My Three Sons - General Discussion

[smiley13]

On 4/3/2018 at 3:40 AM, JacquelineAppleton said:

Mrs Beasley/Myrtle came to mind.

Doll/Puppet

[Jacqs]

Thank God M3S didn't last long enough for a Dodie's frst bra episode *shudders*

[Gemma Violet]

Some musings: I remember watching My Three Sons in the '60s and always liked it (except the Dodie years) and I've been watching it on MeTV the last several weeks.  The shows are simple but fun to watch. 

Of course, some of the plots are a little too simple, like this week Ernie was devastated to learn his best friend was moving away.  The friend was depressed as well, and Ernie had a going-away party for him and he gave Ernie an expensive gift to remember him by, and then we learn he just moved two blocks away!  So all this time, his parents never told him he would be in the same neighborhood, go to the same school, and would stay friends with Ernie.  That was a very unsatisfying ending. 

On the episode where the triplets were born, it was hilarious that tiny Katie who barely looked nine months pregnant gave birth to three huge babies.  The triplet shows were some of the best.  They really hit gold when they brought Katie onto the show.  

Quote

I liked the episode where Uncle Charley had a tea party for Katy and her sorority sisters.

I think that's definitely one of my favorites, too! 

Edited April 15, 2018 by Gemma Violet

[pieinmyeye]

Does anyone remember the episodes before they moved to CA? I seem to remember Ernie wearing overalls all the time. I kept wondering when they'd put him in a regular shirt and pants. Anybody remember that or am I just crazy?

[smiley13]

Dodie was just awful.  I liked Barbara though.   I loved Katie and didn't feel one way or another about Polly.

[smiley13]

On 4/24/2018 at 6:21 PM, pieinmyeye said:

Does anyone remember the episodes before they moved to CA? I seem to remember Ernie wearing overalls all the time. I kept wondering when they'd put him in a regular shirt and pants. Anybody remember that or am I just crazy?

I don't recall seeing Ernie in overalls.  I have been watching the full run of the series of ME-TV, so I have seen them all pretty recently.

[smiley13]

I loved the addition of Katie to the show,    She fit in so well.  And the triplets were good too.

And add me to the list of those who liked the tea party episode.

[alegtostandon]

On 3/21/2018 at 5:21 AM, ByaNose said:

Beverly Garland was 43 when she started the show. Who knew? Yup! That was very old to have a kid that age in 1969. That said, it's not unheard of today. Maybe, Barbara was ahead of her time. LOL!!!!

Just saying.  My mom had my brother in 1966 when she was 38, my mother in law had both my husband and his younger brother (14 months younger) over the age of 40. 

[alegtostandon]

Saw her in an episode of Mannix last night,, she was a few years older than the My Three Sons, but still very demanding. 

I remember hearing once that her brother is the 70's pop star, Leif Garrett. 

And...why were her dresses so short? She showed up today on her first My Three Sons & her dress was shorter than most blouses! I think it was to make her look younger.

And that doll! Must have been the season of ugly scary dolls.  That Myrtle (and what kid names their doll Myrtle!?) actually scared me when I was a kid!

Edited April 28, 2018 by alegtostandon

[smiley13]

My Mom was 32 when she had me in 1965 and she thought that was old at the time.  Barbara was definitely not the norm for the 60's.  What was Dodie's age in 1969, like 5 or 6?

[smiley13]

11 hours ago, alegtostandon said:

Saw her in an episode of Mannix last night,, she was a few years older than the My Three Sons, but still very demanding. 

I remember hearing once that her brother is the 70's pop star, Leif Garrett. 

And...why were her dresses so short? She showed up today on her first My Three Sons & her dress was shorter than most blouses! I think it was to make her look younger.

And that doll! Must have been the season of ugly scary dolls.  That Myrtle (and what kid names their doll Myrtle!?) actually scared me when I was a kid!

Myrtle was very creeepy.  And that way she would hold it up to her ear and talk to it and act like Myrtle was replying to her.  There was nothing about Dodie that I liked.  Dawn Lyn grew up to be a lovely girl though.

[Jacqs]

That scene where she meets Barbara on the street, when Barbara is in deep thought (about marrying Steve). She might as well have been walking around in just underwear. Poor Dawn...

[Gemma Violet]

On 7/19/2016 at 2:44 PM, Melissa Glenson said:

" Lol! They probably would have done that episode. Why not? They obviously had no problem putting me in dresses so short that you could see my panties."

My niece was about Dawn Lyn's age and I remember in the late '60s (when she was about five) her wearing dresses as short as Dodie's.  It must have been the style for little girls at that time.

[Jacqs]

9 hours ago, Gemma Violet said:

My niece was about Dawn Lyn's age and I remember in the late '60s (when she was about five) her wearing dresses as short as Dodie's.  It must have been the style for little girls at that time.

Anissa Jones and Susan Olsen also were the victims of on-screen visible panties.

[Blergh]

Not to be missed is "The Coffee House Set" from Season Five in which a pre-Katie Tina Cole guests as a beatnik girl who lures Robbie to her coffee house run by an older beatnik called Itchy (played to the hilt by, of all folks, Jamie Farr!!). Anyway, Robbie plays Mr. Grady's original compositions there and soon becomes a big hit there. It's not too long before he ditches his preppy threads for a sweat shirt, jeans, sandals and a goatee and thinks he's going to be the unchallenged big cat there- until the suited Steve happens to show up and catches this eye of this avant-garde painter named Lola who considers Steve SO square that he's cool enough for her to immortalize on canvas via mustard and raspberry jam! Oh, and there's a beatnik girl dancer who entertains the crowd via dancing to a deflating balloon!  Anyway, the look on Robbie and Steve's faces when they see each other 'holding court' is priceless. Meantime, Bub and Older Bro Mike are getting rather frantic over Robbie's new hipness and decide to ignore Steve's 'ignore it' decree by fighting fire with fire. In the climatic scene Robbie comes home to Mike, Mike's fetching fiancee Sally (played by the late Meredith MacRae) , Chip& Ernie and even BUB (complete with Beatle wig and prosthetic goatee) decked out as beatniks! Oddly enough,  it seemed that Mr. Considine, Miss MacRae and even Mr. Frawley seemed to be having their fun  decked out in those OOC threads!  Yep, Fred Mertz the Beatnik!  Even though the show was making fun of beatniks, Mr. Grady's songs were actually quite impressive.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Blergh
Fewer O's

[smiley13]

Some of those really short dresses had bloomers that were worn under them.

[Jacqs]

It doesn't help that Season 10 is seen more widely than Seasons 11 and 12, where Dawn has a longer, better, hairstyle and is wearing pants more.

[Blergh]

While I always thought Dodie was a bit annoying (and sharp as a soap bubble), I liked how over the course of the series, they actually had her go from being resistant to wanting to join the Douglas family due to loyalty towards her late father's memory to  Steve adopting her and making her an official Douglas with the entire family throwing a party welcoming her into it which truly made her happy.

. I mean, a major fail of The Brady Bunch was that the girls all had their names changed from Martin to Brady upon their mother's remarriage and there never was any episode depicting any type of discussion or how any of them might have felt about this name change despite the fact that they had very mixed feelings about their new stepfather and stepbrothers especially at the beginning!

[Jacqs]

Marcia probably welcomed the name change - "Marcia the Martian" gets tired after a while.

[Blergh]

21 hours ago, JacquelineAppleton said:

Marcia probably welcomed the name change - "Marcia the Martian" gets tired after a while.

Not an invalid possibility but neither she nor her younger sisters ever expressed an opinion about their own premarital name change one way or the other.

However; it's a somewhat sad hashmark against the Brady Bunch when a much stodgier, more tired, and definitely   squarer show (M3S) actually does a more realistic arc capturing the conflicted emotions of a child reacting to a parent's re-marriage AND herself joining a larger family (and that's even factoring the BB performers expressing a greater acting range than the somewhat reviled Miss Lyn did during her childhood).

[Gemma Violet]

I have trouble understanding about half of what Dodie says.  I don't remember having that problem when the show was first run and I was about 12 years old.  Old age is catching up with me.  

Edited May 29, 2018 by Gemma Violet

[Gemma Violet]

Last week, they aired the episode where Steve and Robbie are working weekends on a huge project at the office and it turned out they ended earlier than expected.  The secretaries threw them all a celebratory party complete with cake and root beer just as Katie and Barbara decided to visit the office.  They saw the party, jumped to conclusions, and left in a huff, thinking their husbands had lied to them about working and were actually partying it up all this time.  Barbara later came to her senses, but it took a while before Katie came around.  It made me think how Katie, for all her good points, was a very jealous person.  And of course jealousy has to be played up in sitcom world or else you don't have a story.  Rob was right to chew her out when he came home.  

[SanDiegoInExile]

And within two years, Katie would contemplate divorce (something that her father in law seemed to support).  Hopefully, meTV will air the little seen Final Season and not force the Bub Years on us again.

I keep checking the listings and hope for a Fergus mention in the description -- that would prove meTV is going through all the seasons!

Edited May 30, 2018 by SanDiegoInExile

[Blergh]

San DiegoinExile,

 

I LIKE the Bub years because the situations as well as the affection between the principles are more genuine and less contrived. What's more, the last two seasons had that wonderful performer Merideth MacRae playing eldest son's Mike's fiancee Sally Ann Morrison (and they DID get married off in the Season Sic opener before being sent to Chuck Cunningham Land).  What's more Sally always had far more spunk and independence than either of her succeeding sisters-in-law and it was clear that as stubborn as Mike could be, he'd have never taken her for granted as Robbie would Katie nor would Sally have not spelled out what was unacceptable ASAP.

Oh, and she was intro'ed one of my fave episodes "How Do You Know?" in which she first comes to Bryant Park as a secretary working in Steve's company whom the others want to sent up for dates so Steve reluctantly enlists Mike's help to find a date for her from his college  pals because Mike's on the verge of giving his longtime girl his college pin! Well, Sally and Mike's girl turn out to have been old friends and she also gets on the good side to every other member of the Douglas household. Mike vents his frustration about the fact that everyone else likes Sally but he protests not to to his grandpa Bub who recalls a similar girl he'd met on the Chautauqua  circuit who'd recite Chaucer that everyone else was fond of.  Well, by the end of episode Mike finds himself smitten with this smart, independent girl and Bub fesses that the Chaucer reciter wound up being  the boys' grandmother!

  I didn't see the Bub years until decades after they aired but I have to confess that he seemed to be more the family glue than Uncle Charley ever would be (except perhaps with Ernie and maybe a little with Dodie).  Oh, and I know that Bill Frawley was forced out due to the insurers not willing to insure his health so he could work on the show but I hated how almost as soon as his brother Charley was welcomed into the Douglas household, none of them ever mentioned Bub again. Bub just got on a plane to Ireland to wish his aunt a happy 104th (!) birthday but was supposed to return but never did and everyone pretended he'd never existed from that point on.

 Back to Katie, though, I agree that Robbie didn't treat her fairly  and it was no surprise that she at least was considering divorce. I also think Steve had, by that point, genuinely grown to consider her a daughter as well as the mother of his grandsons and, I thought it was cool that he didn't raise any objections to that possible decision but he made it clear that that decision  would be something she herself would have to make on her own. Yes, I think he would have been emotionally  supportive of her (and the grandsons) had she actually made that choice (and I think Barbara  and Polly would have stayed friends with her,too). 

[SanDiegoInExile]

I haven't seen the "Divorce Episode" in ages, but I think it was neatly resolved in 22 minutes that Katie wanted to stay married to the absent Robbie.  And it was never brought up again (in the remaining half-dozen episodes).  With any luck, those episodes will air at the beginning of July.

[Cobb Salad]

There are a bunch of My Three Sons episodes on You Tube.  A lot are from seasons 11 and 12 including the divorce episode and the Fergus episodes.  

[SanDiegoInExile]

Thanks for posting this.  Those episodes had been posted before and *zap* disappeared.  Looks like these were posted in February 2018.  Yay!

[Gemma Violet]

I hadn't remembered that Katie had considered divorce.  And I don't think I've seen any of the Bub years since they first aired in the early 60s.  I barely remember them since the show started when I was 4 years old and Bub left when I was 9.

[Gemma Violet]

I was looking at my TV grid to see what the episodes are next week, expecting Chip-Polly courtship episodes (1970), and I was right except on Thursday, they have an episode listed from 1960 about Mike contemplating elopement.  And then Friday is about Chip and Polly's honeymoon.  Someone was apparently asleep at the programming switch.

ETA:  On MeTV

Edited June 2, 2018 by Gemma Violet

[Blergh]

Gemma,

 

 I recall the Mike contemplating elopement one (with his one-season next door neighbor's daughter). I thought it was amusing enough but it also was significant due to Bub actually recalling his late daughter eloping with Steve since that was one of the very few times the first Mrs. Steve was ever mentioned. However; in spite of my reviewing quite a few eps on that Site That Must Not Be Named,  not once did Bub or Steve actually say her given name even when allowing themselves to recollect a memory of her.

[Blergh]

He had been orphaned at an unknown time but tried to pretend that his foster parents the Thompsons were his real ones but they were so laid back that they seemed to have no problems with him spending virtually every waking moment even way after dark with the Douglas family. Then, after Mike got married to Sally  then amscrayed (both of whom had embraced Ernie as a de facto part of the family along with the rest of them), the Thompsons got transferred to Asia but couldn't take him because they weren't his legal parents. So, at Chip's suggestion with no resistance from Steve and only a little grumbling from Uncle Charley, Steve and  Uncle Charley adopted Ernie with Uncle Charley being considered as his legal mother (!) but, thankfully Ernie's surname became Douglas alone. Just a year later the whole family left  squaresville Midwest Bryant Park for swinging North Hollywood then soon got Katie to join the family when Robbie married her and another year later, Ernie became the uncle of triplets and just a year later Steve married Barbara whom Ernie called 'Mom' but it never was stated whether she actually adopted Ernie as her legal son in spite of Steve having adopted Dodie as his legal daughter (and I somehow doubt Uncle Charley would have objected to losing the 'motherhood').

Anyway despite being orphaned, then being fostered by a couple who jaunted overseas then officially adopted by two neighboring men, then moving away from a small Midwestern suburb to a major California city, then gaining a sister-in-law, nephews, then a new mother in his early teens, Ernie was remarkably docile, polite and well -adjusted at the show's end.

[SanDiegoInExile]

On 6/1/2018 at 4:02 PM, Gemma Violet said:

I was looking at my TV grid to see what the episodes are next week, expecting Chip-Polly courtship episodes (1970), and I was right except on Thursday, they have an episode listed from 1960 about Mike contemplating elopement.  And then Friday is about Chip and Polly's honeymoon.  Someone was apparently asleep at the programming switch.

ETA:  On MeTV

 

Seems that the problem is that My Three Sons labeled two episodes with the same show title.  I went to the handy Episode Guide on the meTV website:

 

EP 13: THE ELOPEMENT

Mike and the girl next door arouse suspicions when the two are seen leaving with suitcases.Aired: 12/22/1960

 

EP 339: THE ELOPEMENT

Chip goes to see Mr. Williams to ask for Polly's hand in marriage, but the overbearing father's insulting actions convince Chip to forego the formality.Aired: 11/7/1970

 

My favorite part of the 1970 episode is when Mrs Williams dryly glares at her hysterical husband and mutters "notarized" to validate that the marriage is real and done.

Edited June 3, 2018 by SanDiegoInExile

[Gemma Violet]

Thanks for the info, Blergh and SanDiegoInExile.  I hope it's fixed before Thursday.

[tobeannounced]

Somehow I have become fascinated with this show. It wasn't one of my favorites back in the day, but I remember watching some of it. I was more a Brady Bunch/Partridge Family kid.

I leave the TV running all night on MeTV because the shows don't usually get too noisy and I find the nostalgia oddly comforting, and M3S is always on right before my alarm goes off. Many times I wake up early and listen to it while I lay there. I think  when Katy showed up, I started getting more interested. Then Barbara and Dodie and now Polly. I've started taping it because I'm just fascinated by how perfect everyone is, even when they wake up in the morning, and all the perfect, beautiful houses. It's like a precursor to the John Hughes "middle class" that's really upper middle class. I think shows like these gave me a really warped view of what "real" life was supposed to be like!

[Blergh]

11 hours ago, tobeannounced said:

Somehow I have become fascinated with this show. It wasn't one of my favorites back in the day, but I remember watching some of it. I was more a Brady Bunch/Partridge Family kid.

I leave the TV running all night on MeTV because the shows don't usually get too noisy and I find the nostalgia oddly comforting, and M3S is always on right before my alarm goes off. Many times I wake up early and listen to it while I lay there. I think  when Katy showed up, I started getting more interested. Then Barbara and Dodie and now Polly. I've started taping it because I'm just fascinated by how perfect everyone is, even when they wake up in the morning, and all the perfect, beautiful houses. It's like a precursor to the John Hughes "middle class" that's really upper middle class. I think shows like these gave me a really warped view of what "real" life was supposed to be like!

Yep, especially the last few years, it made Leave It to Beaver look like a documentary! Considering how turbulent those times were, I think it's likely they did so deliberately to give their mostly aging viewers somewhat of a refuge re seeing a stable, supportive extended family in the midst of all the upheaval even on television. 

About the most shocking episode was "Lonesome Katie" in which she met up with another wife of someone on Robbie's Peruvian project who had had enough long distant neglect by her own husband and had made the decision to divorce. Katie not only sympathized with her but seriously contemplated doing the same re her own absentee husband! Still, even in this instance, the viewers were reassured  that (had she taken that step), Steve and everyone else in the Douglas household would have rallied around her and the triplets (even Uncle Charley) and stayed her family regardless of how her technical ties would have been altered via becoming an ex-in-law.

[smiley13]

8 hours ago, Blergh said:

Yep, especially the last few years, it made Leave It to Beaver look like a documentary! Considering how turbulent those times were, I think it's likely they did so deliberately to give their mostly aging viewers somewhat of a refuge re seeing a stable, supportive extended family in the midst of all the upheaval even on television. 

About the most shocking episode was "Lonesome Katie" in which she met up with another wife of someone on Robbie's Peruvian project who had had enough long distant neglect by her own husband and had made the decision to divorce. Katie not only sympathized with her but seriously contemplated doing the same re her own absentee husband! Still, even in this instance, the viewers were reassured  that (had she taken that step), Steve and everyone else in the Douglas household would have rallied around her and the triplets (even Uncle Charley) and stayed her family regardless of how her technical ties would have been altered via becoming an ex-in-law.

Those times weren't "turbulent" everywhere.  I think My Three Sons did a great job of portraying a blended family just dealing with normal family life.  

[smiley13]

The more of the Polly episodes that air, I realize what a sad soul she really was.  She was kind of pathetic the way she practically begged Chip to marry her and how she kept saying that she "had" to be a part of the Douglas family.

[Gemma Violet]

6 hours ago, smiley13 said:

The more of the Polly episodes that air, I realize what a sad soul she really was.  She was kind of pathetic the way she practically begged Chip to marry her and how she kept saying that she "had" to be a part of the Douglas family.

I was coming to post the same thing.  The last time I watched these episodes, I don't remember her being so needy.  (Of course, I was around 13 years old in 1970 when I last saw them.)  I can't believe that in one or two more episodes, they'll be married, when poor Chip seems like he isn't even sure he loves her.  It's all about her wanting to get away from her father and using Chip as an excuse.  

[Blergh]

What's interesting about Polly's eloping with Chip is how Mrs. Williams (Polly's mother) actually gains a backbone by the time the arc's done. She not only sees for herself how much healthier it would be for Polly to be with someone like Chip (instead of staying Daddy's girl) but even goes so far to force her husband's hand to start behaving civilly to the newlyweds.  BTW, Mrs. Williams was played by the I Love Lucy alum Doris Singleton who'd forced Lucy's hand as Carolyn Appleby to cough up Harpo Marx.

[Blergh]

On 6/6/2018 at 4:36 PM, smiley13 said:

Those times weren't "turbulent" everywhere.  I think My Three Sons did a great job of portraying a blended family just dealing with normal family life.  

 IMO, they were turbulent in enough places for their fans to crave a closeknit extended family dealing with normal life! Moreover, I don't think it as an accident for the Douglases to have moved to North Hollywood in 1967 yet still maintaining their squareness. I think the viewers felt re-assured  that, if the Douglases could stay square there, there was hope for squares in any spot (and I mean squareness in a positive way).

Edited June 9, 2018 by Blergh
squareness squared away

[tobeannounced]

Interesting that Chip and Polly could drink legally in Mexico but had to get permission from their parents to get married. I wonder if that was a national law?

There was a flashback in the honeymoon episode to Steve talking to Chip as a young boy. Is that the same actor that plays teenage Chip? I really had no idea this series was on so long.

Edited June 8, 2018 by tobeannounced

[Cobb Salad]

Tobeannounced, 

Yes, Chip was played by the same actor through the run of My Three Sons.  

[Blergh]

3 hours ago, Cobb Salad said:

Tobeannounced, 

Yes, Chip was played by the same actor through the run of My Three Sons.  

  Stanley Livingston played the original youngest son of Steve all twelve seasons from the age of nine to 21! I think Chip was supposed to have been two years younger,though.

I always thought it funny, no matter how old his sons got, Steve ALWAYS towered over all of them. I have to wonder if Mr. MacMurray may have deliberately cast much shorter performers as his sons or even met their parents so he could be sure they'd never outgrow him!

[tobeannounced]

Thanks for the info, guys. That is an incredible run for a TV series. It's fun to compare how things have changed (and haven't) since then.

[Blergh]

1 hour ago, tobeannounced said:

Thanks for the info, guys. That is an incredible run for a TV series. It's fun to compare how things have changed (and haven't) since then.

 What's even more interesting is that it appears that the SAME performer played the Douglases'  'bail of hay' Tramp  all twelve seasons! He   first was Chip's  , then Ernie's then finally Dodie's tagalong companion. It seemed he'd gravitate to the youngest single child in the house (but wisely stayed out of the triplets' way).  I don't know how old Tramp was when he started on the show or how old he was when he finally went to that great kennel in the sky. However; his trainer Frank Inn DID see to it that   his ashes  were buried with HIM when he died in 2002 . Oh,and Tramp actually played  a pivotal role  in quite a few storylines  down the years and even went for fatherhood himself.

[tobeannounced]

2 hours ago, Blergh said:

 What's even more interesting is that it appears that the SAME performer played the Douglases'  'bail of hay' Tramp  all twelve seasons! He   first was Chip's  , then Ernie's then finally Dodie's tagalong companion. It seemed he'd gravitate to the youngest single child in the house (but wisely stayed out of the triplets' way).  I don't know how old Tramp was when he started on the show or how old he was when he finally went to that great kennel in the sky. However; his trainer Frank Inn DID see to it that   his ashes  were buried with HIM when he died in 2002 . Oh,and Tramp actually played  a pivotal role  in quite a few storylines  down the years and even went for fatherhood himself.

You are a wealth of information, Blergh! Love the behind-the-scenes tidbits.

[Blergh]

Thanks, tobeannounced.

 

For my next tidbit, I'll start off by stating that one of my fave episodes had the then-hot British performer Jeremy Clyde (of Chad and Jeremy) "Liverpool Saga" playing the visiting cousin of Chip's then-girlfriend who, solely due to being a Liverpudlian, is considered by Chip and his band to be their secret weapon to win a local rock band contest. Of course, it turns out that his character called Paul Drayton is a  traditional folk singer and they give him the cold shoulder.  It takes a combo of Paul showing a non-musical talent- and one of Steve's best lectures in which he ostensibly agrees with Chip's reasoning but   appeals to Chip's conscience  to give Paul a fair shake!  Normally, I don't like guilt trips, but Steve's is not only deserved by Chip but also cunningly set up by Steve!  Anyway, it's one of my faves  in part because it shows a different facet to Chip not normally seen (and even gives a good insight into Mr. Clyde's musical roots).

[smiley13]

On 6/8/2018 at 5:08 PM, tobeannounced said:

Interesting that Chip and Polly could drink legally in Mexico but had to get permission from their parents to get married. I wonder if that was a national law?

There was a flashback in the honeymoon episode to Steve talking to Chip as a young boy. Is that the same actor that plays teenage Chip? I really had no idea this series was on so long.

If they were both 18, I am not sure why the parental permission was needed.  It was said repeatedly that Polly was now 18 so I would think that Chip was as well.

[Blergh]

1 hour ago, smiley13 said:

If they were both 18, I am not sure why the parental permission was needed.  It was said repeatedly that Polly was now 18 so I would think that Chip was as well.

 The legal age of adulthood re voting in 1970 was 21 but I believe someone aged 18  would have needed  parental consent to marry in California. However; boys aged 18 could join the military/get drafted! 

 If the legal requirements of that time and state were were different  at the time than what I've stated, I suppose that since the actual conflict was for Chip and Polly to marry over her father's objections, it made things more dramatically challenging for them to have done so (with Steve and Mrs. Williams's [Polly's mother]consent). Of course, Mr. Williams's seemed to keep shooting himself in the foot and driving Polly away via his rather strongarmed attempts to break them up (which included him hiring a detective to follow Chip).

[Blergh]

As long as I'm  doing trivia, it should be noted that,some years after the show, Tina Cole (Katie) married the stepson of Beverly Garland( Barbara) and had three children by him. Even though that marriage ended in divorce, from all accounts Miss Cole and Miss Garland stayed good friends until Miss Garland's death but perhaps it helped that they'd been coworkers long before the marriage had happened.