Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, Dick Van Dyke has a puppet show.

Episode 3.15 “Wally”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on January 14th, 1987)

Jonathan and Mark’s latest assignment is Wally (Dick Van Dyke), a lovable old man who lives in a box in an alley, puts on a streetside puppet show, and goes out of his way to show kindness to everyone, from a dying boy to a woman who, like Wally, is an alcoholic trying to stay sober to the blind men who line the street and ask for help from people walking by.  Wally is destined to die, at which point he’ll become an angel.  The show suggests that Wally already is angel, having devoted his life to helping other.

Let’s see …. Dick Van Dyke as a saintly, homeless, recovering alcoholic who puts on a puppet show where the puppets discuss the difficulty of being poor in America.  Look, you all know how I usually feel about this stuff.  I usually take real issue with any film or television show that I find to be overly manipulative or heavy-handed.  I’ve also mentioned more than a few times that I think a lot of films and television shows tend to idealize homelessness, an instinct born from good intentions  but one that often ignores the very real reality and which is often counter-productive.  Too often, being homeless is treated in such a sentimental manner that it actually becomes a bit insulting.  Maybe, someday, someone should ask the people who live at the bus stop across the street from the Frank Cowley Courthouse how they feel about things.  Speaking as someone who once got called all sorts of names — and yes, one of them started with a C — because she refused an offer of a drink from a bottle in a brown paper bag while she waited for the bus to take her back to the DART train station after a day of jury duty, I could tell you a few things.  (Another person who could tell you a few things is a friend of mine in Florida who got evicted from his apartment and who spent a month alternating between living on the street and in a shelter.  He told me recently that the main thing he learned from the experience is that no one helps anyone.)  When you add that Wally was being played by Dick Van Dyke, a good actor but one who can go a little overboard when cast in a serious role, you can maybe understand what I was expecting from this episode.

And, to a certain extent, I was right.  This is Highway to Heaven.  It’s not subtle show and this was not a subtle episode.  This was an episode where everyone was so charmed by Dick Van Dyke and his puppets that they would happily let him into their homes to perform for sick children but no one was willing to help him get off the streets.  This was also an episode where Wally revealed that the money he did make all went to providing a home for someone else.  This is an episode where Wally’s kindness literally heals a dying child.  This episode was sentimental, heavy-handed, and a little preachy but it worked.  The show is just so earnest and Dick Van Dyke’s performance was just so heartfelt that it cast a spell that pretty much negated all cynicism for an hour.  (Despite my fears, Van Dyke did not go overboard as Wally, giving a performance that felt genuine and heartfelt.)  This was an episode that perhaps should not have worked but it did.  It worked wonderfully.