The Dick Van Dyke Show is an American sitcom created by Carl Reiner that initially aired on CBS from October 3, 1961, to June 1, 1966, with a total of 158 half-hour episodes spanning five seasons.

The series portrayed daily life, comic scenarios that charming, goofy Rob Petrie found himself in the middle of with his family, his colleagues – Buddy Sorrell (Morey Amsterdam), Sally Rogers (Rose Marie), Mel Cooley (Richard Deacon) – and his neighbors Millie (Ann Morgan Guilbert) and Jerry Helper (Jerry Paris) and friends.

[5] The two main settings are the work and home life of Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke), the head writer of a comedy/variety show produced in Manhattan.

Other scenes focus on the home life of Rob, his wife Laura (Mary Tyler Moore), and son Ritchie (Larry Mathews), who live in suburban New Rochelle, New York.

[7] The Dick Van Dyke Show was preceded by a 1960 pilot for a series to be called Head of the Family, filmed at Gold Medal Studios,[8][9] with a different cast, although the characters were essentially the same, except for the absence of Mel Cooley.

In the pilot, Carl Reiner, who created the show based on his own experiences as a TV writer, played Robbie Petrie.

[13] Reiner reworked the show with Dick Van Dyke playing the central character (who went by Rob, not "Robbie", and pronounced his last name PET-tree rather than the pilot's PEE-tree.

[19] Reiner considered moving the production of the series to full color as early as season three, only to drop the idea when he was informed that it would add about US$7,000 (equivalent to $70,000 in 2023) to the cost of each episode.

Actors who appeared more than once, sometimes in different roles, included Elvia Allman (as Herman Glimscher's mother), Tiny Brauer, Bella Bruck, Jane Dulo, Herbie Faye, Bernard Fox, Dabbs Greer, Jerry Hausner, Peter Hobbs, Jackie Joseph, Sandy Kenyon (who also appeared in the 2004 reunion special), Alvy Moore, Isabel Randolph, Burt Remsen, Johnny Silver, Doris Singleton, Amzie Strickland, George Tyne, Herb Vigran and Len Weinrib.

Frank Adamo, who served as Van Dyke's personal assistant and stand-in, also played small roles throughout the show's five seasons.

‘We wanted to quit while we were still proud of it,’ said Van Dyke.”[32] In 2019 the show's archives were donated to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York.

[40][41] They were later released on DVD and Blu-ray by CBS Home Entertainment as The Dick Van Dyke Show: Now in Living Color!