Up until The Love Boat came along, Aaron Spelling had a poor track record with comedies, dating back to his days at Four Star. For example, the unsold Bette Davis pilot, The Decorator, and Gertrude Berg's attempt at a sitcom comeback were both on his watch. So was the Smothers Brothers' 1st series.
Defiant, Spelling tried to unite Westerns and comedy with 1967's Rango, with Tim Conway, Spelling's 1st collaboration with Danny Thomas. That was a bomb.
Five years later, having established himself as one of ABC's primary producers of their Movie of The Week, Spelling went mining for 10 gallon laughs again, this time with "The Daughters of Joshua Cabe", which would be the first in a trilogy of TV-movies produced over a 4 year period (1972-6), with three different actors as Cabe, and three sets of "Daughters".
"Cabe" was to reunite Spelling with Walter Brennan (ex-The Guns of Will Sonnett, The Real McCoys), who'd been in the two "Over The Hill Gang" TV-movies. Brennan wasn't available, but Buddy Ebsen, a year removed from The Beverly Hillbillies, was.
The plot: Cabe has to fend off a neighboring rival (Leif Erickson, himself fresh from The High Chaparral), but his adult daughters can't reach him in time. Needing help, in addition to his best friend, Bitterroot (Jack Elam), Cabe recruits a trio of ne'er do wells in a hooker, a pickpocket, and a petty thief, to pose as his daughters. Spelling went for the downs with the casting, calling on two past "Gidgets", Sandra Dee and Room 222's Karen Valentine, and a past "Cinderella" (Lesley Ann Warren, billed as simply Lesley Warren).
The supporting cast also includes Don Stroud and Michael Anderson, Jr. (ex-The Monroes).
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