[1] It was retitled Comedy Spotlight for the summer of 1961, and that year was composed entirely of reruns of General Electric Theater episodes.

With a revamped cast but largely the same characters, a reworked version of "Head of the Family" became the successful situation comedy The Dick Van Dyke Show, which aired from 1961 to 1966,[2][4][5] and the plot of "Head of the Family" served as the basis of The Dick Van Dyke Show′s February 1962 episode "Father of the Week.

"[citation needed] CBS filmed "A Pony for Chris," a pilot for a proposed series titled Medicine Man, starring Ernie Kovacs and Buster Keaton, in which Kovacs played Dr. P. Crookshank, a traveling medicine salesman in the 1870s who was selling "Mother McGreevy's Wizard Juice," also known as "man's best friend in a bottle.

CBS made plans to broadcast the pilot for Medicine Man as an episode of The Comedy Spot in 1962, but dropped the idea after encountering problems with Kovacs's estate.

It returned in the summer of 1961 with the title Comedy Spotlight and moved to the 9:00–9:30 p.m. time slot on Tuesdays, replacing The Tom Ewell Show.