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
The filming of the Jolly Holidays sequence is worth watching on its own as an example of his physical comedy:
He was also an alcoholic for many years. Must be made of pretty good stuff to survive this long.
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.
> Genetics is really the biggest determining factor outside of going completely off the rails with binge eating and drug use.
So true. I'm fortunate that both my parents have long-life family histories. Both families were old-fashioned Southern Baptists who didn't drink, smoke, dance or, apparently, believe in having fun of any kind :-). But that just kept them from messing up their good genetic luck. I'm an old-fashioned atheist but have chosen to never drink, smoke or do drugs just because I never saw a compelling reason to. Now I'm pushing 60 and have so far had zero serious health issues. Hoping to keep a good thing going.
> I'm an old-fashioned atheist but have chosen to never drink, smoke or do drugs just because I never saw a compelling reason to
I am 17 and I am the same here (atheist) and similar and yeah I see no reason to do these things either and I actively see the negative harmful effects it can have so I am not gonna do these things at all ever in my life too.
Have a nice day :)
There's not no reason to eat fatty foods (they're delicious) or do drugs (they're a lot of fun). Life is for living, too. But everything in moderation.
I understand the statement behind your comment and here are the reasons I would like to present
> they're delicious.
I was already raised in a vegan household because of my parents religion, I am not completely an atheist but maybe agnostic and I can recommend books like sapiens to know more about the history of religion too but that's another tangent.
To me eating fatty foods isnt that big of a deal because the vegan food is surprisingly delicious too and is very diverse.
I also recommend watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gqwpfEcBjI&t=25s (earthling's documentary) simply because I just feel like delicious doesnt deserve the animals being killed in pain, It just doesn't make sense when you realize that vegan food is really delicious too.
> drugs (they're a lot of fun)
Nope, There is no everything in moderation regarding this because I just feel like these can trigger parts of my brain designed for stimulus and get addicted. No drug addicts wants to become an addict, they think they will do in moderation and also I doubt its fun, I have heard it / read it as just chasing the high and the high creates the lows too, they're fun in short term but they fuck you up after they get over and then you cahse them again and again like a rat/rabbit...
> Life is for living, too
Listen sir, I understand that you feel like I am not living or living a monotonous life but the drugs and fatty foods are vices in my opinion and honestly I live a fun life without these things too!
If you wish to ask me, I feel like the 24x7 hustle culture or the work culture and similars might be the thing which actively kills the living part, not the fact that they are vegan or that they do not drugs, I just do not understand this take.
Personally I wish to be a good father. I just feel like drugs no matter how you might say moderation, just wouldn't work with that end goal. Whats even the point of doing drugs? Literally none long term. and I just feel like its really harmful which it is.
Personally if you ask me, I am having fun and maybe the only reasons I or many others do not have fun is because of this constant social media (which I sort of left) and also the fact that we have to study for school to get college -> to then get job -> to then get promotions -> (???)
Its just that I am preparing for college and stressing a lot because of an exam but this is me being completely honest, that when I wasnt stressing about these exams, life was genuinely good and still is even when I stress a little haha...
I understand where you are coming from but I doubt that these can be healthy long term from what I understand in my opinion mentally. I feel like a lot of it is how our parents raise us and how we interpret it too and there can be differing view points but I do believe that drugs cause a lot of harm. I can understand about the vegan part because of culture/tradition but please do not do drugs as I feel like it can be easy to slip up from what you say moderation and I just feel like there are actively reasons to not do it.
TLDR: Do not do drugs. (I feel like this is non negotiable for me and I hope you understand that I am not changing this fact because of "fun" when its not fun at all imo, its shit from what I've heard and every addict starts out in moderation until addiction and then they beg that they shouldnt have started in the first place so I am gonna do that.)
I love who I am and the things I stand for and how I came upon them logically to try to build a better life for myself and others around me too and so I hope that you do not try to debate about drugs to a 17 year old whose saying that he wont do drugs ever in his life :)
And yeah, have a nice day man!
Beware survivor bias.
In a population of equally vulnerable genetics and stochastic outcomes, there will be families that all live long.
We are wired to attribute that to something.
> they all lived really hard lives eating high fat diets
ICYMI the low fat diet craze was built on lies and corruption, fat isn't bad for you. Sugar is.
I don't think it's that simple.
Seemingly a universally liked man. So much so, that dolphins rescued him when he fell asleep on his surfboard aged 84.
The intelligence and benevolence of many marine mammals is vastly under appreciated.
Reportedly, dolphins are notorious rapists. So maybe there's more to this story...
Maybe intelligent species have a lot of variance? There are good and bad dolphins, like there are good and bad people.
They're certainly not backwards about coming forward with their tummy bananas...
When nature is on your side you now you have it good
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.
> a joy to watch
The man is a brilliant comedian. He knew some of the greats; he is one of them.
The Comic (1969):
He’s also digital animator. The dude is unbelievable. What a creative mind
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...
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.
My understanding is that he was alarmingly drunk when they went to film his dance sequence with the chimney sweeps in Mary Poppins.
Alarming in a "Mad Men" era of drinking...
Is it commercial free? Also available in Prime Video and Peacock Premium if you have those.
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!
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.
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."
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")
The album: Aja -- a masterpiece.
Not according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aja_(album)#Title_and_packagin...
but he did do a bunch for America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Hartman#Discography
Thanks for the correction -- I was hasty with my search and trusted the link that proclaimed that he did it.
Might not be wrong. The Wikipedia article states that it is incomplete.
> 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.
I have a fond memory of my dad taking me to see Roy Clark when I was a little guy.
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.
That's "Headley!" (Blazing Saddles reference).
And of course, there's Sir Doctor Brian May.
Many of the early electronic musicians were basically engineers (you had to be, to use some of those old synthesizers).
I believe that the frequency hopping technique is still used everywhere today, for things like wi-fi and Bluetooth.
For completeness: Billy Connolly was also a banjo player.
I believe that the banjo is common in Celtic bands. There's a pretty strong relationship between the music of Appalachia, and Gaelic music.
He even outlived Ligtwave!
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
Very much so. Really decent chap, too.
Terrible cockney accent, though...
No one mentioned it to him during production, so he didn't know.
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:
> 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.
That's on you.
I did the same when it came out, and was thrilled.
> That's on you.
And now that you've brought this to my attention, the weight of this responsibility - that I didn't like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in elementary school - weighs heavily on my heart. Thanks a lot.
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.
Some of those older comedy shows had really good writing. The Bob Newhart shows were also excellent.
Bob Newhart was Mr. Rogers for adults. Good show!
I just saw a tweet saying his birth was closer to the death of Thomas Jefferson (1826) than it is to today. Wow.
It’s a fun fact that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the same day, July 4 1826, 50 years to the day after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.
Ironically enough, Adams’ last words were reportedly, “Jefferson lives”
For those who don't know the story: it's ironic because Jefferson died first.
Yeah, he's very old for a person and the US is very young for a country.
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.
I think it was Bertram Russell who said he was raised by his grandfather, who knew Napoleon.
The modern world is a lot more crammed together than we think it is
If you have never played the backwards-lifetime game, you should.
Take your current age and work backwards that same number of days, months and years before your birth. Every year something else remarkable is added.
At my current backwards age, World War II is the best part of two decades away; the UK is still recovering from World War I. Rocket 88, the first rock and roll song, won't be written for nearly another three decades. Women still can't vote in the UK, the Wall Street Crash is several years away.
When my father (who knew one of the most important men in medical history in his younger days and who was working in medicine not long after the NHS was founded) died, his backwards age reached back before the germ theory of modern medicine.
Another interesting game is to use your "oocyte age" — about 32 weeks before your mother was born is roughly when the oocyte developed that led to your egg. In my case this too is before World War II started.
A nice tribute at https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/dec/13/dick-van-dyke-c...
> The beloved actor credits his remarkable longevity to his positive outlook and never getting angry.
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.
Here's the mentioned segment from "Diagnosis: Murder": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WeZKOPcaeA
Wow I had no idea, what a cool guy! Loved Mary Poppins as a kid, his British accent though… xD
Bonus: here are two videos where he spoke at SIGGRAPH 2004
Part 1 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1J9kfDCAmU>
Part 2 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0IGjoo5gRg>
\m/ happy birthday Mr Van Dyke!
source: <https://www.reddit.com/r/amiga/comments/obe3v6/95_year_old_d...>
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.
And then Commodore made the A3000 not high enough to take the Video Toaster. How to shoot yourself in the foot...
I've heard of him but have never seen any of his content, what should I watch?
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.
Such a legend! I bet he still has his Amiga somewhere in his Hollywood hills mansion.
For Mary Poppins, Disney used the sodium vapour process to get monochromatic light into a narrow channel for matte from a light splitting prism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_vapor_process
It's charming. I'm sure digital post offers many advantages. Van Dyke might be one of a few who has done both.
a Corridor Crew YouTube video describing/recreating that sodium vapour process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQuIVsNzqDk
Kind of a tangent comment
Tangents are a sine of the times.
cos of this economy?
He was an animator and it's the interesting kind of factoids we read these comment sections for. We'll allow it.
You missed the pun
He sold his Amiga not too many years ago. It may have been on eBay.
Such a likeable person.
the dick van dyke show is an absolute masterpiece
Amazing that he was 80 in that clip
Respectable people
Props to ggm for finding a tech angle.
“How an elephant got in my pajamas I’ll never know.”
I am getting a paywall so I will skip this article.