User Reviews

The Petries have befriended a high school student who has been tutoring and babysitting Ritchie. However, Roger also hangs around the Petrie house for another reason...he's smitten with Laura. It's amazing how neither Rob nor Laura notice this, though they at least guessed right that he is in love. Laura suggests that Rob talk to Roger and offer him some advice...which, in hindsight, probably isn't a great idea. Rob tells Roger he MUST tell the mystery woman how he feels...and both Rob and Laura are shocked when she receives a letter from Roger telling her his feelings. What's next? Rob tries to patch things up as best he can.

I appreciate how Roger did NOT expect Laura to fall for him and knew his feelings were impossible...otherwise it would not be realistic and would be creepier. As is, it's a cute and enjoyable episode.

I found this episode a little odd. Eddie Hodges proved he couldn't act all that well actually in it. He was difficult to watch and listen to. Laura should have caught on immediately. It was too obvious. For what is considered a well written and acted sitcom 60 years ago falls short by today's standards. The usually neurotic Laura toned it down a tad in this one. The whole episode never really developed a plot worth watching. Dick Van Dyke has not held up like some others of that era. Whatever happened to Eddie Hodges anyway. He just seemingly disappeared from the Hollywood scene. Didn't enjoy his musical skills either.

The writing team of Persky and Denoff, who did SO much to raise the level of comedic writing in the van Dyke series, demonstrate their UPS and DOWNS during the first Three shows of Season 4-- all three of which they wrote.

"My Mother Can Beat Up...." is funny in an outrageous way--- indeed the show developed from the fact that actor/dancer/comedian Paul Gilbert could do a spectacular Judo flip-- the highpoint of the episode---but the show relies TOO HEAVILY on slapstick and physical antics, in my opinion. Too cartoon-y.

"CARTOON-Y" is also the downfall of "Ghost of A Chantz", the second episode, which is just-plain LABORED and trite in is humor. Although it's good to have an occasional change-of-pace in the series, this is is NOT what made the series so uniquely funny.

BUT Persky and Denoff save the day with "The Lady and the Babysitter---beautifully written and brilliantly performed, with the customary wit, humor, split-second timing, nuance--- AND, in this case, poignancy-- that distinguished the DVD show at its absolute pinnacle.

Only Rob, Laura, Richie and guest star Eddie Hodges are featured (plus a few extras in the library scene)--- so there's no office scenes with "The Gang"--much as I love them. What REALLY makes this show exceptional is the REAL-LIFE "Resonance" (if I may) that MILLIONS of young, teenage boys in the early '60's felt towards Mary Tyler Moore...and here it is, being played out right on the TV screen--- in all the frustrating, "frutile", maddening, hormone-infused puppy love that Eddie's character is experiencing.

Again, it's FLAWLESSLY done--- with the car repair scene in the garage perhaps the highlight of the show (and the brief chocolate cake scene--- actually just a "throw-away" exchange----is delightful, and beautifully integrated into the action).

Another IMDB contributor (whose comments here include an airing of his/her politically-correct reservations about the series) bemoans the fact that the plot of "Lady/Baby-Sitter" has been used many times before--- and, indeed, I'm sure the basic storyline extends all the way back to Greek Antiquity or earlier. But WHO CARES? ---especially when it's done as well as it is here. LR

The episode is an embarrassing rip off of a classic I Love Lucy in which a teenage Richard Crenna falls in love with Lucy. Of course there are many differences but the whole plot is VERY tired. There are a half dozen Van Dykes that are 'phoned in' rehashes and it is a shame - the quality of the show was SO high throughout. My personal least favorite DVD Shows are the ones involving Spanish speaking refugee maids and poor Howard Morris misused as an Italian wall painted (anything ethnic is done kind of cliched and sentimental) - that is except for the several straight forward and completely relaxed use of Greg Morris and Godfrey Cambridge in several wonderful episodes.