5 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’

The Dick Van Dyke Show is a gold-standard sitcom in the history of television … and it almost didn’t get off the ground. Series creator Carl Reiner’s original pilot, titled Head of the Family, featured a different cast, with Reiner playing Rob Petrie instead of Dick Van Dyke, and it didn’t inspire CBS to green-light a full season. Producer Sheldon Leonard reworked the idea into The Dick Van Dyke Show, with Van Dyke in the lead role, which wasn’t an instant slam-dunk, either; it was nearly canceled by CBS after a single season.

Luckily for fans, The Dick Van Dyke Show ran for five seasons between 1961 and 1966 and eventually found its audience, becoming a hit show now regarded as one of the greatest TV comedies of all time.