Obituary: Jerry Van Dyke

Actor and comic Jerry Van Dyke, 86, who spent many years trying to emerge from his older brother Dick's shadow to have success on his own, has died.

Van Dyke worked for years in the nightclub circuit, and he also worked on many television shows, including brother Dick's hit sitcom, but he gained infamy for having starred in what was considered one of the worst shows ever made, My Mother The Car. The sitcom last just one season.

As I wrote a few years ago after purchasing the series on DVD, it was not as terrible as the reviews had it. Most of the criticism was based on the absurd premise of a deceased mother being reincarnated--pun intended--as a car rather than on the quality of the show. It was average, in my opinion, no better and certainly no worse than other "gimmick" shows of the era.

The "gimmick" sitcoms flourished in the mid-1960s I believe as a diversion in part to the upheaval going on in the country during the time, especially after the assassination of President John Kennedy and the escalation of the Vietnam War.

Jerry Van Dyke died yesterday at his ranch in Arkansas. According to his widow, he never really recovered from a 2015 car accident.

Jerry McCord Van Dyke was born on July 27, 1931, in Danville, Ill., to Loren, a traveling salesman, and the former Hazel McCord, a homemaker. He was a little more than five years younger than Dick, and like his brother started a comedy act as a teenager, honing his skills at nightclubs and strip clubs.

“I couldn’t do anything else,” he joked to USA Today in 1990. “I decided to be a comedian at 8 years old and didn’t tend to my studies in school. Had I known how to do anything else, I would have quit. Many times.”

He performed at bases around the world during a stint in the Air Force in the mid-1950s. He appeared as a guest on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” had walk-on roles on “Perry Mason” and “The Andy Griffith Show” and appeared in the John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara Western “McLintock!” (1963), one of a handful of movies that he acted in.

Van Dyke later had considerable success in his role in the show Coach after a series of shortlived sitcoms failed to catch on. He continued with his stage act, however. He had nothing if not patience.