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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Television»Comedy
    Comedy TV Shows - 1950s TV Shows - 1960s 2 Mins Read

    Father Knows Best

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    1 9 5 4 – 1 9 6 3 (USA)
    203 x 30 minute episodes

    Father Knows Best was one of a slew of American middle-class family sitcoms in which moms were moms, kids were kids, and fathers knew best. Today, most critics view it as high camp fun, although this genre has at times been labelled the “Aryan melodramas” of the 1950s and 1960s.

    The brainchild of producer Eugene Rodney and series star Robert Young (who played Jim Anderson, a salesman for the General Insurance Company), Father Knows Best debuted as a radio sitcom in 1949. The series was transplanted to CBS television on 3 October 1954.

    Jim Anderson came home each evening from work to his suburban home at 607 South Maple Street in the town of Springfield, changed from his suit into a cardigan, and solved the day’s small family crises.

    Although wife Margaret (Jane Wyatt) was stuck in the drudgery of domestic servitude, she was nobody’s fool, often besting her husband and son, Bud (Billy Gray).

    Daughter Betty Anderson (Elinor Donahue) – known affectionately to her father as Princess – could also take the male Andersons to task, as could the baby of the family, the precocious Kathy (Laurin Chapin) – aka Kitten or Angel.

    The show was extremely popular, although CBS actually took it off the air after the first season. New (at the time) network NBC picked it up after high public demand. Two years later CBS obtained the series once again, by which time it was an unqualified success.

    The Father Knows Best Reunion was broadcast in 1976, with another special – Father Knows Best: Home for Christmas – airing in December 1977.

    Lauren Chapin, who played youngest daughter Kathy, battled heroin, psychosis and poverty after the show ended before recovering and working as an evangelist minister in Orlando, Florida.

    Jim Anderson 
    Robert Young
    Margaret Anderson 

    Jane Wyatt
    Betty “Princess” Anderson 

    Elinor Donahue
    James ‘Bud’ Anderson Jr 

    Billy Gray
    Kathy “Kitten” Anderson 

    Laurin Chapin
    Miss Thomas 

    Sarah Selby
    Ed Davis 

    Robert Foulk
    Myrtle Davis 

    Vivi Jannis
    Dotty Snow 

    Yvonne Lime
    Kippy Watkins 

    Paul Wallace
    Claude Messner 

    Jimmy Bates
    Doyle Hobbs 

    Roger Smith
    Ralph Little 

    Robert Chapman
    April Adams 

    Sue George
    Joyce Kendall 

    Jymme (Roberta) Shore

    Video

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