A Long-Dead TV Show Forced Soylent Green To Change Its Name

“Make Room for Daddy” is likely not a name lingering in the consciousnesses of anyone under the age of 60. “Make Room for Daddy” was the title of “The Danny Thomas Show” for its first three seasons from 1953 through 1956. The show was about a very Danny Thomas-like character named Danny Williams (Thomas) and his inability to juggle an entertainment career (he regularly performed at the Copacabana club) and a suburban family. Jean Hagen played Danny’s long-suffering wife in those first three seasons, 

“The Danny Thomas Show” wasn’t canceled until 1963, so it still may have been lingering in the public’s memory by the time Harry Harrison’s “Make Room! Make Room!” was published. So perhaps with a little imagination, one miiiiight be able to see why Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer decided to call the film “Soylent Green” instead. Harrison was quoted as saying: 

“When [actor] Chuck Connors got his [copy of my book], he called across the set to the director, ‘Hey, Dick, why aren’t you using this title instead of the crappy “Soylent Green?”‘ The answer, which Fleischer perhaps did not know, was the decision made in high places that my title might be associated with a long-dead TV series named ‘Make Room for Daddy.’ Moral: when you throw away a good title you always get a bad one.”

Harrison had many reasons to be bitter about the production of “Soylent Green.” It seems that MGM not only made many changes to his book without asking permission — the cannibalism angle was not in Harrison’s book — but they also tried to stiff the author out of money through a byzantine maze of red tape and shell companies. Harrison recalled the entire ordeal.