#sheldon leonard

[citizenscreen]

Sheldon Leonard (February 22, 1907 – January 11, 1997), actor, producer, director, and screenwriter.

[tuttle-did-it]

HAPPY 100th BIRTHDAY to the brilliant Dick Van Dyke.

It is officially his birthday on my side of the world. He made it!

Let's celebrate this amazing talent with a little love. Let's do 100 links for one of my favourite comic actors of all time (who is actually fantastic at dramatic acting).

Interview with Dick on being a villain on Columbo (including a story about Peter Falk taking out his glass eye to prank him).

A clip from DVD's Columbo episode (Season 4 Episode 2 ''Negative Reaction")

One of Matlock's best episodes is their pilot, The Judge (season 1 episode 2) is available on pluto. In several interviews, DVD talks about how no one wanted to see him play anything serious. It's genuinely a shame because he's excellent in the Columbo and Matlock episodes.

Andy Griffith's final appearance at Ben Matlock is in Diagnosis: Murder s4 episode 15 and 16

According to DVD, he was offered the role of James Bond (he joked 'have you heard my British accent?' And he also turned down a role with Cary Grant-- something he says he regrets every day.

Three are a couple 100 birthday celebration events going on, click here and here and here

He still has a bucket list for a role he wants to play- Ebenezer Scrooge

on turning 100 (article)

A new documentary on DVD will be in cinemas 13 -14 December (I assume US only) for 100th celebration.

DVD recently guest starred on Days of Our Lives soap opera. One of the stars of this show, Susan Seaforth Hayes, shares doing a performance with DVD.

Television Academy / Foundation Interviews. Museum of Broadcast Communications have some fantastic interviews with a variety of people who have worked with DVD, as well as DVD himself. This is actually a great interview, do watch it if you can.

---Including various other celebrities talking about working on Diagnosis Murder, The Dick Van Dyke Show (Jamie Farr for example, talks about appearing on TDVDS here and here). Quite a few good interviews with Sheldon Leonard on the struggles for this show, censorship issues, etc), and Rose Marie on the show here and here, Garry Marshall's involvement as a writer, and of course Mary Tyler Moore.

Starring Dick Van Dyke documentary trailer - available PBS- people like Jim Carrey, Carol Burnett, Ted Danson, Conan O'Brien, etc talking about DVD. The full article will be released on 12/12/25.

An interview with him about turning 100.

Colourised clips of The Dick Van Dyke Show here and here and the bumper here

The Dick Van Dyke Show is currently on Pluto, Tubi and Prime, as well as a few other sources like rerun century.

You can watch The New Dick Van Dyke Show on tubi

You can watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on tubi and pluto

You can watch the first 5 seasons of Diagnosis: Murder on pluto

You can watch The Dick Van Dyke Show Remembered on pluto

You can watch The Best of Carol Burnett Show which DVD guest starred occasionally on pluto

DVD has won 5 Emmys, a Tony, a Grammy-- but no EGOT, he's never won an Oscar. He still has time.

TDVDS bloopers

Another interview with DVD about turning 100

The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited

60th anniversary for The Dick Van Dyke Show (people like Paul Reiser talking about the show but DVD does not appear)

An interview from earlier this year with Ted Danson (who is slightly in love with him and would not stop grinning the whole time)

My favourite episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show 'It May Look Like a Walnut' (complete episode, working link)

an @internetarchivelink to DVD's memoir 'My Lucky Life in and out of Show Business'

an @internetarchive link to all the extras from the Dick Van Dyke Show, lots of fun interviews there

Brief clip from Diagnosis: Murder with a cameo from Rob Petrie

One of the episodes Jerry guest starred on TDVDS here, 'I am My Brother's Keeper,' and it's a great episode. You can watch the full episode here. Jerry plays Rob's brother Stacey, a nervous and neurotic man who becomes very outgoing and exciting and fun when he sleepwalks. You can watch the eppisode here.

brief rundowns on a couple Diagnosis: Murder episodes, including

---an episode with his brother Jerry Van Dyke as the guest star. Jerry plays Rob's brother-- a nervous and neurotic man who becomes very outgoing and exciting and fun when he sleepwalks.

---long-running DVD reference of tripping over ottomans. He made a funny clip about how many times he fell over the ottomans on just TDVDS.

---a stunt episode on UFOs and scifi with fabulous guest stars

---a stunt episode on the Happy Days franchise (and spin-offs)

---a stunt episode with spy-fi amazing guest stars

---a stunt episode with actors who have played doctors on tv, including Wayne Rogers

---pictures of DVD playing 5 different characters for absolutely no reason in Diagnosis: Murder

---a stunt episode with M*A*S*H actors from the tv show, film and spin-offs.

Extended interview with Kevin Pollak (12 years ago) - 2 hours! DVD talks about working with various people, his career, as well as abuse from fans when he was in later shows with someone other than Mary Tyler Moore playing his wife (fans have assaulted him over this. No, really.) Really great interview absolutely worth watching.

--------you can watch the full episode of Drill For Death (the M*A*S*H/ Diagnosis: Murder episode here - starts around 44:50 (they put two episodes together). Don't know how long this link will be active so if it's something you've wanted to watch, best do it soon. Guest stars Sally Kellerman, Loretta Swit, Jamie Farr, Bill Christopher, Elliot Gould, Christopher Norris.

Brief interview talking about his famous "cockney" Mary Poppins accent.

---M*A*S*H references on Diagnosis: Murder

Why so much M*A*S*H mention? Cos DVD LOVED M*A*S*H

January 2023, DVD reads a speech by Rod Serling originally written for the civil Rights Act of 1964

interview with DVD talking openly about his alcoholism. He did this to try to break the stigma to addiction and seeking help.

interview with DVD about his career (older interview)

interview with DVD on his love for theatre, laugh and more

interview with DVD and Mary Tyler Moore with Larry King (1999)

DVD talks about how he met Stan Laurel (very short interview)

a couple of brief clips of DVD guest starring in Sabrina the Teenage Witch as a rehabilitated witch who was turned into a cat for helping Salem try to take over the world. You can watch the full episode on pluto here. clip (only has him for a scene) and clip

Very brief clip of Dick Van Dyke on Becker as Becker's father ('Becker the Elder). You can watch the full episode on Pluto. I suspect this was difficult for Ted Danson-- his character hates his father, but Ted Danson has talked very happily for decades about what a crush he had on DVD and how much he worships him. --see interviews with Ted, cos he can't stop gushing, it's quite sweet).

a not great quality full episode of Diagnosis: Murder The Roast, with spectacular guest stars . Around 42:10- 43:10 Ted Danson appears as himself (a version of himself who hates DVD's character

One of my favourite cameos for DVD is in Dick Tracy. You can see brief clip of him here.

His brother Jerry has had a great comedic career of his own (well-deserved) and the two of them occasionally guest starred on each other's shows, usually as brothers who argue and fight. When he was 90, he guest starred on Jerry's show 'The Middle (brief interview here).' Here's a little clip.

This video has a couple of clips with Jerry and Dick working together.

These clips have an interview on the Tonight Show with DVD and Mary Tyler Moore. The first video isn't great quality, but the second is slightly better. (1979)

This video shows him doing the dance for Marry Poppins reboot from a few years ago

This video shows him doing a performance from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang even more years ago (1968)

TDVD also guest starred on The Golden Girls, playing a lawyer who decides to become a clown, He's dating Dorothy, who isn't too fond of this change. Here's a short clip (1989)

Mary Tyler Moore had a show in the late 70s called the Mary Tyler Moore Hour (well worth watching, honestly). DVD guest starred in an episode with Michael Keaton. In one of the sketches in plays Rob Petrie from TDVDS. The sketch revolves around Alan Brady's funeral (don't worry, he's fine and even guest starred in Mad About You (if you haven't seen it, it's one of their funniest episodes, watch more than this clip! Watch the whole episode). In the DVD sketch, they made his son Ritchie gay.

He was in The Simpsons (season 35, episode 3). You can see the couch gag with him here

DVD guest starred on a 1959 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. You can watch the colourised episode here (season 5, episode 23)

A Carol Burnett Show outtake with DVD as guest star- The Elephant is one of the most famous outtakes with Tim Conway, and everyone completely lost it on stage.

A short article on what DVD is planning for his 100th birthday.

There you go! 100 links for the amazing Dick Van Dyke. Happy birthday, Mr Vandy!

(Feel free to share and add links to your favourite DVD film, show, interview, article, etc).

[oldshowbiz]

This show is absolutely fantastic.

[thinkbolt]

Kiddin' the Kitten (1952)

Kiddin' the Kitten (1952)

Kiddin' the Kitten (WB, 1952) dir. Robert McKimson, ft. the voices of Sheldon Leonard and Bea Benaderet

Buy me a coffee!

[letterboxd-loggd]

Street of Chance (1942) Jack Hively

September 29th 2024

[paceypeternathanslawyer]

I watch The Danny Thomas Show every Saturday with my parents and every time I watch it... I can only seem to compare it to The Dick Van Dyke Show in my mind. Pretty much the same production team made both. Sheldon Leonard and Danny Thomas both produced TDVDS and TDTS. The big difference between the two was that Carl Reiner was the creator of TDVDS and I believe that Danny Thomas created TDTS and that clearly made all the difference in the world.

Today I was watching Season 11 Episode Episode 16 of The Danny Thomas Show called "Kathy, The Secretary" which aired on January 20, 1964 and I was comparing it to Season 3 Episode 22 of The Dick Van Dyke Show called "My Part Time Wife" which aired February 26, 1964. As you can see these two episodes aired within just a little over a month of each other. But the difference in these two episodes are light years away. In some ways they are very similar. Both have to do with the respective protagonist's wives going back to work for a little bit.

The Danny Thomas Show did not deal with this plotline at all well. It starts with the typical old plotline of a wife spending too much money on clothes and hats and whatever she wants and their joint account being overdrawn because the wife can't budget money and only cares about what she can get for herself. This is such an old plotline that was done in I Love Lucy and a billion times after. It's old and it's very much depicted in a sexist nature. After a fight between them she almost on a dare decides to go back into the work force as a secretary for Danny's talent agent. The rest is a typically sexist series of events where the joke is that Kathy is a ditz and bad at her job. At the end of the episode she stops working to continue to be a housewife. I have nothing against housewives, I come from a long of them. My mom was one for a long while. My sister is currently one and honestly if I had kids and my husband had a well paying job where I didn't need to work I would definitely consider being one myself. But back in the days these plotlines were depicted on TV in a very sexist nature in so many ways that I can only begin to describe. For one, women were unappreciated for the work that they did at home. And again women were always depicted as not having the ability to even do that well. Like women were always making their husbands crazy and putting them in the poor house. And raising children was shown to practically be a breeze when they were even shown raising their children.

You compare that to the Dick Van Dyke Show and the difference is huge. Firstly the reason that Laura went back to work was different. Sally was working temporarily on another show and as usual the guys in the office were lost without her. Which was actually a pretty ahead of it's time concept. Sally was a career woman and an integral part of her job. She did everything well. She was an amazing TV writer and typist. She could do everything the men could do and then some. Either way Sally was off and Laura offered to help out at least with the typing while Rob and Buddy were writing the show. Where TDVDS really sets itself apart from TDTS was unlike Kathy, Laura ended up being amazing at the job. Not just in typing but she was also coming up with hilarious jokes for the show. Laura came into her husband's job and arguably did it better. Certainly that week she was doing it better. And that was the source of the conflict was that Rob was being a bit insecure about his wife coming into his job and getting bigger laughs than him. Don't let this synopsis fool you though, as insecure as Rob could be he was never as insecure as Danny was. And Rob always appreciated Laura and appreciated what she did. Also there were episodes where Rob helped out with housework like cleaning the dishes and stuff like that. That may sound small and insignificant now but at the time that stuff was considered "women's work." Men brought home the bacon and took the garbage out but women did the housework. So to depict a man who secure enough to help his wife out and to do the housework even when he was teased by his guy friends was really ahead of it's time. Rob and Laura were depicted as a team. It was them against the world and that was so incredibly ahead of its time on TV. But getting back to the main point. Laura was always depicted as being so good at her job and also so good at being a housewife. But it also wasn't shown as being super easy. Back in the day women were shown as never really having emotional breakdowns but Laura was allowed to be messy, sometimes both emotionally and physically. Like there were times when things got difficult. Laura wasn't shown as being emotionally immature but she was also allowed to be vulnerable and messy sometimes... and that's just life.

I really respect how TDVDS strove to push the envelope. How they strove to depict women, black people, and marriages differently and better than it had been in TV. It seems like every show was just trying to be like every other show that had succeeded in the past 10 years just trying to be another I Love Lucy. But even I Love Lucy pushed the envelope in some ways. So they weren't really trying for the spirit of I Love Lucy they just made a bunch of generic watered down versions of I Love Lucy. Carl Reiner went into TDVDS wanting to make something different, wanting to depict marriage in a more realistic way. To depict everything in a more realistic way but also to push the envelope of what was acceptable in some ways. I'm not saying that TDVDS always did things perfectly but I love how they strove for it. How they depicted a married couple (Jerry and Millie) going to couples counseling/therapy. How they depicted the main couple as being sexually attracted to each and depicted them as a team. It really blows my mind that a show like TDVDS existed in the year 1964.

[thebottomdrawerpicturefile]

Another Thin Man - 1939

Hit The Ice - 1943

It's A Wonderful Life - 1946

I Love Lucy S5E33 Sales Resistance - 1953

Sheldon Fucking Leonard - 1994

[claudettcolbert]

Do you remember the first time I came to see you in your office? Your dingy, gloomy office in that dingy dirty street, the rotten smell of the factory chimneys pressing down on the shabby little houses, the slovenly old women, the gray-faced dirty little children starting out with everything against them. I remember that street.

Decoy (dir. Jack Bernhard, 1946)