Computer animator and Amiga fanatic Dick van Dyke turns 100

1 day ago

Here's a video from 2004 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1J9kfDCAmU

It's his 100th birthday today.

93 comments

ggm

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tzs  1 day ago

Here’s a great quote by him:

> In my 30’s, I exercised to look good. In my 50’s, to stay fit. In my 70’s, to stay ambulatory. In my 80’s, to avoid assisted living. Now in my 90’s, I’m just doing it out of pure defiance

  • SoftTalker  1 day ago

    He was also an alcoholic for many years. Must be made of pretty good stuff to survive this long.

    • moron4hire  1 day ago

      Of all of my grandparents and great grandparents, they all lived really hard lives eating high fat diets, drinking and smoking, and lived into their 80s. Genetics is really the biggest determining factor outside of going completely off the rails with binge eating and drug use.

      Now, that's not to say that healthy living is pointless. Their quality of life from late 60s on was not great: alcoholism, poverty, multiple heart attacks, emphasima, a stroke here and there, from which they eventually, sort of, not really recovered. They were deeply unhappy people who never really seemed to have time or care for their families. I definitely don't want to live like that. So treat yourself right, but not because you're trying to reach a certain age.

      7 replies →

dhosek  20 hours ago

There are few (maybe no) moments of Dick Van Dyke that aren’t a joy to watch. I grew up on reruns of the Dick Van Dyke Show and discovered Andy Kaufman thanks to Van Dyke’s short-lived variety show, Van Dyke and Company. Watching his dance moves (it’s a little amazing to realize how many dance numbers the Dick Van Dyke Show featured) is like watching an animated character dance, he was able to move his body in ways that suggest he has no bones. As a kid, I wanted to be Dick Van Dyke when I grew up and as an adult, I want to be Dick Van Dyke when I’m old.

gbraad  1 day ago

THE Dick van Dyke, from Mary Poppins, Diagnosis: Murder, ans so many more?! I always thought it was just a coincidental same name as I never saw videos about this. Oh my! This guy is amazing

dobladov  20 hours ago

The whole "The Dick Van Dyke Show" is available for free on YouTube, I highly recommend it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-HsXBPWH3Y&list=PLtbMv4lXX2...

  • dhosek  20 hours ago

    Good starting points would be the Christmas Special (Alan Brady Presents), “It May Look Like a Walnut” and “That’s My Boy” (just off the top of my head). There are two episodes where we got to see Van Dyke’s Stan Laurel impersonation which was absolutely amazing. Given how much he drank and smoked back in the 60s and 70s it’s a miracle he’s still on earth, but he is definitely a treasure.

stavros  1 day ago

I had no idea he's an animator, that's so cool! In that video he says "Lightwave is so deep, I won't live long enough to see everything that's in it". I'm glad he's proven wrong there!

  • kristopolous  1 day ago

    I know his son Barry. He said his first memory he has was his Dad doing real time drawings for people telling stories. He was behind the story teller on stage on giant pads of paper as a comedy bit at night clubs.

    He also remembers having giant bags of toys dumped on the floor of the hotel rooms.

  • ChrisMarshallNY  1 day ago

    Many A-listers are polymaths. For example, Phil Hartman, used to be Phil Hartmann (extra "n"), and designed some of the most iconic album covers of the 1970s, and Steve Martin is one of the best banjo players out there. It used to be part of his standup bit.

    Dick Van Dyke came from the tail end of Vaudeville, where performers had to have a whole variety of skills.

    Remember: Every one of these folks that hits the limelight, beat out thousands of others.

    We think our vocation is competitive? Showbiz says "Hold my beer."

    • ndstephens  1 day ago

      Just looked it up and saw he did an album cover for Steely Dan. It reminded me that Chevy Chase was an early drummer for Steely Dan (well, before they became "Steely Dan")

      4 replies →

    • martinesq  1 day ago

      > Steve Martin is one of the best banjo players out there

      And he’s great with a lasso!

      I love his albums with Edie Brickell, he’s good with Steep Canyon Rangers, and more recently have heard him shine with Alison Brown (banjo), Sierra Hull (mandolin), and others in his latest tour.

      If you’re looking for the top banjo players technically, you might check out Béla Fleck, Jens Kruger, Noam Pikelny, Tony Trischka, Bill Keith, Don Reno, and Earl Scruggs. I’ve personally heard superhuman performances by Jens Kruger in-person and I grew up on Scruggs.

      1 reply →

    • trehalose  1 day ago

      Hedy Lamarr was a prolific inventor. Among other things, she developed a frequency-hopping spread spectrum radio transmission technique for torpedo guidance and donated the patent to the US Navy during WW2.

      1 reply →

linsomniac  1 day ago

A few months ago I found The Dick Van Dyke Show free to watch on Youtube. I had seen a number of the episodes in passing over the years, but never really watched it. It's really quite a good show. Highly recommended, even if YouTube's viewing experience for TV series is sub-par.

ks2048  20 hours ago

I just saw a tweet saying his birth was closer to the death of Thomas Jefferson (1826) than it is to today. Wow.

  • sethammons  20 hours ago

    The grandson of the 10th US president died this year. The US is barely three generations old. That guy could say his grandfather shook hands with Thomas Jefferson.

gsf_emergency_6  1 day ago

https://www.sciencealert.com/dick-van-dyke-credits-his-longe...

  • bestouff  1 day ago

    > The beloved actor credits his remarkable longevity to his positive outlook and never getting angry.

    • Tade0  1 day ago

      Makes sense. My grandpa is one year his junior and you would never see him react too strongly to anything, even though grandma (also still alive) always had an, ahem, fiery personality.

      Also he refuses to sit and moves around all the time, venturing outside every day from their apartment four floors above ground without a lift.

      Interestingly his own father didn't make it to his 60s, so there's certainly a lifestyle component to this.

wuhhh  1 day ago

Wow I had no idea, what a cool guy! Loved Mary Poppins as a kid, his British accent though… xD

k310  19 hours ago

My clearest recollection (don't know the episode) is when he attends an event, probably in place of Alan Brady, that turns out to be a big fund-raiser. The Hostess addresses him as Mister Petrov. When asked for a donation, he is stupefied, and can only say "I have this blank check" ... no spoiler ...

The comedy show within a comedy show is a cool dramatic and operatic trick.

Magnificent delivery.

satvikpendem  20 hours ago

I've heard of him but have never seen any of his content, what should I watch?

  • riffraff  19 hours ago

    it's quite possible you may unknowingly have seen him in Mary Poppins, where he plays _two_ roles, and I was mind blown when I noticed the second after 30 years or so.

Instantix  1 day ago

And then Commodore made the A3000 not high enough to take the Video Toaster. How to shoot yourself in the foot...

exasperaited  20 hours ago

He sang probably the greatest song in musical film — Hushabye Mountain in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfdRr7MWax4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeCBVerpYj8

If you have never seen this film, I don't care how old you are, you should watch it. It is overshadowed by Mary Poppins but it is a work of art — a funny, charming, astonishing visual feast of a film and he is magnificent in it. His performance as the jack-in-a-box alone is worth an Oscar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_l2ii_25tc

  • justin66  19 hours ago

    > If you have never seen this film, I don't care how old you are, you should watch it.

    I’m not sure about the all ages part. We watched it in first or second grade and I can still remember wondering how a movie with a flying car could be so boring.

sgt  1 day ago

Such a legend! I bet he still has his Amiga somewhere in his Hollywood hills mansion.