My favorite show growing up, hands down, was “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” While my friends were drawn to comic book Superheroes, or their more human equivalents in Westerns, I wanted to be Rob Petrie: charming, funny, with a beautiful and loving wife in the suburbs (this was the early ’60s) and a creative and enjoyable job in the city. It was Carl Reiner’s sitcom masterpiece that planted in my childish mind the odd and seemingly delightful idea of becoming a writer.
