HEAD OF THE FAMILY—a sitcom created, produced by, and starring Carl Reiner as the sarcastic Head Writer of an immensely popular comedy-variety show. The writing was sharp, most of the casting was great, it had every earmark of being a hit except for one—it starred the balding, sarcastic, early middle-aged and New York Jewish Carl Reiner as Rob Petrie.
You Know Where this is Going, Don’t You…?
Producer Sheldon Leonard, who had already produced the hugely successful MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY and its first spinoff, THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, told Reiner Middle America wasn’t yet ready to accept Sid Caesar’s Second Banana as the star of a family sitcom, and he should consider recasting Rob with somebody a bit more Midwestern, all-American…like the star of the Broadway hit Bye Bye Birdie, Dick Van Dyke. Reiner claimed his first response was “What’s a ‘dick van dyke’?”, and reluctantly flew to New York City to see the show.
When he saw Van Dyke on stage, being affable and goofy and charming and a natural with physical comedy, he went backstage after the show, they ended up talking for several hours, and Reiner flew back to California to tell Leonard he was right about Dick Van Dyke and they should snap him up before somebody else did! And so, HEAD OF THE FAMILY was renamed THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW…and the rest is history.