The Career of Rob Reiner

Deep Dive with Kirk Minihane

Kirk Minihane dives into the legendary career of Rob Reiner, exploring his journey from a child star on 'All in the Family' to becoming one

Key takeaways

• Rob Reiner's career spans both acting and directing, with a unique legacy that includes starring in television's most influential show and directing some of cinema's most beloved films.

Main topics

• Rob Reiner's early life and upbringing in showbiz
• His role in 'All in the Family' and its cultural impact

Notable quotes

"My dad was his big figure and I've been chasing that still." – Rob Reiner on the influence of his father.

Conclusion

Rob Reiner's career stands as a rare blend of television stardom and cinema

Transcript preview

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Tokens are single-use and expire at the end of the final select game each day when offered. Terms at sportsbook.draftkings.com slash promos. All right, back to the episode. Speaker 3 (1:51) All right, deep dive episode. I do this every time. I think it's six. I don't know. A Labor Day taping. I just did the surviving finale recap with Rico. Speaker 3 (2:05) Which will have already happened by the time you're listening to this on Tuesday. So I won't spoil it just in case we fuck this up. But I know who won. And you probably do now as well. Maybe you don't. If you didn't watch, whatever. Who cares? We're listening to this deep dive. And we're going to expand a little bit on an original one. Not one of the five that's happened so far, I shouldn't say. Maybe it's episode seven. I don't even fucking know. Speaker 3 (2:28) During my hiatus, I came in and did a brief one after Rob Reiner was murdered that kind of got this going for me, this idea that I like doing this. So I'm going to go a little deeper into Rob Reiner's career today. You know, I was thinking about it a lot. I think I said this at the time. All in the Family is my favorite show ever. I love The Sopranos. You know, there are other candidates, I guess. For sure. But All in the Family is the one that means the most to me. And I think, with the possible exception of Scorsese, maybe Spielberg, I spent more time watching Rob Reiner movies than any other director who's ever lived. So we're going to get into it a little deeper. I don't know how long the one was when I jumped in here with the guys after he was killed. I'm definitely not going to focus on that. It's horrible. I know trials are coming up and this and that. I don't even like it. It's about almost a year ago now. It was probably December last year. When that happened, I don't even know, but Speaker 2 (3:26) horrible. Speaker 3 (3:28) I don't really want to spend any time on that. And I'm not going to spend much time at all. It ties into his life sort of later on. I'm not going to spend much time on his politics. I don't agree with a lot of it. I don't disagree. I agree with some of it. I don't agree with most of it, probably. I mean, a lot of it. It was wild when Trump was like, yeah, his son killed him because of me. Me being Trump, not me, by Speaker 1 (3:52) the way. Speaker 3 (3:54) That was a wild Trump moment. That's definitely in the top 20, which is crazy to think that it wouldn't be number one. But for Trump, I'd put it somewhere squarely like in the top 12. It's up there with the McCain thing. I'll give him that. But yeah, so the life and career of Rob Reiner is what we're going to get into. And it does start, you can't tell the story of Rob Reiner. I guess without, of course, talking about who he was raised by. His mom, of course, we'll talk about when we get to when Harry Met Sally, but his father, Carl Reiner, was a titanic figure in entertainment history. Obviously, he and Mel Brooks did their comedy together, the 2,000-year-old man, their career, their friendship together. I would recommend, by the way, to watch the Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee episode with Carl Reiner. is first. Jerry picks up Carl Reiner. They go to a diner. They talk a little about Carl's career. It's funny, Carl mentions he visited Jerry Seinfeld set very early on in the Seinfeld run, which makes sense because it was a Castle Rock production. Rob Reiner's company produced Seinfeld, which we'll get to as we go through the career. But so Carl Reiner was there early, and Carl Reiner said, that's where we did Dick Van Dyke. He created the Dick Van Dyke show, which was one of the first huge television hits. He had a very prolific career as a comedian. He's in the Oceans movies, as you know. He directed The Jerk. He directed a bunch of Steve Martin movies. You know, worked forever. Lived a very long time. Passed away not that long ago. How Speaker 1 (5:26) long ago did Carl Reier die? Speaker 3 (5:28) I'm going to guess. Without looking, I'll look now, but I'm going to play the dozen. I guess 2022. Speaker 1 (5:34) It's always longer ago than you think. Speaker 3 (5:36) Jeez, 20. He's been there for six years. 2020. But maybe to 98, and his great friend Mel Brooks is still alive. Speaker 3 (5:45) As of right now, probably tomorrow it won't be. But of course, he's a 2,000-year-old man, did a lot of writing. I directed Oh God, which was a big hit. The Jerk was a big hit. Oh God was the sixth highest grossing film of 1977. So while All in the Family was the number one show on television with Reiner, Rob Reiner, his son, in a huge role in it, and his good friend Norman Lear creating it, Oh God was the sixth biggest hit in 1977. Oh, ninth biggest. Speaker 3 (6:17) Star Wars, obviously, by far the biggest. Close Encounters on there, Sanity Fever. There's a Speaker 2 (6:23) James Speaker 3 (6:25) Bond movie on there. And then, oh God, with our Carl Reiner, who directed, let me see the last thing. I'm just curious. Stage and screen. He directed Summer School, which I love in 87. Listen, with Mark Harmon. I like that. It's a funny movie. Speaker 3 (6:45) And that was kind of it. He directed the movie with that old feeling with Bette Midler and Dennis Farina, which stunk. Speaker 4 (6:52) In Speaker 3 (6:52) 97, he was still directing movies, so good for him. So yeah, so there's Carl Reiner. Again, he created the Dick Van Dyke show. Acted in it a little bit as well. Speaker 3 (7:04) And then, yeah, kind of, you know, did a lot of voice work as well, did some acting and television. I mean, Carl Reier's a huge figure. So Rob Reier grew up in Beverly Hills in California as a son of a showbiz giant and became friends, you know, with guys like Albert Brooks, who he later does a documentary with. Really the last great thing that he did. Speaker 3 (7:26) Richard Dreyfuss is a high school classmate of his. He uses Dreyfuss in films, and some films Dreyfuss turns down. So we see Carrie Fisher's around. He's around a lot of famous people. He's a famous, he's a movie star, TV kid. And he wants to perform. His father does not think he's funny. His father thinks Albert Brooks is very funny. Of course, it's Albert Einstein. That's his name at the time. and they're best friends. And he's telling everyone, do this, do that. Use Albert. Albert's the funniest guy you've ever seen. My son, eh, not so much. And Reiner talks about this. In an interview for 60 Minutes, he does with Steve Croft in 94, promoting the movie North, a huge bomb, which again, will, believe me, go over. Croft says to him, in a pretty good moment of realization, hey, get a couple of your movies. The big ones, Stand By Me and A Few Good Men, really focus on sons with disapproving fathers. In fact, the play A Few Good Men written by Aaron Sorkin, he adapted the screenplay as well. It didn't focus so much on the Daniel Caffey, Lionel Caffey, father-son relationship, but you beefed it up. You told Sorkin to beef it up in the screenplay. And Reiner said, you know, it's not conscious when you say it to me. It's not something I think about. It is true. You know, my dad was his big figure and I've been chasing that still. Speaker 3 (8:48) And the truth is Rob Reiner became a bigger name in the history of entertainment than his father. I mean, he just did. Rob Reiner's a bigger figure than Carl Reiner. Carl Reiner was a huge figure. But anyway, go back and watch that Seinfeld episode because it's very good. I like when then they go from Carl Reiner's house, from the diner, they go to Carl Reiner's house that night and Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks are there just doing their act together. A lot of Mel Brooks and Seinfeld just watching. It's a good, that's why I like that show, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. I get why some people don't. There's some episodes I don't like. Speaker 3 (9:18) But it is a monument of comedy. I mean, now you have a lot. I mean, you know, Gary Shandling, his real last appearance was on there. Norm was great on there. I wish it was another podcast series devoted time to Norm, but we'll be the one to do it, I guess. Jerry Lewis's last episode was on there. We're getting somebody else who passed away, but a bunch of people. Speaker 3 (9:42) Look, Lorne Michaels is on there. Eddie Murphy has a long interview on there. Jay Leno and Letterman are both on it. It's that Robert Klein. Definitely recommend. I like the older ones better. That's who I am. But the Carl Reiner, I've probably watched that eight times, ten times. I just like the banter between those two. So it's worth watching. So that's how Reiner grows up. And he's kind of bouncing around. He becomes writing partners for Steve Martin. They write. So he uses this. He's a Nepo kid, he would tell you that. He writes for the Smothers Brothers. He does some appearances on The Partridge Family. One-offs as an actor. Trying to figure it out, trying to build a career. His dad was good friends with Norman Lear. And Norman Lear is putting together All in the Family. And All in the Family is not working. They have tested a couple of times. Remember networks, ABC didn't want it. NBC, nobody wanted all in the family. Lear to his credit, Till Death Do Us Part was the show they were adapting from British television. And Lear wanted it to be what it was. You know, until then, as he has said, TV episodes, sitcoms were the wife gets a call from the husband. Speaker 3 (11:07) The boss and his wife are coming over for dinner and the wife burns the pot roast. And what am I going to do? And that was what I grew up on. You know, Greg Brady's hair is orange or green or whatever the fuck it was. Or, oh my God, I'm dating twins. You know, or whatever the hell it is. But Lear thought the way the country was changing and the shift in the world and fathers and sons and Vietnam and battles and racism. Speaker 3 (11:38) homophobia, and the generation after you is always questioning, but they're still dumb because they haven't done anything yet, which goes on to this day. That's what Lear was interested in investigating. He was interested in doing. So he tries a couple of pilots. He shoots them. He has Jean Stapleton, a theater actress, some television, Cass is Edith. Of course, he first goes to Mickey Rooney. Speaker 3 (12:07) for the role of Archie Munker. He turns it down. Carol O'Connor bounced around. It's been in films for sure and in TV. Casts him. Greatest piece of casting. That and Gandolfini are the two greatest pieces of casting in television history. And there is no Sopranos at All in the Family. Anything you watch after All in the Family that you like is because of All in the Family, just to be clear. Speaker 3 (12:28) But they can't find Mike and they can't find Gloria. Gloria is the daughter, of course. Mike's the son-in-law. And they try a couple of different pilots. They're out there on YouTube watching, but it doesn't work, especially now that you've watched all in the family, but it doesn't work even if you hadn't watched all in the family. It's just, you Speaker 2 (12:44) know. Speaker 3 (12:45) So they get Sally Struthers. And Norman Lear says, I'm going to try Carl's kid, Rob Reiner. And even Carl Reiner's like, what are you talking about? Well, the casting of Rob Reiner as Mike Stivick. Speaker 3 (12:59) Archie's son-in-law, is perfect. And he and Carol O'Connor have unbelievable chemistry. I mean, the truth is Sally Struthers, who's the lone survivor, by the way, is the least important of the four characters. And she's complaining about this, and I understand why. A lot of it was like Gloria going to the kitchen and help get ready for dinner while Mike and Archie fight. But all in the family is about, to me, ultimately... Speaker 3 (13:24) The relationship between Archie and Meathead and Archie and Edith. It really is. And I feel bad saying that for Gloria and for Sally Struthers, but just the truth of it. And the Meathead-Archie moments are unbelievable. I mean, just endless. And the show. which I'm sure most people know, when it first came out, they had a warning before the show started on CBS. What you're about to watch is all in the family. Show is crude, racist, da-da-da, da-da-da. Don't watch it. Like, if you're going to be offended, don't watch this fucking show. And they got ready for all these calls, and they got calls, and it was very controversial, and nobody was watching it at first. Nobody was watching it. So, you know. They didn't quite know what to do with this show, but the reviews were unbelievable. Some were like, this is the most heinous thing I've ever seen in my life. But, you know, this is 1971, remember? Like, Speaker 2 (14:20) I'll look Speaker 3 (14:21) it up right now. The show debuted January of 71, so it's a mid-season 71 show. It was ranked number 34 that season. 11 million households watched a night. Now, this is back when there were basically three TV stations. So, 11 million. Today would be great. Back then, not good. That's a 71-70, that's a 70-71 TV season. I look at it as like before and after. Like if you look at the top 10 television shows that year, Bonanza's number's nine still. It's nine millionth year. Speaker 3 (15:07) Gunsmoke. Gunsmoke is number five. Here's Lucy, which is the bad show Lucy did after, is number three. The Flip Wilson show is two, and Marcus Welby is still number one. So, I mean, you're in that world still of, like, you know, My Three Sons is in its final season almost. It's in its 11th season. It's still in the top 20, but you're slowly starting to see a little bit of a change. You know, Mary Tyler Moore's show is in there. MASH is on its way. But the next year, All in the Family. So All in the Family gets, you know, terrible ratings, but it wins a bunch of Emmys. And in the offseason, the summer season, they start replaying the show, and it does phenomenally well. So they move the time slot. It was first Tuesday, 930. They move it to what was then a good time slot. Today is dead. They move it to Saturday. All the families on Saturdays for seasons two, three, four, and five. Immediately season two, it's number one, 34 rating. The next season, number one, number one, number one, number one. They move Monday, nine o'clock, it's final season. The first time ever that the show was number one, five straight years. Didn't happen again until American Idol, by the way. Speaker 3 (16:33) So the CBS Monday lineup that year is Rhoda, Phyllis, which is another spinoff of Maritime War, All in the Family, and Maud, which is an All in the Family spinoff. But sort of in its prime, just to give you an idea of how big Saturdays was for CBS, like here's Saturday night for CBS in 73, 74. This is an actual lineup of shows. They're all in the top. Speaker 3 (17:04) Well, they're on the top 12 from 8 to 9.30. But this is a lineup, okay? All in the Family, number one. MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, Carol Burnett. That's a lineup on Saturday night in 1973-74 for CBS. So the show is a phenomenon. And more importantly than that, it's a game-changing piece of cultural history. Speaker 3 (17:33) The amount of Rushmore of television shows or television, you know, Saturday Live, Sopranos, The Tonight Show, all in the family. Like that to me are the four. You want to put something in sports in there? You want to put SportsCenter in there? Maybe. You know, you want to put Monday Night Football or maybe have the conversation. But to me, those are the impenetrable four that just changed television forever. Speaker 3 (18:04) And it makes Reiner a household name. Great. Wonderful. He wants more, you know. He wants to be more than Meathead. So, of course, that, of course, is a nickname on the show. Archie calls him that. You are a Meathead. Meathead. Dead from the neck up Meathead. And it's, obviously, he's Polish, Stivic, a ton of Polak jokes from Archie and stupid. Archie's a horribly racist person at the beginning of the show. He softens as the show goes on. But he's also a good person who loves his wife. Loves his wife, loves his daughter, and does love his son-in-law. He does. That leads to when they leave, so we'll get to that. But let me put a pin in that. So the show's a huge phenomenon. And Reiner already wants to do more. He's around the set all the time. He talks about how important Norman Lear is as a mentor. As a figure, oddly, he mentions Lear as a mentor much more than he mentions his father as a mentor. I don't know if that's true or not. Or even like a Mel Brooks, you know? Speaker 3 (19:12) But he wants to write. He wants to direct. He wants to act somewhat different things. But you can already tell it's funny. Reiner really does. He appears obviously in small roles and stuff over the years. Mostly his favorite for other directors. He wants to be a writer and a director. He doesn't want to really be an actor. But his performance, by the way, his meathead is very good, as Mike's did it. He and Archie have tremendous chemistry. They fight. They battle. It's the ungrateful, not working, intellectual, hippie son-in-law versus the blue-collar, hardworking, you know, pro-America, right-wing Archie Bunker. And they fight about everything. They have great episodes. Stand-alone episodes, and they're locked in the closet together. Speaker 3 (19:58) You know, I mean, just great battles. And he loves, he does love him no matter what. He does. But Reiner wants more. So he kind of starts to try while he's doing all in the family to do stuff. Speaker 3 (20:16) But it's a tough ask. You know, it's hard to describe how big a hit show was if you weren't alive for it. We talked about some extent with Michael J. Fox, like Rob Reiner wasn't going to be in some Back to the Future back then. Could he have played like the Dreyfus role in Jaws? Maybe. Yeah, maybe he could have. He won two Emmys, by the way, for All the Family. He's already at that point pretty politically active as well. Speaker 3 (20:49) He marries Penny Marshall while he's making All the Family. They make a movie, a TV movie together, More Than Friends. He co-wrote it. I don't think he directed it. He did not. He marries Marshall in like 71 or 72 when the show starts. They get divorced like 10 years later. But yeah, he's trying to figure out what he's going to do. So he leaves all in the family. He and Sally Struthers say, you know what? Like we've taken this characters, these characters, uh, as far as we can go, you know, like there's not, there's no, um, there's not much more that I can do with meathead. And it started to feel repetitive. Um, um, Speaker 3 (21:36) Within the series. So he's in it for eight years. And by the time it's done, it's like silly that they're still fighting almost. He moves. He and Gloria have a son, Joey. They move next door to the Jefferson's old house. And they'll come over and hang out. But it just felt like they didn't fit in the show anymore. So they go to California. They leave. And it's the last episode. The Stivics go west a two-parter. There's a scene. At the end where Gloria's in the cab already, again, Gloria like runs out. She's not even part of it with Joey. And Edith runs after Gloria, says goodbye again. It's just Archie and Meathead out in the front porch. And Ryan is like, you know, you were like a, earlier he says, you know, you were like a father to me. And Archie can't, he's like, you were like a son to me, never listened to what I said. He couldn't really get emotional. And, ooh, second episode after the Rocky one. Speaker 3 (22:35) Mike says to him, you know, I think you thought I hated you, but the truth is I love you. And he hugs him. And Carroll O'Connor is so fucking great in this episode and so great in this series. He can't really, he kind of pats him on the back, but he's like, hey, you got to get going. Like he won't allow it. He feels it, but he won't allow it. And he, Meathead and Gloria get in the car to fly, drive to the airport and fly down to California. Speaker 3 (23:05) Archie's sitting in his chair. Of course, Archie's great chair, which Meathead broke in a great episode. Great late in the series episode. And Edith goes to get him a beer. She sees that he's crying. And she kind of is like, I got your beard. She lets him kind of compose. And she sits down in her chair next to his chair. At the end of the episode, they're gone. Their grandson that they loved having around is gone. It's just the two of them completely alone. And the camera slowly peels back. And it's something in the 70s in television that's as powerful as anything you'll ever see in your life. These two people, midlife, their family is gone. And they're alone. And it's incredible television. Carol O'Connor. Well, I'm going to do all in the family, believe me. Deep, deep, deep dive at some point. But Carroll O'Connor is so incredible, and it doesn't work if he and Reiner hadn't had that great chemistry, Mike and Archie, over the eight years before. And the show ran on fumes after that for a year or two. Then Archie Bunker's place was just not the same. And Reiner... And Struthers both made guest appearances at times throughout the series, but effectively he's gone. So Reiner leaves, walks away from the biggest show on television. No easy thing to do, by the way, in the 70s. That was not happening a lot in the 70s. So when they left, it still wasn't number one, but it was still a very successful hit show. Even Archie Munker's place was a top 20 show for like three or four years. back when it was 30, 25, 30 million people watching. So Reiner leaves all the family. And he's figuring out, like, what am I going to do here? What is my career? It's already clear that he doesn't want to be an actor. Like, if you look at his filmography, it's all guest stuff after that. Like, he's not too into anything else. So he... Speaker 3 (25:00) So he's trying to figure out what is my career going to be? I've done TV. I've done All in the Family. Let's figure out what I'm going to do next. Well, the first movie he directs is in 1984. Speaker 3 (25:19) He was friends. He did some TV work, a TV comedy special with Christopher Guest and Harry Shear and those guys. And there was a character, Christopher Guest's Spinal Tap character was part of that special. And Reiner said, why don't we do a movie about this? And he was inspired by the D.A. Pennebaker. Speaker 3 (25:45) documentary about Dylan, you know, these music documentaries. He said, let's do a, and look, there were not a lot of mockumentaries at this point in history. He said, let's try this. I'll get the funding. We'll write it. And, you know, and they found as they wrote it that it was more fun that they improvised it. This is kind of how they learned the template for it. And of course, this is the spinal, this is the spinal tap, which I have to, I'll confess is not one of my favorite movies. I think I'm in the minority on this. It's obviously an enormous cult film. I like it. It hasn't grown on me. that much but this is his first movie out of the box uh he is obviously one of the whatever he plays a director marty de bergie which is very close to martin scorsese's name who directed the last waltz which is another uh but the band a music documentary that they thought was a big influence and obviously spinal tap has become this cult movie beyond words i mean you Speaker 4 (26:45) know i Speaker 3 (26:45) think a lot of people think it's the best comedy ever made um The reviews were great when it came out. Roger Ebert is in his top 10 movies of 84. So this is 84, by the way. Now, Reiner started making it in 82. But, you know, he was kind of quiet after he left the show in 79, 80. I think he was trying to figure out what was going to be next for him. Because there was not a big... Now, his dad had done it, but there wasn't a lot of, you know, TV figures who went on to film at that point. It was still unusual. Speaker 3 (27:23) I just looked up Ebert's last night. I was doing research. I looked up Ebert's top 10 movies of, of 84 somewhere. Purple rain. Number 10. Choose me. Number nine. Stranger than paradise. Eight. The killing field. Seven secret honor. Six. The cotton club. Five. Love streams. Three Paris, Texas, two and Amadeus Amadeus, which I love. Number one. This is final tap. Number four. Speaker 3 (27:55) AFI did their 100 greatest movies of all time. At the end of the century, a whole bunch of 100 best comedies, 100 best thrillers, 100 best films, most quotable lines of all time. 100 greatest comedies of all time. This is Final Tap is number 29. It's in between Ghostbusters and Arsenic and Old Lace. Harry Met Sally, by the way, number 23, which of course we'll get to. Speaker 3 (28:24) Yeah, looking at a story from like 1984, this New York Times story about Reiner, talking about the movie. He's 37 at the time. Speaker 3 (28:41) And he says this Spinal Tap came out of the TV show, which was an ABC special that satirized television. The network's buried at 1130. Christopher Guest fooled around between the scenes with an English rock star character he created. He told Ryan he had to do something with the character to get it out of the system. Harry Shearer jumped on board as well. So four years after that, Michael McKeon, by the way, who... And it was on Laverne and Shirley, so Reiner knew him. His wife had been on Laverne and Shirley. He was divorced from Penny Marshall at the time, but knew McKeon through that. So Reiner's trying to figure out how to raise some money for Spinal Tap. Goes to a bunch of different production companies. No, no, no. Needs a couple million dollars for it. Norman Lear steps up with his production company. He says, I'll write your check right now for $2 million. Go make it. So Reiner goes and makes Spinal Tap. Norman Lear, who helps him out again later. Speaker 3 (29:40) cuts the check for Spinal Tap and says, go make it. Comes out, does not do very well at the time, but has gone on to become such a cult favorite. Millions of VHS, huge DVDs. The sequel came out a couple years ago. It was not great. But they did, you know, they had albums, they toured. It became its own industry. And I'm sure Lear made profits many times over on Spinal Tap, which is, you know, a... pretty ballsy debut for a director like Reiner, who's also plays against type two. He already looks different than he did his meathead in this movie. Speaker 3 (30:20) And sort of wisely kind of plays the least comedic sort of in the movie. But yeah, it's an audacious, like really gutsy directing debut. And as part of this, which will kind of, it's funny, you know, I have these book ideas that I always, as you guys know, I started to stop on. But I did think there's, I thought, I always thought there was an idea about these directors in the 80s. These television sitcom stars and creators who became major, major film directors in