Two comedy icons were discussing who was the most talented man ever in show business.

“Dick Van Dyke,” said Steve Martin.

“I agree,” said the man who helped shape both their careers, Carl Reiner.

Reiner knows from talent. He also worked opposite Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows, was close friend Mel Brooks’ comedy foil in several classic “2000 Year Old Man” sketches and played the lead in Norman Jewison’s Cold War comedy epic The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming. Among his feature film directing credits are Oh, God! with George Burns, The Jerk with Martin and Summer Rental with John Candy.

Reiner’s complete list of writing, performing and directing accomplishments could fill a book, which is what he does now, pumping out pages at an astounding rate for a man of 95. His latest is titled How to Live Forever. The book consists of just one line, repeated over and over: “Find a project, work on it, improve it, when you approve of your improvements start a new project.”

The nine time Emmy winner’s favourite project, The Dick Van Dyke Show, returns to CBS Friday at 9 p.m. in a colourized special featuring two of Reiner’s favourite episodes, both showcasing the late Mary Tyler Moore. The special, titled The Dick Van Dyke Show — Now in Living Color!, follows a similar, hour-long, computer-coloured update of an even older sitcom, I Love Lucy.

Does turning black and white episodes of a 50-plus-year-old TV show into colour make them any funnier? That question, and several others, were put to Reiner via email as he requested.

“Colour doesn’t make The Dick Van Dyke Show more or less funny,” he says. “It remains as funny as it is.” CBS, in fact, gave Reiner the option to shoot the series in colour before it began in 1961. Told each episode would cost an extra $6,000, Reiner and producer Sheldon Leonard figured, “We’ll never make a profit on this, so we decided to do it in black and white.”

Do you think some episodes of the series call out for colour more than others?

We live in colour, so anything that’s on television that’s in colour is natural to us. Black and white is not natural. I’m going to be very happy to see it in colour. I saw it in colour originally.

Is CBS planning to colourize more episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show?

I’m hoping they colourize all of the episodes. When we first did the show, we said, ‘This show could last forever.’ We assiduously stayed away from slang of the day, politics of the day, and I said at the time, ‘This may live forever if we don’t use slang.’ So I’m very happy it’s going to be in colour, because we’re living in colour.

Do you think your friend Mel Brooks’ film Young Frankenstein would have been as effective in colour as it was in black and white?

I see Mel Brooks every night; he’s in colour in person. He’s hilarious. In black and white I wouldn’t laugh so much. I’d worry, I’d say, where’s his colour? No, his pictures are funny because they’re funny, not because they’re in colour.

Is it true that in 1966, CBS wanted to continue the series another couple of seasons, shooting the new episodes in colour?

Yes, it is, they asked us if we would and we were all going on to do other things. We also felt that we were starting to repeat ourselves, and we said, ‘Let’s go out strong.’ We saw the end of the tunnel, we ran for it, and we had 158 shows; that’s a lot of shows. Today, they do like 12 a year; we did 28, I think, or 30.

Do you think the 11-year age difference between Moore and Van Dyke would have been more pronounced in colour than in black and white?

No, not at all. As a matter of fact, I saw it in colour and they looked so much better in colour. I know them in colour.

What was it like working with John Candy on Summer Rental?

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John Candy was a force of nature; he was one of the sweetest human beings ever. And he knew he wasn’t going to live long, which was very sad, because he wasn’t eating well. When we did Summer Rental together, I put him on the Pritikin Diet and he was eating very well for a while, and then he fell off it, he bought tons of shrimp.

Who is your favourite Canadian?

I would have to say it’s Norman Jewison. He gave me my first part as a leading man and he gave me Eva Marie Saint to play opposite. I thank him to this day for that. And he also has a farm where he grows grain for pancakes and maple syrup trees, and he just sent me my Christmas package, so I thank him for that every year.