1995: Carl Reiner's Alan Brady Appears on 'Mad About You'
February 16, 2021
| By TV WW
On this day in 1995, NBC's Mad About You featured a unique crossover episode, with actor Carl Reiner appearing on the sitcom as his The Dick Van Dyke Show character, Alan Brady.
In the episode, star Paul Reiser's character, Paul Buchman, a documentary filmmaker, invites Brady — star of The Dick Van Dyke Show's fictional comedy-variety show, The Alan Brady Show — to narrate a film he's producing about TV history. The episode, entitled "The Alan Brady Show," also included several subtle references to the classic '60s sitcom.
Reiner won an Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series Emmy for the role.
In an interview for the Archive of American Television, Reiner says he routinely turned down requests to guest star on sitcoms, and when approached by Reiser to do Mad About You he initially declined. Then Reiser clarified that he wanted Alan Brady, not Carl Reiner, to appear, an idea that intrigued Reiner.