Make Room for Daddy

"Make Room For Daddy" aka "The Danny Thomas Show" was one of the cornerstones of situation comedy. It was the longest running situation comedy in American television history (11 years in prime time) until "Cheers" tied it for longevity.

"Make Room For Daddy" was a milestone in showing how families truly behaved: indulgent parents, manipulative children and relatives,the trials of balancing a career and home life, ethnic pride vs. assimilation into American society. No other situation comedy of the period came close to such honest depictions of American family life.

The show provided the perfect showcase for Danny Thomas. He never found anything else that effectively showcased his comedy. His supporting players were excellent actors, including and especially, the child actors playing his children (Sherry Jackson, Rusty Hamer, and Angela Cartwright). The scripts were generally excellent. The show ended its run only because Danny Thomas was tired of it, not due to falling ratings.

"Make Room For Daddy" gave showcase roles for many up-and-coming players:

Pat Harrington, Jr., Annette Funicello, Pat Carroll, Piccola Pupa, Bill Dana (as the memorable Jose Jimenez). Thomas was generous enough to provide the great Hans Conreid his most memorable character besides the classic work he did on the Jay Ward cartoons.

"Make Room for Daddy"'s success helped create Desilu Productions as the first major television company in America and allowed Danny Thomas to become the most prolific television comedy producer of all time. Such shows as "The Andy Griffith Show", "Mayberry RFD","The Dick Van Dyke Show", "That Girl", "I Spy" (an action series laced with comedy)were all products of Danny Thomas and his business partner, Sheldon Leonard (who had a recurring role in "Make Room for Daddy").

Lastly, "Make Room for Daddy" featured Jean Hagen and Marjorie Lord with their best-remembered television roles.

"Make Room for Daddy" deserves belated ranking with the great television shows of all time. Nothing less!

Back when Danny Thomas opted for a television series, the Danny Thomas Show or Make Room For Daddy as it was both known as, his career was at a crossroads. He was a good singer/comedian and did a few musical and acting parts on screen, but he had not reached the top rank of film stars and those people were finding less and less work on the big screen. Television was clearly the way to go.

Like Desi Arnaz over on I Love Lucy, Thomas as Danny Williams was a nightclub performer. Unlike Desi he did not have a wife just dying to get into show business. Jean Hagen was perfectly content to be raising their kids Sherry Jackson and Rusty Hamer. Hagen wanted out after three years so she was killed off and Thomas met and married Marjorie Lord who was on the remainder of the series run.

Back in those days TV had a lot of 'father is an idiot' shows and this was king of that lot. Thomas was constantly put down by his son Rusty Hamer. All I know is that talking like that to my father would have gotten me a rap across the mouth and a few licks on my behind with the hair brush.

Sadly enough Hamer proved to be the real tragedy of the show. His was a well known child star suicide after his career dissipated when the show was canceled.

The best part of the Danny Thomas Show was Danny Thomas performer with songs and stand up comedy. And that Lebanese uncle, a most demanding Uncle Tonoose played by Hans Conreid on occasion.

I think a whole generation of kids learned bad behavior from Rusty Hamer though.

Until I started watching"The Danny Thomas Show" on Catchy Comedy, I had no idea how wonderful it was! Great acting, funny, sentimental and heartfelt. Danny's chemistry with Rusty Hamer (God bless him) and Angela Cartwright as well as the other kids on the show demonstrates his love for children. I've only seen seasons 4-11 (the earlier ones, titled "Make Room For Daddy" are hard to find), but I like the later episodes with Angela Cartwright and Marjorie Lord.

For me, Rusty Hamer is the best part of the show. He was an amazing actor. I love his scenes with Danny the best. They made a great father and son team.

The music acts, both from the cast and the amazing guest stars like Sammy Davis Jr are completely wonderful. It's incredible how many guests stars they had. They all look so young and it's fun to see their earlier performances.

Danny Thomas was a wonderful performer and I loved when they showcased his nightclub acts.

The most amazing thing to me is that many shows that have long runs (this one ran 11 seasons), get stale after a while. But The Danny Thomas Show only got better.

When Make Room for Daddy ended its run in 1960s Danny Thomas offered to put Rusty Hamer through college but Hamer turned him down believing he had a future in acting. Sadly after the series ended acting jobs for Rusty were few and far between. Eventually in 1990 depression over being a 42 year old has been led to his suicide.

"Make Room For Daddy" a.k.a. "The Danny Thomas Show" stands as one of the best-written, best acted comedy shows ever. The family situations and characters were like real people with real flaws and virtues. Maybe more so than any other show of it's time. I have read many critiques of the fifth season on DVD. Just about everyone complains about the syndicated, edited episodes being used for this and several other DVD sets. Let me say this. In my opinion, there may not be any cost-effective ways to issue some series in their original, uncut versions. Sam Nelson, son of Rick Nelson is undertaking a massive restoration undertaking to redo all 435 episodes of his Grandparents "Ozzie and Harriet" show. To do so, he has mounted a massive fund-raising campaign to fund this project. The series "Bachelor Father" has just begun to be re-shown on Antenna TV. They only have 118 of the original 157 episodes to show. The vintage series "Mr. Adams and Eve" apparently has only a handful of it's original episodes still in existence. So be happy with what we can get of these series and stop whining about small details. Enjoy your "Make Room For Daddy" and be grateful for the series we can get.