Just before Christmas, lovers of classic TV will be treated to a special called Dick Van Dyke 98 Years Of Magic looking back at the screen legend’s storied career.
The program will hit the airwaves on December 21, just a week and a day after Dick is due to celebrate his 98th birthday, according to Deadline.
Fans can tune into the special on CBS, the same network that hosted his beloved sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show in the 1960s.
In fact, the old set of The Dick Van Dyke Show will be revived for the 98th birthday special, a variety extravaganza with song, dance and special guests.
‘I started with CBS under contract in 1955 with the CBS morning show, then The Dick Van Dyke Show and Diagnosis Murder,’ Dick reflected in a statement. ‘I’ve been with the CBS family for almost 70 years, and I couldn’t be prouder.’
He added: ‘I’m incredibly honored that CBS will be throwing a 98th birthday special for me. Can’t wait to be part of the show!’
Old footage will also be played in the special, spanning some of the highlights of his wide-ranging career on stage, film and television.
Dick began his performing career during World War II, dropping out of high school to join the US Army Air Corps and eventually landing military work as a radio announcer and an entertainer for the troops.
In the 1950s, he jobbed around as a nightclub performer and drifted into television – eventually starting his career at CBS in 1955, when he was enlisted to replace no less than Jack Paar as host of The Morning Show.
It was on Broadway, however, that he first became a major name as the leading man of the smash hit 1960 stage musical Bye Bye Birdie.
With music by Charles Strouse of later Annie fame, Bye Bye Birdie satirized the frenzy of Elvis Presley fans and earned Dick a Tony Award.
His performance onstage also attracted the attention of Carl Reiner, who brought him to Hollywood, where The Dick Van Dyke Show began.
An instant classic, The Dick Van Dyke Show ran from 1961 to 1966 and made a national star out of its namesake – as well as his leading lady Mary Tyler Moore.
Dick’s Hollywood career soared in the 1960s, landing him in movie musicals like Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and a film of Bye Bye Birdie.
In the 1970s he pursued more dramatic roles, playing alcoholics in The Comic and The Morning After and then confessing he had gone on the wagon in real life.
He became a regular on The Carol Burnett Show and hopped around in guest roles on the top TV shows of the 1970s and 1980s, from Columbo to The Golden Girls.
Dick and his son Barry Van Dyke then starred together in Diagnosis: Murder, a runaway successful crime comedy that ran eight seasons from 1993 to 2001.
A classic showbiz trouper, he continued working through his 70s and 80s, including in the 2018 film Mary Poppins Returns starring Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
In recent years he has been showered with baubles for lifetime achievement, including a Kennedy Center Honor and a designation as a Disney Legend.
Yet despite plenty of laurels to rest on, he has stayed in the game, appearing this year on The Masked Singer and Days Of Our Lives.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever retire,’ he told Al Roker on the Today show around the time of his Kennedy Center Honor, adding drily: ‘unless they make me.’
