David Tucker writes in "The Women Who Made Television Funny" that most family sitcoms of the 1950s such as "Father Knows Best", "The Life of Riley", and "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" focus on the father figure with the mother as "adjunct". He points out however that "The Donna Reed Show" "established the primacy of the mother on the domestic front" and notes that "Mother Knows Better" was even briefly considered as the show's title. Though "The Donna Reed Show" did sometimes use recycled "Father Knows Best" scripts that had been slightly altered, such as character name changes.