Not Going Quietly Into the Night

It’s not every day you get called out by a beloved television icon, but there it was: a letter from Dick Van Dyke, the rubber-faced comic actor who will live forever in reruns of his eponymous TV show and movies such as “Mary Poppins” and “Bye Bye Birdie.”

“I have come to the conclusion that The Times has it in for us old folks,” the 1999 missive began, quoting a story by reporter Paul Brownfield that referred to his CBS mystery series, “Diagnosis Murder,” as a “so-called ‘geezer drama,’ ” then turning to my quip that the show add a play-along element offering Viagra as a prize.

“Let me say first that I am 74 years old, and I think I can whip his ass,” Van Dyke wrote in regard to yours truly. “Growing old is not a leper colony where an unfortunate few are sent to die. It is a precious gift given only to some lucky human beings. Sad to say, it’s not an award of merit. Even Brownfield and Lowry might live to experience it if someone doesn’t do them in first.”

Van Dyke sounded angry, and after contemplating defense strategies--push him over an ottoman?--I realized he had good reason. His program has become a punch line illustrating TV’s obsession with youthful demographics. It is, after all, the oldest-skewing prime-time network series, with a median viewing age around 60, meaning half the audience falls above that level and half below.

When the letter arrived, I extended Van Dyke an invitation to vent further, but he respectfully declined. So I wasn’t sure precisely what I would encounter on the “Diagnosis Murder” set last week, where the series was shooting what presumably would be its final installment--one of four hours likely to run as a pair of two-hour movies, being shot now for next season.

Now 75, Van Dyke looks hale and hearty and seems, more than anything, bemused by his status as flag-bearer for Hollywood’s senior citizens--virtually the last of his generation carrying a weekly entertainment program with Angela Lansbury and Andy Griffith no longer sleuthing on a regular basis.

“All my peers who are my age say, ‘You can’t retire. You’re our only representative,’ ” he said.

Van Dyke announced in April that he would quit after this season, though he has intimated as much before. According to CBS, “Diagnosis Murder” is a “bubble show,” still under consideration for another year depending on how the network’s series development turns out. The official announcement will be made next week.

“I’m afraid they’re going to throw money at me or something,” Van Dyke said, laughing.

He remains good-natured, joking around on the set and doing a little soft-shoe between scenes. And while ageism bothers him, he understands what motivates network officials.

Media buyers want to reach adults in the 18-to-49 age bracket, who, the reasoning goes, form buying preferences that will last longer and purchase more stuff because they have more kids at home. So networks try to feed that appetite.

As a result, CBS has approached “Diagnosis Murder” (actually spun off from an episode of “Jake and the Fatman” that introduced Van Dyke as crime-solving doctor Mark Sloan) as an afterthought, a utility player that performed just well enough ratings-wise to escape the cancellation scythe year after year. Yet once “Survivor” burst onto the scene, bringing in a younger tribe, CBS began talking about shedding its stodgy image and taking a few more sips from the lucrative fountain of youth.

“We’ve been on the air eight years as a series, and every year they’ve dribbled out,” Van Dyke noted. “They order eight [episodes], and then three more, so nobody’s been able to plan their future at all. . . .

“We get by on a budget that nobody else could do it on, which is why we’re still on the air, I think. The sales department hates us, because our demographics skew so high they can’t sell anything. It’s really been a funny situation all these years.

“We’re always the last show to hear [about being renewed]. It’s become a joke. We laugh all the way to the bank, which is what the crew says. We run a very loose ship. There’s no stress. We just enjoy it.”

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Van Dyke says when the renewal issue arose last year, CBS said there would be no raises for anyone and some episodes would have to be shot in six days instead of seven. “They cut our budget, let go of some staff people, and said take it or leave it,” Van Dyke said. “So I decided, ‘Well, am I going to put 150 people out of work?’ ”

Instead, the star persevered on what has been the longest job he has ever held--eclipsing the five years spent on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” He marvels at the emphasis on youth, which inspired members of the Writers Guild of America to file a class-action lawsuit against entertainment companies, claiming ageism is actively practiced toward writers older than 40.

“To be over 40 years old is like having a disease. . . . It’s become really bizarre,” Van Dyke mused. “To say they’re not abreast of the times and they can’t write, I just don’t believe that.”

To Van Dyke, “Diagnosis Murder” is an anachronism, both in style and substance. The title notwithstanding, he considers the series a bastion of family entertainment, and--with his name on one of the greatest sitcoms ever--laments where that genre has gone as well.

“I’m almost off episodic television altogether,” he said. “I don’t watch much. A lot of them are so [predicated on] one-line jokes. There aren’t situation comedies anymore, in which a person performs a character. It’s just jokes, and they get away with as much as they can in terms of smarmy humor.”

Yet it is said with a smile. Maybe, Van Dyke suggested, this is simply the way of things, conceding that the ancient Egyptians bemoaned their younger generation, too.

Van Dyke also cited some irony in having gradually turned into one of his characters. “Since I was young, in sketches I’ve always [played] old men, and I used to get nasty letters from the Gray Panthers saying I was making fun of old people,” he said. “I would always write back and say, ‘I’m not making fun of old people. I’m doing the kind of old man I want to be: a feisty, peppy old guy, who’s full of vinegar.’ ”

For all the apparent pep and vinegar, it’s a relief to hear he’s not interested at this point in whipping any part of anyone. “I’m over the hill,” he quipped.

That would hardly appear the case. Even if he isn’t patrolling prime time next season, Van Dyke will stay busy, including a singing quartet he plans to take to retirement homes and children’s hospitals.

While he would miss the “Diagnosis” cast and crew (the former includes his son, Barry), Van Dyke has no qualms about hanging up his fake medical bag.

“I’ve got a lot of hobbies,” he said. “I moved to Arizona in ’68 and I sat out there on a ranch for three years and didn’t do anything, and I never got bored. I’m not a workaholic. I can really vegetate well. . . . I’m phlegmatic. I don’t have to do anything.”

OK, vegetate away. But for the sake of those in your peer group and those who eventually will be, at least keep those cards and letters coming.

* The season finale of “Diagnosis Murder” will air Friday night at 8. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).

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Brian Lowry’s column appears on Wednesdays. He can be reached by e-mail at brian.lowry@latimes.com.