The Best Episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show

Neighbor Millie Helper tries to help Rob by sending fawning fan letters to Alan Brady for a comedy documentary written by Rob. The problem is the show doesn’t air and the letters could cost Rob his job.

Rob is a jury member on his own in his belief that a defendant, an exotic dancer, is innocent – but his principled belief may alienate his wife, Laura.

Fearing that the romance in their marriage is fading, brunette Laura dyes her hair blonde.

Tapping into the spy genre that dominated television in the mid-1960s, Rob fancies himself part of an undercover team when agents (one named Harry Bond) use his house to stake out a neighbor.

Van Dyke played two roles – Rob and his great-uncle Hezekiah – in this episode about Rob inheriting an old roll-top desk from his now-deceased Hezekiah that might contain a fortune.

By happenstance, Rob meets a handsome bachelor on the golf course who wrote love letters to Laura before she became Rob’s wife. To Rob’s chagrin, she kept them.

While working late at the office, an exhausted Rob claims to have seen a flying saucer emitting the message “Uhny Uftz.” The message turns out to be something completely unexpected.

Laura commissions an artist to do a painting of her. However, the artist exercises artistic license and paints her without clothes. To her horror, the painting is on display in a public gallery.

Rob ties himself up in figurative knots over the possibility that Laura is going to have a surprise birthday party for him.

Van Dyke’s prowess at physical comedy is on display in this episode in which Rob comes under a post-hypnotic suggestion performed by a hypnotist at a dinner party hosted by the Petries.

Accident-prone Rob vows to Laura he won’t get injured on a ski trip with neighbor Jerry. When he does, he goes to great lengths to avoid an I-told-you-so from his wife.

Rob disguises his voice in a phone call to Laura, reciting poetry to her in an Italian accent as a “Dr. Bellini.” But he begins to wonder if Laura is on to his charade or is actually flirting with the Bellini character.

Mary Tyler Moore takes the comedy helm in this episode. Laura gets a cold and can’t go on a Petrie-Helper fishing excursion. While at home, every bump and creak in her house sets her nerves on edge. The return of neighbor Millie Helper to the house doesn’t ease matters.

During an interview with a magazine writer, Rob recalls his first meeting with Alan Brady following the conclusion of a stay-awake marathon during his days as a disc jockey.

Rob recalls when Laura took a tranquilizer that was prescribed for neighbor Millie Helper before meeting Rob’s parents for the first time, and the hilariously disastrous results that ensued.

After his son, Ritchie, asks THE question posed by kids, Rob remembers the zany and often chaotic events that preceded Ritchie’s birth.

The comedy is focused on Moore in this famous episode. While on their second honeymoon, Laura gets her toe stuck in a hotel bathtub faucet while Rob tries to get through a locked door to free her.

After Buddy tricks Rob with a prank phone call, he expects Rob to retaliate. When he doesn’t, Buddy becomes anxious and suspicious. His reckoning comes from an unexpected source.

The writers are gripped in horror after they realize the script they’ve sent to star Alan Brady still contains the insults about him they had written on the script.

Rob and Laura unintentionally eavesdrop on their neighbors the Helpers via a walkie-talkie-type device set up by their kids and don’t like what they hear – just moments before going to their neighbors’ dinner party. The episode is famous for its Charades scene.

Laura goes on a television talk show and accidentally reveals that the star her husband works for, Alan Brady, is bald.

Laura, Rob, Buddy, and Sally go to a lodge for a working getaway – but producer Mel Cooley had failed to make reservations, and they end up in a cabin that is allegedly haunted.

A tiff between Rob and Laura over opening each other’s mail sparks a sketch idea for the show. Laura is not amused.

Rob is convinced that he and Laura brought home the wrong newborn from the hospital. He gets the surprise of his life when the family he believed had their child comes to the Petrie house to clear things up.

The show’s storied sendup of “The Twilight Zone” featured a guest turn by show producer Danny Thomas. Rob teases a frightened Laura as they watch a late-night science fiction movie in which aliens are taking over the planet in human form. The next day, it appears to Rob that the film’s plot is coming true.