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My Three Sons


Neil
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William Frawley's character's mothers sure lived a long time. Ethel refers to Fred's mother in "Lucy's Mother in Law" (sending her a box of lint) and I was reading a bio of Fred MacMurray that told how they wrote the Bub character out of My 3 Sons: He went back to Ireland to be with his mother!!

(She needed help taking care of all the young 'uns still living at home....?)

Is Frawley's last season of My 3 Sons available on DVD? That would be the show's 5th season.

I always assume he left for health reasons since he died the next year, but he did not go willingly. The studio doctor would not insure him and he was in such bad shape he'd fall asleep standing up and had to be prompted to deliver a line--especially bad after his daily "lunch" at Nicoletti's. He showed up on set after William Demarest took over and caused problems and was asked not to visit.

The year Frawley left "Sons" was its last black/white year and its last on ABC. In the fall of 1965, Demarest joined the cast, the show went color and moved to CBS for another 7 seasons. When CBS ran the show as part of its daytime schedule they started with these color/Demarest episodes. I know Nick ran the Frawley episodes but I don't remember seeing any. I don't think the series had much of a syndication life beyond the CBS morning run.

I only remember Sons from the end of its run and it seemed so BLAND.

Up to that time I think it was the 2nd longest comedy (12 seasons) in TV history: the first being 14 years of The "Adventures" (?!) of Ozzie and Harriet. If you put The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy together (which is legit for this purpose), that run equaled Sons.

I think "All in Family" and "Archie Bunker's Place" ran 12 years. Have any other sitcoms surpassed these 4? ("Ozzie" at #1; "Lucy/Lucy", "Family/Archie" and "3 Sons", a 3-way tie for #2) (Not counting the animated "Simpsons")

If you rank these shows by number of episodes:

"Ozzie" had an incredible 435 'adventures' ("Harriet, where's my hat?" could be stretched to an entire show)

"Sons" had 430 episodes (an overall average season output of 36, which means there were a lot of episodes those first seasons)

"Lucy/Lucy" had 300 (301 if you count "In London")

"Family/Bunker" had 298

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William Frawley's character's mothers sure lived a long time. Ethel refers to Fred's mother in "Lucy's Mother in Law" (sending her a box of lint) and I was reading a bio of Fred MacMurray that told how they wrote the Bub character out of My 3 Sons: He went back to Ireland to be with his mother!!

(She needed help taking care of all the young 'uns still living at home....?)

Is Frawley's last season of My 3 Sons available on DVD? That would be the show's 5th season.

 

Bub actually went to Ireland to be with his 104 year old Aunt Katie. The character had been introduced earlier in the season in a multi-episode arc in which Bub and the Douglas clan go to Ireland.

 

I believe only the first two seasons are available on DVD.

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Bub actually went to Ireland to be with his 104 year old Aunt Katie. The character had been introduced earlier in the season in a multi-episode arc in which Bub and the Douglas clan go to Ireland.

 

I believe only the first two seasons are available on DVD.

 

There he goes showing off again! ;)

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William Frawley's character's mothers sure lived a long time. Ethel refers to Fred's mother in "Lucy's Mother in Law" (sending her a box of lint) and I was reading a bio of Fred MacMurray that told how they wrote the Bub character out of My 3 Sons: He went back to Ireland to be with his mother!!

(She needed help taking care of all the young 'uns still living at home....?)

Is Frawley's last season of My 3 Sons available on DVD? That would be the show's 5th season.

I always assume he left for health reasons since he died the next year, but he did not go willingly. The studio doctor would not insure him and he was in such bad shape he'd fall asleep standing up and had to be prompted to deliver a line--especially bad after his daily "lunch" at Nicoletti's. He showed up on set after William Demarest took over and caused problems and was asked not to visit.

The year Frawley left "Sons" was its last black/white year and its last on ABC. In the fall of 1965, Demarest joined the cast, the show went color and moved to CBS for another 7 seasons. When CBS ran the show as part of its daytime schedule they started with these color/Demarest episodes. I know Nick ran the Frawley episodes but I don't remember seeing any. I don't think the series had much of a syndication life beyond the CBS morning run.

I only remember Sons from the end of its run and it seemed so BLAND.

Up to that time I think it was the 2nd longest comedy (12 seasons) in TV history: the first being 14 years of The "Adventures" (?!) of Ozzie and Harriet. If you put The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy together (which is legit for this purpose), that run equaled Sons.

I think "All in Family" and "Archie Bunker's Place" ran 12 years. Have any other sitcoms surpassed these 4? ("Ozzie" at #1; "Lucy/Lucy", "Family/Archie" and "3 Sons", a 3-way tie for #2) (Not counting the animated "Simpsons")

If you rank these shows by number of episodes:

"Ozzie" had an incredible 435 'adventures' ("Harriet, where's my hat?" could be stretched to an entire show)

"Sons" had 430 episodes (an overall average season output of 36, which means there were a lot of episodes those first seasons)

"Lucy/Lucy" had 300 (301 if you count "In London")

"Family/Bunker" had 298

See I don't agree with this logic, even if it is to legitimize making a list of most-longest-running whatnots: I will always consider TLS & HL as two separate entities, no matter how many times people try to lump them together! They had two separate casts, premises, locales, production companies, producers, and even writers, to some degree.

 

If they were of one "cloth", they wouldn't currently be being put out on DVD by two separate corporate entities by two separate "camps" (i.e., TLS: CBS/Paramount by Tom Watson & associates; HL by MPI by Gab Entertainment or George and Garret, to get right down to it!), so there you have it. Just my two centavos. :)

 

Now I might be more apt to go along with the AITF/ABP inclusion, since the latter was really just a reititling of the original show after a subtle change in premise (Archie buys the bar; Mike & Gloria have moved to California) and cast changes (Struthers and Reiner are already gone, Danielle Brisbois is added, Alan Melvin as Barney Hefner appears more often and beginning with Season 2 of ABP, Jean Stapleton does not appear in every episode. Even more cast changes with Season 3, most notably due to the "death" of Edith Bunker/departure of Jean Stapleton). (If The Lucy Show had retitled itself with every change in format, it would have ended up with four different names!)

:lucythrill:

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  • 6 years later...

I've been watching My Three Sons on MeTV for the past month. They are at the beginning of the fifth season so there are only a few more episodes with Bill left. I'm really enjoying the series. I think this might be it's peak. By the time they get to the Beverly Garland years, yes, the show is bland. There are genuine laughs and a nice sweetness in these black and white episodes. Bill is terrific as Bub. On camera he does not seem to be in especially bad health. I'm going to miss him when Uncle Charley comes along. The show had a great eye for talent too. One recent episode featured Beau Bridges and the following show had Martin Sheen. 

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Before MTM and Norman Lear re-energized comedy in the early 70s, the networks were riddled with 'snore-coms'.  The Beverly Garland era, the birth of triplets  (I've never known any triplets in real life, have you?), Fred MacMurray's disinterest in putting anything into the show or his performance made "My 3 Sons" a likely contender of king of snore-coms, but it was by now means the only one.  "Family Affair" a production from the "3 Sons" producer, "Petticoat Junction" with June Lockhart, and a host of others.

In the last year of the 4-year TLS run M/F on CBS, they followed it with "My 3 Sons" so I watched a couple.  They started with the 1965 color episodes when CBS snatched the show away from ABC (and aired it in the same time slot ) but I remember how different these 1965 episodes were (with William Demarest) from the current My 3 Sons.  They actually had some COMEDY.   "My 3 Sons" did not last long on CBS's daytime lineup.  In fact, 1972 was the end of the era of CBS's 90 minute-to-2-hour morning comedy block, which all started with I Love Lucy.   The other sitcoms came and went with Beverly Hillbillies, Dick Van Dyke and Andy Griffith lasting the longest, distant seconds to ILL.   In the fall of 1972, they were all replaced with game shows.  It wasn't until they ran "All in the Family" (in the afternoon) that CBS again had a sitcom on their daytime schedule--and later a surprisingly brief run of Here's Lucy and then MASH.   All in Family ran for many years.  Between I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy, Lucy was part of the daytime lineup for 12 years--which by my rough math is over 3000 1/2 hr. airings!--and in a piece of math trivia: if these were all first-run episodes at 26 per season they would have run 120 years!!

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  • 10 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Yesterday I watched an episode where Steve and Bub rush to the marriage license bureau because they think teenaged Mike is eloping. It turns out he and his girlfriend were just working on a project against teenage marriage. At the end I saw it was co-written by Phil Leslie, who co-wrote Lucy, the Conclusion Jumper eight years later. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/24/2018 at 6:18 AM, HarryCarter said:

Yesterday I watched an episode where Steve and Bub rush to the marriage license bureau because they think teenaged Mike is eloping. It turns out he and his girlfriend were just working on a project against teenage marriage. At the end I saw it was co-written by Phil Leslie, who co-wrote Lucy, the Conclusion Jumper eight years later. 

I don't suppose Steve or Bub did the Laurel and Hardy mutual destruction scene (or whatever they call it) with someone else in line.  

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  • 4 weeks later...
On ‎9‎/‎7‎/‎2011 at 7:50 AM, Neil said:

 

"Sons" had 430 episodes (an overall average season output of 36, which means there were a lot of episodes those first seasons)

"Lucy/Lucy" had 300 (301 if you count "In London")

"Family/Bunker" had 298

Actually, My Three Sons had 380 episodes total. The black & white season era (also the William Frawley seasons) had 184 episodes while the color season era had 196 episodes.

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On ‎9‎/‎21‎/‎2017 at 9:25 PM, Neil said:

 "My 3 Sons" did not last long on CBS's daytime lineup. 

Not too surprised. At times, My Three Sons feels more like a drama or dramedy than a comedy. Even its sister show; Family Affair, is that way too.

I recall reading in the The Lucy Book years ago in a commentary by Lucille Ball that she was surprised how long My Three Sons lasted and that it wasn't her type of comedy. 

 

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On ‎9‎/‎7‎/‎2011 at 11:06 AM, JoeySoCal said:

(If The Lucy Show had retitled itself with every change in format, it would have ended up with four different names!)

:lucythrill:

Ok, I'll take the bait. The Wild Adventures of Lucy & Vivian (season 1), The Wacky but Loveable Lucy (seasons 2-3), Lucy Goes Hollywood (season 4), Lucy, the Secretary (seasons 5-6). 

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  • 1 year later...

Me-TV is running the early My 3 Sons episodes and I can now see why it caught on.  William Frawley WAS the show.  Apparently Bill was originally intended to be the star.  And he is.  In the few episodes I've seen, Fred MacMurray isn't particularly engaging or even necessary.    Frawley could have carried the show as the only adult.  There was an episode called "The Toupee".  "Bub" is meeting up with a lady he's been corresponding with and is trying unsuccessfully to grow hair.  Chip uses his allowance money to buy Bub a mail-order toupee.  It looks ridiculous but Bub wears it because of his appreciation for Chip's sacrifice.  Everyone gets a big laugh at the sight of Bub with his pompadour hair---including MacMurray who's sporting a rug of his own!   So this episode had everything a comedy (especially of that era) should have:  laughs (thanks to Bill) and heart (thanks to Bill and Chip).  I'm not familiar enough with the series to know if the Demerest episodes were any good.    

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  • 1 year later...

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