Daddy-O (1961 TV Movie) User Reviews

Surprisingly good considering...

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 5 August 2012]

"Daddy-O" was a failed TV pilot from 1961. Apparently, the network execs saw little to recommend this show and it was never picked up as a series. It's a shame, as the show was very unusual. Perfect? Far from it...but it had promise.

The show begins with Don Defore playing a stereotypical 'stupid dad'--complete with an annoying laugh track and lots of accidents. I really hated the show--until you learn that this IS supposed to be an annoying sitcom! In other words, the cameras soon stop and Defore announces to his agent that he HATES acting in this dopey show and he wants to quit and go back to his old job as a carpenter. Much of the show consists of the various efforts to convince him to sign his new contract and NOT give up the show, as it is successful. How will this all work out in the end? Aside from some occasional lapses in the writing (the teenage sons in the show are too selfish and obnoxious for my taste), the show was fresh and unusual. Perhaps it was too unusual for 1961. All I know is that Defore's later series, "Hazel", was far more conventional. If you are interested in seeing "Daddy-O", it's available as a free download from archive.org.

I'm quitting the show. Sorry Daddy-O, the show quit you.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 10 June 2022]

With hundreds of pilots and shows that were picked up and didn't last a full season, at one time or another a good shower a good idea is going to get overlooked I'm not green lighted. That's the case with this pilot that starred Don DeFore, rather unique because it's a sly comment on the world of family sitcoms only a decade into that genre of TV entertainment. Perhaps DeFore didn't have enough charisma for the network executives but he's fine as the star of a hit sitcom tired of being known as Daddy-O, forced to put his sleeve in the butter and slip and fall on roller skates left in the middle of the floor. Perhaps the network saw this as a one joke idea, good for a few laughs but not enough to get the advertisers in, and that's what it's all about. Enjoyable but slight, and outside of the behind the scenes premise, nothing new. Listen for the "Uh oh!" lady on the laugh track, allegedly Lucille Ball's mother!

parody of the sitcom biz

[skiddoo · 4/10 · 21 February 2016]

It would seem the powers that be didn't like parodies of what they did for work. Even the title of the terrible TV show that our hero starred in was jarringly old-fashioned for 1961. It's a grown up's sitcom with lines like, "Cheek kissing may be all right for you cool, composed Anglo-Saxon types but not me, baby. Me, I come from the sultry Mediterranean..." Or, "You're clean, you're wholesome, you're pure, you're harmless--you're predigested!" Then there was the secretary with an IQ slightly above that of a houseplant but all adults would know why she didn't lose her job.

Albert kept saying he found his sitcom star a shirtless laborer carrying a two by four over his shoulder, rather than the truth that he was a master carpenter, wore a suit, and had blueprints over his shoulder. There was also a whole lot of waving the flag when Albert was trying to be persuasive.

I didn't find the teens obnoxious. They had no idea what their father was trying to say because he kept getting interrupted. They seemed like typical, easily-distracted and self-involved teenagers. I did find them refreshingly normal-looking; skinny boys with no bulging muscles and girls who didn't look 25 years old, which are few and far between on sitcoms.

Archive.org under Failed TV Pilot: 'Daddy-O' (1961) has some comments that illuminate the reasons this failed.

Max Shulman wrote many books, as well. If you like his humor, you might like to read them.

All pilots need polishing, in some cases even recasting and reworking. This might have developed into something good, as The Dick Van Dyke Show and That Girl did. They both had major renovations done on them and both showed the insanity that exists in the world of entertainment against the backdrop of an average person's life. This pilot needed improvement to be watchable week after week. It crammed too much into a half hour in order to set the stage for the rest of the episodes, and there wasn't enough difference in tone between the faux family life and the real family life, so the result was a mess.