With the passing of comedy legend Carl Reiner, tributes have been received from around the world. Executive producer of “Modern Family” Steven Levitan shared with Variety his memories of the historical television comedy that Reiner created.
At the beginning of Modern Family, I got a call from our show’s publicist asking if I’d be willing to do a photo shoot on Saturday for one of the exchanges. “Saturday?” I complained. “I try to spend Saturdays with my children.” She continued: “It would be with Eric Stonestreet, Dick Van Dyke and Carl Reiner.” My eyes widened. “F— the children. I’m not even sure they’re mine.
I grew up in the Chicago suburbs on a steady diet of Spaghetti-O’s, Grape Nehi, and reruns of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” (God bless WGN). Like countless comedy writers today, I do what I do in good part because Carl Reiner did so gloriously what he did.
From the first time Rob stumbled upon that ottoman, he wanted to be a comedy writer. No matter that, living a world far from Hollywood, you might as well have said you wanted to be an astronaut (which, I admit, I did for a moment thanks to a crush on Barbara Eden in “I Dream Of Jeannie”). My dad’s office had an adding machine; I wanted to work in an office with a dart board and a piano and people who would make me laugh. I wanted to have dinners where everyone got up and performed. At my parents’ dinners, at best, someone might have too many martinis and fall. If it hadn’t been for Rob Petrie, Sally Rogers, and Buddy Sorrell joking around in that office, insulting Mel Cooley every time he walked through that door, he would still be in Chicago writing a copy for the Pillsbury Doughboy.
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“The Dick Van Dyke Show” was smart, adult, and innovative. It was a television show before people made television shows. Most importantly, it was very funny. Laura Petrie accidentally tells the world that Alan Brady is bald, the self-inflating liferaft, “Robby Baby” on that scooter, nuts, Lake Sisimanunu, Laura’s toe caught in the cockpit spigot, passive play- Charades aggressive after Rob and Laura listened to Jerry and Millie on the baby monitor … these are just some of the moments that I have tried to live in the last thirty years.
He was also daring. Rob accidentally dying his hands in black just before he has to accept a racial sensitivity award must have raised a few eyebrows in the early sixties. And, after Rob Petrie is convinced that his baby was accidentally changed in the hospital, I will never forget the moment Mr. and Mrs. Peters walked in the door, resulting in one of the biggest and most authentic laughs I’ve never had. heard on television.
This is all the more impressive considering that Carl Reiner produced thirty-one episodes the first season and 32 episodes the four subsequent seasons. Most of the first two seasons he wrote himself! Modern Family made 24 episodes per season with a team of twelve people and episode 15 completely exhausted us.
Saturday’s photo shoot took place at Mr. Reiner’s home in Beverly Hills. As I walked through the front garden, I couldn’t have been more nervous. I thought about the night my wife went into labor with our first child and how I lay in bed practicing putting on my hat like Rob Petrie did the night Laura gave birth to Richie. (Years later in Modern Family, when we needed Mitch and Cam to do a musical number at a family reunion, I chose “Carolina in the morning”, because that’s what Rob and Laura sang.)
I rang the bell and Carl Reiner opened the door. So. He was warm, friendly, and still so much fun. He casually introduced me to Dick Van Dyke. So.
I have had some surreal moments in this business. Having a beer at a bar with Norm, Cliff, and Woody after a filming of “Cheers,” he befriended 89-year-old Norman Lear (another idol) in our daughters’ high school class, but he hung out at Carl Reiner’s house with Dick Van Dyke almost blew the head off this Chicago boy. I knew Eric felt the same way because we kept looking at each other like, “Can you believe this is happening?
After taking the photos, Eric asked for an autograph and Mr. Reiner wrote, “Eric, I should ask for your autograph!” I went a step further and pulled out a framed floorplan of Rob and Laura Petrie’s house at 148 Bonny Meadow Road in New Rochelle that I keep on my office wall. Mr. Van Dyke signed, “Home sweet home!”, Which it was, of course. Mr. Reiner wrote: “Steve, keep this house sprinkled and the grass watered. Love Alan Brady.
So.
