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Question about Make Room for Daddy (a.k.a. The Danny Thomas Show) (2 Viewers)

vnisanian2001

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Why did Danny Thomas only allow seasons 5-9 to be syndicated? Also, on a side-note, was Danny Thomas an egomaniac or not?
 

JasonPW

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Seasons 1 thru 3 starred Jean Hagen as Danny's wife, with Rusty and teenage Terry as their two kids. Hagen bailed on the show after season 3, and so season 4 was kind of a "rebuilding year"--by that season's end Marjorie Lord was introduced as Danny's new love interest, with her own cute little girl from a past marriage (played by Angela Cartwright).
From season 5 to 9 the show was fairly stable, the ratings boomed with the introduction of the Cartwright and Lord characters. (A network change between seasons 4 and 5, from ABC to CBS, may have helped.)
In season 10 forward, the kids were getting older, and Thomas and Lord reduced their roles considerably--their characters were "on the road" with Danny's nightclub show. Since 100 episodes is usually what a show needs for syndication, I imagine they chose the prime years--the best remembered episodes--to put in the syndication market. The show ran for a whopping 11 years, so by the time syndication came along most viewers didn't remember the first wife.
Hope that was helpful!
 

AlanP

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They are on the season which is their honeymoon this week in Vegas
 

PatrickGoodluck

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JasonPW said:
Seasons 1 thru 3 starred Jean Hagen as Danny's wife, with Rusty and teenage Terry as their two kids. Hagen bailed on the show after season 3, and so season 4 was kind of a "rebuilding year"--by that season's end Marjorie Lord was introduced as Danny's new love interest, with her own cute little girl from a past marriage (played by Angela Cartwright).
From season 5 to 9 the show was fairly stable, the ratings boomed with the introduction of the Cartwright and Lord characters. (A network change between seasons 4 and 5, from ABC to CBS, may have helped.)
In season 10 forward, the kids were getting older, and Thomas and Lord reduced their roles considerably--their characters were "on the road" with Danny's nightclub show. Since 100 episodes is usually what a show needs for syndication, I imagine they chose the prime years--the best remembered episodes--to put in the syndication market. The show ran for a whopping 11 years, so by the time syndication came along most viewers didn't remember the first wife.
Hope that was helpful!
Good points made there, Jason. Yes, stations don't usually pick up more than 100 episodes for syndication. For instance, like other long running TV shows such as Bonanza, F.B.I., Gunsmoke, Mannix etc. Although cable networks in Australia (not sure about other countries?) do pick up and rebroadcast a full set of long running shows (over 100 episodes). Although, it is still the exception rather than the rule.
I have a question also...which is kind of related since it is the "Granddaddy" incarnation of the show (that originally aired on ABC from 1970-71)...
Does anyone know if Make Room For Granddaddy will ever see the light of day? I've only ever found 3 episodes in existence amongst private collectors.
 

DeWilson

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However, the first four seasons did get a replay in Daytime on NBC weekdays in the Early 1960's.
 

Neil Brock

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PatrickGoodluck said:
Good points made there, Jason. Yes, stations don't usually pick up more than 100 episodes for syndication. For instance, like other long running TV shows such as Bonanza, F.B.I., Gunsmoke, Mannix etc. Although cable networks in Australia (not sure about other countries?) do pick up and rebroadcast a full set of long running shows (over 100 episodes). Although, it is still the exception rather than the rule.
I have a question also...which is kind of related since it is the "Granddaddy" incarnation of the show (that originally aired on ABC from 1970-71)...
Does anyone know if Make Room For Granddaddy will ever see the light of day? From my research, I've only found 3 episodes in existence in the PD - all of which can be found on YouTube.
Who says they are PD? That's BS. Under the changed copyright laws, anything from Jan. 1, 1964 onward has a 75 year copyright. The first 4 years of the show actually are PD. The Thomas estate tried to do a bogus registration, sending them in to the copyright office after 31 years but at that time, the renewal or initial registration had to be made within 28 years. So even though if you do a LOC search that will bring them up, if anyone ever challenged it there is no way those would hold up.
 

AlanP

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I am enjoying watching these as I have not seen one since I was a kid and it was re run locally in the early 70's.
Many of the later episodes I have not seen. I loved Sherry Jackson as Terry on the series. I picked up a boxed
Set from Costco of VHS set of the series with a mix of both Jean and Marjorie episodes and in no particular order. About eight
Tapes with six episodes on each tape. They ran the gamut of all years that it ran almost like a sample set..
 

DeWilson

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Neil Brock said:
The Thomas estate tried to do a bogus registration, sending them in to the copyright office after 31 years but at that time, the renewal or initial registration had to be made within 28 years. So even though if you do a LOC search that will bring them up, if anyone ever challenged it there is no way those would hold up.
What I don't understand is how the Estate got away with filing bogus registrations.
 

AlanP

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They are so cut it is terrible I think six to eight minutes of each episode is missing,
 

DeWilson

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AlanP said:
They are so cut it is terrible I think six to eight minutes of each episode is missing,
.
The shows run 25 minutes uncut, and the current edited prints run 22 minutes.
 

Neil Brock

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When the show was being syndicated in the 80s by Weiss Global communications, they mastered it to tape at a pre-cut length of about 22:15 or so. Unlike larger distributors who had the good sense and foresight to transfer to tape uncut and then make a syndication version from that, Weiss only prepped the cut version. These are the only tape copies that have been around for the last thirty years. Also, the package of episodes was cut back as well, eliminating seasons 10 & 11, thus shortening the number of shows to 161 I believe. When this show was bought and aired on Nick at Nite, it was actually the show which caused Nick to begin cutting. Prior to picking up MRFD, Nick ran all of their series complete and uncut. When they started to run MRFD in edited form with several minutes missing, they found that the viewers didn't complain and didn't protest and that was when they decided to edit everything they ran.
Currently the series is in the hands of SFM Entertainment. Not sure if they are using the same transfers that were done 30 years ago or if they did new transfers but either way, they also only have butchered versions to make available. The only uncut episodes anywhere are the sixth season ones the Smore did for their DVD release.
 

Harry-N

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I've been catching these from MeTV and am fascinated by the closing credits and theme, which are season 5 episodes. There seem to be varying lengths, some very short - about 30 seconds - and some extended to nearly a minute. The music changes too, with extended parts and riffs not in the short version. Did the theme standardize over time? I can't imagine that this is a syndication-print issue as the music fits and there are no obvious edits.

Harry
 

Neil Brock

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Harry-N said:
I've been catching these from MeTV and am fascinated by the closing credits and theme, which are season 5 episodes. There seem to be varying lengths, some very short - about 30 seconds - and some extended to nearly a minute. The music changes too, with extended parts and riffs not in the short version. Did the theme standardize over time? I can't imagine that this is a syndication-print issue as the music fits and there are no obvious edits.
Harry
My guess would be that they ran the credits according to how much time there was left to fill. Varying credit lenghts are nothing unusual. On Route 66 for example, sometimes the credits would last 2 minutes if the show came up short.
 

Harry-N

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This morning's MeTV showing started the 6th season episodes (with #3, "The First Anniversary). The show's title is now THE DANNY THOMAS SHOW instead of MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY, which makes me happy since that's the way I remember it from its network run as I was growing up. The print of this 6th season episode was much cleaner than what had been running for the 5th season. Also nice is that there's no coloration in the telecast. The 5th season episodes all had a slight greenish cast to them, forcing me to turn my color level down.

I never splurged for the DVDs so these airings are welcomed.

Harry
 

jimmyjet

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could someone make this more clear ?
who owns the 11 seasons ?
is there any reason to suspect that the unedited versions do not exist ?
as a kid, i only recall lord and cartwright.
but i am just as interested in seeing the earlier stuff. from the little cuts that i have seen, i think they may be equally enjoyable.
 

JasonPW

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The Danny Thomas Estate owns the first 9 seasons outright, and as per Thomas' wishes the first four years have not been syndicated or released on an official DVD. SFM handles syndication on behalf of the estate.
There appears to have been a change in ownership for the final 2 seasons...a lot of sources say Majorie Lord owns these episodes. It may be split ownership between Thomas and Lord--I have yet to see a really sound explanation of any of that.
 

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