In Tribute to Carl Reiner: TV's Funniest Moments

With the recent passing of Carl Reiner at the age of 98, I began thinking of my favorite moments of TV comedy and he was responsible for many of them. As the creator and main writer for the classic Dick

Van Dyke Show, Reiner delivered many of the biggest laughs of my childhood. As Alan Brady, the tyrannical top banana Van Dyke's character wrote for, he had several of the show's funniest bits. The first season you could only see the back of Alan's head, but in later seasons, you saw all of Reiner. He would often mock his own baldness. One of the most hilarious moments of the show was when Alan was holding up an empty glass for his boot-licking brother-in-law Mel Cooley (Richard Deacon). "What's the matter, Alan? Are you thirsty?," Mel asked.

"No, Mel, I want a glass of dust," Brady angrily shot back.

The delivery and the sarcasm made another otherwise so-so gag into a merciless putdown.

Reiner was also a versatile sketch comedian, appearing on such shows as The Carol Burnett Show and Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. He did voice-overs for the Linus the Lion-Hearted cartoon series in the 1960s, as did Jonathan Winters and Sheldon Leonard.


In tribute to Reiner, here are my top funniest TV moments. To qualify, the gags had to make me laugh out loud.

1. Millie and Jerry's Reaction to Laura Receiving an Inflatable Raft in the Mail ("The Curious Thing About Women," Dick Van Dyke Show)
When watching reruns of the Van Dyke Show on Channel 48 in Philadelphia, this few seconds

Ann Morgan Guilbert and Jerry Paris

always cracked me up. The premise is Rob accuses Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) of always opening his mail. So he writes a sketch for the Alan Brady Show about a wife also opening her husband's mail. He orders an inflatable raft which the wife cannot resist peeking at and the enormous raft explodes all over the living room. Millie (Ann Morgan Guilbert) and Jerry (Jerry Paris) endlessly rib Laura for her insatiable curiosity. Then a big package arrives for Rob. Laurie cannot keep her eyes off it. Millie and Jerry drop by and see the the package and then silently crack up. I can't explain why it's so funny. It's just the way Guilbert and Paris attempt to surpress their mirth. Laura tries to get them to stop silently laughing at her, but they can't and finally they run out. The episode ends with the couple returning to apologize, they see the raft and crack up again.

2. Rhoda Stops Herself from Eating Candy ("1040 or Fight," The Mary Tyler Moore Show)
Mary receives a box of chocolates from nerdy tax auditor Paul Sand. Rhoda is about to take a bite and stop herself, saying "I shouldn't be eating this. I should apply it to my hips directly." I had an image of her literally doing just that and it made me laugh. Years later, I met Valerie Harper at the Tony nominees reception when she was nominated for playing Tallulah Bankhead in Looped. I told her this was my favorite moment of the series. She explained the gag was supplied by her friends Mary Frann (later Bob Newhart's wife Joann on Newhart) when they were at lunch before the scene was shot.

3. Lily Tomlin as Mrs. Judith Beasley of Calumet City, Illinois (Lily Tomlin's TV special)
After making a huge hit on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In as well as on Carol Burnett and Glen

Lily Tomlin as Mrs. Judith Beasley

Campbell's variety shows, Lily appeared in her own special as multiple characters. I think this was the first time she did Mrs. Judith Beasly, a typical housewife who appears in a series of commercials speaking in a monotone and always starting her pitch with, "Hi, I am not a professional actress, but a real person like yourself." In this sketch she is pushing Grrr, a laundry detergent that goes after stains "like a million tiny piranha fish."

4. Lily Tomlin as a Librarian (Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In)
Larry Hovis comes up to Lily as a librarian with her hair in a severe bun with pencils sticking out. "Do you have any books on manners," Larry asks. "No, we don't, stupid."

5. Dixie Carter Ripping a Bigot a New One ("Killing All the Right People," Designing Women)
A gay friend of the ladies at Sugarbaker's has contracted AIDS. A self-righteous client angrily proclaims that such a person deserves their fate. Julia (Dixie Carter) rises up in indignation, "Oh, come off it, Ima Jean. Who do you think you're talking to? If sexually-transmitted diseases were a punishment for sinning, you would be down at the free clinic ALL THE TIME!"

6. One of Dorothy's wisecracks (Golden Girls)
Rose: Why do they throw rice at weddings?
Dorothy: Because tomatoes leave stains.

7. Mama Going Off on Eunice (The Carol Burnett Show)
Mama: Eunice, you got splinters in the windmills of your mind.... You're playing hockey with a warped puck.

8. Another Dick Van Dyke Show moment.
Rob, Laura, Mel, Buddy and Sally have to steal a script from a sleeping Alan Brady because they have written nasty things about him in the margins and forgot to switch it for a clean one. They sneak into Alan's office and manage to get the offending manuscript out of his grasp. But he begins to wake up. "It's a dream, Alan, go back to sleep." The culprits all begin to go into weird, contorted dance movements to convince their tyrannical boss they are phantoms. This bit was stolen a few years later by Hogan's Heroes as Hogan and the gang needed to steal something from a slumbering Sgt. Schultz. It was just not the same.

9. Kaye Ballard's Expressions and Hand Gestures on The Mothers-in-Law

Eve Arden and Kaye Ballard on The Mothers-in-Law

This short-lived sitcom was a favorite because of Ballard's outsized talent. The situations were as silly as those on The Lucy Show (which is not surprising since Desi Arnaz and some of the creative talent from Lucy's shows worked on it). But Ballard made her character Kaye Buell memorable with her exaggerated Italian cliches and sayings. Anytime she was required to display disbelief, she gave out with an elongated "Oh, Realllllly!" My siblings and I used to imitate her all the time.

10. Tallulah Bankhead's Voice Coming Out of Robin's Mouth (Batman)
Batman was not strictly speaking a comedy series, but it had its share of camp moments. Perhaps the campiest was in the episode with Tallullah Bankhead as the Black Widow. The snarly voiced villainess had kidnapped the Dynamic Duo and disguised herself as Robin. She got a dummy and dressed it up as Batman, then proceeded to rob a bank. When the police stopped them, Bankhead's voice come out of Burt Ward's mouth. Priceless.