Carl Reiner’s archives to be donated

When Carl Reiner died in June, he left a hole in the comedy firmament.

Reiner, who would have turned 99 today, also left behind a trove of documents, artifacts and personal memorabilia, working on TV programs like “Your Show of Shows” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and films like “Oh, God!” and “The Jerk.”

Now this personal archive will live on: his family is donating it to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, N.Y., so that current fans and future generations can appreciate the breadth of his accomplishments.

“It’s a lot there,” said Rob Reiner, the actor and filmmaker who is Carl Reiner’s oldest child. “We’re talking about an 80-year career. He lived to 98 and he started when he was in his late teens. As I like to say, my father was on television before we owned a television.”

Carl Reiner’s archives contain writing and versions of scripts from just about every project he worked on and every phase of his career. They include sketches he composed as a cast member on “Your Show of Shows,” where he worked with writers like Mel Brooks and Neil Simon, as well as early drafts of “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

Carl Reiner’s archives also include his Emmy Awards and his Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, many autobiographical writings and drafts of unproduced projects, and even the chairs and TV trays that he and Brooks used when they sat together in Reiner’s home. Journey Gunderson, the executive director of the National Comedy Center, said the center is planning an exhibition for next year, to mark what would have been Reiner’s 100th birthday.