Computer animator and Amiga fanatic Dick van Dyke turns 100

Posted by ggm 2 days ago

Here's a video from 2004 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1J9kfDCAmU

It's his 100th birthday today.

Comments

Comment by tzs 2 days ago

Here’s a great quote by him:

> In my 30’s, I exercised to look good. In my 50’s, to stay fit. In my 70’s, to stay ambulatory. In my 80’s, to avoid assisted living. Now in my 90’s, I’m just doing it out of pure defiance

Comment by heresie-dabord 1 day ago

The filming of the Jolly Holidays sequence is worth watching on its own as an example of his physical comedy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgBvbdZU7yo

Comment by SoftTalker 2 days ago

He was also an alcoholic for many years. Must be made of pretty good stuff to survive this long.

Comment by moron4hire 2 days ago

Of all of my grandparents and great grandparents, they all lived really hard lives eating high fat diets, drinking and smoking, and lived into their 80s. Genetics is really the biggest determining factor outside of going completely off the rails with binge eating and drug use.

Now, that's not to say that healthy living is pointless. Their quality of life from late 60s on was not great: alcoholism, poverty, multiple heart attacks, emphasima, a stroke here and there, from which they eventually, sort of, not really recovered. They were deeply unhappy people who never really seemed to have time or care for their families. I definitely don't want to live like that. So treat yourself right, but not because you're trying to reach a certain age.

Comment by mrandish 1 day ago

> Genetics is really the biggest determining factor outside of going completely off the rails with binge eating and drug use.

So true. I'm fortunate that both my parents have long-life family histories. Both families were old-fashioned Southern Baptists who didn't drink, smoke, dance or, apparently, believe in having fun of any kind :-). But that just kept them from messing up their good genetic luck. I'm an old-fashioned atheist but have chosen to never drink, smoke or do drugs just because I never saw a compelling reason to. Now I'm pushing 60 and have so far had zero serious health issues. Hoping to keep a good thing going.

Comment by Imustaskforhelp 1 day ago

> I'm an old-fashioned atheist but have chosen to never drink, smoke or do drugs just because I never saw a compelling reason to

I am 17 and I am the same here (atheist) and similar and yeah I see no reason to do these things either and I actively see the negative harmful effects it can have so I am not gonna do these things at all ever in my life too.

Have a nice day :)

Comment by moron4hire 1 day ago

There's not no reason to eat fatty foods (they're delicious) or do drugs (they're a lot of fun). Life is for living, too. But everything in moderation.

Comment by Imustaskforhelp 1 day ago

I understand the statement behind your comment and here are the reasons I would like to present

> they're delicious.

I was already raised in a vegan household because of my parents religion, I am not completely an atheist but maybe agnostic and I can recommend books like sapiens to know more about the history of religion too but that's another tangent.

To me eating fatty foods isnt that big of a deal because the vegan food is surprisingly delicious too and is very diverse.

I also recommend watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gqwpfEcBjI&t=25s (earthling's documentary) simply because I just feel like delicious doesnt deserve the animals being killed in pain, It just doesn't make sense when you realize that vegan food is really delicious too.

> drugs (they're a lot of fun)

Nope, There is no everything in moderation regarding this because I just feel like these can trigger parts of my brain designed for stimulus and get addicted. No drug addicts wants to become an addict, they think they will do in moderation and also I doubt its fun, I have heard it / read it as just chasing the high and the high creates the lows too, they're fun in short term but they fuck you up after they get over and then you cahse them again and again like a rat/rabbit...

> Life is for living, too

Listen sir, I understand that you feel like I am not living or living a monotonous life but the drugs and fatty foods are vices in my opinion and honestly I live a fun life without these things too!

If you wish to ask me, I feel like the 24x7 hustle culture or the work culture and similars might be the thing which actively kills the living part, not the fact that they are vegan or that they do not drugs, I just do not understand this take.

Personally I wish to be a good father. I just feel like drugs no matter how you might say moderation, just wouldn't work with that end goal. Whats even the point of doing drugs? Literally none long term. and I just feel like its really harmful which it is.

Personally if you ask me, I am having fun and maybe the only reasons I or many others do not have fun is because of this constant social media (which I sort of left) and also the fact that we have to study for school to get college -> to then get job -> to then get promotions -> (???)

Its just that I am preparing for college and stressing a lot because of an exam but this is me being completely honest, that when I wasnt stressing about these exams, life was genuinely good and still is even when I stress a little haha...

I understand where you are coming from but I doubt that these can be healthy long term from what I understand in my opinion mentally. I feel like a lot of it is how our parents raise us and how we interpret it too and there can be differing view points but I do believe that drugs cause a lot of harm. I can understand about the vegan part because of culture/tradition but please do not do drugs as I feel like it can be easy to slip up from what you say moderation and I just feel like there are actively reasons to not do it.

TLDR: Do not do drugs. (I feel like this is non negotiable for me and I hope you understand that I am not changing this fact because of "fun" when its not fun at all imo, its shit from what I've heard and every addict starts out in moderation until addiction and then they beg that they shouldnt have started in the first place so I am gonna do that.)

I love who I am and the things I stand for and how I came upon them logically to try to build a better life for myself and others around me too and so I hope that you do not try to debate about drugs to a 17 year old whose saying that he wont do drugs ever in his life :)

And yeah, have a nice day man!

Comment by robotresearcher 1 day ago

Beware survivor bias.

In a population of equally vulnerable genetics and stochastic outcomes, there will be families that all live long.

We are wired to attribute that to something.

Comment by pengaru 1 day ago

> they all lived really hard lives eating high fat diets

ICYMI the low fat diet craze was built on lies and corruption, fat isn't bad for you. Sugar is.

Comment by moron4hire 1 day ago

I don't think it's that simple.

Comment by austinjp 2 days ago

Seemingly a universally liked man. So much so, that dolphins rescued him when he fell asleep on his surfboard aged 84.

https://archive.is/pZTz3

Comment by thefaux 2 days ago

The intelligence and benevolence of many marine mammals is vastly under appreciated.

Comment by spankibalt 2 days ago

Reportedly, dolphins are notorious rapists. So maybe there's more to this story...

Comment by yetihehe 2 days ago

Maybe intelligent species have a lot of variance? There are good and bad dolphins, like there are good and bad people.

Comment by avazhi 1 day ago

[flagged]

Comment by mrexroad 1 day ago

> It clearly wasn’t ’that bad’ for most human history given how prevalent it was. But in the modern world we are trauma merchants.

What in the actual fuck kind of logic brought you here to that conclusion? I worry for you and whatever content you’ve consumed over the years that allowed you to build up this theory.

Comment by avazhi 1 day ago

Well I did a Psych minor for lols back in the day and there's no doubt that almost all of current social psychology is made up of trauma merchants peddling their wares. 'Step 1: gaslight you into thinking you're fucked up Step 2: Convince you I'm the one who can help you' kind of shit. Psychologists obviously get upset by the suggestion.

But in terms of rape, as I said in my original comment it's just a suspicion. Happy to hear your counterarguments if you have any.

Comment by pfannkuchen 1 day ago

Was rape that common? Like in hunter gatherer times (most of human history) most mating would have been within the band. I don’t think intra-band mating would have been rapey, mostly. Incestuous by modern standards, for sure, but I don’t see why it would have been rapey. Inter-tribe conquest mating definitely happened, but was it really that common compared to the normal mode? It takes way more effort, at least.

My similarly controversial take is that modern rape is traumatic because rapists are no longer hung in public. I think public hangings might have had an under appreciated healing effect on the psyche. Like if a guy who attacked you is still out there, he might attack you again. But if you saw him hang, you just might feel better.

Comment by avazhi 1 day ago

https://freedomandcitizenship.columbia.edu/gender-equality-h...

It's been extremely prevalent. In terms of prehistory, we have lots of evidence that young women were almost always spared if one group massacred another, and we have genetic evidence that invariably the winning male bloodline would become predominant in any conquered group.

If you look at the Columbia link and do other research it's pretty obvious that 'punishing' rapists has never really been about punishing them or giving women some kind of absolution. In the code of Hammurabi and with the Jews women who didn't scream so that others could hear were prosecuted for adultery or stoned lol. The idea of giving women the satisfaction of watching anything for their own benefit is a very modern notion and even now doesn't really exist anyway. That's just your personal fantasy. You can go back to the Assyrians to see that if, for example, you raped my virgin daughter then I could legally rape your wife. It's mostly been a property or bloodline issue. It's never been about the females and that's another reason I think it's massively overblown in modern times. It's been normal human behaviour for millions of years. To put it another way, if you were a young 19 year old female in a village that was being ransacked, say, 4000 years ago, you'd know what was going to happen to you if your males lost. I don't think it would have been that traumatising - the males in your village would have done it to the females in their village were the roles reversed. The 'trauma' is largely a modern phenomenon where everything has to be upsetting/triggering/trauma-inducing. Everybody has to be a victim these days.

Comment by wanderingjew 1 day ago

gettin some real shit hacker news commentors say energy with this one

Comment by PolygonSheep 1 day ago

They're certainly not backwards about coming forward with their tummy bananas...

Comment by agumonkey 2 days ago

When nature is on your side you now you have it good

Comment by dhosek 1 day ago

There are few (maybe no) moments of Dick Van Dyke that aren’t a joy to watch. I grew up on reruns of the Dick Van Dyke Show and discovered Andy Kaufman thanks to Van Dyke’s short-lived variety show, Van Dyke and Company. Watching his dance moves (it’s a little amazing to realize how many dance numbers the Dick Van Dyke Show featured) is like watching an animated character dance, he was able to move his body in ways that suggest he has no bones. As a kid, I wanted to be Dick Van Dyke when I grew up and as an adult, I want to be Dick Van Dyke when I’m old.

Comment by heresie-dabord 1 day ago

> a joy to watch

The man is a brilliant comedian. He knew some of the greats; he is one of them.

The Comic (1969):

https://youtu.be/c8NGqKaPCog

Comment by Forgeties79 1 day ago

He’s also digital animator. The dude is unbelievable. What a creative mind

Comment by dobladov 1 day ago

The whole "The Dick Van Dyke Show" is available for free on YouTube, I highly recommend it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-HsXBPWH3Y&list=PLtbMv4lXX2...

Comment by dhosek 1 day ago

Good starting points would be the Christmas Special (Alan Brady Presents), “It May Look Like a Walnut” and “That’s My Boy” (just off the top of my head). There are two episodes where we got to see Van Dyke’s Stan Laurel impersonation which was absolutely amazing. Given how much he drank and smoked back in the 60s and 70s it’s a miracle he’s still on earth, but he is definitely a treasure.

Comment by NetMageSCW 1 day ago

Is it commercial free? Also available in Prime Video and Peacock Premium if you have those.

Comment by stavros 2 days ago

I had no idea he's an animator, that's so cool! In that video he says "Lightwave is so deep, I won't live long enough to see everything that's in it". I'm glad he's proven wrong there!

Comment by kristopolous 2 days ago

I know his son Barry. He said his first memory he has was his Dad doing real time drawings for people telling stories. He was behind the story teller on stage on giant pads of paper as a comedy bit at night clubs.

He also remembers having giant bags of toys dumped on the floor of the hotel rooms.

Comment by ChrisMarshallNY 2 days ago

Many A-listers are polymaths. For example, Phil Hartman, used to be Phil Hartmann (extra "n"), and designed some of the most iconic album covers of the 1970s, and Steve Martin is one of the best banjo players out there. It used to be part of his standup bit.

Dick Van Dyke came from the tail end of Vaudeville, where performers had to have a whole variety of skills.

Remember: Every one of these folks that hits the limelight, beat out thousands of others.

We think our vocation is competitive? Showbiz says "Hold my beer."

Comment by ndstephens 2 days ago

Just looked it up and saw he did an album cover for Steely Dan. It reminded me that Chevy Chase was an early drummer for Steely Dan (well, before they became "Steely Dan")

Comment by pstuart 1 day ago

The album: Aja -- a masterpiece.

Comment by _whiteCaps_ 1 day ago

Not according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aja_(album)#Title_and_packagin...

but he did do a bunch for America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Hartman#Discography

Comment by pstuart 1 day ago

Thanks for the correction -- I was hasty with my search and trusted the link that proclaimed that he did it.

Comment by ChrisMarshallNY 1 day ago

Might not be wrong. The Wikipedia article states that it is incomplete.

Comment by martinesq 2 days ago

> Steve Martin is one of the best banjo players out there

And he’s great with a lasso!

I love his albums with Edie Brickell, he’s good with Steep Canyon Rangers, and more recently have heard him shine with Alison Brown (banjo), Sierra Hull (mandolin), and others in his latest tour.

If you’re looking for the top banjo players technically, you might check out Béla Fleck, Jens Kruger, Noam Pikelny, Tony Trischka, Bill Keith, Don Reno, and Earl Scruggs. I’ve personally heard superhuman performances by Jens Kruger in-person and I grew up on Scruggs.

Comment by kstrauser 2 days ago

I have a fond memory of my dad taking me to see Roy Clark when I was a little guy.

Comment by trehalose 2 days ago

Hedy Lamarr was a prolific inventor. Among other things, she developed a frequency-hopping spread spectrum radio transmission technique for torpedo guidance and donated the patent to the US Navy during WW2.

Comment by gramie 21 hours ago

I believe that the frequency hopping technique is still used everywhere today, for things like wi-fi and Bluetooth.

Comment by ChrisMarshallNY 2 days ago

That's "Headley!" (Blazing Saddles reference).

And of course, there's Sir Doctor Brian May.

Many of the early electronic musicians were basically engineers (you had to be, to use some of those old synthesizers).

Comment by dboreham 2 days ago

For completeness: Billy Connolly was also a banjo player.

Comment by ChrisMarshallNY 1 hour ago

I believe that the banjo is common in Celtic bands. There's a pretty strong relationship between the music of Appalachia, and Gaelic music.

Comment by Keyframe 2 days ago

He even outlived Ligtwave!

Comment by gbraad 2 days ago

THE Dick van Dyke, from Mary Poppins, Diagnosis: Murder, ans so many more?! I always thought it was just a coincidental same name as I never saw videos about this. Oh my! This guy is amazing

Comment by ChrisMarshallNY 2 days ago

Very much so. Really decent chap, too.

Terrible cockney accent, though...

Comment by wingmanjd 2 days ago

No one mentioned it to him during production, so he didn't know.

Comment by linsomniac 2 days ago

A few months ago I found The Dick Van Dyke Show free to watch on Youtube. I had seen a number of the episodes in passing over the years, but never really watched it. It's really quite a good show. Highly recommended, even if YouTube's viewing experience for TV series is sub-par.

Comment by mrandish 1 day ago

Some of those older comedy shows had really good writing. The Bob Newhart shows were also excellent.

Comment by tronicjester 1 day ago

Bob Newhart was Mr. Rogers for adults. Good show!

Comment by ks2048 1 day ago

I just saw a tweet saying his birth was closer to the death of Thomas Jefferson (1826) than it is to today. Wow.

Comment by jihadjihad 1 day ago

It’s a fun fact that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the same day, July 4 1826, 50 years to the day after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

Comment by lickmygiggle 1 day ago

Ironically enough, Adams’ last words were reportedly, “Jefferson lives”

Comment by ericvsmith 1 day ago

For those who don't know the story: it's ironic because Jefferson died first.

Comment by sethammons 1 day ago

The grandson of the 10th US president died this year. The US is barely three generations old. That guy could say his grandfather shook hands with Thomas Jefferson.

Comment by lifeisstillgood 1 day ago

I think it was Bertram Russell who said he was raised by his grandfather, who knew Napoleon.

The modern world is a lot more crammed together than we think it is

Comment by exasperaited 1 day ago

If you have never played the backwards-lifetime game, you should.

Take your current age and work backwards that same number of days, months and years before your birth. Every year something else remarkable is added.

At my current backwards age, World War II is the best part of two decades away; the UK is still recovering from World War I. Rocket 88, the first rock and roll song, won't be written for nearly another three decades. Women still can't vote in the UK, the Wall Street Crash is several years away.

When my father (who knew one of the most important men in medical history in his younger days and who was working in medicine not long after the NHS was founded) died, his backwards age reached back before the germ theory of modern medicine.

Another interesting game is to use your "oocyte age" — about 32 weeks before your mother was born is roughly when the oocyte developed that led to your egg. In my case this too is before World War II started.

Comment by bonoboTP 1 day ago

Yeah, he's very old for a person and the US is very young for a country.

Comment by tclancy 2 days ago

A nice tribute at https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/dec/13/dick-van-dyke-c...

Comment by gsf_emergency_6 2 days ago

https://www.sciencealert.com/dick-van-dyke-credits-his-longe...

Comment by bestouff 2 days ago

> The beloved actor credits his remarkable longevity to his positive outlook and never getting angry.

Comment by Tade0 2 days ago

Makes sense. My grandpa is one year his junior and you would never see him react too strongly to anything, even though grandma (also still alive) always had an, ahem, fiery personality.

Also he refuses to sit and moves around all the time, venturing outside every day from their apartment four floors above ground without a lift.

Interestingly his own father didn't make it to his 60s, so there's certainly a lifestyle component to this.

Comment by Coeur 2 days ago

Here's the mentioned segment from "Diagnosis: Murder": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WeZKOPcaeA

Comment by wuhhh 2 days ago

Wow I had no idea, what a cool guy! Loved Mary Poppins as a kid, his British accent though… xD

Comment by Bengalilol 1 day ago

Bonus: here are two videos where he spoke at SIGGRAPH 2004

Part 1 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1J9kfDCAmU>

Part 2 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0IGjoo5gRg>

\m/ happy birthday Mr Van Dyke!

source: <https://www.reddit.com/r/amiga/comments/obe3v6/95_year_old_d...>

Comment by k310 1 day ago

My clearest recollection (don't know the episode) is when he attends an event, probably in place of Alan Brady, that turns out to be a big fund-raiser. The Hostess addresses him as Mister Petrov. When asked for a donation, he is stupefied, and can only say "I have this blank check" ... no spoiler ...

The comedy show within a comedy show is a cool dramatic and operatic trick.

Magnificent delivery.

Comment by neilv 1 day ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSeaHfkd3M8

Comment by fortran77 2 days ago

Family Guy: https://youtu.be/k_AMQOTPqL8?si=j0fjQfmS-GcEP8Hj

And https://youtu.be/OsSJnV7Ik9o?si=7aXnOKN8Jc28h-Mo

Comment by 2 days ago

Comment by Instantix 2 days ago

And then Commodore made the A3000 not high enough to take the Video Toaster. How to shoot yourself in the foot...

Comment by 2 days ago

Comment by satvikpendem 1 day ago

I've heard of him but have never seen any of his content, what should I watch?

Comment by riffraff 1 day ago

it's quite possible you may unknowingly have seen him in Mary Poppins, where he plays _two_ roles, and I was mind blown when I noticed the second after 30 years or so.

Comment by 1 day ago

Comment by exasperaited 1 day ago

He sang probably the greatest song in musical film — Hushabye Mountain in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfdRr7MWax4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeCBVerpYj8

If you have never seen this film, I don't care how old you are, you should watch it. It is overshadowed by Mary Poppins but it is a work of art — a funny, charming, astonishing visual feast of a film and he is magnificent in it. His performance as the jack-in-a-box alone is worth an Oscar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_l2ii_25tc

Comment by justin66 1 day ago

> If you have never seen this film, I don't care how old you are, you should watch it.

I’m not sure about the all ages part. We watched it in first or second grade and I can still remember wondering how a movie with a flying car could be so boring.

Comment by sgt 2 days ago

Such a legend! I bet he still has his Amiga somewhere in his Hollywood hills mansion.

Comment by ggm 2 days ago

For Mary Poppins, Disney used the sodium vapour process to get monochromatic light into a narrow channel for matte from a light splitting prism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_vapor_process

It's charming. I'm sure digital post offers many advantages. Van Dyke might be one of a few who has done both.

Comment by simon_void 2 days ago

a Corridor Crew YouTube video describing/recreating that sodium vapour process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQuIVsNzqDk

Comment by reactordev 2 days ago

Kind of a tangent comment

Comment by metadope 2 days ago

Tangents are a sine of the times.

Comment by reactordev 1 day ago

cos of this economy?

Comment by yvdriess 1 day ago

He was an animator and it's the interesting kind of factoids we read these comment sections for. We'll allow it.