memorable moment is Rob opening the closet door and hundreds of walnuts spilling out, with Laura sliding out soon afterwards.
  • "Danny Thomas put nuts in my hat!"
  • Alien-Laura scares the stuffing out of Rob with Eyes Do Not Belong There: "I see you!"
• "The Alan Brady Show Presents": Rob, acting as conductor, leads Mel, Buddy, Sally, and Laura in a chorus of Alan Brady's name. One by one, he loses his singers because they insert their own names. With Buddy and Sally, Rob passionately but wordlessly points offstage, and Laura doesn't wait to be told. Left without three of his singers, Rob makes a hilarious infuriated face, marches up to Mel, and holds up his index finger in warning. At first it goes smoothly, and Rob tells the audience that he can rely on him, saying that Mel is Brady's brother-in-law. Immediately, Mel sings his own name, picks up his music stand, and hurries offstage.
• In "Washington vs. the Bunny," Rob has a nightmare about his indecision over whether to go to Washington to do some talent scouting, as per his job, or stay at home and watch his son, Ritchie, perform in a school play as "the main bunny". The nightmare involves Laura dressed in a bunny costume and controlling Rob as a puppet and making him dance like one. At one point, there's this exchange:
  Laura: [puppeting Rob] Bow for the people. [Rob does so] Now show how nicely you make a telephone call.
  Rob: [holding up a phone; nasally] Hello? I want to go to Washington!
  Laura: No! Now you say that the right way.
  Rob: Hello? I don't want to go to Washington!
  Laura: That's a good boy.
• "The Impractical Joke":
  • Buddy humiliates Rob by selecting him as the target for a Prank Call and the mild-mannered writer resorts to a Paranoia Gambit to get back at him. He continually tells Buddy that he's not going to do anything - to the point of calling him up in the middle of the night to do so - and comments once that when he one day plays a joke on him, it will be so "diabolically clever" that Buddy won't get over it for months. Needless to say, this does nothing for Buddy's nervousness.
  • Expecting a joke, Buddy ignores Rob's warnings about sitting in his usual chair and squashes Sally's coffee cup and danish. The expression on his face is priceless.
  • Buddy begs Rob to tell him if he's planning something, saying that it'll be less painful to worry about a definite joke than to drive himself insane anticipating one that may or may not happen. Rob answers, "Oh?" and Sally congratulates Buddy on giving him additional ammunition.
  • Mel calls Rob to Alan Brady's office and Rob asks if the other writers should come. Mel answers that they don't need Sally's presence this time and they never need Buddy's.
• The Stinger at the end of "4 1/2" is particularly funny in and out of context. Dick Van Dyke addresses the audience:
  Dick: Next week, by popular request, the whole cast is going to prison. Join us, won't you?
  • What makes this funny out of context is that Van Dyke didn't often do this at the end of episodes, making this seem like a complete non sequitur. In context, this is funny because that's actually precisely what happens in the next episode.
• In "The Sleepwalking Brother", Stacy's subverted love song:
  My heart told me that I should get a wife;
  My heart said I was in a rut.
  My heart told me that I should get a wife—
  I wish my heart would keep its big mouth shut!
• The entirety of the the Christmas Episode, "The Alan Brady Show Presents".
• "Waiting for an Armadillo", the avant-gard play Laura goes to in "Roses and Rye Bread."
• From "Ghost of A. Chantz":
  Mel: Scream! You're on Sneaky Camera!...
  Rob: You mean to say you've been filming...all...this. Come on out of that room, Mel.
  Mel: Rob, are you angry?
  Rob: No, Mel — I'm insane!
  Mel: Keep going; we're still filming!
  • While in the living room, Rob and Buddy see the cabin's front door open on its own, it closes, the rocking chair briefly moves, and then the door opens and closes again.
    Buddy: Go explain that.
    Rob: Well, it was probably just the wind, Buddy. The wind blew the door open and made the chair rock. That's all.
    Buddy: Yeah, well, what made the rocker stop rockin'?
    Rob: You know, I... the ghost got up and left. How do I know?
• Virtually Mary Tyler Moore's entire performance as the loopy, over-tranquilized Laura in "Pink Pills and Purple Parents", especially from the words "parrots and keys" onward.
• As a meta-example, Carl Reiner once related an experience from the days when he was actually trying to get the series picked up. Back when the original scripts were titled "Head of the Family" and Reiner had cast himself as the lead, he'd already tried to get the show picked up and failed. Discouraged, Reiner went on to other projects, but his agent kept trying because he refused to abandon a set of thirteen episodes already written. Eventually, the agent got a bite, and the following conversation ensued.
  Carl Reiner: I don't want to fail with the same material twice.
  Sheldon Leonard: It won't fail, because we'll get a better actor to play you.
• "Gesundheit Darling": Rob and Laura slowly put together the fact that Rob is allergic to cat hair, Ritchie and his friend are taking care of a stray kitten, and Ritchie has just left carrying Rob's old electric razor.
• In the episode Third One From the Left one of the chorus girls falls in love with Rob. His attempt to scare her off lead to her thinking they're engaged:
  Rob: One thing's for sure, I am not going to marry her!
  Laura: Well, that's good to know.
• In the episode about Rob and Laura's honeymoon, their off-base pass is rescinded and, when brainstorming ideas to get around it with friends, Rob gives this most unfortunate slip:
  Rob: Sam, I want to go on that honeymoon with Laura as much as you do.
  Laura: Uh, Rob...
• The whole running gag in How to Spank a Star of Rob (temporarily appointed producer) trying to reach his secretary on the intercom and getting Alan instead.
• Mel Cooley doing The Twizzle, for no other reason than it's Mel.
• Dick Van Dyke's whole performance as Rob's great-uncle Hezekiah in "The Great Petrie Fortune."
  Hezekiah: I bequeath to you this roll top desk. [whacks it with his cane, causing a piece to fall off] I'll fix that before I go.
• In one episode, Mel needs one of the writers to take a reporter to lunch and give an interview. Sally is intrigued:
  Sally: Hey, Mel, if this reporter is my type, I'll buy the lunch! Uh...tall?
  Mel: [nods] Tall.
  Sally: Good looking?
  Mel: Good looking!
  Sally: Single?
  Mel: I think she's single.
  Sally: RRRRR!
• During one of their confrontations, Mel pushes Buddy out of his way, using his pocket handkerchief to "shield" his fingers from having to actually touch him.
• Buddy's string of death jokes and Sally's unamused reactions in The Plots Thicken, starting with his declaration that his "home food plan" means he'll just be stuck in the freezer when he dies:
  Sally: Buddy, one more death joke and I'll kill ya!
  Buddy: Please, not today; we're defrosting.
• "The Sam Pomerantz Scandals": Rob and Sam do a spectacular and hilarious Laurel and Hardy impression as part of the act.
• In I'd Rather Be Bald Than Have No Head At All, the hair specialist recommended by Buddy starts by applying a layer of olive oil and then adds another ingredient:
  Hair Guy: Well, I had to choose something acidic enough to cleanse the scalp, but vegetable enough to nourish it.
  Rob: What did you come up with?
  Hair Guy: Vinegar!
  Rob: You're putting oil and vinegar on my hair? After that should I comb it or toss it?