by 
Having recently received the Dick Van Dyke show season 1 DVD for a gift (which I affectionately call my DVD DVD), I have enjoyed two of the discs worth of tv goodness. Seeing these characters in innocence and clean comedy is incredibly refreshing and humorous in itself. The episode where Rob and Laura are having Ritchie, and Laura calls Rob to say that it’s time to have him and she looks like she just came out of a salon, not having contractions every
five minutes is great.
Then I watched last night’s revisited. Unlike what I hoped, they resorted to what has happened to every classic show they think needs some punching up to fit in with the times. They added Rob swearing, and made a joke out of it– how that he started that after getting cable TV. And they have a couple of mild sexual innuendo jokes.
Though most of the faces were the same, and the clips were great, it felt awkward because of this– like a loss of innocence. Writers try to recapture the magic of these shows, but fail to see what really attracts us to them– a time where we didn’t have to swear to find something funny, or joke about sex to keep people interested. Writing was creative and original, and the characters we found called us to be higher and more noble.
I think I’ll stick with my DVD DVDs.
