How a ‘Dick Van Dyke Show’ Superfan Became Friends With Dick Van Dyke & Carl Reiner

“With the initials ‘DVD,’ it probably won’t surprise you to learn that I am a huge fan of The Dick Van Dyke Show,” author and TV historian David Van Deusen once told us. And that was an understatement.

While Van Deusen was born in 1960 (“one day after Carl Reiner‘s Head of the Family original pilot aired”), his general interest in Dick Van Dyke and The Dick Van Dyke Show didn’t form until the early 1990s, when the beloved celeb was christened the chairman of Nick at Nite, and his show ran in endless repeats. That’s all Van Deusen needed — he was hooked.