page_title: The Danny Thomas Show
section_title: Sequel
hierarchical_section_title: The Danny Thomas Show / Sequel
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Diana Ross, football player and actor Roosevelt Grier as guest stars on the Danny Thomas television program Make Room for Granddaddy.
context_page_description: The Danny Thomas Show is an American sitcom that ran from 1953 to 1957 on ABC and from 1957 to 1964 on CBS. Episodes regularly featured music by Danny Thomas, guest stars and occasionally other cast members as part of the plot.
  In March 1953, Danny Thomas first signed the contract for the show with ABC and chose Desilu Studios to film it using its three-camera method. Two proposed titles during preproduction were The Children's Hour and Here Comes Daddy.
context_section_description: The show ended in 1964, but Danny Thomas, Marjorie Lord, Angela Cartwright, Rusty Hamer, Sherry Jackson, Amanda Randolph and Hans Conried returned in 1965 for a two-hour-long "reunion" special on NBC, The Danny Thomas TV Family Reunion, considered the first TV reunion show, and Make More Room for Daddy, which aired as an episode of The Danny Thomas Hour in November 1967. Shortly after filming the second special in 1967, Randolph died suddenly of a stroke at the age of 70. A CBS reunion special, Make Room for Granddaddy, was aired in 1969. The special did so well that it was picked up as a series by CBS, but Thomas considered its assigned time slot to be too quiet and pulled the show.
  ABC brought it back on a weekly basis in 1970, in Make Room for Granddaddy. For the series premiere, Sherry Jackson reprised her role of oldest daughter Terry. No mention was made of her husband Pat Hannigan. Instead, for this new version of the series, Terry's husband was named Bill, who was a soldier. In this episode, Terry left her son, six-year-old Michael (played by Michael Hughes), in the care of grandparents Danny and Kathy so she could join Bill, who was stationed overseas. In addition to Lord, Hamer and Cartwright, the only other returning regulars were Sid Melton as Charley Halper and Hans Conried as Uncle Tonoose. During that season, new characters were played by Stanley Myron Handelman and former football player Roosevelt Grier. Pat Carroll did not reprise her role of Bunny Halper and her character was never mentioned on this series. The show lasted only one year, producing 24 episodes; its cancellation came at a time when the networks were purging content favoring older, rural and other less affluent viewers after the loss of a half-hour of daily program time in 1971. According to Lord, the series faced many obstacles, including the unprofessionalism and inexperience of the child actor Michael Hughes, the absence of Sheldon Leonard as producer/director to control Thomas and improve the quality of the scripts, and the fact that ABC switched the time slot of the show from Wednesday nights at 8:00 pm to Thursday nights at 9:00 pm. As a result, the ratings went from mediocre to poor.
caption: Guest star Diana Ross with Roosevelt Grier and Thomas in 1971
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