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Danny Thomas was never able to duplicate another long running series after Make Room for Daddy/aka...The Danny Thomas Show (1953-1964). He followed up with:

The Danny Thomas Hour (1967)

Make Room for Grandaddy (1970-1971)

The Practice (1976-1977)

I'm A Big Girl Now (1980-1981)

One Big Family (1986-1987)

Make Room for Grandaddy is now available on youtube and Tubi. As with the old series it relied too much on Guest Star of the week plots (as Here's Lucy did during this time). 26 year old Diana Ross even played a teen in an episode which was cringy. There were also too many plots of Danny trying to be hip and with it for the 1970's. Probably the best episode was Linda (Angela Cartwright) learning to drive. Of course, Danny had the latest model land yacht convertible in the garage.

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John Forsythe chalked up a long successful career in TV.

Bachelor Father 57-62 that show started on CBS, moved to NBC and then finished on ABC .Did any other show appear on all 3 networks?

John Forsythe Show 65-66 CBS. That show changed formats mid season from a sitcom to an espionage format!

Has any other show had such a drastic revamp?

To Rome With Love CBS 69-71 Supposedly set in Rome but filmed in Hollywood.

Charlie's Angels ABC 1976-81. The easiest gig of his career, providing voiceovers that took a few hours each to record for each episode.

Dynasty ABC 1981-89.

That Powers That Be NBC 1992-93

  • Member
2 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Charlie's Angels ABC 1976-81. The easiest gig of his career, providing voiceovers that took a few hours each to record for each episode.

Nowadays, Charlie would be communicating with Bosley and the ladies via text messaging, lol.

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Suzanne Pleshette had a number of misses after being on "The Bob Newhart Show". Her first was the sitcom "Maggie Briggs" (also known as "Suzanne Pleshette is Maggie Briggs") and then she tried dramas "Bridges To Cross" and "Nightengales" before later trying another sitcom called "The Boys Are Back" with Hal Linden. Her last regular series role was in the first season of "Good Morning, Miami".

"Bridges to Cross" also featured Eva Gabor in what was her only other series regular role other that "Green Acres".

Edited by ReddFoxx

  • Member
17 minutes ago, ReddFoxx said:

Suzanne Pleshette had a number of misses after being on "The Bob Newhart Show". Her first was the sitcom "Maggie Briggs" (also known as "Suzanne Pleshette is Maggie Briggs") and then she tried dramas "Bridges To Cross" and "Nightengales" before later trying another sitcom called "The Boys Are Back" with Hal Linden. Her last regular series role was in the first season of "Good Morning, Miami".

"Bridges to Cross" also featured Eva Gabor in what was her only other series regular role other that "Green Acres".

The Bridges cast looks much more interesting than the show probably was. Jose Ferrer, Nick Surovy, Nancy Cartwright, Roddy McDowall.

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Lucille Ball was the TV queen for 3 decades.

I Love Lucy (1951-1957)

The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957-1960)

The Lucy Show (1962-1968)

Here's Lucy (1968-1974).

Life With Lucy (1986) her last sitcom was considered one of the worst shows and was cancelled after 13 episodes. The audience felt that Lucy and Gale Gordon still doing pratfalls at their age was an accident waiting to happen. Lucy felt she was rejected by America and never got over it.

  • Member
48 minutes ago, SoapDope78 said:

Lucy felt she was rejected by America and never got over it.

Which is sad, because, if anything, America felt the rest of the show (minus Gale Gordon) let her down. Lucy was television royalty. She deserved so much better than a show that was written and produced by a team who were out-of-touch with the times.

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14 minutes ago, Khan said:

Which is sad, because, if anything, America felt the rest of the show (minus Gale Gordon) let her down. Lucy was television royalty. She deserved so much better than a show that was written and produced by a team who were out-of-touch with the times.

Wasn't it her own elderly writing team she brought out of retirement? I don't think it was all Lucy's fault, but I know she brought in a lot of her own people.

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14 hours ago, ReddFoxx said:

Rita Moreno was on "The Electric Company", then the network seasons of "9 to 5", "Oz" on HBO and the revival of "One Day At a Time". The one season flops she had were "The Cosby Mysteries" (which was a big wtf is this series) and "Cane" which debuted during a writers strike.

"The Cosby Mysteries" made sense for the time, IMO. His sitcom had just ended, he still had a huge following with older audiences, and between Andy Griffith, Carroll O'Conner, Tom Bosley, and Dick Van Dyke, it was all the rage for former sitcom stars to become crimefighters (which you could even say stretched as far back as Buddy Ebsen as my boy Barnaby Jones).

29 minutes ago, SoapDope78 said:

Lucille Ball was the TV queen for 3 decades.

I Love Lucy (1951-1957)

The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957-1960)

The Lucy Show (1962-1968)

Here's Lucy (1968-1974).

Life With Lucy (1986) her last sitcom was considered one of the worst shows and was cancelled after 13 episodes. The audience felt that Lucy and Gale Gordon still doing pratfalls at their age was an accident waiting to happen. Lucy felt she was rejected by America and never got over it.

And then there's "Life with Lucy" lol The whole thing makes me sad because you watch the opening credits, and it's all this stuff about living life to the fullest, aging with dignity and grace, keeping that fighting spirit, staying open to new ideas and experiences, etc. and you can tell Lucy was really ready to be "back." The show flops hard, and people were not very kind about it, plus Desi dies just a few weeks after it's cancelled. It's no wonder she just wanted to be left alone at that point.

I've read that they were trying to get her to do something more like Golden Girls, and while I hope it wasn't a complete rip-off, I think it could have been a different story for her final series. Back when they were developing "Here's Lucy," it was a conscious decision to go in a new direction by having it be Lucy as the mother of teenagers, and I personally think that worked very well for the most part. Lucy as a grandmother, not so much, which is why I guess they leaned once again on "Lucy pisses Gale Gordon off" as the basic premise.

I'm not sure what would have been a good set-up for her in 1986. Maybe something like "Waiting for God," with her and Gale finally working together in cahoots to piss other people off. That way, the whole idea of them being too old for the slapstick but still getting into trouble anyway would be part of the plot.

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Somebody at CBS in the 1980s and 1990s clearly liked Gerald McRaney. Simon & Simon, Major Dad, Central Park West, Promised Land.

  • Member
57 minutes ago, Khan said:

Which is sad, because, if anything, America felt the rest of the show (minus Gale Gordon) let her down. Lucy was television royalty. She deserved so much better than a show that was written and produced by a team who were out-of-touch with the times.

42 minutes ago, Vee said:

Wasn't it her own elderly writing team she brought out of retirement? I don't think it was all Lucy's fault, but I know she brought in a lot of her own people.

Yes, she did bring back her old writing team out of moth balls, and they were out of touch with the times. They were stuck in the 1960's and probably thought since it was "Lucy" that the audience would buy her in anything (even if she was reading the phonebook). Aaron Spelling produced this mess, and I think she wasn't even told it had been cancelled till she showed up to work. Her second husband Gary Morton also let her sign on to projects that were not up to her talent. Her daughter Lucie Arnaz said that if Desi hadn't been too ill he would have told her " What the hell are you doing still trying to perform physical comedy at your age". Lucie said she agreed with the audience that Lucy might break a hip or something doing those crazy stunts.

  • Member

Physical comedy was used very sparingly at the time where it was only funny if the audience was actually surprised by it. The writing being old hat was the man problem, but the supporting cast was so awful and I only managed to get through about five episodes. The only episode that I slightly enjoyed was one where Lucy gave away her son's teddy bear and the woman who bought it wouldn't give it back. Dena Dietrich's back and forth with Lucy actually worked and she would have been a decent co-star had the project been done right.

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43 minutes ago, ReddFoxx said:

Physical comedy was used very sparingly at the time where it was only funny if the audience was actually surprised by it. The writing being old hat was the man problem, but the supporting cast was so awful and I only managed to get through about five episodes. The only episode that I slightly enjoyed was one where Lucy gave away her son's teddy bear and the woman who bought it wouldn't give it back. Dena Dietrich's back and forth with Lucy actually worked and she would have been a decent co-star had the project been done right.

Dena Deitrich was one of those great actresses that brightened up everything she appeared in but never had a long running series. Her longest role was as Mother Nature in the Chiffon margarine commercials in the 70's. She would have been an excellent sidekick to Lucy.

Bob Crane (who's messy private life was exposed after his 1978 murder) never had another long running series after Hogan's Hero's (1965-1971) ended. Prior to that he had a co-starring role on The Donna Reed Show (1963-65). In the early 70's he did the Disney film " Super Dad" (1973) with Kurt Russell he thought would re-ignite his career. It didn't. He tried another series in 1975 with "The Bob Crane Show" that ended after 14 episodes. He spent the rest of his career before his death doing guest appearances.

  • Member

I remember reading somewhere that Aaron Spelling said his biggest regret was not listening to his instincts and listening to Lucille about her final sitcom 1986 since he had wanted to bring in new writers that understood where comedy was in the 80s.. but she wanted to use her old team.

I think the comedy could have been her, Gale Gordon, Dena D, etc.. living in a retirement community. And she still could have done physical comedy in a very light way (i.e. sneaking out of the retirement community, sneaking someone in, etc).

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2 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

I think the comedy could have been her, Gale Gordon, Dena D, etc.. living in a retirement community. And she still could have done physical comedy in a very light way (i.e. sneaking out of the retirement community, sneaking someone in, etc).

That's a good concept. And they could bring in younger people with staff, family members etc.

I also mentioned before doing a light comedy/mystery show with Lucy getting involved with various mysteries.

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