Carl Reiner

Carl Reiner was a performer on Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows when he wrote and starred in a 1960 pilot about his own life as a comedy writer. When it failed to sell, the producer Sheldon Leonard persuaded him to recast the lead with Dick Van Dyke, and as creator, writer and producer of The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961 to 1966) Reiner set the standard for the smart workplace-and-home sitcom.