Jerry said something like, "We're appearing without our Dicks!"
The guy did have a sense of humor on his own. He did have a career on his own. I remember my friend Julie Newmar telling me how Jerry almost got the Jack Mullaney part in her series "My Living Doll." Jerry was also offered the lead on "Gilligan's Island." He eventually decided on making his starring sitcom debut on "My Mother the Car."
The show became a legendary punchline as an example of sitcom premise excess. But Jerry himself was just fine on the show. He didn't look or act so much like Dick Van Dyke that people couldn't accept him on his own. It's just that even Dick Van Dyke had his problems after that legendary sitcom went off the air. Dick had some shows fail and it took decades, and a whole new look (white hair and mustache) before he returned to TV's Top 10 in "Diagnosis Murder."
By that time, Jerry had been through a few more sitcoms (including "Accidental Family") and a long run and several Emmy nominations for "Coach." It's fair to say that there were people watching "Coach" who had never seen "The Dick Van Dyke Show," or knew that Jerry had appeared in a few episodes as Rob Petrie's eccentric sleepwalking banjo-playing younger brother.
All the above is from memory, and triggered by this unfortunate headline in the New York Post:
That headline was the most egregious today, as it chose to mention his VERY few appearances on Dick's show (what were they, two or three?) and not "Coach" or a generic identification: "Sitcom Star Jerry Van Dyke dies..." Around the country, many headlines were redundant about "Dick Van Dyke's brother Jerry Van Dyke dies..."
For some reason, Snopes got the credits right...but tossed in the name JERRY SPRINGER for some odd reason.
And so it was, that even in death, Jerry was not given the dignity of being identified for his own achievements.
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