On the Dick Van Dyke Show DVD collection, this pilot is included with it, and in an interview with Carl Reiner he states that he let this pilot sit for about a year after it didn't sell, and then he showed it to Sheldon Leonard who told him he liked it and it had potential, but it "needs better actors, including you!" As it came into being there was concern over Dick Van Dyke being cast as Rob Petrie as he was a stage actor, and it was Danny Thomas who suggested that they get the "girl with three names", Mary Tyler Moore to play Laura, the rest is history.
Filmed in December 1958 (a year and a half prior to its being run on network television as an episode of "The Comedy Spot"). The episode was a pilot episode intended to convince a network to pick it up as a regular half hour series, but the networks were not interested in it. By the time it had aired on "The Comedy Spot", creator Carl Reiner was already rewriting his thirteen "Head of the Family" episodes he'd written earlier to make the switch from a single camera show (as the "Head of the Family" pilot had been shot) to a three camera live audience shot series (which is how "The Dick Van Dyke Show" would be shot) at new producer, Sheldon Leonard's, advice.
This is Carl Reiner's first attempt at the concept that would shortly thereafter become the classic The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961).