‘Dick Van Dyke Show’ Star Larry Mathews Recalls Learning of John F. Kennedy’s Assassination While on Set

Larry Mathews, known for his portrayal of Ritchie Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show, remembered what it was like to learn of John F. Kennedy’s assassination while on set of the show.

Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, while riding in a presidential motorcade with his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Mathews recalled show creator and writer Carl Reiner delivering the tragic news to the group of actors and crew on set that day.

“I remember it vividly, honestly, like it was yesterday. I think we were rehearsing without all the kids [in the episode, Ritchie invites 63 kids from his school for his 8th birthday], and Carl came in and said, ‘Everybody stop. Just stop everything.’ And we were all like, ‘What?’ And he goes, ‘The president’s just been assassinated,'” Mathews, 69, told Remind in an interview published on Wednesday, April 9.

“The silence was deafening. Basically, everybody gathered in the Petrie living room, and Carl turned on a prop radio, which we just had in the back of the set,” he recalled. “We basically listened to Walter Cronkite‘s newscast on the assassination. And then Carl told everybody to go home. ‘We’re done. We’re going to shut down. We’ll pick it up next week. Everybody needs to go.’ And that’s what we did, and we picked it up the next week.”

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The show then filmed its first episode after Kennedy’s assassination, “Happy Birthday and Too Many More,” which was one of the few that did not have a live studio audience. While that memory was certainly one of the most heartbreaking moments Mathews experienced as a child star, he offered up some warmer memories from the set, including times star Dick Van Dyke made him laugh.

“There were several times. … I do remember fighting back the laughs, having to bite the inside of my lip because what was going on was so funny. It was the episode “A Nice Friendly Game of Cards” [Season 3, Episode 18]. All those antics going back and forth on the table,” he said.

In a previous conversation with the outlet, Mathews remembered what it was like to grow up on the set of the show with an all-star cast surrounding him.

“Look at the people I had around me to basically grow up with — Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, Carl Reiner, Sheldon Leonard, John Rich, our director Jerry Paris. I mean, all these people were iconic,” he told Remind in August 2024. “And Morey Amsterdam, for heaven’s sakes, they were all geniuses at their field.”

“As a kid they’re just people — friends, family — that you don’t think about in that way. But then as I grew older, I started to grasp the situation … I still have to say to myself that that was real, and it wasn’t a big dream,” he said.

Mathews remembered onscreen parents Mary and Dick, 99, making him feel comfortable on set.

“There was actually a picture of Dick and Mary holding me one day when we were doing the warmup before we started shooting. And being around them and having them to make me calm down and tell me it was just part of what we do. That helped,” he said. “Also the fact that they kind of nurtured me and got me through the fact of having an audience and the timing of comedy when you knew you were going to say something that was funny and you had to just wait for the audience … they all made it very easy and very comfortable.”