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changing the names of primetime shows for syndication

Another one not mentioned is "Make Room For Daddy" / "The Danny Thomas Show". I believe that one has the odd history of moving from one network to another and changing names that later reverted in syndication. In other words, I think the original ABC title was "Make Room For Daddy", and when it moved to CBS it was retitled "The Danny Thomas Show". Then in syndication, it was changed back to "Make Room For Daddy."

DannyThomasShowCBS.JPG
 
The 1950's/1960's Saturday morning show, "Fury" with Bobby Diamond, Peter Graves and William Fawcett was shown in local syndication as "Brave Stallion".
 
This is something done in the early days of television and has not been done lately. It was only done when shows went into syndication while they were still in production and first-run episodes were being shown in prime time on a major network.

Some shows had the names changed during the network run, like "Make Room for Daddy," apparently because the producers or network had second-thoughts about the title. Likewise, "You'll Never Get Rich" became "The Phil Silvers Show" (although most everybody called it "Sergeant Bilko").

"Captain Midnight" became "Jet Jackson" in syndication (with very bad dubbing when anybody said "Captain Midnight"). Ovaltine, the original sponsor of the radio show and later the TV version, owned the rights to the name and refused to let it be used when the show ran in syndication without Ovaltine sponsorship.

The original series of "Dragnet" was "Badge 714" in syndication.
 
"Lassie" was on the air for so many years and cranked out so many episodes that they were broken up into several different packages for syndication. The earliest episodes with Tommy Rettig became "Jeff's Collie;" the Jon Provost series in b/w was changed to "Timmy and Lassie," and I believe the earliest color episodes were retitled "The Adventures of Lassie." (On top of which, there was also an animated cartoon series, "Lassie's Rescue Rangers!")
 
HGN2001 said:
Another one not mentioned is "Make Room For Daddy" / "The Danny Thomas Show".
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Speaking of "Look Out For Father with Danny Nose"...

Cozi TV currently airs the reruns weekday afternoons, and they just got to the end of run from '63-'64 and have now reverted back to '56-'57 (I guess the package they bought ignores the first three seasons from ABC with Jean Hagen). Do all these syndication episodes run with the "generic" open/close credits? In the later seasons I've seen a number of episodes that don't credit Sid Melton at all. Was his name in the original opening credits? And will we ever see this show with the original open and close? I'm guessing the original closing credits had a sponsor's name in them.
 
oldiesfan6479 said:
Speaking of "Look Out For Father with Danny Nose"...

Cozi TV currently airs the reruns weekday afternoons, and they just got to the end of run from '63-'64 and have now reverted back to '56-'57 (I guess the package they bought ignores the first three seasons from ABC with Jean Hagen). Do all these syndication episodes run with the "generic" open/close credits? In the later seasons I've seen a number of episodes that don't credit Sid Melton at all. Was his name in the original opening credits? And will we ever see this show with the original open and close? I'm guessing the original closing credits had a sponsor's name in them.
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At one time, they had Maxwell House prominently featured in the credits.
I'm not sure if the Jean Hagen episodes(first 3 seasons) were ever syndicated, because she and Thomas parted on bad terms; they did air in reruns on NBC's daytime lineup, because Thomas couldn't do anything about that, but when the show went into off-network syndication, it was still airing on CBS. Thomas supposedly claimed it would be 'confusing' if episodes with Hagen were re-aired while the series was still in production.
In most markets, the syndicated run began with Marjorie Lord's first episodes, which aired late in season 4(1956-57). That year, Danny Williams dated several women, and eventually hired Kathy as a baby-sitter/nanny for the kids.In the final episode of the 4th season(also the last on ABC), they got engaged, and season 5(after the move to CBS) showed their honeymoon in Las Vegas. An early episode from season 5 featured a clip show with Danny reminiscing about season 4 and his first meeting with Kathy, allowing new viewers on CBS to get caught up. Can't recall if Jean Hagen ever appeared in flashbacks.
I'm surprised Cozi showed the series' last two seasons(1962-64). Those were left out of many syndication packages because they tended to be the lowest-rated seasons in repeats, even though the first-run ratings had still been very high when Thomas decided to quit the show in 1964. Thomas and Lord weren't on very much in those seasons, and the Halpers(Sid Melton and Pat Carroll) looked after the Williams kids while Danny and Kathy traveled the world, and phoned from wherever they were visiting.
 
onairb said:
I'm surprised Cozi showed the series' last two seasons(1962-64).
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MeTV's run ended with the May 1962 episodes from Season 9 called "Baby", where the Helpers had their baby.

Some original sponsored openings and closings can be found on YouTube. The ones seen on syndicated TV were created for the syndication package.
 
"The Lucy and Desi Comedy Hour" from 1957 to 1960 were syndicated and edited into half hour episodes with the title "We Love Lucy" and were included in the 1990s syndicated run of "I Love Lucy".

I read that in the few seasons that The Lucy Show were off for the summer in first run they reran the Connecticut episodes of I Love Lucy and it was called "Lucy In Connecticut".
 
"The Lucy and Desi Comedy Hour" is itself a re-title; the show first aired on the network as "The Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz Show." It ran once a month with "Desilu Playhouse" (a dramatic anthology, from which "The Untouchables" was spun off) the other three weeks. The original opening featured the animated stick-figure caricatures of Lucy and Desi that also appeared on original prints of "I Love Lucy." I understand those titles were designed by William Hanna and Joe Barbera as a "moonlighting" project while they were still at MGM.

The "Lucy In Connecticut" title seems to be a bone of contention among Lucy fans as to whether or not it was used. Could be it was used in promotion for the rerun showings but never actually used on screen? (I defer to the mavens among us on that one.)
 
Brooks and Marsh have 'Lucy in Connecticut' as the title for those season 6 episodes, as they were were re-aired in prime time, on CBS, on Sunday nights in the summer of 1960. As far as I know, that title was not used in syndication, or for any other run on CBS. Incidentally, CBS had already used 'The Lucy Show', and two variations, as a title for 'I Love Lucy' reruns that aired on the network while ' ILL' was stil in production; in the summer of '55, it was 'The Sunday Lucy Show', and that fall the repeats moved to Saturdays as 'The Lucy Show'. CBS also had a 'Top Ten Lucy Shows' series in the summer of '58...which ran 13 weeks.
 
The Ropers was also part of the late 80s syndication package; I remember watching the episodes on KIMA (Yakima) back then. Three's a Crowd was not included. I've forgotten whether The Ropers episodes were aired in one big block or split up amongst Three's Company episodes.
 
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