Monday, June 22, 2026

Allusions to Two Female Romantic Leads for the Price of One in The Dick Van Dyke Show

“The Lady and the Baby Sitter.” By Bill Persky and Sam Denoff. Perf. Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. Dir. Jerry Paris. The Dick Van Dyke Show. Season 4, episode 3. CBS. 7 October 1964. DVD. Allied Vaughn, 2023.
Early in Season Four, The Dick Van Dyke Show puts the names of two of Shakespeare's most well-known heroines into the love letter of a high school student.

Roger, the student, babysits for the Petries, and he develops a crush on Laura. Rob, not knowing the identity of Roger's beloved, advises him to speak his mind.

The letter is the end result of that advice. Rob expects it to be a rough draft for which he'll provide editorial assistance; it turns out it's the final draft and it has reached its intended recipient:


Among the icons of desirability, we find 50% from Shakespeare: Cleopatra and Juliet.

There's not much more than that as an emblem—Rob does not take on any Leontes- or Othello-like jealousy—but it's still Shakespeare!

Links: The Episode at IMDB.

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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
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