 Although most of the comedy pilots that aired on this series were  unremarkable, the notable exception was the first pilot for "Head of  the Family" starring Carl Reiner as television writer Rob Petrie and  Barbara Britton as his wife, Laura, and Jack Wakefield as the star  of the "show", Alan Sturdy. The pilot tanked, but the network liked  the concept, so it was rewritten and recast with Dick Van Dyke  playing the lead role, Mary Tyler Moore as his wife and Reiner as  the bullying series star Alan Brady.