{"id":99858,"date":"2025-12-18T17:14:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T17:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/99858\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T17:14:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T17:14:12","slug":"rob-reiners-early-comedy-career-from-improv-to-all-in-the-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/99858\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Reiner’s Early Comedy Career, From Improv to ‘All in the Family’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tRob Reiner<\/a> has been showered with accolades for his work in film and TV in the days since he and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found brutally slain in their Brentwood home.<\/p>\n

\n\tRob Reiner had a knack for intersecting with cutting-edge comedy forces just as they were on the cusp of breaking big. Reiner was born into a pedigreed showbiz family as the son of Carl Reiner, a pioneering star of \u201cYour Show of Shows,\u201d and singer Estelle Reiner. Rob Reiner grew up around Mel Brooks, Sid Caesar, Neil Simon and a slew of comedy legends who were close to his father.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut as he came of age in the late 1960s, Rob Reiner also had a good eye for talent and collaborators. He became involved with the out-there San Francisco improv troupe the Committee, whose members included future \u201cThe Bob Newhart Show\u201d co-star Peter Bonerz and \u201cJaws\u201d screenwriter Carl Gottlieb. Reiner and friends that included Richard Dreyfuss, writer Larry Bishop and writer-actor David Arkin would often drive up to San Francisco from Los Angeles to catch the Committee\u2019s Sunday night shows.<\/p>\n

\n\tReiner and a handful of others eventually created an Los Angeles-based offshoot troupe that was dubbed the Session. The Committee had a residency in 1968 at the Tiffany Theater on the Sunset Strip that was a formative experience for all involved.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs an actor in improv, Reiner was \u201cfearless,\u201d Gottlieb recalls. \u201cHe would attempt any sketch. It didn\u2019t matter what the content was. If it had the potential for humor, he\u2019d try it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEven as a young man, Reiner had a presence and a charisma that drew people to him. \u201cRob was always kind of a spark plug. He\u2019d do everything bigger and louder than everybody else. Not in furtherance of his ego. Always for the material, which made all the difference,\u201d Gottlieb recalls. In those days, the Committee members were committed to social justice and anti-war protests. \u201cFor us it was an opportunity to find some deeper meaning in the improv work,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019d do a couple of anti-war pieces to provoke the audience. We had some arguments a couple of times. In San Francisco after we\u2019d provoked the audience we\u2019d bring the house lights up and have a teach-in session,\u201d Gottlieb says.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter his time with the Committee and the Session, Reiner eventually found his way onto the writing staff of \u201cThe Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour<\/a>.\u201d That show became the stuff of TV legend as the stars famously battled CBS over content and censorship concerns. Reiner joined a murderer\u2019s row of comedy talent in the \u201cSmothers Brothers\u201d writers room, which included Steve Martin, Mason Williams, Pat Paulson, Bob Einstein (aka Super Dave Osborne) and musician John Hartford. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSmothers Brothers\u201d was famously canceled in 1969 \u2014 and it went on to win the Emmy for best variety series two months later. The show was so respected in the creative community that all the writers went on to promising new projects. Within months of \u201cSmothers Brothers\u201d demise, Reiner had been cast as an actor on another edgy CBS series, Norman Lear\u2019s \u201cAll in the Family.\u201d That series made Reiner a household name \u2014 even if that name was \u201cMeathead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tReiner was squarely at the center of Lear\u2019s universe of shows. And through his marriage in the 1970s to Penny Marshall, Reiner was adjacent to the Garry Marshall universe of shows that included ABC\u2019s \u201cHappy Days\u201d and \u201cLaverne & Shirley\u201d (which starred Penny Marshall). All of those connections would come into play in Reiner\u2019s post-\u201cAll in the Family\u201d years as he pursued his desire to make his mark as a writer and director. His first effort was a film that remains a landmark, oft-quoted comedy, 1984\u2019s \u201cThis Is Spinal Tap.\u201d And that was followed by smashes that include 1986\u2019s \u201cStand by Me,\u201d 1987\u2019s \u201cThe Princess Bride\u201d and 1989\u2019s \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tReiner\u2019s close friends often marveled at how well he wore his success, especially when he made such a triumphant segue into helming.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe was very cool about it. Having grown up as Carl Reiner\u2019s son, he was no stranger to celebrity. His extended family was the \u2018Laughter on the 23rd Floor\u2019 crowd,\u201d Gottlieb says, referring to Neil Simon\u2019s play about his time writing for \u201cYour Show of Shows.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGottlieb believes the spartan ethos of improv made a big mark on his former housemate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOne of the key lessons of improvisation is that you never said \u2018No but\u2019 you always said \u2018Yes and.\u2019 Rob was really good at that. When he was doing a sketch, he would always stay in character. He took the work very seriously,\u201d Gottlieb says. \u201cAnd then he applied all the lessons he learned on stage and at his father\u2019s knee to practical every day use.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t(Pictured: Top row: Mason Williams, Rob Reiner, Bob Einstein, Steve Martin, Glen Campbell and John Hartford at the 1988 \u201cSmothers Brothers Comedy Hour\u201d reunion. Bottom row: Tom Smothers, Dick Smothers and singer Jennifer Warnes.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rob Reiner has been showered with accolades for his work in film and TV in the days since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[52134,101,103,102,104,106,105,54485],"class_list":{"0":"post-99858","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-rob-reiner","9":"tag-san-francisco","10":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","11":"tag-san-francisco-news","12":"tag-sf","13":"tag-sf-headlines","14":"tag-sf-news","15":"tag-the-smothers-brothers-comedy-hour"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}