[When thought if Danny Thomas would play second-fiddle to other actors who later played the role of TV dads, years after him, such as: Chuck Connors, Bill Bixby and Michael Landon]: I don't think so, I don't think Danny was really thinking about anybody else's series, at the time. I don't know if he reflected on just how much of the big snowball he started in family television. We shot "The Danny Thomas Show" at Desilu Studios, which was where Lucille Ball was doing I Love Lucy (1951), which of course is iconic. We had a lot of people on our show with over spin-offs, into their own series: It was Danny Thomas and Sheldon Leonard [that had a production company together] and we had on our show. Andy Griffith; and that was the spin-off to Mayberry. Andy was the sheriff that arrested Danny when he went [and I'd forgotten what he'd done, he'd done something in this little town of Mayberry, and so, he was arrested]. Let's see, The Joey Bishop Show (1961) was a spin-off from an episode that Joey Bishop was in. There was Bill Bixby, but I think Bill Bixby just became a star playing the grocery guy on our show, I think he was picked up for some series, but there were a lot of spin-offs in 2 different comedy shows, and comedy was really needed at that time. The 1/2 hr. sitcom that was just your whole family could sit down and watch, it was really enjoyable though, Danny had a big part in that in the beginning of [what I like to call] instead of old TV classics.
Show less «