Father Knows Best is an American sitcom starring Robert Young, Jane Wyatt, Elinor Donahue, Billy Gray and Lauren Chapin. The series, which first began on radio in 1949, aired as a television show for six seasons with a total of 203 episodes. Created by Ed James, Father Knows Best follows the lives of the Andersons, a middle-class family living in the Midwestern town of Springfield. The state in which Springfield is located is never specified, but it is generally accepted to be located in the Midwestern United States. The television series debuted on CBS in October 1954. It ran for one season and was canceled the following year. The series was picked up by NBC, where it remained for three seasons. After a second cancellation in 1958, the series was picked up yet again, by CBS, where it aired until May 1960. The May 27, 1954 episode of The Ford Television Theatre show was called "Keep It in the Family." This 26-minute episode stars Robert Young as Jim Warren, head of the Warren family. With him was wife Grace (Ellen Drew), older daughter Peggy (Sally Fraser), younger daughter Patty (Tina Thompson) and son Jeff (Gordon Gebert). Developed by Young and his partner Eugene Rodney, it was intended as a pilot for a Father Knows Best television series. In the episode, Peggy dreams of making it as an actress, but a talent scout who has raised her hopes just wants people for his acting school. Of the radio cast, only Robert Young remained when the series moved to CBS television:

·         James "Jim" Anderson Sr.: Robert Young

·         Margaret Anderson: Jane Wyatt

·         Betty "Princess" Anderson: Elinor Donahue

·         James "Bud" Anderson Jr.: Billy Gray

·         Kathy "Kitten" Anderson: Lauren Chapin

The series premiered on October 3, 1954 on CBS, where it aired Sundays at 10:00 p.m. (ET). Lorillard's Kent cigarettes sponsored the show in its first season and Scott Paper Company became the primary sponsor when the series moved to NBC in the fall of 1955, where it aired Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m. (ET) for the next three seasons. Scott Paper remained as sponsor even after the show returned to CBS in September 1958, where it aired Mondays at 8:30 p.m. (ET) for the last two seasons, with Lever Brothers as an alternate sponsor from 1957 through 1960. A total of 203 episodes were produced, running until September 17, 1960, and appearing on all three of the television networks of the time, including prime-time repeats from September 1960 through April 1963. As before, the character of Margaret was portrayed as a voice of reason, but Jim's character was softened to that of a thoughtful, yet Caspar Milquetoast-type father who offered sage advice in response to his children's problems. Jim was a salesman and manager of the General Insurance Company in Springfield, while Margaret was a housewife. Their home was located at 607 Maple Avenue. One history of the series characterized the Andersons as "truly an idealized family, the sort that viewers could relate to and emulate." As the two eldest children aged from teenager to young adult, Betty (1956) and Bud (1959) graduated from high school and attended Springfield Junior College. Vivi Janiss played the part of Myrtle Davis in 11 sporadic episodes from 1954 to 1959. Father Knows Best had become so ingrained in American pop culture as its idyllic presentation of family life that in 1959, the U.S. Department of the Treasury commissioned a special 30-minute episode of the show titled "24 Hours in Tyrant Land. Never aired on television, the episode—distributed to schools, churches and civic groups—promoted the purchase of savings bonds^] The episode was later included on the Season 1 DVD. Young left the series in 1960 at the height of the show's popularity to work on other projects, but reruns continued to air in primetime for another three years, on CBS from 1960 to 1962 and on ABC from 1962 to 1963. Following that, reruns were shown on ABC-TV in the early afternoon for several years. On November 22, 1963, at 1:42 p.m. EST during a rerun of the third-season episode "Man About Town" on several ABC affiliates, mostly in the Mountain Time Zone (WABC-TV in New York was airing a local repeat of The Ann Sothern Show), ABC News broke into the program with the first bulletin of the news of the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. The façade of the Anderson house depicted in the series' opening credits is the same structure used as Mr. George Wilson's home in the television series Dennis the Menace and again, in remodeled form, as Captain/Major Anthony Nelson's residence in I Dream of Jeannie. Originally built in 1941 during the production of a series of Blondie movies, this theatrical property continued to serve for many more years as part of the backlot of Columbia Pictures (now Warner Brothers Ranch in Burbank, California). The house can also be seen in both its familiar Father Knows Best style and later renovated variations in episodes of Hazel, Bewitched, The Monkees, The Partridge Family and in numerous other television comedies and dramas.