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A widower and aeronautical engineer named Steven Douglas raises three sons with the help of his father-in-law, and later the boys' great-uncle. An adopted son, a stepdaughter, wives, and another generation of sons join the loving family in later seasons.
1960
Aeronautical Engineer Steve Douglas and his youngest son Chip face a parallel problem -- how to rid themselves of two designing females.
The Annual School rag drive starts Chip off on a scavenger hunt of the neighbourhood. Every time the neighbor, Miss Pitts, looks out the window she sees strange happenings at the Douglas household.
When Bub steps on the toes of each grandson in turn, Steve is about to rebuke him when the household returns to normal once again. Being chief cook, dishwasher and housekeeper to three boys is not fun for a grandfather as Bub soon finds out.
A Missile launch, sleeping in and Daylight Saving make for an interesting Monday morning. The Douglas household is a chaotic affair of lost indian arrow heads for Chip's turn in show and tell at School, Robbie's missing trumpet and some important lost plans of Steve's that Mike has nearly burned in the incinerator.
When Mike and Robbie cross swords over a blonde schoolgirl, the issue widens until the whole family is involved in the argument. But it is difficult for Steve to teach his sons that violence solves nothing with a pugnacious father-in-law around.
Steve's theory that 'life is just a small series of adjustments' is put to the test in just one day's discovered doings. Steve must meet with a top Air Force General to discuss plans for a rocket design, and in the process, he must borrow Mike's car, but gets a flat tire and must take the bus home.
Steve is enamored of his new business associate, an attractive woman who is strictly business. He is tempted to mix business with pleasure but finds that she thinks only about the job at hand and doesn't have any plans to expand her love life, despite this romantic interlude.
Thanksgiving Day's turkey dinner is threatened when the electricity is short-circuited throughout the neighborhood. Chip decides to bring along his Indian friend as his sole guest much to the annoyance of his brothers who say he is a bum who lives near the railway tracks in a rundown old shack.
Feeling left out when Mike and Robbie decide to go camping at Gunman's Gulch—and at the urging of his father to use his imagination, to conjure up an adventure—a lonely Chip decides to spend the night on a raft his brothers made him in the backyard.
TV Star George Gobel is invited to dinner by Bub, who forgets to tell his son-in-law Steve who returns from an out of town business trip and arrives home late at night. He tiptoes around the house only to find a strange man occupying his bed.
Robbie is baffled when his girlfriend rejects the excitement of his new motor in favor of standard feminine frills. He tries to win her over by telling the boys on the football team that no girls are allowed, knowing this will upset her as she is considered one of the guys.
The boys want a raise in their allowance, but Steve tells them that they are spending money recklessly and not doing their chores. Bub has been picking up the slack and doing their work for them. Everyone has bad dreams that night.
Mike and the girl next door arouse the suspicions of Steve and Bub when secrets are exchanged and the two are seen leaving with suitcases. Meanwhile, Robbie is on a clock salvaging attempt to find historic clocks after he gets into a spot of bother with his teacher.
Constant comparison to his brother, Mike, leaves Robbie feeling inferior and angry—and their father has to face the consequences as Robbie and Mike are about to come to blows when Steve shows up just in the nick of time from work.
When Bub is suddenly called out of town, Steve seeks an agency to get temporary help—unaware that he may be recruiting a wife. With his older brothers passing the buck, Chip accidentally rings Domestic Bliss, Inc. - a marriage seeking department who send out a woman inspector right away.
When Steve invites his second cousin Selena to come and visit, Bub gets the strange impression that he is being neglected and isn't really needed. He decides to take up the offer of managing a movie theater in Plainview, and nothing the boys say or do can make him change his mind.
Mike prepares for the transition from high school to college and the question of joining a fraternity is one that complicates his life considerably. When Mike and Jean attend a party as prospective applicants, he later finds out the they have been dropped from the waiting list and suddenly the cold war turns pretty hot.
Chip falls foul of the school bully who isn't interested in fighting with him. Steve soon realises that Chip is deliberately provoking the boy each day in the school yard to prove a point, and feels the boy must must solve his own problems even though it costs him detention in the Principal's office.
Steve's ever efficient sister arrives for a visit, and immediately changes and complicates the entire Douglas household. The challenging aspect to the whole deal is a decision that Harriet soon regrets, especially once Steve returns home from his business trip.
When Robbie Douglas sees his new friend's home he is envious of what he thinks is really the perfect teenage home and becomes almost as envious as Hank is of the turbulent, happy-go-lucky Douglas household.
Mike Douglas and the family mongrel Tramp keep disappearing at night, and Jean becomes increasingly suspicious, unaware that Mike and his friend Tim are building her a hi-fi set for her upcoming Birthday.
On a dark night when Steve is away, Robbie and his date are frightened by a man in a trench coat. It all happens when Robbie is seen putting on the hubcap of his next door neighbour. Steve isn't too concerned when he hears about the incident as he thinks it all stems from Robbie's steady diet of spy and mystery stories.
Mike has to finish the layout and write a sports article for the school paper by himself in between running in a track meet and going to a dance with Jean.
Chip begins to think it would be great to be an older brother, so he wishes for a little sister. After the new Hawkins family move into the vacant house across the street, a wild sequence of events results from an improbable case of mistaken identity -- an infant is somehow confused with a leg of lamb left in the boot of Steve's station wagon.
Chip brags to his new playmate that his genius brother Robbie can fix almost anything. Soon Robbie is repairing a Grand Piano and has five minutes to have it fixed before the boy's mother comes in and wants to practise a new tune on it.
With Steve away in Seattle on a business trip, the Douglas household's version of man's best friend has been known to drag home anything he can get his jaws into. This time Tramp slinks in with a large stick of dynamite that has somewhere and somehow survived since the end of the Second World War.
Unaware of each other's problems, Steve and Robbie engage in what seem to be widely varied projects. Robbie is trying to construct a race kart and Steve is in a rush to help a missile manufacturer get his project off the launch pad in a race to beat a rival company.
Robbie and Mike want some extra pocket money but Steve tells them that they will have to earn it by themselves. The boys ask their neighbours if they could paint their front fence and before long several neighbors pitch in together to help restore the yard to its former glory.
Robbie can't seem to arouse the interest of the affairs of the heart with his classmate Maribel Quinby. So with the help of his best friend Hank Ferguson, he proceeds to try and get her attention by noting the theatrical method of approach that his history teacher employs to make a dull subject interesting.
Chip is so discouraged by his batting slump that he quits the baseball team. After his brothers encourage him to return, one of the parents, a volunteer umpire, calls in sick and Steve is asked to substitute. Chip thinks this will be the perfect opportunity to become the team hero.
Malcolm, a frog that Chip has captured for a school project is the focus of all eyes in the Douglas home. Bub discerns a marked resemblance to his his Uncle Clancey in Malcolm's face. Further evaluation of its character becomes quite difficult when he leaps out of sight.
Robbie's new girlfriend, lives in refined and elegant style, causing Robbie to turn a critical eye on his own home life. To impress her he tells her he really digs the classics, but in actual fact he doesn't know the difference between Puccini and Presley.
Bub sets out to find the mysterious person who sent him an old saddle... C.O.D.
Its final exam time and Mike and his girlfriend Jean have thought up a test of their own - to try the strength of their affection by not seeing each other the week before school has its graduation ceremonies.
Mr. Pearson's idea of a quiet drive in the country with his wife is altered by a station-wagon load of Douglases. Meanwhile Robbie is trying to avoid the clutches of a girl named Mary Lou.
Mike Douglas gets a Summer job with the Forestry Service and he thinks its going to be a barrel of fun until he learns that he's expected to do a real man's job. When his boss is stranded down at the creek and a wild storm brews up, Mike spends a harrowing time trying to stay calm.
1963
To capture the affections of a pretty blond, Robbie turns pop composer and produces a novelty song. The family agrees to do the vocal background, but when they are selected to sing the song on television, Steve gets a bad case of stagefright.
The Douglas family inherit a castle in Scotland from their Scottish Grandfather and the whole family descends upon Sheehan Bridge to see it. Not only does 'The Castle' turn out to be an entire village pub in the highlands, but other members of the clan give them a freetly welcome.
It's a bad day for Steve when everything seems to be going wrong for him. His run of bad luck starts when he cuts himself shaving, burns his hand on the toaster, and then can't get his car started. Worse yet, he has to clinch a deal with a very important client.
Robbie is chosen to write an 'advice to the lovelorn' column for the school newspaper, but Steve gets caught in the middle when a baffling love letter arrives. Robbie suggests that the writer should elope with her boyfriend and Steve tries to talk her out of it.
Mike offers to give Robbie his old car but his response baffles everyone. Robbie says he needs his own car to impress a new girl and does some fancy wheeling and dealing to get it.
Steve gives Mike advice on love after he announces his passion for his new girlfriend Darlene, who Mike wants to devote time to, so he hardly welcomes Steve's suggestion that he help find a date for the girl in his office.
Chip and his new sidekick Ernie find some old treasure maps but get lost in the woods when they go treasure hunting, causing the family's plans to be changed when they have to go looking for them.
Chip and Ernie, having heard two scientists calculate that the world will be destroyed in one week are faced with the classic problem of what to do in the time they have left.
The pungent smell around the Douglas home proves to emeante from Bub's head for his baldness is anointed with yet another hair restorer as he's in a panic to cover his bald spot when the sister of an old buddy comes to visit.
Robbie is faced with a real political dilemma when he and a rival for a girl's affections, are campaigning for Student Council Representative.
Mike gets cold feet when he decides to propose marriage to Sally. His bungling attempts further confuse the issue. He tries a combination of methods derived from the attempts made by his father and grandfather when they proposed to their respective spouses.
Steve is chosen to act as nursemaid for the attractive daughter of a visiting Danish dignitary who turns out to be only 17. The girl's energetic idea of fun brings Steve to his knees, as he searches desperately for a substitute escort.
Robbie is always forgetting to pass on Steve's telephone messages and to get back in his good graces, decides to take up his father's favourite sport. He figures it will get him out of the doghouse if he joins Steve in a father and son golf tournament.
Chip comes to the rescue of a trapped dog and receives a reward, which leads to new found popularity with his fellow members of the club that he and Ernie wish to join.
Steve has to fly to Washington and is given a top secret military project. Steve tells the Pentagon brass that he would attract the least attention by just doing the work at home. While Bub is just beside himself with curiosity, Chip suddenly becomes the target for security men.
Ex-thespian Bub laments that there hasn't been a member of the Douglas family in show business for over thirty years, so he is delighted when Chip is selected to portray an American Indian in a school play about Christopher Columbus.
While walking the dog through the park one night, Steve meets a lovely cabaret singer and before the evening ends he is out night-clubbing with her. Mike and Robbie feel they must intercede and protect Steve from a supposed matrimonial trap.
Steve eagerly anticipates his twenty fifth anniversary class reunion at Midwest University. Ignoring Bub's warnings that the old gang won't be as Steve remembers them, his enthusiasm increases when he meets the charming Heather Marlow, only girl in the class.
Mike and Sally try to discover the truth about marriage from two of their recently wed friends, and think twice about getting married and having babies when they help another friend's expectant wife whose time has come.
Bub is appointed chaperone to Robbie and his friends when they decide to have a costume party. Robbie feels it will dampen the party as Bub doesn't see eye to eye with them on the little matter of correct behaviour.
Robbie is chosen to help Americanize a traditional Chinese girl who is soon to meet her very hip Chinese-American fiancé. However, she is a girl so steeped in the traditions of her homeland that it seems unlikely she'll ever fit into American life.
The family is excited when Steve might travel to Hawaii on business, but there is dismay on their faces when the 'For Sale' sign goes up outside 837 Mill Street. Going on a trip to Hawaii is one thing, but could the entire family pack up and move there?
Chip believes in a magical stone frog, given to him by a lady from India and as coincidences stack up, the magic is hard to deny. The boy's belief causes some very interesting circumstances.
Bub wants to get back to the greasepaint, so he swaps jobs with an actress friend at the Playhouse theater who longs for a normal home life. Each is so envious of the other's life that they agree to switch roles for the remainder of the company's season.
Mike feels that Sally should learn how to fish, since she's joining a family of avid fishermen - Except that Sally really hates the pastime. How coincidental then that Mike hates bird watching as well.
Kimiko, a Japanese girl Mike met in Tokyo last year comes to town to test her old feelings for Mike before she can be sure she loves another. Although Mike is now engaged to Sally, could he still feel something for her?
Steve's high school sweetheart returns to town as a real-life Princess, complete with entourage and the Douglases are invited to a posh royal reception in her honor. However, Chip puts the wrong reply in his response and must try and retrieve it before the Princess reads it.
In order to get himself a date with an attractive magazine editor, Steve submits his house as an entry in her magazine's distinctive homes contest. He is very perplexed when she sends her business-like secretary instead.
The town of Bryant Park takes sides violently when it is proposed to cut down the tree which stands outside of Robbie's girlfriend's home. The Douglas family are soon involved as Bub joins a women's group in the neighborhood to save his favorite tree from being torn down.
Disciplinarian Mrs. Proctor, Robbie's awful history teacher, breaks a leg and the replacement they receive is even worse. She is a charming, but inexperienced girl who earns her first battle star when she first encounters Robbie's class.
Anxious to get married, but unable to afford an apartment, Mike suggests that he and his fiancee Sally move in with him and his family. Bub has to continuously change plans for a shower for Sally and Mike when she and Mike keep changing their future wedding plans.
Mike and Chip take part in good deeds -- Mike goes with his fellow U.S. Air Force Reservists to deliver ten thousand dolls to children in a South American disaster area. Mike meets a mute girl and tries to collect money for an operation she desperately needs. Meanwhile Chip becomes household slave of the demanding Mrs. Sowerby.
When Robbie's team gets slaughtered one too many times, their keenest fan Lissa Stratemeyer gets her girlfriends to ignore the boys for the victory rally until they do something about the score and break their losing streak.
Aspiring song writers Mike and Robbie decide to take a song they wrote to New York City and present it to a publisher. A friendly cab driver helps them in their quest and the publisher gives them both some good advice before they head home.
Mark Twain's stories inspire Chip, Ernie and Melinda to re-enact the adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer and Becky when the youngsters run away from home to the river where they find a few adventures of their own.
Steve is roped into boarding a delinquent for just one week so the boys put on their armor and ready themselves for battle. When Steve is notified to fly out of town on business, the boys are left to deal with the delinquent themselves, not knowing they've mistaken him for somebody else.
1964
Steve sails aboard the S.S. Carolina in order to establish a business contract with a firm but his task is complicated by Robbie who has a vacationing job as a steward onboard the same liner. They both find that business and pleasure do sometimes mix.
Robbie and Ernie find that women are full of surprises and not all of them pleasing. Robbie tires of his noisy rock and roll girlfriend and switches to a more dignified girl who has no time for the childish pursuits of her peers, such as football and sock hops. And unfortunately for Robbie Douglas, Lorraine is also serious about getting married and before he knows it, he's engaged! Can even the sagacious Steve Douglas find a graceful way out of this mess?
Realising the need for economy, Mike and Sally decide that her shower will be productive of useful gifts for the kitchen, but Bub is all for romance but Mike's practical ideas meet resistance when Bub plans a bridal shower for Sally. Chip and Ernie manage to turn the shower into something very impractical indeed.
Bub decides to use his winning raffle ticket to take the Douglases to Ireland to visit his relatives. While in the village of Farnsea, they stay with his redoubtable 103 year old Aunt Kate and Cousin Mickey.
The Douglas family continues to revel in the fun in the Irish village of Farnsea, ruled by the formidable Aunt Kate. Steve realises that her wisdom is helpful when Mary Kathleen Connolly becomes infatuated with him.
Steve brings a business associate home for a quiet weekend of work, forgetting a prior commitment to the Cub Scouts where he has promised to lead the Moose patrol. He frees himself to do a rush design job while the hopeless Mr. Summers learns painfully what it means to be a moose.
Political overtones arise in the Douglas house when Steve becomes escort to a visiting congresswoman. Meanwhile Chip must entertain a small girl who aims to be class president -- even though Chip is campaigning to be.
Chip and Ernie get an interesting lesson in honesty, and dishonesty from the school bully, who volunteers an insight to the underbelly world of swiping school lunches. Chip becomes bewildered by the differing standards of honesty among those he knows and Steve must do his best to sort out the problem.
Mike's life is complicated by the return of his old girlfriend Jean Pearson. He can't bring himself to tell her that he is engaged to marry Sally. Chip and Ernie keep Mike under surveillance to report to fiancee Sally.
Robbie's new girlfriend offers to get him and his guitar an audition at a club, and introduces him to a strange new world of far out youngsters who comprise the audience. When Robbie becomes a smash his family struggles to bring him back from stardom.
At the Lotus Blossom Cafe, Steve is impressed by the timid and beautiful proprietress. The elegant Chinese widow contemplates returning to Hong Kong, but the Douglas family show her the American way of life, hoping she will stay.
Robbie consults Sally about his latest heartthrob—and he's sure he's too young for the girl. Robbie alarms Sally when he appears to be in love with her, and Steve must persuade him to grow up overnight.
After acting as the subject for a stage hypnotist, Robbie decides that hypnosis could help in his latest romance, which leads to a chain reaction when they try it out on his grandfather Bub who consequently does a weird dance whenever someone whistles.
It's a comedy of errors when Mike sets out to make an impression on his future father-in-law when Sally's father returns from an archeological expedition. Mike is unnerved about meeting him but practically kills him with a little too much kindness and enthusiasm.
Robbie breaks a leg on the football field and becomes the first patient of a dazzling French nurse. Robbie doesn't mind being hospitalized when the nurse in training lavishes attention on him. Her constant attention baffles Steve until he is warned that her interest in him is more than in her patient.
When their best friends' marriage heads for the rocks, Mike and Sally pause for a second thought about their forthcoming wedding. Mike and Sally try to reconcile them by arranging visits to a marriage counsellor.
Bub decides to leave for an Irish holiday to help his formidable Aunt Kate celebrate her 104th Birthday in Dublin. Son-in-law Steve eagerly offers to do the housekeeping, rashly declaring that if all women organised their work efficiently, it could be done in just a fraction of the usual time. A belief which is hardly borne out by his own demonstrations.
With Bub permanently away in Ireland, Steve finally resorts to domestic assistance and the Douglas home is afflicted with a fiery dragon of a housekeeper named Fedocia. When Steve is desperately trying to solve the problem of getting rid of her the situation is saved by the arrival of Bub's younger brother Charley, a recently retired Ship's cook on leave. With Steve away on business and Charley about to leave for San Francisco, Chip is unhappy that he won't have a parent to come to his school's Open Night. The family soon learns that Charley's crusty disposition masks a soft heart.
A young engineer finds his lost half-Korean daughter who is staying temporarily at the Douglas House. But Uncle Charley finds that she exhibits more the cunning of the orphanage where she was found than the wisdom of the orient.
Robbie follows the fad and buys an antique aircraft to impress his new girlfriend. Steve lets him go ahead with trying to restore it, convinced it will never fly but as it becomes more airworthy, Steve becomes concerned.
Robbie's glamorous girlfriend invites him to the exotic Brookdale Country Club, and he resolves to put pressure on Steve to join, despite the fact that his father isn't much of a joiner.
A top woman pilot is preparing for her flight around the world and calls on Steve Douglas to modify the design of her plane. Steve takes more than a professional interest in the plane he is preparing for a long solo journey—as well as the lady aviator planning to fly it.
Steve's plan for an Hawaiian holiday is cancelled when Chip develops a case of bronchitis, so Charley and the boys plan to bring Hawaii to him in the form of a luau in the garden complete with ladies that he would undoubtedly have met on board ship.
Chip dates an older woman and Robbie finds his ideas misinterpreted when the Douglas boys face the troubles of growing up. Meanwhile, Robbie tries to come up with a novel idea for the school float, and proceeds to demonstrate that teenage is just a time in life, but his speech, activities and clothes prove that it something much more, a lesson Chip also begins to learn.
To avoid being absent from the family longer than neccessary, Steve declines an invitation to stay at a luxurious mansion in Mexico. So his host flies down the entire family, giving Robbie the opportunity for a few sharp lessons in the conservatism of old Spanish chaperoning customs.
Charley accompanies Robbie and his date to a reading by an old pal of his, Maggie McSterling. She is a veteran actress and she and Charley recall their friendship during their vaudeville days. Maggie looks much younger than her age, and decides that Charley needs a vigorous course of rejuvenation.
Steve is to show important engineering plans to a British scientist on a rush visit to the United States. But soon disappearing blueprints and home-baked cookies can't both be blamed on Steve's absent-mindedness - they become a plaything for Tramp and his friends.
Robbie's friend has a grandfather that trains horses, but on the day of the big race when the thoroughbred racehorse loses her mascot, a rabbit, she loses her speed. But once she hears Robbie serenade on the guitar, the mascot problem is solved.
Chip feels left out of things when he is the only member of the family not working either full or part time. But watching 'Davy Crockett' and dreaming gives him a remarkable solution to his problem - he takes in a partner in his trapping business.
Steve is having nightmares and his vision of the future has a computer named Betsy join the family. It interferes with wedding plans when it selects different mates for Mike and Sally. Hoping to prove the computer wrong, Mike decides he will have Steve fill out a questionaire for his dad and his mother. His reasoning is that they will submit the two forms and the computer will pick someone else for their perfect match, thereby proving to Sally how wrong the computer can be. But lo and behold the computer mates Steve and Mike's mom.
Tramp causes confusion in two households when he runs away from home for fear of a cat. Meanwhile pampered 'Prince', pet in the mansion of a rich socialite, undergoes a complete and mysterious personality change.
Charley has a visit from an old Australian acquaintance who quickly fires the boys' imagination with tales of a paradise in the South pacific. The adults wonder if he is in fact an expert confidence trickster as he cheats Charley with an unexpected legacy that is responsible for a trip to the tropical island of Cocoa Fuji for Uncle Charley, Robbie and Chip.
Chip meets a group of Vaudevillians at a black tie affair with Uncle Charley and loses his sneaker in a Cinderella-like adventure when he falls for little Alice Vail.
Preparations for Mike and Sally's coming nuptials get confusing when Sally's mother arrives two months early and takes over organising for their wedding. The daunting list of chores she hands Mike sends him off into a dream world as he and Sally imagine how other cultures decide who can wed.
Sally has her hands full when her glamorous cousin comes to visit after being expelled from three colleges. She attracts so much attention from the boys that Uncle Charley uses his vaudeville make-up box to transform her into an ugly duckling.
Charley refuses to believe that a polite and quietly dressed man is in fact the last Chief of Owahnanee Tribe and his disbelief is deepened when the Indian asks for permission to visit their Tribal Burial grounds which just happens to be the backyard of the Douglas House.
1971
Steve's look-alike Scottish nobleman cousin Fergus, comes to America looking for a bride to take back to his hometown of Sithian Bridge and moves in on the entire Douglas family, much to the dismay of Uncle Charley.
When Uncle Charley learns that Fergus is looking for a wife to take back to Scotland to provide him with heirs to carry on the family name, he takes out an ad in the local newspaper in an effort to rid the Douglas home of his nemesis.
Steve's Scottish cousin Fergus, after only one date with Bowling Alley Cocktail Waitress Terri Dowling, proposes but gets turned down by her. She feels inadequate to return to Scotland as royalty, but is eventually persuaded by Steve.
The wedding day for Steve's Scottish cousin and bowling alley waitress Terri Dowling finally arrives amid the traditional confusion and tears. They leave for a three day honeymoon in Las Vegas but Uncle Charley is worried about the lack of thankyou from them.
Having no choice, Steve takes the triplets to work where a secretary offers to take them home until he is finished. However he accidentally loses her details and when she finally rings, she announces that the boys have run out the front door, much to Steve's annoyance.
Chip complains about Polly's lack of sales resistance because they have an apartment full of useless things. But she is trapped by a salesman into giving a dinner party for eight people in exchange for a free set of cookware.
Uncle Charley leaves for a week's vacation in San Francisco but meanwhile, birthdays disrupt the Douglas household, when Barbara, Katie and Polly turn against their spouses over the men's apparent oversight.
Childless young marrieds Chip and Polly Douglas suddenly find themselvs the temporary guardians of several young children including the triplets, when Katie flies to Peru for a weekend rendezvous with Robbie. Meanwhile, Steve, Barbara and Charley go on a camping trip and Barbara isn't exactly Mrs. Daniel Boone -- as Steve eventually finds out.
Barbara's natural enthusiasm bubbles over into an embarrassing evening for Steve and some of his business associates. Barbara explains to Steve that adrenalin gets her going in competition, and she is apprehensive when he is asked to play in his work's bowling team for fear she will make him lose concentration.
Katie Douglas takes a job singing in a small coffee house, but both Steve and Charley have their doubts about the man she is going to work for. After meeting the owner's wife, they realise she is in very good hands.
Polly fears that Chip is losing interest in her as a woman, and she takes some very dramatic steps to remedy the situation. Ernie gets the impression that the marriage is on the rocks when he finds out she is sneaking away from school and making mysterious calls to a man named Andre.
Uncle Charley is persuaded to fill in as a Cello teacher to a small group of reluctant young music students. His teaching methods leave much to be desired as he makes sure that they practice and practice for the upcoming recital.
Katie's triplets are spotted by a talent scout for a production company and are selected to appear in a television commercial. The temperemental Director yells when the boys misbehave and make a shambles of the studio. Grandfather Steve is asked to replace the actor doing the same so the boys will feel at ease.
Katie decides to put the triplets in a nursery school during the day when she fills in for a friend as a secretary, a move that enrages Uncle Charley when he hears about it. Later, it becomes apparent that he goes missing every afternoon causing the family to worry.
A little first grader named Alfred develops a big crush on third grader Dodie Douglas -- much to her displeasure. When Uncle Charley invites him to dinner, Dodie tries to fake illness to get out of it. Very soon Alfred's mother reports that he is missing.
When the Douglas men feel sorry for Katie because of her husband's continued absence, they proceed to overwhelm her with attention by each one of them taking her out to the same restaurant each night.
Dodie commits the entire Douglas family to a time consuming project - the awesome task of getting a four foot tall bag of Peanuts into small little sacks which they hope to sell at the school fair to raise money for Korean orphans.
Steve suddenly becomes accident-prone when his youngest son Ernie tries to discover by graph and observation how the moon's lunar phases affect people's behaviour.
While Steve becomes pre-occupied with a time-consuming project named Taurus, Barbara blossoms forth as a Championship Cook. Her recipe for 'Tangy Tidbits' wins her a trip to Hawaii for the final cookout.
Although Barbara is feeling very ill, she is saddled with the responsibility of looking after the entire Douglas household but in the end, to escape the pressure, she just walks out leaving Steve in a worried state.
The Douglas family becomes concerned about Dodie's despondency when Tramp, the ageing family mongrel, keeps disappearing at night. Meanwhile, Uncle Charley makes her a rag-doll and names it Arfie.
Katie becomes disillusioned about life without Robbie, and seriously thinks about divorce after speaking with another of the wives in the same situation. Meanwhile, Dodie and her two pals campaign to Barbara to let them have a slumber party.
Chip decides to quit his Chemical Engineering studies in favour of a rock music career when he meets up with a former friend who is now a big star. When Barbara visits John in the studio she is baffled by all the switches on the recording console, and realises that professional musicians know what they're doing, so how will Chip handle it?
Steve's boss Bob Anderson and his wife share 'Where-did-we-go-wrong?' panic as they struggle to communicate with their son; Steve and Barbara are the counselors. The teenager is rude and disrespectful to his parents but his insolence doesn't bother them nearly as much as not knowing if he is taking drugs.
1961
When Chip announces Tramp is the father of six puppies, Steve is concerned because he has never explained the cycle of life to his son. But before long a confused Chip thinks that his teacher is going to marry his father.
The good neighbour policy gets a real workout when the boys, and later Bub, tangle individually with members of the new family across the street. Steve lectures them but on his way to work as he's backing out the driveway, he is delayed by a fender-denting idiot who turns out to be none other than Mr. Kaylor - the neighbor across the street.
Mike has found a girl at college, Mary Beth. But when he brings her home to meet the family, she makes a beeline straight for Steve, who is trapped into tutoring her in trigonometry. This gives Mike a few jealous moments until all is resolved.
When a boiling pot explodes Tramp's barking wakes the family saving them.
An old high school sweetheart calls for Steve while he is out. Feeling nostalgic, Steve tries to locate her in town, but never seems to be able to catch up with her as he reminisces about their past relationship. As he arrives home the door bell rings and he gets a disappointment then a surprise.
Bub and Mike are at odds with each other because both are trying to get into different, exclusive clubs. Bub is to be installed as the D'Artagnon of the East Door, while Mike is subjected to his initiation which involves pretend fishing in front of the local drug-store.
Mike wants to go skiing on the weekend with his friends but must also keep up his Spanish studies. So he adopts the learn while you sleep method via use of a pre-programmed record player. Steve's room has just been painted so he decides to sleep in Mike's bed. Mysteriously, he wakes up speaking Spanish, and the next night Bub does the same. Before long they are both uttering phrases they couldn't possibly know.
Robbie is heading for an ‘F' in world literature until the teacher assigns a beautiful blonde newcomer as his study partner. He is attracted to her right away but soon discovers that her looks don't even compensate for her loss of mind.
A composition titled ‘What My Mother Means to Me' has Chip baffled. After interviewing other mothers in the neighborhood, he makes a courageous effort to improvise by writing about his own Grandfather, whom he feels is the most maternal person he knows.
Steve and Bub are both called out of town and Mike urges them to leave him in charge, only to find the role of mother hen harder than it looks. His worth is really put to the test when he learns that Robbie and Hank have been taken to hospital after an accident at school.
Bub decides to go to night school when he finds that his grandsons keep asking endless questions that he simply cannot answer. He meets a fellow student and passes himself off as a former show business producer, while she makes out she's a high society dame, when in fact she's really a maid.
Robbie's band rehearsals upsets the household. Mike's fraternity is looking for a band and Robbie tries to get the job.
When Robbie and his friend Hank decide they want to join a club at school, Robbie insists he does not want to join Mike's old club. When he gets an offer to join the Chieftains, the one school Club his brother never belonged to, he jumps at the chance.
Chip feels ignored by his family and decides to do them all a favour by running away from home. His solution is to strike away for far-east India very early the next morning. He takes fright while downtown and secretly returns home and hides in the attic, forgetting the farewell note he's pinned to Tramp's collar.
Steve takes a week's vacation from the family where he soon finds that he can fall in love with someone as easily as fall out of love with them. Sure that an older couple he's met are trying to play matchmaker, Fran is unsociable towards Steve at first until he points out that he only came along on the trip to appease his fellow campers.
Two dates, confused phone calls and name mix-ups create a tangled evening for brothers Mike and Robbie, when each get's the other's date. Mike gets a shock when he picks up a fourteen year old, while Robbie nearly croaks at the sight of his 'older woman'.
Attractive Pamela MacLish whom Steve took to Chip's grade school dance a year ago, is still trying to melt his bachelor heart. She arrives at the house on the pre-text of soliciting Bub's help to join an Irish Society called the 'Daughters of the Emerald Isle'. Soon Bub thinks that Pamela is after him.
Four beautiful airline stewardesses move into the vacant house next door and Mike and Robbie immediately are attracted to the glamorous career women. Meanwhile Steve is at the drawing board trying to meet a work deadline that requires his total concentration.
Bub reads an article in a magazine which is directed at bored homemakers and he begins to think that he fits the description. Steve warns him that he should control his Irish temper as it could lead to the demise of his position should he find one.
Steve is going to Chicago on business and he's promised to take Chip with him. A change of plans sees Steve boarding a military plane bound for Paris. Chip takes action when he finds out that he can't go on a trip to Paris with his father, by sneaking onto the plane. He gets lost in the city and is befriended by a little girl named Marie.
Bub fires Robbie's show business ambitions when he tells him to make the most of an opportunity when Robbie's 9th grade physics class is the subject of an educational film. He is excited when he and a fellow student are told they will be part of a close-up scene.
Chip tries to snow his teachers so he can win an art contest and almost succeeds with some help from Bub, who actually painted the artwork. Chip's teacher offers his painting to the Principal to show the school board. When Chip learns of this development, he plots with Sudsy to steal it back.
The Douglas family goes to the train station to meet Steve but when they prepare to leave, they can't find Tramp anywhere. Tramp has wandered into the cabin of a famous actress named Marissa Montaigne who takes a liking to him.
Robbie finds out that he won't be able to play in the big game unless he passes a math exam. Steve assures him that if he fails he will not be playing against his team's arch rival. When Chip comes down with the measles, it dampens Robbie's attempt to play even more than before.
Chip's schoolmates want to help him celebrate his tenth birthday with a party but he doesn't want to share the occasion with certain young ladies. However, Steve falls foul of the German measles and when Bub speaks to Sudsy's mother about it, suddenly the gossip mongers decide that they will not send their children to the house for fear of catching the disease.
Steve's friend asks him to come up with a solution when she thinks her daughter is dating an older man. Steve is shocked when he sees that the initials of the fraternity pin the man gave her identifies his oldest son Mike. However it is really Robbie who took the use of Mike's pin to fix his button-less shirt.
Chip puts his father into the uncomfortable position of defending the importance of his profession. Chip is unenlightened by the tour of the Air Force base until a full-scale emergency arises and Steve is asked to help a desperate pilot down from the air.
When Steve and an old boyhood pal discuss the time they ran away to another town, Mike and Robbie, who are continually in need of cash, decide that during school vacation they will go North to the next big town and try and get jobs.
At the suggestion of his best pal Hank, Robbie plans to earn some extra pocket-money by caddying at the local Golfing Tournament. He's assigned to the most temperemental golfer on the course. At the 18th hole Robbie accidentally kick's the ball out of the rough, immediately disqualifying his golfer from the competition.
Steve's wish for a calm life sends him on a chaotic journey into a parallel universe when on a typically rambunctious morning, the Douglas household noise is ruining Steve's day off from work. So he gets in his car to get away from it all, wishing that he'd had girls instead of boys.
Robbie's only real competition for winning a school scholarship in a model airplane contest is a young boy named Roly Bates, a studious lad who has his heart set on first prize as its his only chance to get a college education.
Mike has problems with his girlfriend's father when Mike tries to see another girl.
On his first day in High School, Robbie has some memorable highlights -- such as being assigned a locker with Chug Williams, the school's star senior athlete. When it is evident that Chug is using Robbie, Mike tries to warn him that he has become the victim of a dangerous case of hero-worship.
Steve pushes Chip to go on a week-long vacation with a boy he really doesn't like. The boy is very shy and timid, and when Chip calls him a chicken-clunk, he cops an unexpected black eye for his trouble. Meanwhile Bub tries his hand at painting.
Mike faces disciplinary action at the hands of the Board of Regents and the Dean of the College for a wayward fraternity prank in which several of the students have created a foot-print mould which bears a remarkable resemblance to the hippopotamus.
Two of Bub's cronies who are visiting for their usual game of pinochle, accidentally get an earful of the family's woes. Their mysterious interjection to try and solve the problems, leaves Steve and the boys quite baffled.
1962
Steve is going on a business trip to Japan and thinks he might as well take his family along with him. Mike gets involved in a new romance with another beautiful girl named Kimiko and suddenly he forgets his girlfriend back home.
Robbie and Hank think there is only one thing in the whole world that impresses girls -- money! So they decide to open their own home help unit in the hope of making the big bucks that they are constantly in need of. However, they run into competition from Chip who organises baby-sitting as a means of increasing his allowance to buy a new bicycle.
Tramp supposedly takes a nip out of pampered young Alan Edgerton and the court case that follows, gives Robbie the chance to help out the family's lawyer with some special investigating when he realises he can prove that the dog acted in self defense.
College freshman Mike Douglas has invited the reigning campus beauty to his fraternity's Saturday night dance, but he sort of doubts that she'll accept. So to cover all bets, he invites another girl too, which lands him in more trouble than he bargained for.
Homeward bound from a long business trip Steve meets an old friend on the plane and he suggests that her daughter stay at the Douglas household while her mother gives a lecture in town, but unfortunately everyone else at the house has plans and Steve is left to entertain the girl.
Chip and his friend Sudsy see a Halloween spook carrying a candle in the neighbor's vacant house next door while out trick or treating, and are frightened out of their minds, but Steve and Bub will not believe them.
Robbie get in trouble with the big brothers of a girl he likes when he takes her picture.
A cooking contest at school upsets Chip when he realizes he doesn't have a mother to submit a recipe. But there is much rejoicing when Steve's favourite recipe reaches the finals. The prospect of winning keeps Steve on edge, much to the displeasure of the boys and Bub.
Chip is thrown out of the neighbourhood clubhouse because he cannot convince the older boys that he is all grown up. He makes a bargain -- he will fight one of the older boys for the privelege of becoming club mascot. But he doesn't count on being sent to hospital to have his tonsils removed the very day of the big fight.
Robbie goes on a date when he was suppose to write a term paper. Mike gives him a paper that Steve wrote and received an 'A'. Robbie copies it but gets an 'F'. When Steve talks to the teacher he finds out that the paper is plagiarized. Embarrassed Steve must explain to Robbie why he got the 'F'.
A summer heat wave has tempers flaring. Steve remains cool and calm until some important plans go missing and he thinks it might be in the pile of papers given to the boy scouts for its paper drive.
Mike is dragooned into acting as the sole judge of a campus beauty contest and discovers that the hazards of choosing a winner to be a formidable task. Especially when he realizes his girlfriend is a contestant.
Steve is in too big a hurry to get home to his family and spread the good news of his upcoming business trip to Bolivia, but hurts his back by throwing out his sacroiliac and is convinced that there is only one doctor who can help him.
Robbie wants to date a cute fifteen year old blonde, whose mother campaigns for Steve's co-operation to end the relationship, but this move almost ends in another romance. Robbie starts shaving and Steve realises Robbie is becoming a man.
Chip and Sudsy see a model auto at the toy store. When he is reminded that he is doesn't have a mother to nix the idea, he tries to persuade his father to buy it. But they both don't figure that Bub will have his say on the subject.
Chip gets a relief from boredom when Steve's friend invites him to a birthday celebration for his ""honorable"" grandfather, and Robbie finds it hard to keep up with a new girl at school who seems unimpressed with him.
Mike has the job of recruiting some campus models for a fashion show and when a gorgeous store representative stops by to give him help, he forgets there are any other girls in the world. With Robbie's help, he tries hard to capture her affections with displays of serenading on the guitar.
Steve's reluctance to make a business trip to Rome with the family puzzles everyone in the Douglas household except Bub. He remembers that Steve and his late wife were once there and that the place may hold too many memories for him.
Steve encounters a sweet, old-fashioned 16-year-old at the bus depot, who reminds him of someone from his high school days. After hearing about his family, the girl wants to go on a date with Robbie, who finds she is more wordly than his father had told him.
When he is badgered by one of his co-workers to join the company musical combo as a saxophonist, Steve, who is rather apprehensive about the situation, dreams of being chased by a man carrying a trumpet -- a man who looks very much like his workpal.
Chip volunteers Bub to be their Cub Scout leader.
Chip is overcome with loneliness when Sudsy starts spending all of his time with a new boy in the neighborhood. The entire household rallies together and their efforts to compensate the youngster succeed almost too well.
The members of Robbie's high school wrestling team need higher grades to remain eligible, so they choose Steve as their tutor. Soon the house is quarantined for Diptheria, and when Bub doesn't get his long-awaited rendezvous with ""Old Roy,"" the biggest catch in the lake, watch out boys.
Bub, representing the older generation, makes some suggestions for Robbie's school club carnival, but to the Committee they sound a mite old fashioned. The junior crowd scorns at the ideas until they see them in action.
Robbie's science master announces a special achievement award for being a straight 'A' student and to his embarassment, Robbie wins it. This causes more trouble than he could have imagined but Steve does his best to assure Robbie that he did deserve the award.
When Robbie and his friend complain about being broke, another student offers them a pig to fatten in a profit-sharing plan. When the time comes for it to be slaughtered however, nobody is quite sure that they want to do it.
With his Air Force Reserve crew depending on him for an engine maintenance exercise, Mike is faced with having to abandon a date, as well as a baseball match, all of which is just part of his same crowded weekend.
Bub, an inveterate contest buff, finally hits the jackpot, winning a prize worth $1,000 in a TV competition. But when the boys learn that a British butler will be part of the family for two weeks, they succeed in shaking the impeccable and usually unflappable gentleman.
While Steve and Bub are away, Chip, Robbie and Mike face the problem of caring for two sick foundlings, a wild bird and a frightened girl, who they learn is a runaway from a maid's job in Philadelphia where she has been unhappy.
Steve lays down the law to Chip, warning him he'll be grounded for a month the next time he loses or misuses someone else's property. Meanwhile a woman who is rounding up second hand items for a rummage sale visits Bub, who offers an old Tiger skin rug.
Mike learns the importance of indirect questioning in his psychology course when Robbie is sought after by eight classmates. Mike sets out to determine by voluntary questionnaire and graph who would be the most suitable scientific choice.
Robbie's economics teacher gives each student a fictional $10,000 dollars to invest in stocks but Steve's boss at work gets the impression that he has some really hot tips.
Bub's old classmate is returning to town to receive an award.
Bub condemns modern-day youth as he reminds his three charges how different things were when he was their age. The boys try to convince him that they aren't as lazy as he thinks they are.
Chip spots a runaway toddler and disobeys orders to stay home and wait for someone who is coming to pick up some plans.
Chip reads a news item about someone winning a date with an actress and gets the idea of raffling off a date with a big star - his grandfather Bub.
After a series of disastrous blind dates, Robbie and Hank set up a romantic employment agency that works to avoiding dull dates by matching couples with likewise interests.
To help Robbie gain himself of the attentions of a beautiful girl, Bub is willing to give up two tickets to a pre-sold sellout fight. However part of the bargain entails that he take the girl's disagreeable Aunt to the movies.
The family is so engrossed in searching for a missing, valuable stamp that they ignore Chip's announcement that he is getting rich everyday.
1968
While the family is doing some spring cleaning, Katie faints behind the couch. Soon her mother's intuition brings her to the house and she announces that Katie is going to be a mother. Once it is confirmed by a doctor, the family dotes on Katie, but seems to ignore the father to be.
Controversy erupts in the Douglas household over the selection of a doctor for Katie during her pregnancy. While Robbie and Katie want to choose their own doctor, Katie's mother insists on making an appointment with the Miller family doctor. Meanwhile, Steve stands in for an absent Robbie at his first baby class.
The baby stirs inside Katie and Robbie feels its movement and suddenly sheds his youthful ways to become very much the sober and altogether too serious expectant father. Meanwhile, fatherhood is taking a different approach when Tramp's puppies to the next door neighbor's dog Francis, are about to be born.
Because he is about to become a Grandfather, Steve has an easier time working out an important Air Force contract with a hard-shelled General. By watching the way Katie walks, the General predicts that she will have a baby boy. Meanwhile Ernie decides to run for class President at school.
When Robbie and Katie announce that they might hire a baby nurse, Uncle Charley is confident they will ask him. When they don't, he embarks on a marathon of baby sitting so he can learn the ropes by hiring himself out as a professional baby sitter.
In an advanced stage of pregnancy, Katie suffers qualms about her looks that are as out of proportion as her figure. She is temporarily distressed by her hugeness until she learns from her doctor that she is going to have more than one baby.
The day -- or rather the night -- of the big event finds expectant mother Katie quite calm, and Steve and Uncle Charley quite the opposite, and a hapless father to be off on Army manouvres. At the hospital, Katie gives birth to identical triplet boys and Steve must adjust to the fact that he is a Grandfather, three times over.
As the triplets come home from the hospital their names are announced by the happy parents: Robbie Jr, Charley and Steve II. Their father Robbie finds that he is totally unprepared for all of the attention that the infants attract.
It may not be poker, but nine in the Douglas family is a full house. Feeling somewhat responsible, Robbie decides to quit school in order to pursue work full time and find a new home for his family. A wise school counsellor takes steps to discourage the move. Meanwhile Steve designs some plans for an extension to the house to accomodate the babies further.
Robbie and Katie have been invited to a High School reunion and they are reluctant to leave their babies with an unknown sitter as everyone in the family is otherwise busy. They hire a professional sitter that is recommended by the family doctor.
On the rebound after his girlfriend Sally suddenly marries another younger man, Uncle Charley acquires many new lady friends when Katie schemes to put the wind back in the lovable old windbag's sails.
With three babies to look after, Dr. Osborne says Katie is completely exhausted and he prescribes a couple of days bed rest. She flies to Santa Barbara to be with her mother. While she is away the family must hire three cleaning ladies to restore the house back to normal.
The contractor that Steve hires to add a baby alcove to Robbie and Katie's room leaves much to be desired. He displays all the charm of a top sergeant and is putty in Katie's hands, but is exasperatingly gruff and non co-operative to the males in the Douglas home.
Steve meets an attractive widow who seems to be very interested in him but suddenly she turns cool towards his intentions. The family does its best to give the impression that Steve isn't really as old as he seems.
Although Katie confidently calls the look-alike triplets by name, other members of the family doubt her accuracy, and when Steve helpfully bathes them, she admits that she can no longer tell them apart because he washed off the inkdots put on their feet. They must be taken back to the hospital for proper identification.
Chip and his girlfriend announce to a startled Douglas family that they plan to marry and continue high school. Disapproving, Steve visits the girl's parents but they decide not to forbid the marriage but wait for further developments. When Katie becomes ill and Robbie takes her to the doctor, Chip and Debbie are left with the triplets for some hectic hours.
The Douglases feel that Steve is becoming sedentary, not knowing that he's just been assigned to help capture some enemy agents, but things get rough when he's taken to a Greenwich Village cocktail party where the spies start shooting when they find him hiding in the bathtub.
Steve Douglas gives Chip a well-preserved second hand car for his 16th birthday but he is astounded by his son's unenthusiastic reaction; he is embarrassed to drive it, and parks it a long way from school so he won't be recognized as the old car's owner.
Steve's old Chinese friend transfers to Los Angeles and happily renews his friendship with the Douglases. He confides in Steve and Charley that he is concerned about the man his daughter has married - an aparently aimless hippie with long hair.
Chip and Ernie observe their married older brother, Robbie, in the company of a glamorous woman. The boys report the upsetting situation to their father Steve, who assures them he has trust in Robbie and urges them to maintain confidence in their older brother too.
Young Ernie is crushed when he learns that his next door neighbors are selling their house, and his best friend is leaving the neighbourhood. Pending their separation, the two boys are together day and night; the Douglases give Gordon a touching farewell party.
Ernie and his girlfriend are dismayed when Uncle Charley and her grandmother don't act like old folks after they meet at a school band contest. Ernie confides in his amused family about his concern over Uncle Charley's behaviour.
Ernie bemoans the task of writing in Spanish to a Latin-American pen pal but she then astonishes him by accepting a dinner invitation by cablegram; Maria is the daughter of a high ranking diplomat.
After being the only one in his class to choose the correct color in a card test, Ernie is convinced he has extra sensory perception. He predicts disaster for Robbie and Katie if they keep an appointment for the babies with Dr. Osborne.
Steve's co-worker and golf buddy, suggests that Steve and two of his sons, go to the company picnic with him and his two children. To the parents' dismay, the youngsters take an immediate dislike for each other.
Ernie attempts to remould his image after a classmate he is attracted to, Margaret, refuses to give him a second look. Margaret, however, prefers Roger and is obviously disappointed when Ernie is selected as her partner in a poem recitation.
When old Bryant Park friends move into the neighbourhood, they renew their friendship with the Douglases at a family barbecue where Steve is cast in the role of marriage counselor by the eldest son who turns to him for help in saving his marriage.
Ernie's writing ability lands him in the dreaded special English class with its strict but efficient teacher. Her reputation as an ogre keeps him so uncomfortable that he not only performs badly in oral recitation but in his written work as well.
1969
Robbie and Katie move into an apartment on the next block and widower Steve Douglas becomes the target of Katie's relentless matchmaking. However, Steve meets a remarkable woman in a high school corridor and the two are quickly attracted to each other.
Robbie needs to talk to his dad-who seems unreachable
The whole Douglas clan conspires to encourage Steve's romance with the lady in question, Barbara Harper. After dinner, Steve and Barbara go back to her house where Steve is predictably nervous around her. They are both serious about their relationship, but neither of them realizes it.
Everyone (Except Barbara) knows Steve is going to propose to Barbara
With the ring finally on her finger, Steve and Barbara's engagement is exciting for everyone except Barbara's five year old daughter who isn't sure she wants to share her mother. Meanwhile, Barbara employs her considerable store of diplomacy in an effort to gain acceptance by Steve's family.
Steve and Barbara have different ideas on how their wedding should go.
After a series of events at which the Bride and Groom wonder if they are doing the right thing, Steve and Barbara have an argument serious enough for them to consider cancelling their wedding.
On Steve's wedding day the groom is predictably nervous. Recalling certain mishaps from his own big day, super efficient Robbie determines that his own father's wedding will be perfect and after a few hours of hectic, last-minute preparations, Steve and Barbara are married in a simple church ceremony.
Steve and Barbara's Honeymoon in a remote fishing village is bustling with hordes of other, younger honeymooners. They end up counselling several couples who are not adjusting to married life. When a bottle of champagne arrives from the family back in Los Angeles, the other honeymooners realise that Steve and Barbara are indeed honeymooners as well.
With Steve and Barbara due back from their honeymoon in Mexico, Katie forces Robbie to lecture Uncle Charley on politeness, and the result of his very puzzling behaviour nearly drives Barbara out of her mind.
Little Dodie feels out of place among her three stepbrothers and her often grumpy uncle, and discovers that being a member of the Douglas family can be a rough and tumble proposition.
When Katie panics as she detects a few gray hairs in her youthful head, a family crisis is not far away. She further worries Robbie by suggesting they discuss preparation of life insurance and superannuation.
When her brothers have more pressing commitments, Steve gets cast in Dodie's school play as a tree, more or less proving Robbie's point that females are instinctive manipulators.
Barbara faces a fiasco when she prepares her first dinner party for Steve's business associates and their wives. The event has Barbara worried to death after a few schedule changes ruin most of her plans. Finally it is Barbara's mother who saves the day.
Barbara is jealous when a glamorous special secretary enters the lives of both Steve and his son, Robbie, and causes a double domestic crisis. Barbara ends up consoling a heartbroken young lady who is eventually fired from her position.
Little Dodie goes to the hospital for a tonsillectomy and insists that her new father stay overnight with her. Barbara understands because she knows that Dodie is finally accepting Steve as her real father. Meanwhile, Robbie and Katie go on a trip to Mexico and leave the triplets in care of the Douglases.
Hoping to renew her funloving friendship, Steve's old girlfriend from Bryant Park, who is now a rich divorcee, comes to town and gives Barbara a few jealous moments.
Robbie is asked to be the best man at the wedding of an old friend from Bryant Park. He decides to go back a week early to show Katie around the town where he grew up but ultimately makes a disappointing visit when he realises that time and years do change things.
Barbara tells her mother that she feels rejected when the boys never tell her their troubles and go to Steve or Charley instead. While Steve is away on business, she is forced to confront one of Chip's teachers when he and another student are accused of cheating in an exam.
Barbara feels that Uncle Charley is lonely playing his Cello, so she talks to a msuic store proprietress who invites three lady musicians to help join in a string quartet.
A Special time consuming project keeps Steve and son Robbie so pre-occupied that they are tired when they arrive home. After the project ends, the co-workers throw a celebration party and when Barbara and Katie arrive with supper for their hardworking spouses, and see a party in full swing, they storm out.
Young Ernie Douglas becomes the unwilling object of the affection of Dodie's six year old friend while Barbara is asked by the Board of Education to take a substitute teacher's job at a local high school. She finds her stepson Chip in the class and he embarrassingly becomes her prized pupil.
A bearded man of mystery confounds the Douglas family and the authorities alike, while Steve is working on a top priority project at home. Barbara soon identifies him as her former father-in-law.
Dodie calls upon her big brothers to help her fight her battles in the school playground when some girls say that Douglas is not her real name. Steve feels he should formally adopt Dodie to make it official but this only solves half of Dodie's problems.
Robbie and Katie have an unpleasant personality clash with the young couple who move into the next apartment in their building. Meanwhile, when Uncle Charley assures Dodie that Katie is her sister, she phones and leaves a message with Robbie. When he forgets to pass it on, a family crisis is not far away.
Chip turns on to economics and is enthralled by the latest book by his accounting teacher, and vows that he will become rich early in life by instituting a break-neck money earning schedule. Whilst working at several jobs, he doesn't take into account the expenses he begins to incur along the way to his goal.
1970
Chip begins studying with a pretty co-ed whose disciplinarian father wants to know why her new friend is spending so much time with her. Meanwhile, on the eve of Steve and Barbara's first wedding anniversary, Dodie announces she is throwing a surprise party, but neglects to tell everyone when or where.
Uncle Charley and Barbara suspect that Chip and Polly are becoming serious about one another. Polly, unhappy at home because of her father's strictness, is afraid of losing Chip because of her parents' meddling. She asks Chip to elope, and taken aback, he asks his father for advice.
Barbara is flustered when she receives a phone call from a former college suitor, and is very apprehensive when Steve invites him to dinner. The entire family is anxious to meet her old flame, thus compounding her uneasiness.
Chip delights Polly with an expensive locket for her 18th Birthday and after their vague conversation, he thinks he's agreed to go steady, but Polly tells her mother that she has become engaged. Perturbed by her husband's probable reaction, Mrs. Williams arranges a luncheon to judge the seriousness of the matter.
Chip and Polly open a joint bank account and Chip takes on a box boy job at a supermarket to accumulate money for their future marriage. Later after she's had an argument with her father, Polly comes to the Douglases with her packed suitcase, but when Chip turns down the girl's offer to elope, she storms out.
Dressed as a cat for a costume party at the home of his employer in Bel Air, Steve goes for gasoline when his car stalls but the police arrest him as a burglar. Meanwhile, Polly notes that there is so much love in the Douglas household, that she just has to become a part of it.
Chip asks Steve's permission to elope, but before he grants it, he insists Chip give Mr. Williams the courtesy of asking his approval too. Chip goes to see Mr. Williams only to have him accusingly flaunt a private detective's report. Realizing that Polly's own father had hired a man to trail them, he storms out before asking for her hand.
Following their elopement to Las Vegas, newlyweds Chip and Polly are beset by nothing but trouble. The universal joint in their car gives out and they have to be towed into town. The hotel where Steve and Barbara stayed is no longer for honeymooners but for singles, and the newlyweds must spend their first night in separate rooms.
After Chip and Polly return from their honeymoon they spend a few days at the Douglases. Soon they move into their own college dormitory, and bridegroom Chip faces a father in law who refuses to speak to his newly married daughter.
Barbara becomes involved in presenting a fashion show for a woman's club luncheon, and Steve reluctantly agrees to become a model for a fashion show, but refuses at the last minute when he realizes he must wear a lacy, ruffled shirt and parade down a runway modelling it.
Chip becomes violently ill after eating Polly's cooking, and she learns from the family that Chip is allergic to some of the foods she's been preparing. Distressed, she feels it would be better for her husband if she left him.
Against his classmate's better judgement, Ernie uses the unwitting Douglas household as guinea pigs for an experiment assigned by his psychology teacher. He cuts inches off Uncle Charley's cane to make him think he is growing taller. Ernie soon finds his father Steve is a little less gullible.
Katie's mother gives Katie and Robbie a vacation by taking the triplets to St. Louis with her for a couple of weeks. Robbie figures that now is the perfect time to do all of the things they haven't been able to do when they had the boys to look after.
A boyhood friend from Bryant Park, rides his motorcycle back into Robbie's life and awakens Robbie's wunderlust with appealing tales of travel and adventure. Intrigued by Jim's stories of freedom, Rob agrees to take a holiday from Katie and the triplets.
Dodie and some of her girl classmates in the second grade get a big crush on Mr. Turley, their new teacher, and right away they make a batch of cookies for him. Dodie's crush begins to fade when she finds out that her Mr. Turley was once one of Barbara's students.
Barbara suspects that a promotion for Steve maybe in the works and as her suspicions become stronger, a routine investigation on Steve's family background turns up some rather startling information when it focuses on Uncle Charley.
Level-headed Katie becomes a jealous, suspicious wife when a pile of circumstantial evidence stacks up against Robbie, as she suspects him of seeing another woman.
Ernie and his friend Elmore both flunk their driving licence tests, while their dates for a dance both pass. Ernie and Elmore take part in a ruse to conceal this situation from their dates, but instead they end up in trouble with the law when they realise they are stranded after a date.
Ernie is left in charge for one day when Steve and Barbara are off to Chicago for a golf tournament while Uncle Charley attends a string music festival. Little Dodie and her friend take a shopping excursion into town but don't have enough money for the bus ride home.
Dodie studying piano, Margaret on the violin and Susan at clarinet, comprise the 'Rondelay trio' and Dodie tells Steve and Barbara the good news that they'll practice at the Douglas house for their upcoming recital.
The rear bumper of Ernie's car is struck by a teenage girl in a parking lot. Ernie's car suffers no real damage but the other car's fender is crumpled. Before very long, this involves Ernie in an ill-fated romance.
Barbara leaves Ernie in charge of looking after Dodie after she has to go shopping. However Dodie goes to her friend Drucilla's house, and when Barbara returns he cannot remember where she is. After Dodie is found, Barbara sends them both to their rooms for the day. Then Ernie and Dodie rebel when they feel that they've been unjustly punished.
Uncle Charley is elated when he gets word that his pugislistic shipmate and buddy is going to visit him in a few days. However, Charley is forced to concede that times and people do change when the tough-talking, bad mannered ex-sailor he once knew isn't so terrible anymore.
Rob is laid off from work, but decides to move with Katie and the boys to San Francisco to accept a job at another company. They move into an apartment and meet several other tenants. One of them suggests Rob is always tired from the burden of supporting his family. Feeling disheartened by this and other remarks, Katie thinks that Rob doesn't want her and the triplets anymore.
1965
Mike and Sally finally get married and leave for the East where Mike has a job as an assistant college psychology instructor. Robbie happily moves into Mike's old room. When Uncle Charley notes that they may soon be calling Steve 'Grandpa' he becomes somwehat concerned about growing old and calls up his former girlfriends. Robbie, now a college man, offers to help his father make friends with younger women, and while pretending to be disinterested, tries a few of his suggestions. When it is learned that Ernie must return to an orphanage, because he will not be allowed to accompany his foster parents in their move to the orient, Chip invites Ernie to move in permanently, giving Steve three sons once more.
Steve explores the possibility of adopting 10-year-old Ernie but runs into antagonism from Uncle Charley, who can forsee nothing but more work with a new boy to take care of. The family desperately wants to adopt the boy and Robbie decides that Steve must make a play for the lovely Miss Coulter. Her boss comes to inspect the house just as the boys have made a shambles of the place. At eight the next morning, Miss Miller returns. She inspects the house, spic and span now, and ushers in a happy Ernie, who is to stay on a temporary basis.
Ernie's adoption into the all-male Douglas household is threatened by a regulation that there must be a lady of the house. Steve again makes a request to adopt the child, but Misses Coulter and Miller of the adoption agency, say they are powerless to change the regulations. Miss Miller has a brilliant idea, however, and soon the family is appearing before a judge who decides that housekeeper Uncle Charley can legally be designated the 'lady of the house'. Charley approves if this fact is kept secret and Ernie is enthusiastically welcomed into the family.
Uncle Charley is upset when he learns that Robbie is dating a flashy chorus girl, but Steve refuses to worry because he trusts his son's common sense. Charley predicts Steve will be invited to pay the girl cash on the line if he wants her to stop dating his son.
An escaped circus lion makes a midnight call at the Douglas house, and Ernie sees it and awakens the understandably skeptical Steve who accompanies his new stepson to investigate. Steve eventually sees the lion and nervously plays a game of tag with it, warning the family to keep their bedroom doors closed.
Chip's secret love is an older girl named Mary Lou. When Steve suggests his love sick son should find out where he stands by asking for a date, Chip calls and identifies himself as 'Douglas'. Mary Lou is delighted -- thinking she is going out with Robbie Douglas, a genuine college freshman.
Ernie writes a play and volunteers Steve's services for his father-and-son night, so he dons a heavy robot costume. The family leaves early, and Steve finds himself alone on the street, helpless in his non-removable suit.
A seductive dance instructor named Helen signs Uncle Charley up for a lifetime membership in a dance club. Dreaming of a professional dancer's career, he purchases a top hat and tails for his appearance at the school's annual ball.
Robbie is so eager to make the track team that, to improve his timing, he agrees to join a ballet class. He proves an unwilling pupil, self-conscious in dancer's tights and ballet shoes, but after days of practising, his hurdling style suddenly improves. Reluctantly, he agrees to become the sole male dancer in the upcoming Ballet Class recital.
Ernie feels neglected when the other members of the Douglas family are busy with various girlfriends and he is left alone. Close to tears, Ernie is puzzled and saddened by the mysterious powers of the opposite sex. He's even more puzzled when he meets eleven year old Linda-Lou.
Steve Douglas turns a business trip to Hong Kong into a vacation for the whole family. Uncle Charley, who once lived in China, is reluctant to visit modern Hong Kong, for apparently he still carries a torch for a beautiful girl he knew in the 1930s.
Steve's unusual behaviour convinces his family that he is about to be secretly married. The boys plan to leave home to provide privacy for the newlyweds, and Charley arranges to ship out on a freighter. Steve brings the pretty blonde girl home to meet the family, only to find the house deserted.
The Douglas family bravely accepts the challenge when 13 year old Chip decides to give a party -- with girls. On the party evening the record player breaks down and Chip contemplates the disintegration of his first teenage party. But Steve comes up with a solution.
When Steve travels to Washington on business, he leaves $50 with Robbie, to pay for golf club repairs but Uncle Charley limbers up his billiard cue to get revenge after two girl pool sharks take Robbie's $50 when they coyly ask him to show them how to play the game.
A huge shaggy stray dog adopts Steve Douglas and disrupts the neighborhood with his howls when Steve tries to leave home. A neighbor and lover of stray animals, is delighted to learn that Steve plans to keep the dog until its owner can be found, rather than sending it to a shelter. However, the dog continues to regard Steve as his mother as well as his master.
Steve Douglas meets recently divorced Maggie Bellini, reputed to be one of the world's ten richest women. She sets her sights on Steve by showering his family with costly gifts. Robbie has the use of an experimental sports car, Chip is invited to fly to Austria for a weekend of skiing, and Ernie is provided with the use of a computer for his arithmetic homework.
When Robbie Douglas yanks pretty co-ed Terri Wong out of the path of a speeding truck, he becomes the unwilling beneficiary of an old Chinese custom when the girl whose life he saves insists on being his slave. The game is amusing at first but before long Robbie must ask his father for help.
Steve Douglas is attracted to a beautiful female explorer who shows Steve and the family her exciting adventure films. She has to prepare for a safari, and as there is room in the party for one more, she begs Steve to come along.
Robbie takes on a heavy work load of waiting on tables in his girlfriend's sorority house and working as a chemistry laboratory worker, so that he can rent a room away from home. Worst of all, his romance with his current girlfriend languishes because he is too tired to take her on a date.
When Chip adopts a Beatle-style, shoulder length haircut, the other members of the family feel that Steve should lay down the law to the long-haired one, but he and his associate consult a company psychologist for a solution. Steve decides not to be a strict father but to give the boy more attention, without affect.
Robbie Douglas is practically engaged to his girlfriend Joanne, and when they discover how their friends are both successfully attending university while raising a baby they begin to think that perhaps teen-aged marriages are workable.
Two tomboys - a pretty lady engineer named Max and a member of the girls Hockey team named Georgie prove tough to handle for both Steve and Chip. Hoping to become a hero to his peers, Chip goes out for the girls hockey team when Georgie insists the coach must let her join the boy's track team.
Robbie Douglas learns how much of a pest a younger sibling can be when Chip and a buddy break up his date with a pretty girl by eating appetizers and otherwise making a nuisance of themselves. The next afternoon, for revenge, Robbie primes his other brother Ernie to haunt Chip and his date.
Robbie has a wonderful time going steady with two girls simultaneously -- a highschooler and a college co-ed -- until the two ladies compare notes one day and plot immediate revenge. They maneuver Robbie into dating the both of them on the same night.
Ernie Douglas sends a letter to the French Embassy to thank France for the Statue of Liberty and receives, in return, an invitation for him and the rest of the family to visit Washington, the nation's capital. However the other members of the family are not too happy with the idea.
Chip is worried when his younger brother Ernie becomes a close friend of a pretty sixth grader, because the girl is now interested in collecting postage stamps, and Chip is sure she has her eye on Ernie's precious Liberian triangle.
Chip demands a jury trial after he borrows four cents from a pile of brother Ernie's pennies and Ernie accuses him of taking a valuable penny from his coin collection. Finally Chip accepts Ernie's challenge to stand trial in a court composed of their friends.
Ernie packs a suitcase, ready to leave home, after he fails to win a cup for the family trophy shelf. He eagerly goes into training, planning to win a school track award, convinced that he won't really be a member of the family until he too can provide a trophy.
A boy who looks just like Robbie almost ruins his reputation by driving around on-campus and inviting strange girls to kiss him, before the deception is uncovered. Finally, both boys and their parents are brought to the dean's office.
Uncle Charley takes away Robbie's driving privileges after the campus beauty queen gets a $16 traffic ticket while driving his car. Robbie then faces the horror and humiliation of exisiting without a car, but soon to his amazement his girlfriend is enjoying walking home from school with him.
The Douglas family returns from a trip to Britain and as the family watches home movies of their vacation, the amateurish footage reveals the reason for Steve's current moodiness: He is still carrying a torch for a lovely widow.
1966
The usually all-male Douglas household becomes a refuge for an attractive girl dancer who has been evicted from her apartment, when Steve attends an office stag dinner. He takes her home where he lends her some of Robbie's clothes.
Steve Douglas takes his family to his birthplace of Bedford Springs. He tries to locate his 1940 fiancee Ellen, married and still living in town, but he is disenchanted by the changes in her. Still pretty, she lives with her obnoxious husband and ill-mannered children.
Steve Douglas receives a perfumed letter from an old girlfriend announcing she will stop by and see him. She terrifies Steve by acting as though she plans to accept a proposal of marriage he hasn't made. Steve does his best to convince her that his old college chum is the man for her.
Three fathers face their sons in a quiz game at a school entertainment night, and when the boys easily beat the dads so much interest is aroused in town that a re-match is scheduled on the local television station.
Because Robbie's friend wants him to understand Italians better, he invites Robbie to his home. Robbie runs afoul of an old custom when he takes a girl walking in the park and learns that he is expected to marry her.
Steve Douglas gets a parking ticket from Robbie's girlfriend, a pretty meter maid, and another citation for not having his driver's license renewed -- and then flunks his driving test. Soon Robbie realizes that he's given his father last year's manual to study and that some laws have been changed.
Robbie films a 'way out' movie for his Cinema class with the aid of a non-talented, 'way out' co-ed who earnestly tries to make an 'honest' motion picture. They begin a long week of filming uncinematic gems spotlighting the Douglases dull, drab meaningless family routine.
Ernie feels left out when the Douglas family orchestra begins to practise. Uncle Charley tries to teach Ernie the violin but runs into a major obstacle -- the boy's lack of obvious talent.
When Robbie's girlfriend's father calls from out of town and asks him to deliver a birthday cake to her, he thinks there might be a fortune in performing this birthday service and immediately goes into the cake business.
Robbie is immediately infatuated when he hires a pretty chemistry instructor as a tutor, and their friendship seems to be blossoming. But when he finds out that his father has been dating her, the shock affects his ability to concentrate on his studies.
When Ernie sends for a picture of Chip's favourite movie star, planning to give it to him as a birthday gift, Chip gets an actual date with the movie starlet for a publicity stunt and is astounded by all the resulting hoopla.
Steve Douglas meets a celebrated popular vocalist of 20 years ago whose career seems over. Although her famous voice is still there, the public demands music in the current style. Steve helps her update her style when he arranges for her to sing with Robbie's combo, the Greefs.
Ernie sneezes as he brushes past the family dog, Tramp, and when a doctor verifies the boy's allergy to dog hair and says the dog must go, Ernie packs his bags as he feels Tramp has seniority over him in the family.
Chip's romance with a classmate flourishes when he rents a horse and buggy so as to impress the girl's strict, old fashioned grandmother. She is impressed, but still insists that the kids stay at home to have a taffy-pulling marathon.
Ernie's excited reports of seeing a flying saucer are received with skepticism, but the next day he not only sees the weird vehicle again, but he snaps some pictures and is later told by the Air Force to keep quiet about it.
Robbie is delighted when college classmate Peggy moves in next door, and the pair immediately go to work on a joint assignment for their Shakespeare class. He plays Romeo to her Juliet when a feud between the two families seems imminent.
Steve Douglas passes up his company's offer of a weekend in Rio because Saturday is the start of trout season. The boys do their best to get Steve to make Ernie his fishing buddy so Robbie and Chip can get out of the annual trip.
Television viewing at the Douglas household has dropped to zero because Uncle Charley, annoyed with the boys' quarreling about choice of channels, has withdrawn all TV privileges for a week. Robbie, a member of a new program committee, eagerly joins his co-ed girlfriend in her plan to bring true drama to the people. However, after viewing the show, the family isn't sure their attempt at 'realism' is really real.
Ernie's friends all boast of their dads' college athletic trophies, which forces Steve into a grueling two mile cross-country race with the other fathers. Two of the men, once athletes are eager for the contest, but Steve thinks it is silly.
Uncle Charley puts down a deposit on a vacation lot at beautiful Whispering Pines, only to learn he's been hoodwinked in a high pressure real-estate operation. The family discover that it is located at the bottom of a steep canyon. It is next to a tumbledown shack, occupied by a slovenly family who prove themselves completely undesirable as prospective neighbours.
Robbie Douglas tries to impress his girlfriend by competing with a handsome bullfighter against a killer bull, but has to flee for his life when the bull charges him.
Robbie is crushed when he learns that Denise DuBois, a French exchange student that Robbie had hoped to marry, has accepted his friend Tom's proposal of marriage the night before.
Chip Douglas's junior high school is having an Olden Days dance and the boys are to bring their mothers, and the girls their fathers. Chip finds trouble going steady with two girls at the same time and arranges for Steve to escort his classmate's widowed mother.
To help out his Dad, Steve, Chip pretends to like the aggressive as she is pretty, daughter of a new executive woman that his dad is dating. Chip has the romantic notion that his close relationship with the daughter might help the social plans of his father.
Uncle Charley's romantic tales of adventure captivates Ernie's teacher. The pretty, middle-aged lady is fascinated by the old boy's partially-true tales of his exciting life on the high seas. Soon the ex-seacook is aghast to learn she has given up her teaching job and he is further torn when she explains her savings will buy them both a one-way ticket to Pango-Pango and asks him to marry her before they leave.
Ernie Douglas's new school friend is little Laszlo, whose gypsy family is camped outside of town. Soon the gypsies are camped on the front lawn of the Douglas home. To Steve's amazement and Uncle Charley's disgust they stage several hours of singing and dancing.
Other fathers help their sons in a school science fair, but Steve tells Ernie he's on his own. Soon his project turns to disaster when his very crudely built electric clock absolutely refuses to run. After vainly pleading that most of his classmates are getting parental help, on the day of the fair, Ernie must be forced to go to school.
The older members of the Douglas family find their social lives complicated when little Ernie decides to accompany them on all of their dates. Uncle Charley decides he must be the one to put his foot down and set the boy straight.
A genial bum Ernie brings home for dinner outrages Uncle Charley by eating everything in sight and then decides to stay the night even though he wasn't invited. Steve feels that they should let Ernie work things out for himself.
Robbie leaves school after contemplating a very important offer from a former school drop out who now heads his own Real Estate company. When giving some new home buyers a tour of one of the company's display homes, he discovers that the houses are not what they seem.
Uncle Charley's old seafaring buddy arrives with a wonderful proposition: He wants Charley to join him as first mate for a six month fishing cruise in the Carribean. The family then conspires to demonstrate to Charley that he is not needed, but they really don't want him to leave.
On a visit to Hawaii, Robbie falls in love, Ernie almost gets arrested and Uncle Charley is pursued by an old girl friend from 1945, who weighs 200 pounds now. Charley thus finds it necessary to stay in hiding until the plane leaves for home.
1967
The Douglases move to California, where at first they are depressed to find the residents as chilly as the weather is warm. Robbie enrols in the University and is totally captivated by a blonde girl, and Uncle Charley is initiated into the rapid-fire procedure of shopping in supermarkets. The family begins to feel that their next door neighbors represent the characteristic stand-offishness of all Californians until they discover that they moved into the neighborhood the day before they did.
After advice from his father who tells him it isn't right to tie himself down to one girl, Robbie Douglas, intending to break off his romance with Katie Miller, ends up proposing to her. Soon his heart over rules his head and he buys an engagement ring and sets a wedding date.
Robbie and Katie pick a wedding date two weeks off. Katie's sorority sisters decide to do some private investigating on their own. Prospective groom Robbie then undergoes the complete once-over by his fiancee's family and runs the gamut of numerous cousins, aunts and a crotchety grandmother.
The day before her wedding Katie Miller feels she faces complete disaster. When Robbie tries to console her, she flares up at him and after a short argument, the pair declare the wedding is off. Of course, Grandma Collins thinks otherwise.
Early on his wedding day, Robbie Douglas and his family are peacefully oversleeping. They awaken just in time and scramble madly to get ready as Robbie and Katie are soon married amid traditional confusion and tears. The lost family dog, Tramp, returns in time to join the family in the front pew.
Robbie and Katie come home from their honeymoon to face the problems of newlyweds in a previously all-male household. Katie finds her role difficult, for Charley insists on continuing as the family cook and attending to all the laundry. Robbie becomes worried about her frequent weeping spells.
For their fourth week wedding anniversary, Katie decides to earn some money for an expensive gift for Robbie by taking a one week job as a tea-room waitress. Robbie lunches at the tea-room and finds Katie, who has taken over as a last-minute replacement for the cigarette girl, in an abbreviated costume.
At school, Ernie meets Mike, who offers to play with him, but the family is exasperated to know Mike likes tomboyish pranks. Then there's a problem persuading Ernie to accept his new friend when he learns that she's really a girl.
Attractive lady engineer Eileen Talbot is assigned to help Steve Douglas on a rush project in his office, and she applies her many talents to assure romantic, as well as technical success. Only level headed Katie recognizes her as a manipulating female long before the gullible male Douglases do.
Chip learns the meaning of empathy when he helps Ernie out of a predicament when he somehow winds up with two dates with two different girls for the same dance, when he doesn't even like girls to start with.
One stormy night while Steve is in San Francisco, Katie is alone in the Douglas house while the rest of the family is attending a ballgame. Her tenseness builds as late in the night she hears a scary rythmic noise, and hysterically calls Steve to report that the family has not yet returned and that she hears a loud thumping sound.
Chip manages to outwit the machine age when a computer is used to select partners for picnic dates for the boys in his class and girls from another school. He is soon startled to find that his date, although sweet and likeable, is six feet tall.
Katie is worried when Steve invites her visiting Aunt to spend a week at the house while he is out of town. Before long, she is molding the entire household into her image of a cultured family. When she slips some money under Katie's pillow, the girl angrily announces that this behaviour cannot continue.
When minor irritations arise in the Douglas household, Robbie and Katie move temporarily into a borrowed apartment while their friends are away. Their life is complicated by the absence of a coffee pot, a pull-down bed that won't go up and the lack of a television set.
Chip Douglas is so nervous about taking his driving test that his new sister in law Katie decides to help by taking the test with him. Soon after they both get their driving licenses the family car collects a big scratch, but neither will plead guilty.
Chip invites his neighbour's long-haired, guitar playing boy from Liverpool as a key addition to his off-key rock and roll band. The English lad's soft, folksong guitar is a disappointment and obviously won't work with the raucous amplified trio, but he helps them to win a trophy in an amateur talent contest.
With his father Steve busy over the weekend, Chip suggests that newlyweds Robbie and Katie act as chaperones to him and his friends at a mountain cabin. At Katie's insistence, Robbie keeps strict checks on the three teenage couples.
Robbie Douglas displays a bit of jealousy when his bride innocently agrees to tutor a handsome student. Later, Katie confides to Uncle Charley that he was once her steady boyfriend, and Charley off-handedly warns Katie to be careful because Robbie has a jealous nature.
Katie tearfully complains when Uncle Charley makes her feel unnecessary in the Douglas household. Steve speaks to Charley who is flabbergasted at the accusation, but immediately makes amends. Meanwhile, Chip is on a five-man school committee; four of the 'men' are girls and they won't let him open his mouth.
A series of strange coincidences make young Ernie feel he's a jinx to anyone he contacts, but his father assures him that he has a loyal family who loves him in spite all of his trouble, and that they will stick by him no matter what.
Bored because he has been left at home alone on a day off from school, Ernie goes on a search for movie stars. The boy loses his footing on a steep path and falls into Zsa Zsa Gabor's swimming pool in Beverly Hills. The glamorous lady invites him in until his clothes dry and later takes him to a real movie studio. Now the whole family as well as the police are searching for Ernie.
Uncle Charley is talked into buying an 11 year old trotting horse in the hopes of capturing old racing glories. The family is delighted when they hear that the horse, driven by Uncle Charley, has qualified for a race after winning a trial competition.
Robbie goes to Camp Roberts for two weeks military reserve training. At home, Steve becomes alarmed when he sees Charley's card telling him that he and the boys who are camping at Yosemite, plan to look Robbie up at camp. But he arrives too late to divert them and one-by-one each member of the family is inadvertently caught as a military prisoner.
Dressed as a chorine named Apple Annie at his Lodge 'Frolics' night, a weary Uncle Charley awakens from a nap after a matinee performance and is forced to walk home and is arrested by the police for hitting a flirtatious man.
Ernie remains at home with Uncle Charley while the rest of the family travel to various locations. Charley invites an old friend to dinner, believing him to be down and out. However, Ernie immediately identifies their guest as a famous television sherriff and he invites the two to the studio.
The Douglas family cancels a camping trip to play host to unexpected Chinese friends from Bryant Park who are en route to Hong Kong and this ultimately upsets their Chinese relatives when they are asked to stay overnight.
The first time Robbie and Katie entertain at home they imperil the marriage of two close friends, Denise and Larry. Denise insists on playing a game in which each player tells what he dislikes about the other. After various uncomfortable truths are revealed, Denise angrily storms out insisting on a marital separation.
Steve Douglas is promoted to head up the Airflight Helicopter Division and the unmarried female employees quickly check and discover that he's a widower. Robbie's wife Katie takes a tour and Uncle Charley passes his girlfriend off as Steve's wife. When two Mrs. Douglases visit Steve at his new job, his employees suspect that he's a bigamist.
Uncle Charley persists in singing an old song about a guy who steals his best friend's girl. Chip listens with some sorrow but there is a misunderstanding that almost ruins the friendship between Ernie and his pal when Shorty sees Ernie walking to the movies with a new girl in the neighborhood.
Ernie and his friends sell two used tires they found in the family storage room so they can buy a water rifle, but they cease to enjoy their 'cops and robbers' games when the real cops turn up after Uncle Charley calls them.
Fred MacMurray
Steve Douglas
Don Grady
Robbie Douglas
Stanley Livingston
Chip Douglas
Barry Livingston
Ernie Thompson
William Demarest
Charley O'Casey
Beverly Garland
Barbara
Tina Cole
Katie
Dawn Lyn
Dodie Harper Douglas
