My Three Sons - General Discussion

[Gemma Violet]

7 hours ago, Jacqs said:

@Gemma Violet Old shows are designed to make you tune in again the following week, not to watch the next episode seconds later!

Yep.  They never dreamed there'd be marathon showings of Law and Order, Roseanne, etc.  LOL

24 minutes ago, Cara said:

They must have had a very limited wardrobe budget. I’ve seen the same clothes repeated multiple times. I know I’ve see Robbie wear one shirt at least a dozen times! 😉

I've noticed that on I Love Lucy a lot as well.

[Cobb Salad]

1 hour ago, Cara said:

They must have had a very limited wardrobe budget. I’ve seen the same clothes repeated multiple times. I know I’ve see Robbie wear one shirt at least a dozen times! 😉

I’ve noticed this as well, I think I’ve seen multiple appearances of Robbie’s striped shirt.  I wonder if the multiple appearances were due to shooting scenes for different episode on a particular day paired with Fred MacMurray’s availability at the time if he was in some of the scenes.  

[Jacqs]

(sarcastic joke post)

They should have tried to compete with Norman Lear at the end... when Dodie tries to walk to Katie and Robbie's apartment, Reality Ensues and she is snatched off the street and bundled, screaming, into a strange man's car. The next scene is Steve and Barbara identifying Dodie's body at the morgue.

[MushMarch]

Another "Mike mention" in the season 6 episode "Robbie the College Man":  It is mentioned several times in the episode that Robbie's room is Mike's old room.

[MushMarch]

The 60's counterculture starts its relentless grind during season 6 of M3S with the episode "Whatever Happened to Baby Chip?", in which Chip grows "long hair", which is actually a ridiculous looking wig.  Chip does it as part of an initiation rite to join a school club, where all the hep cats are sporting long locks.  The hair gets even more goofy when the latest thing becomes bleaching it white, since by color contrast Stanley Livingston's actual short hair can be clearly seen underneath the ill-fitting wig.  By this point, Chip and all the club members are looking eerily similar to Oompa Loompas from the 70's version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  And of course there's the authority figure backlash, especially from (no big surprise here) Uncle Charley.  I do have to admit that Steve's patience and restraint with the whole enterprise is admirable, not to mention completely unlike what happened in my own childhood home when my older brother went through the hair length war with my parents in the 60's (a pretty sight it was not - "get a haircut, hippie").  One impossibly chipper member of the club Chip wants to join was giving me the "where have I seen this kid before?" vibe, and then it struck me like a cartload of bricks - Jay North, the original Dennis the Menace!  A very unmenacing counterculture, to say the least.

[MushMarch]

Wow, talk about topically relevant - the season 6 episode "Call Her Max" features (of all things) gender-bending.  Chip and Ernie want to get back at a tomboy girl for joining the track team and showing up the guys, and so Chip (under the hapless direction of manager Ernie - the tomboy absolutely nails it:  "Ernie, you're a lousy manager") joins the girls field hockey team for revenge, which then includes wearing the team uniform.  From this point on, words cannot do justice - it has to be seen to be appreciated in the most mind-boggling sense of the term.  It could very well make one wonder how the bathroom situation was handled.  But, then again, bathrooms barely existed in the TV universe of that time.  A present-day educator could have a day chock full of teaching moments showing this episode and discussing.

[Jacqs]

Why did they never do a Christmas episode? Would have been perfect for the Dodie era.

[MushMarch]

Season 7 has begun on MeTV.  I just watched the second episode of the season, "Fly Away Home", which (according to Wikipedia) is notable for having the last "Mike mention" in the series.  Steve visits the town he grew up in (more on that in just a bit) with the entire family (Charley included), runs into someone he once knew, introduces his sons (Chip and Ernie are present, Robbie is off somewhere and never to be seen again in the episode), and says at the very last ". . . and my son Mike married and moved away".  Now about this town, Bedford Springs, that Steve supposedly grew up in.  It was established many times earlier in the series that he grew up in Bryant Park.  All of a sudden there's a seventh season alternate universe where he grew up in this other place.  Oh, I get it - the Douglas family works on a quantum principle, having an ability to branch out into alternate universes.  Kind of explains how Mike just completely winks out of existence after this episode, doesn't it?  Not to mention how Ernie eventually loses the adoption tag and becomes the third son, or how Robbie disappears in the final season.  These Douglases, I tell you, they were way, way ahead of the Marvel Universe for alternate realities, timelines, and what have you.  However, there is something in this episode that I have to give major credit to.  The family that Steve visits and has supper with (the one where his old flame is the housewife) is the first somewhat realistic family portrayed in the entire series.  Each kid is either loud, obnoxious, a total ball of laziness, or any combination of the aforementioned traits, and the husband is the kind of crude, loudmouthed suburbanite that I recall from my own 60's upbringing, full of bizarre opinions and not the least bit shy about broadcasting them to anyone in the area code.  In short - sweet, delirious 60's style dysfunctionality, and entirely unlike what's been seen so far in the series.

[MushMarch]

On 6/9/2019 at 10:28 AM, Jacqs said:

Why did they never do a Christmas episode? Would have been perfect for the Dodie era.

Yeah, every other major TV series of the era seemed to have at least one (well, I'm pretty sure Dragnet didn't - can't see ol' Joe Friday working up much Christmas cheer, since there's all those lousy, no good hippies to be dealt with).  Maybe it's my alternate universe theory of My Three Sons coming into play (see my previous post).  Christmas just doesn't occur in any of the dimensions that the Douglas family inhabits.  Come to think of it, they did have a Thanksgiving episode during the first season, and a Halloween episode the third season.  But no Christmas episode that I can recall.

Edited June 11, 2019 by MushMarch

[MushMarch]

On 5/26/2019 at 10:06 AM, Cara said:

They must have had a very limited wardrobe budget. I’ve seen the same clothes repeated multiple times. I know I’ve see Robbie wear one shirt at least a dozen times! 😉

Yeah, that striped shirt.  Maybe he was auditioning for the Kingston Trio.  After all, he was a pretty good guitar player.

[Gemma Violet]

On 6/10/2019 at 9:57 PM, MushMarch said:

Yeah, every other major TV series of the era seemed to have at least one (well, I'm pretty sure Dragnet didn't - can't see ol' Joe Friday working up much Christmas cheer, 

Actually, Dragnet had one of my favorite ever Christmas episodes (along with The Twilight Zone's Art Carney episode and The Andy Griffith Show with the crotchety old man Ben who kept trying to get arrested).  The Dragnet episode was about a creche that was stolen from a church.  Joe Friday spent the episode looking for it and at the very end, as he's in the church, along comes a little boy pulling a wagon with the creche in it.  He had the creche all that time.  He had made a promise that if he got a red wagon for Christmas, he would give the baby Jesus a ride in it.  I get a lump in my throat just thinking about that episode. 

[Jacqs]

I think with the "retconning", that if M3S had continued, Barbara would have been changed to  be the ONLY Mrs. Douglas, and Dodie would have become Steve's biological daughter.

[MushMarch]

In response to Gemma Violet, I stand corrected on Dragnet.  And that does sound like a very touching and thoughtful Christmas episode, so kudos to Jack Webb on that one.  So I'll switch my example to a 60's TV series that I know didn't have a Christmas episode:  The original Star Trek series.  How do I know this?  Well, from repeated viewings over the years, I have all 79 episodes plus the original pilot "The Cage" completely memorized, and I know there's no mention of Christmas in the bunch.  There was a kind of, sort of, Halloween episode ("Catspaw", not one of my faves), but no Christmas episode.  

On 6/12/2019 at 5:08 AM, Jacqs said:

I think with the "retconning", that if M3S had continued, Barbara would have been changed to  be the ONLY Mrs. Douglas, and Dodie would have become Steve's biological daughter.

Funny!  How would they have handled that development in the title?

[Gemma Violet]

Just a correction on my post above:  The child didn't take the whole creche--just the baby Jesus.  

[MushMarch]

The season 7 episode "Robbie's Underground Movie", shown recently on MeTV, has emerged as a candidate to be one of my favorite episodes.  Robbie is taking a film class at college (of course, he's once again doing it under the spell of his flavor-of-the-week girlfriend Gina, which Steve immediately susses out), and he's decided to make an "avant-garde" film with Gina.  Gina is supposed to be a countercultural beatnik type, but is a little too much cheerleader looks/peppy attitude to really pull this off (it would have been a lot better in this regard if they had brought back Tina Cole for this character, since she did such an ace job as a coffee shop beatnik in a previous season).  The making of the film is where the episode really shines - a number of good comedic moments, and the disaster of Robbie filming on a stepladder almost seems like a homage to Jerry Lewis.  Even Uncle Charley gets some good moments and lines in.  But the best line of all goes to Ernie:  "It's making us look like the bad guys!", in reference to how Robbie is approaching the film.  In the context of the episode, it really had me laughing.  The writers did a great job and the cast and crew must have had a lot of fun with this one - the final result certainly shows it.

[MushMarch]

An interesting episode from season 7 aired today on MeTV, "Happy Birthday, World", in which Robbie starts a business called Birthdays Unlimited where parents can send their son or daughter at the college a birthday cake and message for "a nominal fee".  The business is a roaring success but quickly escalates out of hand, turning the Douglas household upside down (once again).  Robbie foreshadows the gig economy 50 years ahead of time, somewhat like Uber Eats only with birthday cake and landlines.

[Cobb Salad]

I watched “Happy Birthday World” this morning and I was amazed at house fast Robbie was able to get this business started and running with so many employees and cake orders that Uncle Charlie barely keeps up.  Where do they find all of these people all of a sudden, a lot of them kids?  I assume Robbie’s customers were paying as that never came up - the Leave it to Beaver episode that followed had Wally getting a job selling ice cream only to be taken advantage of by friends and other kids in the neighborhood who don’t pay.  

[Jacqs]

Dodie was never utilised as much as she could have been. and the "she" is meaningful as well, because there were storylines that were possible with a female child that would not have been possible with Ernie or Chip when they were small.

@Gemma Violet @MushMarch @Cobb Salad

[Cobb Salad]

@Jacqs

Quite possibly however with the ever growing cast I’m sure it was a challenge for the writers to come up with stories featuring the different cast members over the course of a season to keep them relevant on the show.  Plus given the longevity of the series the last few seasons always seemed to have some draw like a new character to keep viewers interested.

During the last season (I think) Chip didn’t make a lot of appearances in comparison to prior seasons, if the series went on further I wonder if that would have continued, maybe there should have been a couple more Dodie featured episodes?

[Jacqs]

There are things you can only really do with a young female child in a television script, particularly in the 1950s and 60s, when gender differences were more distinct.

I mean, for a start, if they had done a Christmas episode in 1965-66, they wouldn't have been able to do what they'd possibly do with Dodie and been able to put Ernie in a velvet dress, white stockings and Mary Janes.

@Cobb Salad @Gemma Violet @MushMarch @SanDiegoInExile

[MushMarch]

19 hours ago, Cobb Salad said:

@Jacqs

Quite possibly however with the ever growing cast I’m sure it was a challenge for the writers to come up with stories featuring the different cast members over the course of a season to keep them relevant on the show.  Plus given the longevity of the series the last few seasons always seemed to have some draw like a new character to keep viewers interested.

During the last season (I think) Chip didn’t make a lot of appearances in comparison to prior seasons, if the series went on further I wonder if that would have continued, maybe there should have been a couple more Dodie featured episodes?

I had the same question about Chip earlier in this blog thread, about why he was absent for most of the last season.  I think it was Blergh who answered that Stanley Livingston had recently married and was dealing with his first child, and also that the marriage wasn't going well, and that was probably the best explanation for his lengthy stretches of absence from the show.  If there's a better explanation, I haven't found it.

[MushMarch]

In the season 7 episode "The Awkward Age", Uncle Charley has a classic line:  "The way things have been going, the only member of this family getting any action lately is Ernie".  Pretty risque for a 60's sitcom.  Guest star Susan Oliver is well known to Star Trek fans for her portrayal of Vina in the first pilot for the original 60's series "The Cage".  She also went on to be a director, eventually directing several episodes of MASH.  Sadly, she succumbed to cancer in 1990 at the age of 58.

[catlover79]

I'm currently watching S1 on DVD. I have three young nephews (oddly enough, who have the exact same age differences that TC, DG and SL had), and the show did a great job of showing how chaotic a household of growing boys can really be. They came across as real kids and not overly cute and saccharine. 

Edited June 22, 2019 by catlover79

[MushMarch]

Relevancy alert:  Season 7 of M3S, currently showing on MeTV, has Ernie tossing the word "dig" around with noticeable frequency.  I'm not sure what the writers were thinking.  Yeah, the word was hip and au courant for 1967, but it seems out of character for nebbish and nerdy Ernie.

[MushMarch]

Some pretty good moments in the episode "TV or not TV" (ISWYDT!) recently show on MeTV.  Uncle Charley cuts off the tube for a week due to Chip and Ernie squabbling over the very big and boxy remote.  Some of the best moments of the episode come from watching the cast watch fictional TV shows in the M3S universe.  One show in particular is weirdly self-referential, basically M3S set in an alternate reality.  Ernie likes the show, but Chip's critique is "it's just a bunch of clunky kids".  And Robbie's (what else?) latest girlfriend claims she is going to bring "reality" (more than 30 years ahead of schedule?) to the programming on the Bryant Park College TV station, referring to TV in Newton Minow-esque terms as "the wasteland".  The resulting show is . . . really, really bad.  A nice antidote to the previous episode shown, "My Pal Dad", about the annual father-son Steve-Robbie fishing expedition.  It never gets going and just ends with a thud, as if the screenwriter ran out of things for the characters to do or say.  So if we're considering worst-ever episodes, "My Pal Dad" is a contender.

[Cobb Salad]

2 hours ago, MushMarch said:

A nice antidote to the previous episode shown, "My Pal Dad", about the annual father-son Steve-Robbie fishing expedition.  It never gets going and just ends with a thud, as if the screenwriter ran out of things for the characters to do or say.  So if we're considering worst-ever episodes, "My Pal Dad" is a contender.

I was disappointed in the ending of the episode.  I wish Ernie did get to go as he was the son most interested in going.   So I agree with you as far as rating episodes, this one is a dud.  

[MushMarch]

Continuity slip-up part (lost count):  In the season 7 episode "My Dad, the Athlete", Ernie gets into one-upmanship over family athletic trophies with some friends of his, and so just to show them runs into the house to retrieve a family trophy from the attic.  His plan falls flat when the dusty old trunk in the attic only coughs up one meager trophy, and to compound the insult it's a debating team award.  The whole premise flatly contradicts the season 6 episode "A Hunk of Hardware", where newcomer-to-the-family Ernie feels bad that he doesn't have anything of his own to compete with the overflowing display case collection of the rest of the family.  What happened to all those trophies? 

Other than the continuity issue, there is the spectacle of watching Steve Douglas run a 2-mile cross-country race against three other Bryant Park fathers.  I have to say, for being 58 years old and a lifelong smoker, Fred MacMurray did surprisingly well with the jogging - this Dad came off as a fairly plausible athlete.  But I'm guessing that he may not have been too pleased at the time to find out what was required of him in the script!  SPOILER ALERT:  Steve Douglas finishes second in the race to the actor who played the father of Dennis the Menace.

Edited July 13, 2019 by MushMarch

[MushMarch]

In the season 7 episode "The Best Man", Robbie has a great line - well, at least great for me since I'm a math professor.  Chip asks him something along the lines of how his math class is going, and Robbie replies "forget math - it'll just lead you to trouble!"  He's steamed at his math lecturer for stealing the girl he wanted to propose marriage to (you know us math types, the ladies just can't resist our left-brain ways, they're so notoriously seductive), and now the class has gone from his most favorite to his least favorite, and he's even thinking of dropping it.  The math portrayed on the chalkboard in the classroom scene is all correct - on the left half is a quadratic equation solved by the method of completing the square and the right half shows completing the square on a general quadratic leading to the quadratic formula.  The only strange part is both problems are solved from about mid-sequence on, leading me to wonder what happened to the initial steps in each.

[MushMarch]

And . . . that's a wrap.  With the season 8 episode "My Wife, The Waitress", my My Three Sons odyssey comes to an end.  I started watching when the area I live in finally got MeTV a bit over a year ago, and the first episode I DVR'd and watched was "The Chameleon".  I made a commitment to watch all the episodes in order from that point on, and now the journey's at an end.  For my last posts, I'll go season by season (the 12 days of M3S?) and list my favorite episode from each season and maybe throw in a fun fact or two.

Season One:  Favorite episode - "Countdown"

Fun Facts:  The first appearances of the major cast members from season 1 - 5, along with Ricky Allen as Chip's friend Huey "Sudsy" Pfeiffer in the episode "Off Key".  Also the first appearance of Cynthia Pepper as Jean Pearson, Mike's next-door girlfriend, in the episode "Chip's Harvest".

Edited August 3, 2019 by MushMarch

[Cobb Salad]

1 hour ago, MushMarch said:

And . . . that's a wrap.  With the season 8 episode "My Wife, The Waitress", my My Three Sons odyssey comes to an end.  I started watching when the area I live in finally got MeTV a bit over a year ago, and the first episode I DVR'd and watched was "The Chameleon".  I made a commitment to watch all the episodes in order from that point on, and now the journey's at an end.  For my last posts, I'll go season by season (the 12 days of M3S?) and list my favorite episode from each season and maybe throw in a fun fact or two.

Season One:  Favorite episode - "Countdown"

Fun Facts:  The first appearances of the major cast members from season 1 - 5, along with Ricky Allen as Chip's friend Hubert "Sudsy" Pfeiffer in the episode "Off Key".  Also the first appearance of Cynthia Pepper as Jean Pearson, Mike's next-door girlfriend, in the episode "Chip's Harvest".

That’s quite an achievement given MeTV shows one episode a day, congratulations!

I’ve seen a number of the black and white episodes (mainly the later ones) so I can’t say I’ve seen them all.  However I do have a favorite amongst the 2nd season episodes and I’m interested in finding out if yours is the same.  

[MushMarch]

The twelve days of M3S, day two:

Season Two:  Favorite episode - "A Perfect Memory".  This episode was actually filmed during season one and held over for broadcast in season two.

Fun facts:  Mike Minor, the son of producer Don Fedderson (and who later played Steve Elliott on Petticoat Junction), makes his first of nine appearances on the show as Mike's college classmate Ray in the episode "The Hippopotamus Foot".  Other guest star apprearances during this season include Nancy Kulp (Ms. Hathaway from The Beverly Hillibillies) in "Robbie Valentino" and Ryan O'Neal in "Chug and Robbie".

[MushMarch]

The twelve days of M3S, day three:

Season Three:  Favorite episode - "The Ghost Next Door".  This was a tough season to pick a favorite from, given that (at least from my point of view) there seemed to be a preponderance of mediocre/weak episodes in season 3 (the theme for the season seemed to be set in motion by the opener "Weekend in Tokyo" which had a number of cringe-worthy moments).  I guess I'm just a sucker for Halloween episodes (I'm fairly certain this was the only one in the series).

Fun facts:  Tim Matheson, who later played Otter in the film "Animal House" (and did a great job recently playing a deceptively nice but actually slimy rich father reconnecting with his long-lost daughter Alison in Showtime's "The Affair" - with the ulterior motive of getting a kidney from her) shows up in the episodes "Tramp's First Bite" and "Chip's Last Fight", billed as Tim Matthieson (I wonder when he changed the spelling on the surname?).  The director for season 3, Gene Reynolds, went on to co-create and produce M*A*S*H.  Caroline Kido guests as Mike's love interest in "Weekend in Tokyo", returning as the same character in the season four episode "Cherry Blossoms in Bryant Park".  Ricky Allen makes his last appearance as Chip's friend Huey "Sudsy" Pfeiffer in the season finale, "Found Money" (although the actor would appear as different characters in two episodes in later seaons).  Finally, the episode "The System" was written by Tim Considine along with his brother John.

Edited August 3, 2019 by MushMarch

[MushMarch]

The twelve days of M3S, day four:

Season four:  Favorite episode - "The Proposals".  Being a big fan of both Tim Considine and Meredith MacRae, this one was easy.  A well-written, well-played episode in which Mike, overcoming many obstacles, finally and poignantly gets to yes with Sally (is Mike one lucky guy or what?).

Fun facts:  Where to start?  Season four is a gold mine of famous firsts, mostly good, one not so much.  Right off the blocks, there's the first appearance of Barry Livingston as Chip's new best friend Ernie Thompson in the episode "My Friend Ernie" (replacing Sudsy, I guess.  At this point, they're supposed to be the same age, but by the time Ernie is adopted, there's an age gap).  Then there's the first appearances of not one, not two, but all three of the actresses who will portray the wife of a Douglas son at some point in the series.  First up, Meredith MacRae makes her first appearance as Mike's future wife Sally Morrison in the episode "How Do You Know?".  Then Ronne Troup debuts in "The Ever-Popular Robbie Douglas" as an anonymous, in-the-background classmate of Robbie (she isn't given a name in the episode, and be sure to look fast if you want to spot her during her classroom scenes).  Then it's Tina Cole's turn, guest starring as Robbie's girlfriend Ina in "House For Sale".  Unfortunately, this is also the season that introduces a character in "Scotch Broth" that most M3S fans would like to file down the memory hole, Fergus McBain Douglas, who returns for the grueling first four episodes of the last season (it just had to be the last season with a start like that, and that's without even mentioning the "pot" episode).

Edited August 4, 2019 by MushMarch

[MushMarch]

The twelve days of M3S, day five:

Season five:  Favorite episode - "Dublin's Fair City:  Part 1 and Part 2".  This one's a two-fer, since it's a two-part episode and you really can't have one without the other.  And it's a great showcase for the talents of William Frawley as Bub, who shines in this one.  For someone who was ill and supposedly winding down at this point, it's difficult to tell not only in this episode but also in the shows leading up to his sad and all-too-soon departure from the series.  The only thing I don't like about this episode is that I knew it would only be a few more shows until Bub takes his permanent vacation back to Ireland.  Which leads to the . . . 

Fun facts:  Well, this first one is more of a sad fact than a fun fact, but we see the last of William Frawley as Bub in the episode "A Woman's Work" (that's definitely a title that wouldn't make it nowadays).  And we all know what that means:  In the very next episode "Here Comes Charley", William Demarest debuts as Uncle Charley (I think the title gave it away).  Cynthia Pepper makes her last appearance as Jean Pearson in "Goodbye Again".  Tina Cole makes her second non-Katie appearance as a coffee shop beatnik (and does a great job of it) in "The Coffee House Set", which also guest stars Jamie Farr, later of M*A*S*H.  For fans of old Hollywood and the film Sunset Boulevard, Gloria Swanson guests as Uncle Charley's old vaudeville friend in "The Fountain of Youth".  Don Grady is credited as the co-writer of "First, You're a Tadpole", and Tim Considine directs "The Leopard's Spots".  "Uncle Charley and the Redskins" (the worst title of the series, by a landslide, and one of the worst episodes as well) is the last of the B & W episodes and the last ABC episode.

[MushMarch]

The twelve days of M3S, day six:

Season six:  Favorite episode - "The Hong Kong Story".  I'm biased on this one, since being married to a wonderful lady from Hong Kong and having lived there at one point gives me a stronger connection to this episode compared to the average.  All told, it's well-done, and even Uncle Charley's long-lost love story is better than usual, as these things go.  Plus, the Cantonese spoken in several scenes is spot on, as is the stock footage of Hong Kong street scenes (some of which are still vaguely recognizable).

Fun facts:  As Shakespeare once wrote, "parting is such sweet sorrow . . . ", but the loss of Tim Considine as Mike and Meredith MacRae as Sally after they last appear in the episode "The First Marriage" is bittersweet at best.  A big, colossal "what if?" regarding M3S is how the series would have developed with Mike and Sally remaining as characters.  Tina Cole makes another pre-Katie appearance as Robbie's girlfriend Joanne in the episode "Robbie and the Little Stranger".  A pre-Star Trek George Takei (Sulu) shows up in "The Hong Kong Story".  And none other than Jay North of Dennis the Menace fame guest stars in "Whatever Happened to Baby Chip?" - with long hair, no less, making the most impossibly chipper and eager-to-please countercultural type you're ever likely to see on an old 60's TV show.

[MushMarch]

The twelve days of M3S, day seven:

Season seven:  Favorite episodes - "Robbie's Underground Movie".  This season had a surplus of good episodes to pick from, but this one ended up being my favorite.

Fun facts:  The last mention of Mike by name in the series occurs in the second episode of the season, "Fly Away Home".  The last time the interior of the Bryant Park house is seen is in the opening scenes of the last episode of the season, "Weekend in Paradise", right before the family packs up for a Hawaiian vacation.  Yvonne Craig (Batgirl) shows up as a parking enforcement officer in "If At First", and Jaye P. Morgan (later of the Gong Show) guest stars in "A Falling Star".

[MushMarch]

The twelve days of M3S, day eight: 

Season eight:  Favorite episode - "Countdown to Marriage"

Fun facts:  "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!"  The one and only Maureen McCormick from The Brady Bunch guest stars in "Ernie, The Bluebeard".  Jeremy Clyde from the 60's English pop duo Chad and Jeremy (big hits:  "A Summer Song" and "Yesterday's Gone") appears in "Liverpool Saga" (the only song he seems to be able to strum on guitar in the episode is "Greensleeves".  Chad and Jeremy together made an appearance on the 60's TV series Batman, playing the song "Teenage Failure").   And Ed Begley, Jr., later of St. Elsewhere and an ill-fated drummer in the film This Is Spinal Tap, makes his first TV appearance ever in the episode "The Computer Picnic".  His father, Ed Begley, appears in the next season of M3S.

Edited August 13, 2019 by MushMarch

[MushMarch]

The twelve days of M3S, day nine:  

Season nine:  Favorite episode - "My Three Grandsons"

Fun facts:  Butch Patrick (aka Eddie Munster on "The Munsters") makes his first of seven appearances as Ernie's friend Gordon.  Rose Marie from "The Dick Van Dyke" show guest stars as a babysitter for the Douglas triplets in "First Night Out".  And, of course, the triplets were introduced to Planet Douglas in "My Three Grandsons" . . . and that's about it.  Outside of that one big event, this was a fairly low-key season (at least by my reckoning).

Quote

3 minutes ago, MushMarch said:

Edited August 13, 2019 by MushMarch

[jenniferhartwell]

So, will Dodie in Season 10 be a delight... or a dud? Eh, @MushMarch

[MushMarch]

23 hours ago, jenniferhartwell said:

So, will Dodie in Season 10 be a delight... or a dud? Eh, @MushMarch

Well, according to the amazing 60's board game Mystery Date, it's dreamboat or dud.  No early reveals, it'll just have to be a big surprise.  But if you've read my earlier comments, you'll probably figure out what side of the Dodie debate I'm down with.

[MushMarch]

The twelve days of M3S, day ten: 

Season ten:  Favorite episode - "You Can't Go Home".  Robbie and Katie return to Bryant Park to attend the wedding of one of Robbie's old pals, and no one back there can remember them.  This episode resonated well with me, having experienced something similar when I returned to my high school town a few years back after a 25-year absence (it felt somewhat like the debut Twilight Zone episode, "Where Is Everybody?").

Fun facts:  The lovely and wonderful Beverly Garland, perhaps the greatest of the 50's sci-fi scream queens, debuts as Barbara Harper, Steve's soon-to-be wife, in the season opener, "The First Meeting".  We all know who's got next:  Dawn Lyn (Leif Garrett's sister) makes her first appearance as Barbara's daughter Dodie in the second episode, "Instant Co-Worker" (refer to earlier comments posted all over this discussion thread for the general consensus on this development.  And I'm not sure which episode featured the first appearance of - ***shudder*** - Myrtle the hand puppet.  Some things are better forgotten).  As consolation, we do get the introduction of the elegant and graceful Eleanor Audley as Barbara's mother in the same episode (she also played the mother of Oliver Wendell Douglas in Green Acres).  Famous guest stars in Season ten include Ronald Reagan's first wife Jane Wyman in "Who Is Sylvia?", Lew Ayres of All Quiet On The Western Front fame in "Mister X" (he starred in the movie Donovan's Brain with Ronald Reagan's second wife, Nancy Davis), Erin Moran (Joanie on Happy Days) in "Dodie's Dilemma", and finally Jerry Mathers (aka The Beaver) playing a next-door neighbor who rings an 11 on the creepiness scale in "Love Thy Neighbor".  The exterior of the Bryant Park home is seen for the last time in "You Can't Go Home".

[MushMarch]

The twelve days of M3S, day eleven:

Season eleven:  Favorite episode - "The Liberty Bell".  Robbie nearly succumbs to the siren call of a childhood friend from his Bryant Park days (played by Sal Mineo of Rebel Without A Cause fame; Mineo was also famous for being murdered at the age of 37, dying tragically young just like his Rebel castmates James Dean and Natalie Wood).  His pal invites him along for an Easy Rider, "we've all gone to look for America", life-on-the-open-road motorcycle experience, and though tempted Robbie makes the right call (or does he?  It's open to interpretation, given that he would eventually be leaving after the season) and stays with his family.  Just as with "You Can't Go Home", this episode clicked with me on a personal level.

Fun facts:  Ronne Troup makes her debut as Polly Williams (soon to be Polly Williams Douglas as the wife of Chip) in "The First Anniversary".  Joan Tompkins makes her final appearance as Katie's mother in "St. Louis Blues".  Jodie Foster plays one of Dodie's classmates in "The Love God".  The last time Robbie, Chip, and Ernie are seen together is at the beginning of "The Return of Terrible Tom" (the three of them are playing guitar and trying to fix the amplifier).  The last appearance of Don Grady as Robbie is in "After The Honeymoon", which was a pilot for a series that CBS didn't pick up.

[jenniferhartwell]

They should have done it like Twin Peaks: "Dodie's dead! Wrapped in plastic!" ;)

[MushMarch]

On 8/17/2019 at 7:32 PM, jenniferhartwell said:

They should have done it like Twin Peaks: "Dodie's dead! Wrapped in plastic!" 😉

Well, I have to admit David Lynch would've have been a much edgier director than Fred de Cordova.  Visualize Ernie trapped in an Eraserhead-type universe:  "Gosh, Tramp, that's one ugly baby!"

[MushMarch]

The twelve days of M3S, day twelve:

Season twelve:  Favorite episode - "Lonesome Katie".  Usually, M3S stumbled badly when trying to achieve relevance and topicality, but this one is a notable exception to the rule.  The drama of Katie coming to grips with the prospect of divorce is handled quite well here, not to mention with a convincing level of realism.  Much credit has to be given to Tina Cole - she does an outstanding job here.  The episode is evidence that with the right mix, M3S could rise to the occasion and transcend its standard fare. 

Fun facts:  The less said about Fergus the better, but Anne Francis of television's Honey West and Forbidden Planet fame makes appearances as the soon-to-be-wife of Fergus in episodes 2, 3, and 4.  Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees shows up as John Simpson, an old Bryant Park pal of Chip in "Barbara Lost".  And we see Stanley Livingston as Chip for the last time in that very same episode, appearing in the final scenes having a heart-to-heart talk with Steve about his future.  In an otherwise substandard episode (the fact that the title makes little sense in the context of the episode is only one of many problems), this final scene makes a very nice and touching bookend to the talk that Steve has with Chip while washing dishes in the first episode of the series, "Chip Off the Old Block".  With that scene, this episode have been a good way to close out the series.  Instead, we got "Whatever Happened to Ernie?".  One last thing:  During season twelve, an episode was shown titled "An Evening With My Three Sons", an hour-long special shown on January 6, 1972.  It has never been shown since, and has never been included in any syndication package.  As a young child, I watched the last several seasons of M3S when they aired, but I don't recall seeing this one.

[SanDiegoInExile]

And we can't forget !

...and...

[catlover79]

How weird was it that those two shows would be brought together for a "reunion"? A Brady/Partridge joint reunion special would have made more sense, but I digress.

[MushMarch]

I'm in total agreement.  I never have understood the logic behind pairing the Partridges with M3S.  Other than both featuring families, the two series have little in common.  M3S would have been better matched with a fellow 60's family sit-com such as "The Donna Reed Show".  If the goal was to think outside-the-box and not have such an obvious pairing, then they should have gone with the Paul Henning rural comedies Green Acres and Petticoat Junction.  In Green Acres, the Douglas name could have been the connection and with Petticoat Junction the fact that several cast members (Meredith MacRae, Mike Minor) had appeared in M3S provides a suitable link. 

[catlover79]

3 hours ago, MushMarch said:

If the goal was to think outside-the-box and not have such an obvious pairing, then they should have gone with the Paul Henning rural comedies Green Acres and Petticoat Junction.  In Green Acres, the Douglas name could have been the connection and with Petticoat Junction the fact that several cast members (Meredith MacRae, Mike Minor) had appeared in M3S provides a suitable link. 

That would have been inspired. Too bad it never happened.

[jenniferhartwell]

I think a Christmas episode was a real missed opportunity with M3S. Especially around Season 10, when Dodie was added. But, i guess it would be hard to use most of the usual Christmas tropes in hot, sunny, California.