As Dick Van Dyke turns 100 and celebrates six Emmys over more than seven decades in the TV trenches, it’s hard to imagine there was a time before he was a national treasure. The fledgling funny man was no overnight success — before his first big break, Van Dyke shlepped his growing family across the country several times while touring comedy clubs and working in local TV.

After gigs in Hollywood and Atlanta, Van Dyke landed in New Orleans to emcee an early comedy program. Television was becoming big business in the mid-1950s, and CBS was searching far and wide for new comic talent to fill its growing schedule on both coasts. But network reps reported to Variety that “searching parties have turned up little of long range promise.” Except in the Big Easy — where the network discovered “

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