Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: Dick Van Dyke starred in this 1968 film about a fellow who purchases and restores a magical motorcar and must protect it from the greedy clutches of a conniving foreign tyrant; and, of course, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" became a children's classic. Ironically, three years earlier, in 1965, Jerry Van Dyke (Dick's younger brother) starred in an NBC television situation-comedy about a fellow who purchases and restores a magical motorcar and must protect it from the greedy clutches of a conniving car collector. Widely panned by critics as the worst-ever idea for a TV series, "My Mother the Car" was cancelled in 1966 after one season, and the good-natured Jerry Van Dyke always admitted that the series was the very definition of bad television.

Charles Austin Miller