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By 1963, Bill Persky had already worked as a lifeguard at Grossinger’s in the Catskill Mountains and watched the hotel’s standup comics make people laugh. He’d written a show at Syracuse University that won a national collegiate award. He’d worked at an advertising agency and radio station in New York before moving to California to write for television. And then in 1963, everything changed. He and his writing partner Sam Denoff started writing for a show that is considered a classic: The Dick Van Dyke Show. A door had opened and on other side stood the rest of his life.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices