As we all know, The Dick Van Dyke Show evolved out of an unsold pilot that Carl Reiner wrote and starred in called Head of the Family. It's amazing how something that missed so totally could have turned into such a fine, on-target TV series.
Head of the Family had its one and only network broadcast 61 years ago yesterday. Ramsey Ess takes a look at what went right and wrong with it. I think the main thing that went wrong with it is that Carl Reiner was trying to play the kind of beleaguered, unappreciated father that was then fairly common in sitcoms. Of course, there was also the uninspiring theme song and opening and supporting cast and bad canned laughter and thirty or forty other things.