Dick Van Dyke's entertainment career began during World War II. when he participated in variety shows and worked as an announcer while serving in the U.S. military. That career has continued into the present, with more than five decades of work as an actor on network and local television. on stage, and in motion pictures. Van Dyke began working in television as host of variety programs in Atlanta. Georgia. and his first foray into network television came in 1956, as the emcee of CBS Television’s Cartoon Theatre.

     It was Van Dyke's role as Rob Petrie on the classic CBS situation comedy The Dick Van Dyke Show that ensured his place in television history. He was cast by series creator Carl Reiner and series producer Sheldon Leonard in the role of a television  comedy  writer (Reiner himself played this role in  the  series  pilot, Head of the Family). Selected over another television pioneer, Johnny Carson, and plucked from  a  starring role on the Broadway stage in Bye Bye  Birdie.  Van Dyke used his unique talent for physical comedy, coupled with his ability to sing and dance, to play Robert Simpson Petrie. the head writer of the  Alan  Brady Show. Complementing Van Dyke was a veteran cast of talented comedic actors including Rose Marie.,Morey Amsterdam, Jerry Paris, Carl Reiner (as Alan Brady), as well as a newcomer to television, Mary Tyler Moore, who played Rob's wife Laura Petrie.

     In many ways. The Dick Van Dyke Show broke new ground in network television. The series created quite a stir when, in the early 1960s, husband and wife, al­ though still depicted sleeping in separate beds, were shown to have a physical relationship. Moore was also allowed to wear capri pants. a style unseen on TV at the time. However, the quintessential example of the innovations offered by The Dick Van Dyke Show are seen in the episode "That's My Boy??" The network initially rejected the script for this episode, and only an appeal from Leonard himself secured permission to film it. In this episode, Rob is convinced that the baby he and Laura brought home from the hospital is not theirs, but a baby belonging to another couple, the Peters. Constant mix-ups with flowers and candy at the hospital. caused by the similarity in names (Petrie and Peters). leads Rob to believe that the babies were somehow switched. and he decides to confront the Peters family. Only when the Peters show up at Rob and Laura's house does Rob learn that the Peters are African American. Some have speculated that the overwhelming positive reaction by audiences to this episode inspired Leonard to cast another future television megastar, Bill Cosby, in I Spy.

     Van Dyke won three Emmy Awards for his role in The Dick Van Dyke Show, and the series received four Emmy Awards for outstanding comedy series. The series, which began in 1961, ended its network television run in 1966, although audiences have continued to en­joy the program through its extended life in syndica­tion.

Van Dyke went on to star in such feature films as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mary Poppins, and The Comic, while also continuing to be a staple on network television in The New Dick Van Dyke Show, Van Dyke and Company (for which he received his fourth Emmy), and a critically acclaimed and Emmy­ nominated dramatic performance in the made-for­ television movie The Morning After. In the 1990s, he starred in the prime-time series Diagnosis Murder for CBS, which co-starred his son Barry Van Dyke.