My Three Sons

The Annual School ragdrive starts Chip off on a scavenger hunt of the neighbourhood. Everytime Miss Pitts looks out the window she sees strange happenings at the Douglas household. She sees Bub outdoors waving a bottle that looks like whiskey,and later, Robbie carrying in a dummy that she thinks is Bub smashed to the nines. Later she goes over to talk to Steve about her concerns, and sees Chip in his bedroom hitting the dummy and when it accidentally falls out of the upstairs window, she faints on the sidewalk.

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 Chips turn in show and tell at School, Robbies missing trumpet and some important lost plans of Steves that Mike has nearly burned in the incinerator.

Steves theory that life is just a small series of adjustments is put to the test in just one days 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 Mikes car, but gets a flat tire and must take the bus home.

Thanksgiving Days 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.

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.

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.

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 Steve invites his second cousin Selena to come and visit, Bub gets the strange impression that he is being neglected and isnt 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.

Chip falls foul of the school bully who isnt 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 Principals office.

When Robbie Douglas sees his new friends 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.

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 isnt too concerned when he hears about the incident as he thinks it all stems from Robbies steady diet of spy and mystery stories.

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 Steves station wagon.

With Steve away in Seattle on a business trip, the Douglas households version of mans 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.

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.

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.

Robbies 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 doesnt know the difference between Puccini and Presley.

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.

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 hes expected to do a real mans 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.

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 hes 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.

When a boiling pot explodes Tramps barking wakes the family saving them.

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 DArtagnon of the East Door, while Mike is subjected to his initiation which involves pretend fishing in front of the local drug-store.

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 dont even compensate for her loss of mind.

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.

Robbies band rehearsals upsets the household. Mikes fraternity is looking for a band and Robbie tries to get the job.

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 hes pinned to Tramps collar.

Two dates, confused phone calls and name mix-ups create a tangled evening for brothers Mike and Robbie, when each gets the others date. Mike gets a shock when he picks up a fourteen year old, while Robbie nearly croaks at the sight of his older woman.

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.

Steve is going to Chicago on business and hes 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 cant 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.

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. Chips 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.

Robbie finds out that he wont 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 teams arch rival. When Chip comes down with the measles, it dampens Robbies attempt to play even more than before.

Steves 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 Mikes pin to fix his button-less shirt.

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.

Steves 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 Steves day off from work. So he gets in his car to get away from it all, wishing that hed had girls instead of boys.

Mike has problems with his girlfriends father when Mike tries to see another girl.

Steve pushes Chip to go on a week-long vacation with a boy he really doesnt 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.

Two of Bubs cronies who are visiting for their usual game of pinochle, accidentally get an earful of the familys woes. Their mysterious interjection to try and solve the problems, leaves Steve and the boys quite baffled.

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.

College freshman Mike Douglas has invited the reigning campus beauty to his fraternitys Saturday night dance, but he sort of doubts that shell accept. So to cover all bets, he invites another girl too, which lands him in more trouble than he bargained for.

Chip and his friend Sudsy see a Halloween spook carrying a candle in the neighbors vacant house next door while out trick or treating, and are frightened out of their minds, but Steve and Bub will not believe them.

A cooking contest at school upsets Chip when he realizes he doesnt have a mother to submit a recipe. But there is much rejoicing when Steves favourite recipe reaches the finals. The prospect of winning keeps Steve on edge, much to the displeasure of the boys and Bub.

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.

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.

Robbie wants to date a cute fifteen year old blonde, whose mother campaigns for Steves 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 gets a relief from boredom when Steves 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.

Steves 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.

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 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.

Bub, representing the older generation, makes some suggestions for Robbies 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.

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.

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.

Steve lays down the law to Chip, warning him hell be grounded for a month the next time he loses or misuses someone elses property. Meanwhile a woman who is rounding up second hand items for a rummage sale visits Bub, who offers an old Tiger skin rug.

Robbies economics teacher gives each student a fictional $10,000 dollars to invest in stocks but Steves boss at work gets the impression that he has some really hot tips.

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 arent as lazy as he thinks they are.

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.

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 girls disagreeable Aunt to the movies.

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.

Its 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 cant get his car started. Worse yet, he has to clinch a deal with a very important client.

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.

Chip and his new sidekick Ernie find some old treasure maps but get lost in the woods when they go treasure hunting, causing the familys plans to be changed when they have to go looking for them.

The pungent smell around the Douglas home proves to emeante from Bubs head for his baldness is anointed with yet another hair restorer as hes in a panic to cover his bald spot when the sister of an old buddy comes to visit.

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.

Robbie is always forgetting to pass on Steves telephone messages and to get back in his good graces, decides to take up his fathers favourite sport. He figures it will get him out of the doghouse if he joins Steve in a father and son golf tournament.

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.

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.

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 friends expectant wife whose time has come.

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 shell ever fit into American life.

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 boys belief causes some very interesting circumstances.

Mike feels that Sally should learn how to fish, since shes joining a family of avid fishermen - Except that Sally really hates the pastime. How coincidental then that Mike hates bird watching as well.

Steves 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.

The town of Bryant Park takes sides violently when it is proposed to cut down the tree which stands outside of Robbies girlfriends home. The Douglas family are soon involved as Bub joins a womens group in the neighborhood to save his favorite tree from being torn down.

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.

When Robbies 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.

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 theyve mistaken him for somebody else.

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, hes engaged! Can even the sagacious Steve Douglas find a graceful way out of this mess?

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.

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.

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.

Robbies 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.

Robbie consults Sally about his latest heartthrob—and hes sure hes 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.

Its a comedy of errors when Mike sets out to make an impression on his future father-in-law when Sallys father returns from an archeological expedition. Mike is unnerved about meeting him but practically kills him with a little too much kindness and enthusiasm.

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.

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 Bubs younger brother Charley, a recently retired Ships cook on leave. With Steve away on business and Charley about to leave for San Francisco, Chip is unhappy that he wont have a parent to come to his schools Open Night. The family soon learns that Charleys crusty disposition masks a soft heart.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Robbies 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.

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 Mikes mom.

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.

Preparations for Mike and Sallys coming nuptials get confusing when Sallys 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.

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 Mikes 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.

Ernies 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.

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.

Chips 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.

A seductive dance instructor named Helen signs Uncle Charley up for a lifetime membership in a dance club. Dreaming of a professional dancers career, he purchases a top hat and tails for his appearance at the schools annual ball.

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. Hes even more puzzled when he meets eleven year old Linda-Lou.

Steves 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.

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 Robbies $50 when they coyly ask him to show them how to play the game.

Steve Douglas meets recently divorced Maggie Bellini, reputed to be one of the worlds 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.

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.

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.

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 boys track team.

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.

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 Ernies precious Liberian triangle.

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 wont really be a member of the family until he too can provide a trophy.

Uncle Charley takes away Robbies 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 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 Robbies clothes.

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 hasnt made. Steve does his best to convince her that his old college chum is the man for her.

Because Robbies 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.

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.

When Robbies girlfriends 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.

When Ernie sends for a picture of Chips 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.

Ernie sneezes as he brushes past the family dog, Tramp, and when a doctor verifies the boys 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.

Ernies 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.

Steve Douglas passes up his companys 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.

Ernies 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.

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.

Chip Douglass 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 classmates widowed mother.

Uncle Charleys romantic tales of adventure captivates Ernies teacher. The pretty, middle-aged lady is fascinated by the old boys 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.

Other fathers help their sons in a school science fair, but Steve tells Ernie hes 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.

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 wasnt invited. Steve feels that they should let Ernie work things out for himself.

Uncle Charleys 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 dont want him to leave.

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.

Robbie and Katie pick a wedding date two weeks off. Katies sorority sisters decide to do some private investigating on their own. Prospective groom Robbie then undergoes the complete once-over by his fiancees family and runs the gamut of numerous cousins, aunts and a crotchety grandmother.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Katies pillow, the girl angrily announces that this behaviour cannot continue.

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.

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 Katies insistence, Robbie keeps strict checks on the three teenage couples.

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 wont let him open his mouth.

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 Gabors 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.

Robbie goes to Camp Roberts for two weeks military reserve training. At home, Steve becomes alarmed when he sees Charleys 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.

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 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.

Uncle Charley persists in singing an old song about a guy who steals his best friends 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.

While the family is doing some spring cleaning, Katie faints behind the couch. Soon her mothers 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.

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 Tramps puppies to the next door neighbors dog Francis, are about to be born.

When Robbie and Katie announce that they might hire a baby nurse, Uncle Charley is confident they will ask him. When they dont, he embarks on a marathon of baby sitting so he can learn the ropes by hiring himself out as a professional baby sitter.

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.

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.

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 windbags sails.

The contractor that Steve hires to add a baby alcove to Robbie and Katies room leaves much to be desired. He displays all the charm of a top sergeant and is putty in Katies hands, but is exasperatingly gruff and non co-operative to the males in the Douglas home.

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.

The Douglases feel that Steve is becoming sedentary, not knowing that hes just been assigned to help capture some enemy agents, but things get rough when hes taken to a Greenwich Village cocktail party where the spies start shooting when they find him hiding in the bathtub.

Steves 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.

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 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.

Steves 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.

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.

Robbie and Katie move into an apartment on the next block and widower Steve Douglas becomes the target of Katies relentless matchmaking. However, Steve meets a remarkable woman in a high school corridor and the two are quickly attracted to each other.

The whole Douglas clan conspires to encourage Steves 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.

With the ring finally on her finger, Steve and Barbaras engagement is exciting for everyone except Barbaras five year old daughter who isnt sure she wants to share her mother. Meanwhile, Barbara employs her considerable store of diplomacy in an effort to gain acceptance by Steves family.

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.

Steve and Barbaras 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.

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 her brothers have more pressing commitments, Steve gets cast in Dodies school play as a tree, more or less proving Robbies point that females are instinctive manipulators.

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.

Hoping to renew her funloving friendship, Steves old girlfriend from Bryant Park, who is now a rich divorcee, comes to town and gives Barbara a few jealous moments.

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 Chips teachers when he and another student are accused of cheating in an exam.

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.

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.

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 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 Barbaras first wedding anniversary, Dodie announces she is throwing a surprise party, but neglects to tell everyone when or where.

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 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 shes had an argument with her father, Polly comes to the Douglases with her packed suitcase, but when Chip turns down the girls offer to elope, she storms out.

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.

Barbara becomes involved in presenting a fashion show for a womans 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.

Against his classmates better judgement, Ernie uses the unwitting Douglas household as guinea pigs for an experiment assigned by his psychology teacher. He cuts inches off Uncle Charleys cane to make him think he is growing taller. Ernie soon finds his father Steve is a little less gullible.

A boyhood friend from Bryant Park, rides his motorcycle back into Robbies life and awakens Robbies wunderlust with appealing tales of travel and adventure. Intrigued by Jims stories of freedom, Rob agrees to take a holiday from Katie and the triplets.

Barbara suspects that a promotion for Steve maybe in the works and as her suspicions become stronger, a routine investigation on Steves family background turns up some rather startling information when it focuses on Uncle Charley.

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.

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 theyll practice at the Douglas house for their upcoming recital.

Barbara leaves Ernie in charge of looking after Dodie after she has to go shopping. However Dodie goes to her friend Drucillas 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 theyve been unjustly punished.

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 doesnt want her and the triplets anymore.

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.

The wedding day for Steves 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.

Chip complains about Pollys 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.

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 isnt exactly Mrs. Daniel Boone -- as Steve eventually finds out.

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 owners wife, they realise she is in very good hands.

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 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.

When the Douglas men feel sorry for Katie because of her husbands continued absence, they proceed to overwhelm her with attention by each one of them taking her out to the same restaurant each night.

Steve suddenly becomes accident-prone when his youngest son Ernie tries to discover by graph and observation how the moons lunar phases affect peoples behaviour.

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.

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.

Steves 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 doesnt bother them nearly as much as not knowing if he is taking drugs.