Chester Jankowski

Rob Reiner

December 15 2025 film television, All in the Family, This is Spinal Tap

This was a terrible weekend. On Saturday, a gunman—who is still at large—murdered two people at Brown University. And then on Sunday in Australia two gunman, a father and a son, murdered 15 people in an attack on Jews celebrating Hanukkah. Sunday night, after re-watching Zero Dark Thirty, I glanced at the news and saw a story about two people found dead at Rob Reiner’s house in Brentwood. Moments later, I saw in Variety that it was in fact Rob and Michele Reiner who had been murdered—stabbed to death. Not long after that, People was reporting that the couple had been murdered by their son Jake.

This has shaken me. All in the Family was one of a handful of tv shows that my entire family would watch together. Mike Stivic was an important character for us, because his background was Polish—even though “Stivic” isn't a Polish name. During my childhood in the 1970s, I had always felt somewhat othered because of my family’s background. My mother had been in Canada for just under seven years when I was born, my father had been there a few years longer. It was comforting to see a Polish character on tv, even if he was a meathead. The other Polish character on tv in the 70s was also a meathead: Leonard “Lenny” Kosnowski, played by Michael McKean.

When I was in my late teens, Rob Reiner started his second career, as a film director. His first film, This is Spinal Tap has been a favorite since I first saw it. And there’s more to it. In the late ’80s, I had friends over to watch Tap, along with Easy Rider, and also to drink some bad American beer and bad American whisky. After the movies and drinks, everyone had to crash out at my parents’ place. Two of my friends became a couple, and eventually they got married and raised a beautiful son. We lost one of them to cancer a few years ago. That's why I’m more likely to get misty during Tap than during When Harry Met Sally.

Another reason, I think, Reiner was important to me was his place among the great comedy cohort of his father, Carl, and Mel Brooks. Early on, Rob himself worked in a writer’s room with Steve Martin, who then went on to make hilarious films with Carl. And, of course, with Spinal Tap, Reiner, along with Guest, Shearer, and McKean (it has always been my pet theory that the song ‘Gimme Some Money,’ aka, GSM is a nod to this trio) created a new genre of improvisational comedy that Guest has continued so brilliantly.

There are others of Reiner’s films that I like very much; one that I don’t hear mentioned all that often is The Sure Thing. I’m glad that Reiner was able to complete the Tap sequel, and I’m glad that there’s a Tap concert film on the way. I’m glad that I once bumped into him in a restaurant, even if his facial expression as we passed one another made it clear that I shouldn’t say a word. It probably would have been just a quick, “Huge fan!” and a little bow.

But hey... enough of my yakkin’

Requiescat in pace