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Make Room for Daddy

I thought I saw it in WBNX listings but a search of the Plain Dealer archives came up empty (it goes to 1991)..Maybe I did the wrong search terms, though..The only times I ever saw channel 29 Akron was on snowy antenna pictures when checking out TV's in the Belden Village Shopping area between Canton and Akron..It would make sense that 29 aired the Public Domain episodes though..
 
Actually, in New York City, WOR TV Channel 9 ran Make Room For Daddy off and on until the Spring of 1976. Then in 1981, Channel 5 WNEW got the show and ran it until some time in 1986. It also ran in the late 80's I believe on Channel 17 WPHL Philadelphia. In Boston it ran in the early and again late 80's on 68 WQTV. But yes this show ran less often than many others.
 
All eleven seasons with 282 shows on DVD are available on the net if you take the time to look for them. Great price too. And by the way it's Uncle Tonoose played by Hans Conried in the series. My mistake.
 
RadioStarOne said:
All eleven seasons with 282 shows on DVD are available on the net if you take the time to look
for them.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but are they from pristine 35mm masters with the original opens/closes,
or the crummy 16mm syndication prints.
 
i was never a big fan of this show or danny thomas, BUT as a producer he helped create some of the BEST sitcoms on TV back in the 60's.
 
I think at least some of the Metromedia stations were carrying
the show in the mornings well into the '80s; I've seen listings for
it on WTTG Washington and WXIX Cincinnati. IIRC from all my
Atlanta retros, Pat Robertson carried it there on what is now WGCL.

I personally think Danny was, like Dick Clark and Ralph Edwards, happier
as a producer than a performer (not that it stopped any of them from
getting in front of the camera), and I will say again that he starred in one
of the overlooked gems of the '70s: "The Practice," where he played a doctor
who looked and wisecracked like Groucho (Groucho was approached to play
the role but declining health dissuaded him, so Danny was made up to look
like him).
 
bpatrick said:
I personally think Danny was, like Dick Clark and Ralph Edwards, happier
as a producer than a performer (not that it stopped any of them from
getting in front of the camera), and I will say again that he starred in one
of the overlooked gems of the '70s: "The Practice," where he played a doctor
who looked and wisecracked like Groucho (Groucho was approached to play
the role but declining health dissuaded him, so Danny was made up to look
like him).
Click to expand...

Was that a show that was produced by his son Tony?
 
Tony and Paul Junger Witt did produce this show; the
third member of their company, starting with "Soap,"
was Susan Harris. She was not involved with "The Practice."
 
I remember seeing The Practice, though I hadn't recalled the title. I thought it was more than decent, but IIRC, it only lasted half a season, or one season at the most.

Speaking of titles - I don't think anyone has mentioned it - MRFD was re-titlted The Danny Thomas Show when it moved to CBS. I believe it was only MRFD for the first 3 seasons on ABC.

If I'm not mistaken, the syndicated reruns ran under the latter title, not MRFD.
 
...the prints that KFIZ-TV ran carried both titles, with The Danny Thomas Show fading into Make Room for Daddy in the opening sequence (not unlike The Best of Groucho fading into You Bet Your Life on the syndication prints of that series)...
 
Lkeller said:
I remember seeing The Practice, though I hadn't recalled the title. I thought it was more than decent, but IIRC, it only lasted half a season, or one season at the most.

Speaking of titles - I don't think anyone has mentioned it - MRFD was re-titlted The Danny Thomas Show when it moved to CBS. I believe it was only MRFD for the first 3 seasons on ABC.

If I'm not mistaken, the syndicated reruns ran under the latter title, not MRFD.
Click to expand...

Actually the title change was made in 1956, at the start of Danny's fourth and last season on ABC; the show moved to CBS the following year. The first episode on CBS showed Danny and Kathy (Marjorie Lord) returning from their honeymoon (Danny's character had been a widower the last year on ABC after Jean Hagen left the show).

As for the title in syndication, I've seen it both ways, although most stations have used the "Make Room For Daddy" title.

It might be worth noting that Danny got "I Love Lucy"'s timeslot on Monday nights when he moved to CBS. Going in, he said he hoped to keep half of Lucy's audience; he ended up holding onto 80% of it. "The Lucy Show" was Danny's lead-in for two seasons (1962-64). Danny never ranked in the top 30 on ABC (no surprise, given the state of ABC in the '50s), but his rankings during his CBS years are impressive:

1957-58 #2 (behind "Gunsmoke")
1958-59 #5
1959-60 #4
1960-61 #12
1961-62 #8
1962-63 tied with "Ben Casey" at #7
1963-64 #9 (at which point Danny decided to cal it quits, although some reruns aired in CBS primetime in the summer of
1965)
 
I suppose my beef with MRFD was Danny's hysterical shouting almost every line. That being said, it sure wouldn't hurt to see MRFD again, now that I have MeTV!

I did watch MRFD sparingly when on Nick @ Nite 20 years back.

Does MeTV use Angela Cartwright to promo "Lost in Space"? (You know...."Watch me on Me." They can double up for MRFD!

BTW....how did NBC get its hands on reruns for daytime use while CBS still had it at night? (I know that "The Real McCoys" were moved to CBS for its last season, so that CBS can get the rerun package for daytime.)

cd
 
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