Family Affair - General Discussion

[Glendenning]

The show with three kids, an uncle, and a butler. And Mrs. Beasley.

We all know about CBS and Don Fedderson not allowing Buffy Davis to grow up, We know that they wrote her in a way which led to some people trying to re-create her on their own show in a very creepy way.

We know that what happened to her destroyed Anissa Jones and led to her death whilst still a teenager.

(by the way, Buffy Davis is generally depicted as "All-American" but Anissa Jones was of Arab background and her successor in 2002, Sasha Pieterse. is White South African) 

[Deskisamess]

Anissa was of Lebanese descent. She was a good little actress, and breaks my heart in the first or second episode when she is in bed, talking to Mrs. Beasley, and says how grownups always lie, and that it will be "all different in the morning." She was so young, and so cute. It's tragic what happened to her.

I recently watched this show through all the episodes, and enjoyed most of it. Their depiction of eastern peoples is troubling, but shows of this decade were all this way.

Brian Keith was hunky.

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 7/3/2020 at 7:48 PM, Deskisamess said:

Brian Keith was hunky.

Yes he was!

I just found this show on the Decades channel and I've been watching it for the past week and loving every second of it.  It's the early episodes, because it includes the episodes where Mr. French's brother substituted for him for a while.  I kind of remember not liking the brother, but I really did this time around.  But then rotund Mr. French came back from his tour of duty with the queen, and I adore him.   

The twins are freaking adorable, and even Cissy is a cute teenager who's kind of annoying but all in all a good kid.  She had a friend who was going to spend the night and Mr. French asked what they were going to do, and Cissy said, "We're going to call up boys!"  One of the episodes today was about where babies come from, and Cissy was big-time rolling her eyes at Bill's and French's stories about storks and cabbage patches, telling them they were doing a disservice to Buffy and Jody.  She's nicely portraying that space between child and adult.

And then there was an episode where the twins were trying to win a houseboat but ended up winning a choice between an encyclopedia and a lamb, and they didn't know what an encyclopedia was but it didn't matter because Jody wanted the lamb regardless.  Those two impossibly cute kids with a lamb (all lambs are impossibly cute) was almost too much to bear.

And back to Bill...I was 9 when this show came on the air and I obviously didn't appreciate what a cool bachelor he was.  He knew all kinds of famous people--an actor and a ballerina so far--and he brought a date back to the apartment and he was wearing a tuxedo!  Yet he welcomed those kids into his life, and lost some girlfriends because all he could talk about were the kids. 

I was too young to know if this show was corny or not, but I remember liking it then, and I love it now.  Of course, things could change as the kids get older, but right now it's fantastic.

 

[Egg McMuffin]

It’s the “Little House on the Prairie” of sitcoms: seemingly sweet on the surface but with dark undercurrents. Buffy has a friend who is dying. Nasty Aunt Fran, who gave up Buffy in the first episode because her husband didn’t like her, frequently plots to get the kids away from BIll. The kids get lost in Spain in a three-part extravaganza. Jody becomes overly attached to his teacher, who turns out to be a dead ringer for his late mother. Cissy thinks Bill doesn’t want her around. Mrs. Beasley’s arm is ripped off. I could go on.

[Bethany]

Anyone else have a Mrs Beasley doll?  My Mother got me one a few years ago (Cheryl Ladd provides the voice).  It looks just like the original Mrs Beasley which I coveted as a child.  Took a few years but Mom finally got me one 🙂.   It totally freaks out my son though, he thinks she's creepier than Chucky.

[Blergh]

While I agree that Buffy and Jody were just too 'perfect' to be real, I liked the idea of Uncle Bill and Mr. French having been totally content and complacent in their respective roles as a wealthy bachelor architect and his completely dedicated 'gentleman's gentleman' who took sincere pride in his job of flawlessly maintaining the swanky penthouse apartment and helping to manage his employer's life- who, not surprisingly found themselves rather discombobulated with the arrival of the orphaned trio  and initially raised objections. ..but then embraced the roles of becoming these minors'  parents with gusto  and genuinely cared for their well-being without becoming OOC.

 

[Bethany]

What surprises me in checking IMDB for this show is learning that Uncle Bill and Mr French were only in their 40s when the show began. I guess it was watching it as a child but I thought they were both fairly elderly men!

[Egg McMuffin]

Everyone looked older back then. Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton were in their late 40s when All in the Family started, but looked like late 50s/early 60s by today’s standards.

[Snow Apple]

As a kid, I thought the oldest sibling was called "Sissy" because she was the big sister. I wasn't until years later that I learned her name was Cissy.

I thought she was so pretty, stylish, and sophisticated. There were episodes where she moved to her own apartment and even almost got engaged! Now I realized how young she was but I guess it was an era where it more common to get married young.

[Egg McMuffin]

And now she’s playing Grandma in the ClearCaptions commercial (and has aged very gracefully).

[Blergh]

On 3/4/2023 at 11:14 AM, Snow Apple said:

As a kid, I thought the oldest sibling was called "Sissy" because she was the big sister. I wasn't until years later that I learned her name was Cissy.

I thought she was so pretty, stylish, and sophisticated. There were episodes where she moved to her own apartment and even almost got engaged! Now I realized how young she was but I guess it was an era where it more common to get married young.

IIRC, 'Cissy' was a nickname for Catherine. BTW, Miss Garver  liked how Mr. Keith had a very laid-back approach to performing- not worrying about the lines until filming while Mr. Cabot would totally memorize every syllable and endlessly rehearse each one alone in his dressing room until filming. She was amused that he'd been born into a Cockney London family but from teenhood onwards 'Sabby'(her nickname for him) had worked to have a flawless RP pronunciation.

[Egg McMuffin]

Brian Keith also refused to pronounce “Terre Haute” (where his nephew and nieces were from) correctly. Guessing he didn’t prepare ahead of time and just did it his own way and refused to admit he was wrong. So the cast wound up having to do it his way. He was well known to be a pain in the ass.

In the short-lived remake, the elder niece was actually “Sissy”, short for “Sigourney”. LOL. Can you imagine the discussion in the writers’ room? “Let’s make Sissy short for Sigourney. That will make the show hip. And fresh!”

[StatisticalOutlier]

Still loving the show.  Buffy's clothes are fantastic.  I'll single out the little A-frame dresses, but really, everything she wears is cute.  And she wears saddle oxfords to school.

They went to dinner at a nice restaurant and Buffy had on a light blue short-sleeved dress and little white gloves!  When they sat down, she expertly removed the gloves and set them on the table in front of her, while she was talking.  I don't know if that was proper etiquette but it sure was cute.

[Egg McMuffin]

I think Buffy and French were the best things about the show. Anissa Jones was a very appealing little actress, and Sebastian Cabot was excellent in his role.

[badhaggis]

On 3/17/2023 at 6:29 PM, StatisticalOutlier said:

Still loving the show.  Buffy's clothes are fantastic.  I'll single out the little A-frame dresses, but really, everything she wears is cute.  And she wears saddle oxfords to school.

They went to dinner at a nice restaurant and Buffy had on a light blue short-sleeved dress and little white gloves!  When they sat down, she expertly removed the gloves and set them on the table in front of her, while she was talking.  I don't know if that was proper etiquette but it sure was cute.

When I was about 5 my parents sent me to "White Gloves and Party Manners" classes. However I can't food the life of me I cannot remember if that is proper etiquette. 

I adored Buffy. I wanted to be her. 

[Blergh]

7 hours ago, Egg McMuffin said:

I think Buffy and French were the best things about the show. Anissa Jones was a very appealing little actress, and Sebastian Cabot was excellent in his role.

FWIW, I liked Mr. French the best! I mean, he considered his job of being 'gentleman's gentleman' (IOW the sole servant instead of the butler in charge of an entire staff of other servants) to be a calling and initially protested having their lives disrupted by the three orphans- yet learned to embrace his expanded role and de facto offspring with gusto even though he never quite let go his frustration at none of them sharing his high brow cultural tastes. Yet, he adored all four of the Davises and would have wrestled bears to safeguard them! Moreover, they themselves couldn't imagine anyone but him helping to guide them to adulthood on a daily basis.

[Egg McMuffin]

French really loved the kids. Not that he was gooey about it, but he did. Similar to the situation with Bub/Charley and the boys on My Three Sons (though I never really liked Uncle Charley). The same producer did both shows and it’s really the same setup, isn’t it? Single man raises three kids with the help of another single man.

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 3/19/2023 at 7:39 PM, Blergh said:

Yet, he adored all four of the Davises and would have wrestled bears to safeguard them! Moreover, they themselves couldn't imagine anyone but him helping to guide them to adulthood on a daily basis.

Just the other day on Decades there was an episode where Uncle Bill was marrying some girl (she seemed really young) in Rome, and when he called home Cissy answered the phone and he said French was going to have to brush up on his Italian in order to communicate with the staff, but didn't mention the kids.  So they all assumed only French was going to Rome, and they'd be split up again. 

French sprung into action and said the lease is paid up until the end of the year, so they can stay there for the time being, and he'll find other employment, but the kids are going to have to start pitching in.  Buffy was teaching herself how to make cupcakes, Jody got a job as a dog walker for a dog the size of a horse, and Cissy bemoaned that French wouldn't let her quit school to sell hosiery.  Jody started calling him Uncle French.

Of course it turned out to be a misunderstanding (and for some reason Bill and his intended hadn't discussed bringing the three kids to Rome to live with them, which turned out to be a non-starter for her), but it was a fun episode, and showed the depth of Mr. French's love for those kids. 

More fun than the one a few days before, where a girl in their class named Albertine had a father who was a pilot and a professional baseball player and chess wizard, and of course it turned out she didn't have a father at all (he'd left the family) and when Buffy and Jody found out because they went to her house, she was ashamed and quit going to school, and by the end of the episode (Bill ratted her out to her mother), she had gone back to school but was only just then saying "hi" to Buffy and Jody, which they found very encouraging. 

I prefer episodes where Mr. French does a lot of grimacing and rolling his eyes.  He didn't register a lot when I watched the show as a kid, but I adore that man now.  If he were alive, I'd sit down and write him an old-fashioned fan letter.

(Actually, there was a good Mr. French reaction in that episode--Albertine played French in chess and beat him.  You knew that was going to happen when he warned her that if she made this one move, he was going to take her queen, but she did, and he did, and her next move--checkmate.  The look on his face!  Still, it was a sad episode.)

[StatisticalOutlier]

Well that was sudden.  Yesterday was an episode about fighting city hall, where Jody's friend distractingly had a bit of a mustache going on, and then today was the very first episode.

Man, was that first episode dark.  Aunt Fran dropped Buffy off and sneaked out!  What a terrible woman.

And I was confused about why Mr. French came back...until he opened his suitcase.  So sweet.

[fanestre]

18 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

Well that was sudden.  Yesterday was an episode about fighting city hall, where Jody's friend distractingly had a bit of a mustache going on, and then today was the very first episode.

Man, was that first episode dark.  Aunt Fran dropped Buffy off and sneaked out!  What a terrible woman.

And I was confused about why Mr. French came back...until he opened his suitcase.  So sweet.

Aunt Fran is straight trash throughout the series.

[Egg McMuffin]

Aunt Fran is a vicious, manipulative witch. She dumps Buffy off on Bill in episode one because her husband doesn’t like Buffy. A lovely thing to do to an orphan. And then in each of her return episodes, she tries to get some or all of the kids back. And has no problem mindfucking them into thinking that Bill doesn’t want them, as the end justifies the means in her mind. I don’t know why Bill even lets Fran see the kids.

I kept hoping someone would drop a house on her, but alas, that never happened.

[Blergh]

I'm not even sure any of the kids would have wanted to have been more than cordial when necessary but avoiding when possible re Aunt Fran.

[Kish]

As someone who who has binge watched Family Affair numerous times, my feelings have changed the longer I watched it. In the beginning, those kids were so adorable.  and the subject matter was sort of dark. I felt so bad for them at times, seeing they were orphans, As time went on, they got a little more annoying.  Uncle Bill was a cool hip bachelor, had a great job, beautiful apartment, and had a beautiful woman as his date almost every night. Never got angry, always even tempered etc. I hated the way the kids treated Mr. Mullin, who had just got out of prison.  Terrible, but i sort of get it.  I found Jody extremely annoying in the later seasons.  I didn't like the way he treated the elder cowboy,  I didn't like the way he butt kissed Uncle Bill when he was at camp.  I have so many of these examples.  A lot of times they were sweet and caring and non-bullying, caretaker types.   Cissy was so beautiful in the later episodes and who wouldn't want a big sister like that.  And I didn't like the way they all screamed, ran up and hugged and kissed Uncle Bill as soon as he walked through the door.  I still get annoyed watching this, but I also love it at the same time. So it's an even trade. And that darm Mrs. Beasley even when she was older. I know the writers didn't want Buffy to grow up, so I get it. But that dang doll!! LOL - and yes i had a talking Mrs. Easley doll myself.