"THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW" @ 50: "MY THREE DADS"

I mentioned earlier in the day that there was one more recastaway discrepancy that had to be addressed on 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' - that of the three actors who played Rob's father.

Here are the three actors and the episodes in which they appeared, in chronological order:

Will Wright
"Empress Carlotta's Necklace" (1961) … "Sam" Petrie
[The quotation marks are mine. This entry from the IMDb.com is in error.]

J. Pat O'Malley
"What's in a Middle Name?" (1962) … Sam Petrie

"The Plots Thicken" (1964) … Sam Petrie

Tom Tully
"Pink Pills and Purple Parents" (1964) … Sam Petrie

"The Curse of the Petrie People" (1966) … Sam Petrie

Now, that is the order in which the episodes were broadcast. If we follow the timeline for the show's inner reality, it would look more like this:

Tom Tully
"Pink Pills and Purple Parents" (1964) … Sam Petrie

J. Pat O'Malley
"What's in a Middle Name?" (1962) … Sam Petrie

Will Wright
"Empress Carlotta's Necklace" (1961) … "Sam" Petrie

J. Pat O'Malley
"The Plots Thicken" (1964) … Sam Petrie

Tom Tully
"The Curse of the Petrie People" (1966) … Sam Petrie

"Pink Pills And Purple Parents" takes place about a month after Rob and Laura were married, while he was still stationed at Camp Crowder in Missouri. According to my timeline, that would have been 1951. "What's In A Middle Name?" happens after the in-laws learn of Laura's pregnancy with Ritchie. So I make that to be sometime late in 1954. (Like Larry Mathews, Ritchie was born in August of 1955.)

This triple recast of Petrie Senior can't be splained away with plastic surgery. Quantum leaping is really too far out there (even if I do use "guardian angels" to splain away all of Frank Adamo's roles on the show.) However, one of my splainins for one of these actors will have a sci-fi basis from another TV series of that time......

Maybe you can guess which Pere Petrie and which TV show?

We'll continue in a "moment" with the first splainin for "My Three Dads"......

BCnU!