CBS will honor the memory of Carl Reiner by airing two episodes of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” Friday night.
The special airing, at 8 p.m., includes “Coast to Coast Big Mouth,” which ranked No. 8 on TV Guide’s list of the “100 Greatest TV Episodes of All-Time,” and “October Eve,” which Reiner reportedly considered to be one of the series’ funniest episodes.
Reiner, who created and co-starred in the classic series, died earlier this week in Beverly Hills. He was 98.
Both episodes airing Friday night, CBS says, were colorized under Reiner’s supervision.
In “Coast to Coast Big Mouth,” Laura Petrie (Mary Tyler Moore) blurts out a top secret on a national television quiz show, revealing that comedian Alan Brady (Reiner) wears a toupee. The episode, which was the show’s fifth and final season premiere, was originally broadcast on Sept. 15, 1965. “Coast to Coast Big Mouth” won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series in 1966.
In “October Eve,” a painting of Laura returns to haunt her when, despite her having posed fully clothed, the artist (played by Reiner) takes the liberty of “undraping” her. The episode first aired on April 8, 1964, in Season 3.
In December 2017, Reiner said: “In ‘October Eve,’ I got a chance to perform on the show as someone other than Alan Brady, and I loved the character of Carpetna the artist as soon as I read it.”
“The Dick Van Dyke Show” originally aired on CBS from Oct. 3, 1961, through June 1, 1966, finishing in the Nielsen Top 10 in three of its five seasons. The show received 15 total primetime Emmy Awards, including three Emmys for Dick Van Dyke, five for Reiner and two for Moore.
