Dan from Nova Scotia is one of many who’ve asked me about the episode I saw filmed of The Dick Van Dyke Show…
I assume that at the end of the filming of an episode, the actors were re-introduced, and the audience gave them one last cheer and applause?
Can you share any anecdotes about that? Did the audience get to mingle with cast and crew?
Mingle? No. Actually, I was hoping that would happen because, if you recall the story, my parents and I went to a filming on the invitation of Morey Amsterdam and he said he’d introduce me to Dick and Mary and Rose, et al…but as it turned out, the week we chose to go, it was an episode that did involve Morey or Rose Marie so they weren’t there. Usually, they did the warm-up and the hosting duties, welcoming the live audience and keeping us interested during lulls. Instead that week, Carl Reiner did that. He was very, very funny and charming…which I suppose doesn’t surprise anyone.
But there was no opportunity to meet anyone. I did talk to Dick Van Dyke a little from my seat in the front row of the bleachers. I don’t know of any show that at the close of a filming or taping lets the studio audience mingle but I suppose somewhere, on some series, it may have occurred.
That evening and at every filming/taping I’ve ever attended, they bring the cast members out for a final bow before they thank everyone for being there…and you reminded me of a moment in my life. It was at the taping of the third or fourth episode of Welcome Back, Kotter that I worked on back in the previous century. The taping was over and Gabe Kaplan was bringing out the cast members, one by one, for some applause and a couple of them were doing something backstage and couldn’t get out there when Gabe wanted to introduce them again.
He was filling time, waiting for Travolta or Hegyes or someone to get out there and he spotted me in the wings. Just to have something to keep the energy going, he yelled out, “Here’s one of our writers, Mark Evanier!” So I stepped out and took a bow. It was the only time that ever happened on that show or any other show I ever worked on but it made two people very happy. Gabe had no idea that my parents were in the audience that night.
I think my father wanted to come to every taping ever thereafter just to see that again but I assured him it was a one-time occurrence, not to be repeated.
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