The Dick Van Dyke Show Trivia
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This Dick Van Dyke Show trivia quiz has 48 free questions with answers and covers all five seasons of Carl Reiner's 1961-66 sitcom: the Petries of New Rochelle, the writers' room of The Alan Brady Show, the neighbours next door, the ottoman in the opening titles, and classic episodes like 'It May Look Like a Walnut', 'Coast to Coast Big Mouth' and 'That's My Boy??'. It also digs into how the show got made: the failed pilot in which Reiner played Rob himself, the finalist who lost the part to Dick Van Dyke, the 60 actresses who tried out before Mary Tyler Moore, the sponsor that saved the show from cancellation, the meaning of 'Calvada', and why the cast chose to quit while they were ahead. Difficulty runs from easy nostalgia to questions for people who have seen all 158 episodes. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference and each question carries its citation.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Marvel series opened with a black-and-white episode made as a homage to The Dick Van Dyke Show?
WandaVision
WandaVision. Before filming, its makers sought out Dick Van Dyke for advice, and he gave them his sitcom's rule: however silly the gag, nothing could happen that couldn't happen in real life.
Q 02In The Dick Van Dyke Show's finale, Alan Brady decides to turn Rob's memoir into what?
TV series
TV series. The last of the 158 episodes ends with Rob's account of his home life about to become a sitcom, just as Carl Reiner's own had.
Q 03What was the title of the 1960 pilot in which Carl Reiner himself played Rob Petrie?
Head of the Family
Head of the Family. It failed to sell, and producer Sheldon Leonard told Reiner the script was fine but he was wrong for his own lead, so the part was recast.
Q 04Which future late-night host was a finalist for the role of Rob Petrie before Dick Van Dyke got it?
Johnny Carson
Johnny Carson. Producer Sheldon Leonard chose Van Dyke instead, and a year after the sitcom began Carson took over The Tonight Show, which he hosted until 1992.
Q 05Ann Morgan Guilbert, the Petries' neighbour Millie Helper, later played Grandma Yetta on which 1990s sitcom?
The Nanny
The Nanny. She went back to Millie once more for the 2004 reunion special, in which the now-widowed neighbour takes up with Rob's brother Stacey.
Q 06In which New York suburb do Rob and Laura Petrie live?
New Rochelle
New Rochelle. Carl Reiner had lived there himself, on Bonnie Meadow Road, and he gave the Petries his own address with a single digit added.
Q 07In the episode 'October Eve', what turns up in an art gallery to Laura Petrie's horror?
A nude painting of her
A nude painting of her. Years earlier she had sat fully clothed for the portrait, but the artist, played by Carl Reiner, painted what he imagined instead.
Q 08Which garment did Mary Tyler Moore insist Laura Petrie wear around the house instead of a dress?
Capri pants
Capri pants. She argued that real housewives didn't vacuum in frocks and heels; objections that the trousers were too clinging at first kept them to one scene an episode.
Q 09While playing Mel Cooley, Richard Deacon was also Lumpy Rutherford's father Fred on which other sitcom?
Leave It to Beaver
Leave It to Beaver. Off screen Deacon was a keen cook, and after Mel Cooley he wrote a microwave cookbook and hosted a microwave-cooking series for Canadian television.
Q 10Which former child performer played wisecracking writer Sally Rogers?
Rose Marie
Rose Marie. She had been a radio star at five as Baby Rose Marie, and once she was cast she suggested an old friend of hers for the part of Buddy.
Q 11Who played Buddy Sorrell, the joke-a-second writer who torments producer Mel Cooley?
Morey Amsterdam
Morey Amsterdam. He also wrote lyrics for the show's wordless theme tune; they were never heard on air, though Dick Van Dyke has sung them in public since.
Q 12How is bald producer Mel Cooley related to the star, Alan Brady?
Brother-in-law
Brother-in-law. Being family earns Mel no respect at all: Alan greets almost everything he says with the same three words, 'Shut up, Mel!'
Q 13What is the profession of Jerry Helper, the Petries' next-door neighbour?
Dentist
Dentist. Jerry Paris, who played him, was given an episode to direct in 1963, won an Emmy for directing the series a year later and went on to direct most of Happy Days.
Q 21In The Dick Van Dyke Show's flashbacks, Rob met Laura while he was a soldier and she was what?
A USO dancer
A USO dancer. Carl Reiner set the romance at Camp Crowder, the real Army post where he had been stationed himself during the Second World War.
Q 22What middle name did Ritchie Petrie get to please both sides of the family?
Rosebud
Rosebud. It is an acronym of Robert, Oscar, Sam, Edward, Benjamin, Ulysses and David, one initial for each name the two families pushed.
Q 23Rob's shy brother Stacey, played by Dick Van Dyke's real brother Jerry, becomes the life of the party only when what?
Sleepwalking
Sleepwalking. Asleep, Stacey is a banjo-strumming comic; Jerry Van Dyke later turned down the lead in Gilligan's Island and starred in My Mother the Car instead.
Q 14What piece of furniture does Rob Petrie trip over, or sidestep, in The Dick Van Dyke Show's opening credits?
An ottoman
An ottoman. Carl Reiner had both a pratfall and a neat sidestep filmed, and episodes opened with one or the other, so viewers never knew which they would get.
Q 15Dick Van Dyke shared his 1965 Emmy as Rob Petrie with which singer?
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand. That year the Emmys swapped their usual categories for a few catch-all awards, so his prize, one of the show's 15, was shared with her, Leonard Bernstein and the Lunts.
Q 16Which sponsor saved The Dick Van Dyke Show after its low-rated first season by threatening to pull its CBS daytime ads?
Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble. Its soap operas were the difference between profit and loss for CBS in the daytime, so the network backed down and gave the sitcom a second year.
Q 17Which number one show served as The Dick Van Dyke Show's lead-in when its ratings took off in season two?
The Beverly Hillbillies
The Beverly Hillbillies. Slotted behind the new number one hit, the sitcom that had nearly been dropped rose to ninth in the ratings that season and third the next.
Q 18Why did The Dick Van Dyke Show end in 1966, while still a top-twenty hit?
Its makers chose to stop
Its makers chose to stop. CBS wanted more, but Carl Reiner and his star preferred to bow out while they were still proud of the show, one of the first sitcoms to plan its own ending.
Q 19Calvada Productions was named for Carl Reiner, Sheldon Leonard, Dick Van Dyke and who else?
Danny Thomas
Danny Thomas. CA-rl, L-eonard, VA-n Dyke, DA-nny: Thomas was Sheldon Leonard's producing partner, and Leonard later guest-starred as a mobster named Big Max Calvada as an in-joke.
Q 20Who composed The Dick Van Dyke Show's jaunty theme tune?
Earle Hagen
Earle Hagen. He also wrote the theme of The Andy Griffith Show, and did the whistling on that recording himself.
Q 24In the episode 'It May Look Like a Walnut', where does the alien Kolak come from?
The planet Twilo
The planet Twilo. Carl Reiner wrote the episode as a science-fiction spoof, closetful of walnuts and all, in which Rob can't tell a nightmare from his wife's revenge.
Q 25What secret does Laura blurt out on national television in 'Coast to Coast Big Mouth'?
That Alan Brady wears a toupee
That Alan Brady wears a toupee. A game-show host tricks it out of her, and she ends up stammering an apology to a furious Alan across a desk lined with his now-useless hairpieces.
Q 26In 'Never Bathe on Saturday', which part of Laura Petrie gets stuck in a hotel bathtub faucet?
Her big toe
Her big toe. For most of the episode Laura is only a voice behind a locked bathroom door, while Rob, a maid, a house detective and an engineer all fail to free her.
Q 27Which Dick Van Dyke Show season opener, where Rob fears the hospital swapped babies, was colourised in 2016?
That's My Boy??
That's My Boy?? Rob is sure the hospital sent them home with another couple's baby, until that couple arrive and turn out to be Black, to the longest laugh of the show's five years.
Q 28Who hosted the 2004 reunion special The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited?
Ray Romano
Ray Romano. He introduced a new story by Carl Reiner in which Alan Brady asks Rob to write his eulogy while he is still alive to hear it.
Q 29At which studio was The Dick Van Dyke Show filmed?
Desilu Studios
Desilu Studios. The failed New York pilot had been shot with a single camera; the Hollywood remake was played to a live audience on the lot Lucille Ball's company owned.
Q 30Carl Reiner insisted Alan Brady was not Sid Caesar but a blend of which two overbearing TV comedians?
Berle and Gleason
Berle and Gleason. Milton Berle was notorious for shouting at his crew and Jackie Gleason, Reiner said, was hard on his writers, whereas Caesar was a close friend.