Dear God! This is a cool crossover but as you can see from the odd listings of the shows that crossed over, some explanations are in order first.

   First off, Make Room For Daddy was the name of The Danny Thomas Show for its first three seasons. The show was about Danny Thomas's character Danny Williams. He was an entertainer and father trying to balance these duties. Normally if a show changes title, there is also some sort of basic change in the show's premise or cast or something. In this case that change seems to have been the departure of the character of Danny's wife Margaret. But aside from that it stayed pretty much the same show, unlike, say, when All In The Family became Archie Bunker's Place and the focus of the show truly shifted. Or when Valerie Harper was killed off of her own show Valerie and it became Valerie's Family and then The Hogan Family. I mean, Margaret was not the title character. Anyhow, I can't really see calling The Danny Thomas Show and Make Room For Daddy different shows so thus the double titling up above.

   On to Lucy! While I Love Lucy was in production, the cast began to do regular one hour specials appearing as the same characters. The specials almost always featured big name guest stars. Following the end of I Love Lucy, for five out of six of the following summers, CBS aired these specials as a series of its own called The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. So basically The Luci-Desi Comedy Hour is just repackaged repeats and is really part of I Love Lucy. But it did acquire a name of its own and airs today on places like Nick At Night under that title. And, most impotantly, the crossover occurred on one of these hour long episodes so for the sake of accuracy and all, it seems right to include it in the above listings as well.

   Now can we get to the actual crossover?!? By the time of the crossover, Ricky and Lucy Ricardo were living in their house in Connecticut with their friends the Mertzes renting the guest house next door. The episode starts with Ricky about to leave for about a month on work. Lucy and their son Little Ricky are going to go with him so they decide they should rent out their house to someone while they are gone and thus make a little extra money in the process. They end up renting the house to Danny Williams and his family.

   But then, suddenly, Ricky's job falls through. They are stuck. Danny and his family have paid for the house and need to stay. Lucy, Ricky and Little Ricky go to live with the Mertzes. But Lucy can't stop obsessively watching out that the Williams don't wreck her house. In addition, there isn't enough room at the Mertze's to fit two families. They come up with a better arrangement. The Ricardos and the Mertzes will move into the big house and Danny and his family will move into the guest house. Only greedy Fred Mertz jinxes the deal. Ricky owns the guest house but Fred is renting it and therefore it is his house to rent out. And even though the Ricardo's will be putting him up rent free till it is all over, Fred can't help himself and tries to gouge the Williams for more money to rent his place than they were already paying for the bigger house. This whole mess escalates into all three families being angry at each other and having a very heated... snowball fight.

   Next thing you know they are all in court suing each other and all sick from the fight. Lucy has lost her voice and has to testify in pantomime and Fred's ears are so blocked up that all the proceedings have to be shouted at him. In the end, of course, the families reconcile with the William's and Ricardo children helping to show them how pig headed they all are.

   This is a comedy classic with two legendary sitcoms come together. I think this and Lucy's crossover with Private Secretary might be a couple of the earliest crossovers that did not involve some sort of spin off attempt, but were simply done based on the thought of "wouldn't it be cool if these shows bumped into each other?"

Other Danny Thomas Show Crossover Links
The Danny Thomas Show and The Andy Griffith Show
The Danny Thomas Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Danny Thomas Show and The Joey Bishop Show
The Danny Thomas Show and Make Room For Granddaddy

Other I Love Lucy Crossover Links
I Love Lucy and Private Secretary

Click here to return to main Crossover List

Buy these shows on Amazon.com and support this site at the same time! Check out Danny Thomas and I Love Lucy on DVD! Danny Thomas and family appear on "I Love Lucy" in the second season of the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour!





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