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A VERY SCARCE EARLY SIGNED AS A CHILD TIGER TAFARA SIGNED 8X10 INCH PHOTO. I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANOTHER ONE WITH HIM THIS YOUNG

Lucas "Luke" Fafara II also known as Tiger Fafara, is a former American child actor best known for portraying the role of "Tooey Brown" on the sitcom Leave It to Beaver.

Born in San Francisco, California, Fafara is the older brother of Stanley Fafara. Both boys were raised in Studio City, Los Angeles and began acting in film and television in the mid-1950s. Both were hired to appear on Leave It to Beaver after their mother took them to an open casting call. "Tiger" Fafara was cast as "Tooey Brown," a friend of Wally Cleaver while Stanley was cast as Beaver Cleaver's friend Hubert "Whitey" Whitney.

Besides appearing on Leave It to Beaver, Fafara appeared in episodes of various television series including Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, Private Secretary, Lassie, The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, Make Room for Daddy, The Donna Reed Show, Wagon Train, and My Three Sons. He also had minor roles in the 1955 drama Good Morning, Miss Dove (Fafara and his brother Stanley portrayed the role of the same character as a child) and the 1957 melodrama All Mine to Give. Fafara left Leave It to Beaver in 1960 and stopped acting professionally in 1961.

Lucas "Luke" Fafara II (born January 3, 1945), also known as Tiger Fafara, is a former American child actor best known for portraying the role of "Tooey Brown" on the sitcom Leave It to Beaver.

Career

Fafara returned to acting in 1983 with an appearance as the adult Tooey Brown in the television reunion film Still the Beaver.[2] He reprised the role in the follow-up sitcom The New Leave It to Beaver, from 1983 to 1987.

Personal life

He is the father of Dez Fafara, the vocalist of heavy metal bands DevilDriver and Coal Chamber.[3]

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes

1953 The Hank McCune Show October 25, 1953 episode

1954 Cavalcade of America Episode: "Man of Glass: The Story of a Glassmaker"

1954 Schlitz Playhouse of Stars Episode: "The Plugged Nickel"

1954 Four Star Playhouse 2 episodes

1955 Good Morning, Miss Dove Fred Makepeace - Age 12 Uncredited

1955 Fireside Theater Horace Episode: "Woman at Sea"

1955 Screen Directors Playhouse Bobby Episode: "Rookie of the Year"

1955 TV Reader's Digest Second Wise Man Episode: "When the Wise Men Appeared"

1955 Climax! Episode: "The Day They Gave Babies Away"

1956 I Led Three Lives Joe Lawrence Episode: "Historical Society"

1956 Private Secretary Dickie Darling Episode: "Old Dog, New Tricks"

1956 My Friend Flicka Tuck 2 episodes

1956 Lassie Schoolboy Episode: "Friendship"

1956-1957 The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin Alfred

Buddy 2 episodes

1957 Make Room for Daddy Eddie - Boy at Orphanage Episode: "The Orphan Asylum"

1957 All Mine to Give Bit part Uncredited

1957 Telephone Time Jimmy Branting Episode: "Stranded"

1957 The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp' Benny Burkett Episode: "The Good and Perfect Gift"

1957-1960 Leave It to Beaver Tooey Brown 19 episodes

1958 Wagon Train Johnny O'Malley Episode: "The Luke O'Malley Story"

1958 M Squad Tommy Episode: "The Long Ride"

1958 Shirley Temple's Storybook Episode: "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

1959 Law of the Plainsman Roy Garnett Episode: "The Hostiles"

1960 The Donna Reed Show Charlie Episode: "Pickles for Charity"

1961 My Three Sons Roger Episode: "Fire Watch"

1983 Still the Beaver Tooey Brown Television movie

Credited as Luke Fafara

1983-1987 The New Leave It to Beaver Tooey Brown 3 episodes

Credited as Luke "Tiger" Fafara

Leave It to Beaver is an American television situation comedy that follows the misadventures of a suburban boy, his family and his friends. It stars Barbara Billingsley, Hugh Beaumont, Tony Dow and Jerry Mathers ("as The Beaver", as the opening credits put it).

CBS first broadcast the show on October 4, 1957, but dropped it after one season. ABC picked it up and aired it for another five years, from October 2, 1958, to June 20, 1963. It proved to be a scheduling challenge for both networks, moving through four time slots (Wednesday through Saturday evenings) over the course of its run.[1] The series was produced by Gomalco Productions from 1957 to 1961, and then by Kayro Productions from 1961 to 1963. It was distributed by Revue Studios.

Leave It to Beaver never broke into the Nielsen Ratings top 30 in its six-season run. However, it proved to be much more popular in reruns. It also led to an unsuccessful 1997 film of the same name.

Premise

The show is built around young Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver (Jerry Mathers) and the trouble he gets himself into while navigating an often-incomprehensible, sometimes illogical world. Supposedly, when he was a baby, his older brother Wallace "Wally" (Tony Dow) mispronounced "Theodore" as "Tweedor". Their firm-but-loving parents, Ward (Hugh Beaumont) and June Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley), felt "Beaver" sounded better. Conversely, Mathers has said that the real reason for the name "Beaver" is that one of the show's writers, Joe Connelly, had a shipmate named "The Beaver" in World War II; from that came the family's name, "Cleaver."[2]

Beaver's friends include the perpetually apple-munching Larry Mondello (Rusty Stevens) in the early seasons, and, later, Gilbert Bates (Stephen Talbot), as well as the old fireman, Gus (Burt Mustin). His sweet-natured-but-no-nonsense elementary school teachers are Miss Canfield (to whom Beaver declares his love in the episode entitled "Beaver's Crush") (Diane Brewster), Miss Landers (Sue Randall) and Mrs. Rayburn (Doris Packer), the school's principal. In the early seasons, Beaver's nemesis in class is Judy Hensler (Jeri Weil).

In its first season, Beaver's brother Wally was in eighth grade and 13 years old, while Beaver was 7 and in second grade—a six-year age difference; in real life, the two actors were only three years apart. By the series' end, the boys were inexplicably only four years apart, with Wally graduating from high school and Beaver graduating from grammar school. Wally is popular with both peers and adults, getting into trouble much less frequently than some of the other characters. He letters in three sports. He has little difficulty attracting girlfriends, among them Mary Ellen Rogers (Pamela Baird) and Julie Foster (Cheryl Holdridge). His pals include the awkward Clarence "Lumpy" Rutherford (Frank Bank) and smart aleck Eddie Haskell (Ken Osmond), the archetype of the two-faced wise guy, a braggart among his peers and an obsequious yes man to the adults he mocks behind their backs. Eddie often picks on the Beaver.

The family lives in the fictional town of Mayfield. Beaver attends Grant Ave. Grammar School, and Wally, Mayfield High School (after graduating from Grant Ave. in season one).

Cast

The Cleaver family

Main characters

Barbara Billingsley as June Cleaver: Billingsley has said that June Cleaver's wardrobe was more than a fashion statement.[citation needed] The pearl necklace hid a hollow (caused by a surgical scar) in her neck which would have caused shadows[3] and high-heeled shoes were employed to offset the boys' growing height.

Hugh Beaumont as Ward Cleaver: Before he made Ward Cleaver his acting trademark, Beaumont sometimes played villains in film and television. He directed a number of Leave It to Beaver episodes in the last two seasons, including the final one, the retrospective "Family Scrapbook".

Tony Dow as Wally Cleaver

Jerry Mathers as Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver: The casting directors noticed that Mathers was uneasy at the auditions and asked him where he would rather be. Mathers replied that he would rather be at his Cub Scout den meeting, where he was going after the audition. That boyish innocence got Mathers the part of Beaver.[2]

Supporting characters

Ken Osmond as Eddie Haskell

Eddie Haskell's parents played by:

Karl Swenson in two 1958 episodes, "Train Trip" and "Voodoo Magic"

Anne Barton in two 1963 episodes, "Summer in Alaska" and "The Credit Card"

George O. Petrie in two 1963 episodes, "Summer in Alaska" and "The Credit Card"

Diane Brewster as Miss Canfield (October 4, 1957 – March 21, 1958 air dates), Beaver's first teacher at Grant Ave. Grammar School. Brewster also played Miss Simms in the pilot episode.

Sue Randall as Miss Alice Landers (October 16, 1958 – June 20, 1963), Beaver's teacher, replacing Miss Canfield

Doris Packer as Mrs. Rayburn, the principal of Grant Avenue Grammar School

Stephen Talbot as Gilbert Bates (March 19, 1959 – June 6, 1963): Before settling in Mayfield, the Bates family traveled a lot due to Gilbert's father's work, and "Gil", as his father John Bates calls him, tends to make up stories about his family in order to get his classmates to accept him. He is referred to as Gilbert Harrison in the episode "The Dramatic Club" (March 11, 1961).

Rusty Stevens as Larry Mondello (November 22, 1957 – 1960)

Madge Blake as Margaret Mondello, Larry's mother

Richard Correll as Richard Rickover (April 30, 1960 – October 18, 1962)

Stanley Fafara as Hubert "Whitey" Whitney (October 4, 1957 – June 6, 1963)

Jeri Weil as Judy Hensler (October 4, 1957 – October 15, 1960)

Burt Mustin as Gus the fireman, head of Auxiliary Firehouse No. 7 (October 4, 1957 – February 24, 1962)

Frank Bank as Clarence "Lumpy" Rutherford

Richard Deacon as Fred Rutherford, Lumpy's pompous, demanding father and Ward Cleaver's equally pompous, smug co-worker

Buddy Hart as Chester Anderson

Tiger Fafara (Stanley Fafara's brother) as Tooey Brown, Wally's friend

Pamela Baird as Mary Ellen Rogers (April 16, 1958 – June 20, 1963), Wally's first girlfriend

Cheryl Holdridge as Julie Foster (January 7, 1961 – April 11, 1963), another of Wally's girlfriends

Episodes

Main article: List of Leave It to Beaver episodes

Season Episodes Originally aired

First aired Last aired

Pilot

April 23, 1957

39 October 4, 1957 July 16, 1958

39 October 2, 1958 June 25, 1959

39 October 3, 1959 June 25, 1960

39 October 1, 1960 June 24, 1961

39 September 30, 1961 June 30, 1962

39 September 27, 1962 June 20, 1963

The pilot, titled "It's a Small World", aired on April 23, 1957.[4][5] It featured Max Showalter (credited as Casey Adams) as Ward Cleaver, and Paul Sullivan as Wally Cleaver. TBS re-aired the pilot on October 4, 1987, to commemorate the show's 30th anniversary. TV Land re-aired it on October 6, 2007, as part of their twenty-four-hour marathon to commemorate the show's 50th anniversary.[6] It is also available as a bonus episode on the season-one DVD; 234 episodes followed.

A voice-over by Hugh Beaumont precedes each episode in the first season, providing a background to that episode's theme, though these are omitted in airings on TV Land.

Opening titles

Season one: The characters are not shown. A drawing of a street, viewed from above, displays the credits in wet concrete.

Season two: Ward and June, standing at the bottom of the stairs, see the boys off to school as they come down the stairs and exit the front door.

Season three: Ward and June enter the boys' bedroom to wake them.

Season four: Ward and June open the front door and stand on the stoop. As Wally, followed by Beaver, leave for school, June hands them their lunches; Ward gives them their jackets.

Season five: June takes refreshments to the men in the front yard.

Season six: June, carrying a picnic basket, walks from the front door towards the car. Ward, carrying a thermos jug for the picnic, is next, followed in quick succession by Wally. Beaver, lagging behind, runs out, slamming the door behind him. Ward, with June in the passenger seat and the boys in back, then reverses toward the camera.

Musical theme

The show's playfully-bouncy theme tune, which became as much of a show trademark as Beaver's baseball cap or Eddie Haskell's false obsequiousness, was "The Toy Parade," composed by David Kahn, Melvyn Leonard, and Mort Greene. For the final season, however, the song was given a jazz-like arrangement by veteran composer/arranger Pete Rugolo.

Syndication

Reruns of the show became part of CBS affiliates' lineups in the mornings for several years. TBS aired the show for many years in the late 1980s. TV Land began airing it in July 1998, and MeTV in May 2013. Today, NBC Universal Television owns the syndication rights and all properties related to the series.

Spinoffs

A made-for-television reunion movie, Still the Beaver, appeared in 1983. The main original cast appeared, except for Beaumont, who had died the previous year. Ward Cleaver was still a presence, however: the film's story used numerous flashbacks to the original show, as it followed young-adult Beaver's struggle to reconcile divorce and newly minted single fatherhood, straining to cope with what his father might or might not have done, as he faces the possibility of his widowed mother selling their childhood home. June Cleaver is later elected to the Mayfield City Council.

Its reception led to a new first-run, made-for-cable series, The New Leave It to Beaver (1984–1989), with Beaver and Lumpy Rutherford running Ward's old firm (where Lumpy's pompous, demanding father — played by Richard Deacon in the original series — had been the senior partner), Wally as a practicing attorney and expectant father, June having sold the old house to Beaver himself but living with him as a doting grandmother to Beaver's two young sons. Eddie Haskell runs his own contracting business and has a son, Freddie, who is every inch his father's son — right down to the dual-personality.

Feature film

Main article: Leave It to Beaver (film)

1997's movie adaptation of the series starred Christopher McDonald as Ward, Janine Turner as June, Erik von Detten as Wally, and Cameron Finley as Beaver. It was panned by many critics, except for Roger Ebert, who gave it a three-star rating. It performed poorly at the box office, earning only $10,925,060 against a budget of $15 million.[7] Barbara Billingsley, Ken Osmond and Frank Bank made cameo appearances in the film.

Other media

Books

Beverly Cleary wrote three novels based on the show:[8]

Leave it to Beaver New York : Berkley, 1960. Berkley Medallion book, G406.[9]

Here's Beaver! New York : Berkley, 1961. Berkley Medallion book[10]

Beaver and Wally New York : Berkley, 1961. [11]

Juvenile books

Leave It to Beaver by Lawrence Alson New York : Golden Books, 1959

Leave It to Beaver: Fire by Cole Fannin Racine, Wisconsin; Whitman Publishing Company 1962[12][13]

There was also a novelization of the 1997 film:

Leave It to Beaver by Lisa Rojany-Buccieri Los Angeles, Calif. Price Stern Sloan 1997[14]

House

The Cleavers moved from 485 Mapleton Drive to 211 Pine Street, both in Mayfield, for the start of season three. In 1969, the house was reused for another Universal-produced television hit, Marcus Welby, M.D. This house can still be seen at Universal Studios, though the original façade was replaced in 1988 for the following year's The 'Burbs and sits in storage elsewhere on the Universal lot. The façade was replaced again for the 1996 Leave It to Beaver movie.

Home media

Universal Studios released the first two seasons of Leave It to Beaver on DVD in Region 1 in 2005/2006.

On January 26, 2010, it was announced that Shout! Factory had acquired the rights to the series (under license from Universal). They subsequently released the remaining seasons on DVD as well as a complete series box set.[15]

On January 31, 2012, Shout! Factory released a 20 episode best-of set titled Leave It to Beaver: 20 Timeless Episodes.[16]

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment announced a release of the complete series on Blu-ray scheduled for November 14, 2023.[17]

DVD name Ep # Release date Ref(s)

The Complete First Season 39 November 22, 2005 [18]

The Complete Second Season 39 May 2, 2006 [19]

Season Three 39 June 15, 2010 [20]

Season Four 39 September 14, 2010 [21]

Season Five 39 December 14, 2010 [22]

Season Six 39 March 1, 2011 [23]

The Complete Series 234 June 29, 2010 [24]

Urban legends

In the mid-1970s, Mathers appeared on The Tomorrow Show hosted by Tom Snyder. Snyder pointed out that Mathers had not worked for a long time and that there was rumor going around that he had been killed "in the war in Southeast Asia". Mathers replied that he heard that rumor and he had no idea how it started. The earliest appearance of the story in print was in a student newspaper at the University of Kansas in 1972. The author later admitted she only heard the story from someone who heard it at a party in Omaha, Nebraska earlier that year. The paper printed a retraction, but by then the story had spread throughout the U.S. The story was later attributed to a member of a defunct Omaha comedy improv group whose hobby was concocting outrageous stories and then convincing people they were true. "Beaver died in Vietnam" was a classic urban legend, memorable for its juxtaposition of idyllic 1950s imagery with the chaos and violence of the late 1960s.[25]

Another urban legend was that actor Ken Osmond (Eddie Haskell) became porn star John Holmes. Holmes took Osmond's name and did several movies satirically under the name "Eddie Haskell". It started because there was some facial resemblance between the two men, which porn distributors exploited by using the name Eddie Haskell in advertising Holmes's films. "It was a pain in my butt for eleven years," says Osmond,[26] who brought a $25 million defamation suit against porn houses, producers and distributors. The suit went all the way to the California Supreme Court. The court ruled for Holmes, saying the name was protected as a satire. This case set a precedent in the matter, and is still referred to in other cases in California today.[27]

The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting on stage, television, or in movies. An adult who began their acting career as a child may also be called a child actor, or a "former child actor". Closely associated terms include teenage actor or teen actor, an actor who gained popularity as a teenager.

Famous earlier examples include Elizabeth Taylor, who started as a child star in the early 1940s in productions like National Velvet before becoming a popular film star as an adult in movies.

Many child actors find themselves struggling to adapt as they become adults, mainly due to typecasting. Macaulay Culkin and Lindsay Lohan are two particular famous child actors who eventually experienced much difficulty with the fame they acquired at a young age. Some child actors do go on to have successful acting careers as adults; notable actors who first gained fame as children include Mickey Rooney, Tim Matheson, Drew Barrymore, Shia LaBeouf, Jake Gyllenhaal, Mila Kunis, and Molly Ringwald. Other child actors have gone on to successful careers in other fields, including director Ron Howard, politicians Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński, and singer Jenny Lewis.

Regulation

In the United States, the activities of child actors are regulated by the governing labor union, if any, and state laws. Some projects film in distant locations specifically to evade regulations intended to protect the child. Longer work hours or risky stunts prohibited by California, for example, might be permitted to a project filming in British Columbia. US federal law "specifically exempted minors working in the entertainment business from all provisions of the child labor Laws."[citation needed] Any regulation of child actors is governed by disparate state laws.

California

Due to the large presence of the entertainment industry in Hollywood, the state of California has some of the most explicit laws protecting child actors. Being a minor, a child actor must secure an entertainment work permit before accepting any paid work. Compulsory education laws mandate that the education of the child actor not be disrupted while the child is working, whether the child actor is enrolled in public school, private school or even home school. The child does their schoolwork under the supervision of a studio teacher while on the set.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, a child actor is defined as someone under school leaving age.[1] Before a child can work, they require a performance license from their Local Education Authority as well as a licensed chaperone; a parent can only chaperone their own child, and a chaperone's duties include acting in loco parentis and recording arrivals and departure time from the work place, the time a child is working, their breaks, and the amount of tutoring.[1][2] A child requires minimum of three hours of tutoring daily and a lesson must be a minimum of 30 minutes to count towards the total and with regards to 16 and 17-year-old in further education, considerations are made in regards to their studies.[3]

There are regulations and guidance to safeguard all actors under the age of 18; OFCOM guidance states a child's health and safety, well-being and welfare are paramount in television production and factors such as their age, maturity and life experiences can affect their performance.[4] OFCOM also advises that broadcasters undertake risk assessments, consider seeking expert advice and follow best practices.[4]

Issues

Ownership of earnings

In the United States before the 1930s, many child actors never got to see the money they earned because they were not in charge of this money. Jackie Coogan earned millions of dollars from working as a child actor only to see most of it squandered by his parents. In 1939, California weighed in on this controversy and enacted the Coogan Bill, which requires a portion of the earnings of a child to be preserved in a special savings account called a blocked trust.[5] A trust that is not actively monitored can also be problematic, however, as in the case of Gary Coleman, who after working from 1974, later sued his adoptive parents and former business advisor for $3.8 million over misappropriation of his trust fund.[6][7]

Competitive pressure

Some people[who?] also criticize the parents of child actors for allowing their children to work, believing that more "normal" activities should be the staple during the childhood years. Others[who?] observe that competition is present in all areas of a child's life—from sports to student newspaper to orchestra and band—and believe that the work ethic instilled or the talent developed accrues to the child's benefit.[citation needed]

The child actor may experience unique and negative pressures when working under tight production schedules. Large projects which depend for their success on the ability of the child to deliver an effective performance add to the pressure.[citation needed]

Ethel Merman, who several times worked in long-running stage productions with child actors, disliked what she eventually saw as their over-professionalization—"acting more like midgets than children"—and disapproved of parents pushing adulthood on them.[8]

After the childhood success

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Jodie Foster in 1974

There are many instances of troubled adult lives due to the stressful environment to which child actors are subjected. It is common to see a child actor grow up in front of the camera, whether in films, TV shows or both. However, it is not uncommon to see child actors continue their careers throughout as actors or in a different professional field.

Jodie Foster started acting at age 3, becoming the quintessential child actor during the 1970's with roles in films such as Tom Sawyer (1973), Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), Bugsy Malone (1976), The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976), and Freaky Friday (1976). A child prodigy, Foster received her first Academy Award nomination at age 13 and later took a sabbatical from films to attend Yale University. She made a successful transition to adult roles, winning two Academy Awards for Best Actress before the age of 30, and starring in several successful and acclaimed films such as The Accused (1988), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Nell (1994), Maverick (1994), Contact (1997), and The Brave One (2007), thus establishing herself as one of the most accomplished and sought-after actresses of her generation. She has also ventured into directing and her directing credits include films such as Little Man Tate (1991), Money Monster (2016) and television shows such as House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, and Black Mirror.

Now adults, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, the three leads of the acclaimed Harry Potter film series (2001–2011), starred in every installment in the series, and have since continued to act in film, television, and theater in their early 30's. 2010s, Greyson Chance, is an American singer-songwriter and musician

Dakota Fanning rose to prominence after her breakthrough performance at age 7 in the film I Am Sam (2001). Her performance earned her a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination at age 8 in 2002, making her the youngest nominee in SAG history. She later appeared in major Hollywood productions, in such acclaimed blockbuster films as Man on Fire (2004), War of the Worlds (2005), Charlotte's Web (2006), Hounddog (2007), The Secret Life of Bees (2008), Coraline (2009), The Twilight Saga film series (2009–2012), The Runaways (2010), and The Motel Life (2012). Fanning's younger sister, Elle Fanning also rose to prominence as a child actress, having appeared in many films since before she turned 3.

Miranda Cosgrove, known mainly for her role as Megan on the Nickelodeon sitcom Drake & Josh as a child, gained more attention for her role as a teenager in the show iCarly. Since the end of the show she has been featured in other roles, including as the voice of Margo in the Despicable Me franchise. Once she was of age, she decided to pursue a college degree in film at the University of Southern California.[9]

Late actress Shirley Temple became a public figure and diplomat, beginning in the 1960's. Some of her duties included representing the United Nations, and becoming a U.S. ambassador in countries such as Ghana and Czechoslovakia.[10]

Mary-Kate Olsen, who shared the role of Michelle Tanner with her twin sister Ashley on the ABC sitcom Full House, was treated for an eating disorder, deemed anorexia, but Ashley remained less troubled. In an article with the magazine Marie Claire, Mary-Kate expressed the bittersweet nature of the twins' childhood. "I look at old photos of me, and I don't feel connected to them at all," she said. "I would never wish my upbringing on anyone... but I wouldn't take it back for the world." The twins eventually retired from acting to pursue a full-time career in the fashion industry, which, to this day, is continuously successful with an estimated net worth of approximately $100,000,000.[11][12]

Mandy Moore is one of the child stars to have success as an adult with the start of her growing career in 1993.

Drew Barrymore, a former child star, started acting at age 3. During her childhood she battled with drugs, but recovered and currently continues to act.

Natalie Portman took a small break in acting to get a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Harvard University before continuing her career as an actress.

Rider Strong, known as "Shawn Hunter" in Boy Meets World, was educated at Columbia University and now runs a successful blog and has published a graphic novel.[13] Neil Patrick Harris started his career as a child actor in Doogie Howser, M.D. He continues to act in television, films and theater. Harris is now a cult figure icon.

Jonathan Lipnicki, known mostly for the Stuart Little films, now successfully competes in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.[13] Sara Gilbert is known for her role on Roseanne and later created and served as a co-host for CBS's The Talk. Also from Roseanne, Michael Fishman continued to work in film, but behind the scenes and has since been nominated for an Emmy for the work he did in Sports Science. Both Gilbert and Fishman returned for the later series based on Roseanne, The Conners, with Gilbert also serving as an executive producer and guiding the series through its transition after Roseanne Barr was fired after the tenth season of the revived Roseanne.[13] Kirsten Dunst and Lacey Chabert both made the transition from a child actress to an adult actress with a rough patch including depression. After a stay in a rehabilitation center, Dunst was able to recover and continue her career. She proves that the pressures of growing up under the spotlight may not come without repercussions.[14]

Roddy McDowall, who had a long and outstanding career including as the regular star of the Planet of the Apes series; Micky Dolenz, who started his career as a child star in the 1950s, grew up to be a musician of the successful 1960s pop group The Monkees, which had its own successful television show; Ron Howard, who, in addition to being the star of both of the long running The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days television series, became an Academy Award-winning director in adulthood; Elijah Wood, who continued his career successfully into adulthood, starring as Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings film series and starring as Ryan Newman in the television series Wilfred.

Other careers

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Many actors' and child actors' careers are often quite short. Many actors, out of personal choice, that start their careers as child actors decide not to pursue the same careers as adults. Shirley Temple, for example, became a public figure and diplomat. Peter Ostrum, appearing in his only role, the lead character of Charlie Bucket in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, became a large-scale veterinarian surgeon. While Jenny Lewis, formerly of film Troop Beverly Hills in 1989, is a well-known singer-songwriter indie rock musician. Renee Olstead became a Jazz musician.

In Poland, former child actors and identical twin brothers Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński became successful politicians, at one time Lech being president and Jarosław the prime minister.

See also

Actor

Acting age

List of child actors

Child labor

Lassie is an American television series that follows the adventures of a female Rough Collie dog named Lassie and her companions, both human and animal. The show was the creation of producer Robert Maxwell and animal trainer Rudd Weatherwax and was televised from September 12, 1954, to March 25, 1973. The eighth longest-running scripted U.S. primetime television series (after The Simpsons, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Gunsmoke, Law & Order, Family Guy, NCIS, and American Dad), the show ran for 17 seasons on CBS before entering first-run syndication for its final two seasons. Initially filmed in black and white, the show transitioned to color in 1965.

Production

Narration

Wrather's wife, Bonita Granville Wrather, who was the series' associate producer, narrated numerous episodes throughout the run of the series, usually the beginning and/or ending of multi-part episodes.[1]

Writers

Many early episodes were written by Robert Maxwell under the pseudonym Claire Kennedy.[2] In later years, the writing partnership of Robert Schaefer and Eric Freiwald was responsible for over 150 episodes. They were also responsible for developing the idea of having Lassie with a forest ranger.[3]

Theme music

Lassie used several pieces of theme music during its long broadcast history. For the first season, "Secret of the Silent Hills (Theme from the Lassie TV series)", is used for both the opening and ending theme. Composed by William Lava, the orchestral theme was originally created for the 1940 radio show The Courageous Dr. Christian.[4]

For the second and third season a variation of this theme, titled simply "Lassie Main & End Title", was used for the opening and ending theme. Raoul Kraushaar, the music director for the series, is the listed composer for the theme; however the changes he made to the original are so slight that only a trained ear can tell the difference. The third theme used for the series is an orchestral rendition of the aria, "Dio Possente" (Even Bravest Hearts May Swell) from Charles Gounod's opera, Faust. The exact time this theme started being used is uncertain due to conflicting records; however it is agreed that it was the third series, and was used for at least part of season four for the change of ownership of Lassie.[4]

The most famous of the Lassie theme songs appeared at the start of the fifth season. Copyrighted as "Lassie Main & End Title", the composer credit has never been definitively claimed to this day. The melody is whistled by Muzzy Marcellino. Nicknamed "The Whistler," it remained the series theme for the rest of the "Martin years". With the coming of the "Ranger years", the opening and ending theme was changed to an orchestral version of "The Whistler". Beginning in season 17 (where Lassie traveled alone), and continuing throughout the Holden Ranch era, the theme was changed again, this time to Nathan Scott's arrangement of the traditional folk tune Greensleeves, which became the series theme song for the rest of its run. For the final two seasons, the familiar closing visual of Lassie standing on a hill and lifting her paw, was replaced by the credits on a green background, and flashing from one slate to the other instead of scrolling as in most of the series run.[4] Television composer Nathan Scott scored the music to nearly every episode between 1963 and 1973,[5] except for four episodes.[6]

Plot and themes

Original series stars Jan Clayton (as Ellen Miller - top left), George Cleveland (as Gramps - top right), and Tommy Rettig (as Jeff Miller - at bottom with Lassie)

From left to right - George Chandler (as Uncle Petrie), Jon Shepodd (the original Paul Martin), Jon Provost (as Timmy Martin) and Cloris Leachman (the original Ruth Martin) during season 4 when the show transitioned from the Millers to the Martins.

Hugh Reilly and June Lockhart would take over as Paul and Ruth Martin from 1958-1964 (seasons 5-10)

After 10 seasons on the farm with the Millers and the Martins, the series shifted to Lassie's adventures with the U.S. Forest Service during seasons 11-16, the bulk of that time featuring Robert Bray as Ranger Corey Stuart.

Season 17 - the final CBS season - saw Lassie on her own, getting into different adventures each week. In seasons 18 and 19 (with the series airing in syndication), Lassie settled in at the Holden Ranch to close out the show's run.

The first 10 seasons of the series saw Lassie living on a farm, first with the Miller family (Jeff, his mother Ellen, and her father George - who was called "Gramps" by Jeff). Season 4 saw the Millers taking in young orphan Timmy, who then lived with them on the farm, as well as the unexpected death of Gramps, (reflecting the real life death of actor George Cleveland, who played the character), and with that the Millers moved off the farm, but Timmy and Lassie would stay behind with his new foster parents, Paul and Ruth Martin, who also took over the farm. All 10 of the Miller/Martin farm seasons would for the most part focus on "boy and his dog" adventures with Jeff or Timmy getting involved in some sort of trouble, and Lassie eventually coming to the rescue.

Seasons 11–16 were the "Ranger years" of the series, as Lassie (because she was not able to go to Australia with the Martins when Paul got a job teaching agriculture there) was taken in by U.S. Forest Ranger Corey Stuart (who appeared in a few episodes of season 10) and began to work with the U.S. Forest Service.[7] Color filming was exploited during the Ranger years with Lassie and her friends sent to exotic locations such as Sequoia National Forest and Monument Valley, creating miniature travelogues for viewers. Other rangers would be featured during the latter part of this era when Robert Bray (who played Stuart) left the series.[8]

For season 17, the program shifted gears again and became essentially an anthology series, with Lassie traveling on her own, getting into different adventures each week (similar in format to The Littlest Hobo and, later, to Here's Boomer). No explanation was given as to why Lassie was no longer with the Forest Service.[9] Some episodes during this final CBS season were animals only.

During seasons 18 and 19 (with the series having moved to first run syndication), Lassie was taken in by Garth Holden (played by Ron Hayes) who was in charge of the Holden Ranch – a home for orphaned boys – which he ran with his college-age son and his friend. This (somewhat) brought the show back to its roots by giving Lassie a farm/ranch home base, which is where she settled in for the final two years of the series.[10][11]

Episodes

Main article: List of Lassie episodes

Season Setting Episodes Originally aired

First aired Last aired Network

Miller years

(Jeff's Collie) 26 September 12, 1954 March 6, 1955 CBS

39 September 11, 1955 June 3, 1956

38 September 9, 1956 May 26, 1957

Martin years

(Timmy & Lassie) 40 September 8, 1957 June 8, 1958

39 September 7, 1958 May 31, 1959

37 September 6, 1959 May 22, 1960

36 September 11, 1960 May 28, 1961

36 September 10, 1961 May 27, 1962

32 September 30, 1962 May 19, 1963

29 September 29, 1963 May 3, 1964

Ranger years 33 September 6, 1964 May 16, 1965

32 September 12, 1965 May 1, 1966

30 September 11, 1966 April 30, 1967

28 September 10, 1967 March 24, 1968

28 September 29, 1968 April 13, 1969

22 September 28, 1969 March 8, 1970

On her own 22 September 20, 1970 March 21, 1971

Holden Ranch years 20 October 7, 1971 March 10, 1972 Syndication

24 September 16, 1972 March 24, 1973

Characters and cast

Human leads

Tommy Rettig starred as Jeff Miller during the early years of the series (1954–1957), which were syndicated as Jeff's Collie

Jon Provost starred as Timmy Martin during the middle years of the series (1957–1964), which were syndicated as Timmy & Lassie

Robert Bray starred as Ranger Corey Stuart during the majority of the Forest Service years of the series from 1964–1968

Jack De Mave (left) and Jed Allan (right) starred as Rangers Bob Erickson and Scott Turner, respectively, during the later Forest Service years of the series from 1968–1970

Lassie traveled on her own in the final CBS season (1970–71), getting into various adventures before settling in at the Holden Ranch for the final two seasons of the series once it moved to first-run syndication. (1971–1973)

1954–1957: Miller Family (Jeff's Collie)

Ellen Miller – war-widowed farm woman (Jan Clayton)

Jeff Miller – Ellen's eleven-year-old son (Tommy Rettig)

George "Gramps" Miller – Ellen's father-in-law and Jeff's paternal grandfather (George Cleveland)

Sylvester "Porky" Brockway – a farm boy and Jeff's friend (Joey D. Vieira – using the stage name "Donald Keeler")

Constable Clay Horton – the sheriff (Richard Garland)

1957–1964: Martin Family (Timmy & Lassie)

Timmy Martin – a foster boy on the Miller farm (Jon Provost)

Paul Martin – a young farmer, Ruth's husband and Timmy's adoptive father (Jon Shepodd 1957–1958; Hugh Reilly 1958–1964)

Ruth Martin – Paul's wife and Timmy's adoptive mother (Cloris Leachman 1957–1958; June Lockhart 1958–1964)

Petrie J. Martin – Paul's uncle (George Chandler) (1957–1959)

Cully Wilson – a neighbor of the Martins, who was a farmer and nature lover (Andy Clyde) (1959–1964)

Ralph "Boomer" Bates – a neighbor of the Martins who owned a dog named Mike and was Timmy's best friend (Todd Ferrell) (1958–1959)

Scott Richards, another of Timmy's friends (Kelly Junge Jr.) (1958)

1964–1970: U.S. Forest Service

Forest Ranger Corey Stuart (Robert Bray) (1964–1968)

Assistant Forest Ranger Hank Whitfield (Clyde Howdy)[12][13] (1964–1966)

Forest Ranger Bob Erickson (Jack De Mave) (1968–1970)

Forest Ranger Scott Turner (Jed Allan) (1968–1970)

1970–1971: Traveling on her own

No human leads

1971–1973: Holden Ranch

Garth Holden – director of the Holden Ranch (Ron Hayes)

Ron Holden – Garth's son (Skip Burton)

Dale Mitchell – Ron's friend (Larry Wilcox)

Keith Holden – Garth's brother (Larry Pennell)

Lucy Baker – a deaf child living near the Holden Ranch (Pamelyn Ferdin)

Dog actors as Lassie

Pal (Pilot episodes)

Lassie Junior (1954–1959)

Spook (1960)

Baby (1960–1966)

Mire (1966–1971)

Hey Hey (1971–1973)

Media information

Broadcast history

First-run Lassie was televised September 12, 1954 to March 24, 1973 with its first 17 seasons airing on CBS Sundays at 7:00 p.m. EST. In 1971, in order to promote community-related programming among local affiliates, the Federal Communications Commission moved primetime Sundays to 8:00 P.M. EST with the institution of the Prime Time Access Rule. CBS executives felt Lassie would not be well received in a time slot other than its traditional 7:00 p.m. slot, and, with the network's other family programs set, the show was canceled.[11] (Lassie was among several shows that CBS canceled during this time period as part of a change in its target demographics.) Lassie then entered first-run syndication with Jack Wrather and Campbell's Soup still on board, and remained on the air for another two years with its final episode airing in March 1973. All totaled, 591 episodes were produced.

An animated reworking, Lassie's Rescue Rangers, followed in fall 1973, immediately after the original series ended (the pilot movie aired in 1972 while the live-action series was still on the air). Lassie's Rescue Rangers was denounced by both Weatherwax and the National Association of Broadcasters, the latter of which made note of the animated series' "violence, crime and stupidity."[14]

Later series

In 1973, ABC created an animated Saturday-morning animated program called Lassie's Rescue Rangers produced by Filmation.[11]

In 1989, what was essentially a sequel series, The New Lassie – featuring Jon Provost as Steve McCullough – aired in first-run syndication. In its seventh episode ("Roots"), June Lockhart reprised her Ruth Martin role when Steve McCullough is revealed to be the adult Timmy Martin. It is revealed that Timmy was never properly adopted by the Martins and consequently was forced to remain in the U.S. when Ruth and Paul emigrated to Australia. Timmy was then subsequently adopted by the McCullough family and began going by his middle name Steven. In 1992, Tommy Rettig made a guest appearance in the final episode, "The Computer Study". This would be his last television appearance prior to his death in 1996.[15]

In 1997, a modified remake – also called Lassie – debuted, airing in the U.S. on the then new Animal Planet cable network. This show (which was filmed in Canada and set in Vermont) also revolved around a boy named Timmy and his dog, though differences in setting and character circumstances precluded it from being an exact remake of the original series.[16]

From 2014-present, a new animated series called Lassie or The New Adventures of Lassie was aired. Lassie lives with the Parker family, 10-year-old red-headed Zoe and her family, Ranger Graham Parker and Dr. Sarah Parker (a veterinarian), in the Grand Mountain National Park. Her best friend is Harvey Smith, whose mother Beth works in the park visitor center. Harvey's late father was a mountain climber. The children's antagonist is a snooty rich girl named Samantha Humphrey. Two seasons were done, the first with traditional drawn animation and the second season with computer-generated animation. The second season (tagged as Season 1) is available on Paramount Plus.

DVD releases

The series was released to DVD between 2001–2007.

DVD Name # Ep Release Date

Lassie's Great Adventure 5 June 26, 2001

Lassie: Best of the Lassie Show 3 November 25, 2003

Lassie: Lassie's Christmas Stories 3 November 25, 2003

Lassie: Best of Jeff's Collie 3 November 25, 2003

Lassie: Lassie's Birthday Surprise 3 November 25, 2003

Lassie: Lassie's Gift of Love 3 November 25, 2003

Lassie: 50th Anniversary Collection 24 September 14, 2004

Lassie: Flight of the Cougar 3 March 6, 2006

Lassie: A Mother's Love 4 May 1, 2007

Lassie's Greatest Adventures Collection 18 September 17, 2019

Comics

The TV series was adapted into a comic book by Dan Spiegle, distributed by Gold Key Comics.[17]

Reception

Ratings

Every year of its 17-year run on CBS, Lassie placed first in its time slot, Sunday 7:00 P.M. EST, and often ranked among the top 25 shows on television. The show's highest ranking years in the Nielsen ratings were the Martin years when the show placed #24 in 1957, #22 in 1958, #15 in 1959, #15 in 1961, #21 in 1962, #13 in 1963, and #17 in 1964. The only Martin year Lassie did not climb into the top twenty-five was 1960, when it ran opposite Walt Disney Presents on ABC and Shirley Temple Theater on NBC.[18] However, Lassie still ran opposite Disney when the Disney anthology television series moved to NBC in 1961, and still managed to climb into the Top 25. With the advent of the Forest Service seasons, the show began a steady decline in ratings.[19]

Season Rank

1954–1955 Not in the Top 30

1955–1956

1956–1957 #24

1957–1958 #22

1958–1959 Not in the Top 30

1959–1960 #29

1960–1961 Not in the Top 30

1961–1962 #15

1962–1963 #19

1963–1964 #12

1964–1965 #17

1965–1966 #27

1966–1967 #33

1967–1968 #30

1968–1969 Not in the Top 30

1969–1970

1970–1971

Awards and honors

(All awards listed given during the time of, or specifically related to the TV series)

Two-time Emmy Award winner for Best Children's Program (1955, 1956)[20]

1956 Peabody Award[21]

Three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Lassie – 1960, June Lockhart – 1960 for television, Jon Provost – 1994)

1967 U.S. Department of Agriculture Conservation Award (awarded to Lassie for promoting conservation during the series' Forest Service era)[22]

Timmy Martin's shirt, jeans, and Keds displayed at the Smithsonian Institution

Cultural impact

Jon Provost in a promotional photo for his autobiography Timmy's in the Well! (essentially portraying "Timmy" reading to "Lassie").

Jon Provost called his autobiography Timmy's in the Well! because a well was the one place Timmy never fell into—abandoned mine shafts, off cliffs, into rivers, lakes, and quicksand, but never a well.[23][24]

Mad parodied the show as "Lizzy", where it was revealed that the collie was actually a circus midget in a dog suit, while the real Lizzy was a dimwitted mutt. In an episode of The Flintstones ("Dino Goes Hollyrock"), the character Dino wins an appearance on the smash hit TV show "Sassie" starring a heavily made-up and snobby girl dinosaur and her Lassie-like adventures.[25]

Belgian comics artist Willy Vandersteen created his own version of the TV show with a collie named Bessy in 1954. Apart from the fact that his comic strip starred the same dog breed with a similar name, it had little to do with the series overall, since the comic was a Western comic.

The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin is an American children's Western television series that aired 164 episodes from October 1954 to May 1959 on the ABC television network.

The show starred Lee Aaker as Rusty, a boy orphaned in an Indian raid, who was being raised by the soldiers at a US Cavalry post known as Fort Apache. Rusty and his German Shepherd dog, Rin Tin Tin, help the soldiers to establish order in the American West. James E. Brown appeared as Lieutenant Ripley "Rip" Masters. Co-stars included Joe Sawyer as Sergeant Biff O'Hara and Rand Brooks as Corporal Randy Boone.[1]

The character of Rin Tin Tin was named after Rin Tin Tin, a legendary screen dog of the 1920s and 1930s. The character was ostensibly played by Rin Tin Tin IV, who was either a descendant or related to the original dog. However, due to Rin Tin Tin IV's poor screen performance, the character was mostly performed by an unrelated dog, Flame Jr.[2]: 195

Synopsis

Rusty and his dog, Rin Tin Tin (Rinty), are the only survivors of an Indian raid on their wagon train. The boy and his dog are adopted by the 101st Cavalry at Fort Apache, Arizona, where Rusty is commissioned as an honorary corporal. Throughout the series, Rusty and Rinty help the cavalry and the nearby people to establish order in the American West.

Cast

Lee Aaker - Corporal Rusty "B-Company"

James Brown - Lt. Ripley 'Rip' Masters

Rin Tin Tin IV/Flame Jr. - Rin Tin Tin

Joe Sawyer - Sgt. Biff O'Hara

Rand Brooks - Corporal Randy Boone

William Forrest - Major Swanson

Hal Hopper - Cpl. Clark

John Hoyt - Colonel Barker

Harry Strang - Sheriff

Dean Fredericks - Komawi

Mildred von Hollen - Mrs. Barrington

George Keymas - Black Billy

Ralph Moody - Silas Gunn

Tom McKee - Capt. Davis

William Fawcett - Captain Longey/Marshal George Higgins

Morris Ankrum - Chief Red Eagle

Lane Bradford - Barrows

Ernest Sarracino - Hamid Bey

Jack Littlefield - Karl

Dehl Berti - Katawa

Bill Hale - Cole Hogarth

Steven Ritch - Lone Hawk

Lee Roberts - Aaron Depew

Larry Chance - Apache Jack

Charles Stevens - Geronimo

Gordon Richards - Hubert Twombly

Pierre Watkin - The Vet

Tommy Farrell - Carpenter

Harry Hickox - John Carter

Andy Clyde - Homer Tubbs

Ed Hinton - Seth Ramsey

Patrick Whyte - McKenzie

Stanley Andrews - Ed Whitmore

Abel Fernandez - O-ye-tza

Louis Lettieri - Chief Pokiwah

Jan Arvan - Chief Running Horse

William Henry - Bill Anderson

Guest stars

Robert Fuller appeared as Stan in the 1958 episode "The Epidemic". Harry Cheshire appeared as Silas Mason in "The Misfit Marshal" (1959).

Brad Johnson (1924–1981) appeared in the role of John Quinn in the episode "The Iron Horse" (1955).

Robert Knapp was cast in the role of Allen in the 1955 episode "The Guilty One".

William Fawcett played an elderly marshal in four episodes, including the 1955 episode, "Higgins Rides Again".

Rico Alaniz appeared twice, as Big Elk in "Rin Tin Tin Meets O'Hara's Mother" and as Don Valdez in "The Invaders" (both 1956).

Other guest stars included Roscoe Ates and Dean Fredericks in six episodes. John M. Pickard appeared three times. Others included Ron Hagerthy, Ewing Mitchell, Ed Hinton, Lee Van Cleef and Harry Dean Stanton.

Episodes

Main article: List of The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin episodes

Season Episodes Originally aired

First aired Last aired

34 October 15, 1954 June 3, 1955

38 September 9, 1955 June 1, 1956

40 September 7, 1956 June 21, 1957

26 September 20, 1957 April 18, 1958

26 September 19, 1958 May 8, 1959

Production

Brown and Rin Tin Tin on a 1955 publicity postcard

Development

Producer Herbert Leonard got the idea for the show while shooting at the Corrigan Movie Ranch. He had taken his lunch at the Fort Apache set and got the idea for the entire format, but he needed to convince "Rinty" owner Lee Duncan to get the rights.[2]: 183 Leonard convinced Douglas Heyes to work on the script and they presented it to Duncan. Duncan and Leonard made the agreement to do the show over a handshake and an initial payment of ten dollars.[2]: 184

Casting

Three different German Shepherds were used as the titular character. Rin Tin Tin IV and one other dog were descended from the original "Rinty" of movie fame.[3]: 20 The other dog used was an unrelated dog named Flame, Jr. Due to Rin Tin Tin IV's poor screen performance, the character was mostly performed by Flame, Jr.[2]: 195

Filming

The episodes were filmed on a low budget, with Screen Gems limiting it to less than $50,000 per episode.[2]: 198 Outdoor action was shot largely at Corriganville Movie Ranch northwest of Los Angeles in Simi Valley, where the production made ample use of the facility's set from the movie Fort Apache.[2]: 207 Additional action sequences were shot on the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, known for its huge sandstone boulders and widely recognized as the most heavily filmed outdoor shooting location in the history of Hollywood.[citation needed]

The show's troupe of twelve character actors was often required to play multiple parts in the same episode, sometimes to the point of one actor fighting himself, wearing a cavalry uniform in one shot and an Apache outfit in another.[citation needed]

Themes

As a show targeting the youth audience, it not only displayed stories with action, but also included moral lessons. Actor James Brown explained, "Our stories simply taught that right was right and wrong was wrong."[4]

Broadcast

The show ran for five seasons on ABC on Friday evenings from October 1954 to May 1959. ABC reran the series on late afternoons from September 1959 to September 1961.[3] During its first season (1954-1955), The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin finished at number 23 in the Nielsen ratings, making it the second-highest rated series on ABC at the time behind Disneyland, which placed number six.[5]

Reruns ran on Saturdays on CBS from September 1962 until September 1964. A new package of reruns was shown in 1976, and continued into the mid-1980s. The original black-and-white prints were tinted sepia with new opening and closing segments filmed in color in Utah.[6] Due to poor scheduling practices of local stations, the rebroadcasts were not successful.[4]

Modern syndication includes remastered episodes produced by Cerulean Digital Color and Animation, with lines redubbed for some scenes using actors other than those from the original series cast, with a different generic theme song.[citation needed]

Reception

Critics were generally positive, with TV Guide calling it "crammed with action, gunplay and chase scenes," and that it "makes fine viewing for kids and nostalgic viewing for grownups".[4] Variety, however, was much more critical, calling Aaker "precocious" and "not helped by the direction", and that "the dog does nothing exceptional either".[4]

My Three Sons is an American television sitcom that aired from September 29, 1960, to April 13, 1972. The series was broadcast on ABC during its first five seasons, before moving to CBS for the remaining seven seasons. My Three Sons chronicles the life of widower and aeronautical engineer Steven Douglas (Fred MacMurray) as he raises his three sons.

The series originally featured William Frawley (who had first co-starred with Fred MacMurray 25 years earlier in the film Car 99) as the boys' maternal grandfather and live-in housekeeper, William Michael Francis "Bub" O'Casey. William Demarest, playing Bub's brother, "Uncle Charley", replaced Frawley in 1965 because of Frawley's declining health. In September 1965 (when the show moved from ABC to CBS and began to be filmed in color), eldest son Mike (Tim Considine) married fiancée Sally Ann Morrison (Meredith MacRae), and his character was written out of the show. To keep the emphasis on "three sons", original youngest son Chip's (Stanley Livingston) friend Ernie (Barry Livingston, Stanley's real-life brother) was adopted. In the program's later years, Steven Douglas married Barbara Harper (Beverly Garland) and adopted her young daughter Dorothy Anne ("Dodie") (Dawn Lyn).

The series was a cornerstone of the ABC and CBS lineups in the 1960s. Disney producer Bill Walsh often mused on whether the concept of the show was inspired by the film The Shaggy Dog, as in his view they shared "the same dog, the same kids, and Fred MacMurray".[1]

A Lawrence Welk cover version of the theme song reached #12 in Canada, April 24, 1961.[2]

History

The ABC cast of My Three Sons, with William Frawley, 1962. Clockwise from left: William Frawley as Bub, Tim Considine as Mike, Fred MacMurray as Steve, Don Grady as Robbie, and Stanley Livingston as Chip.

ABC years

The show began on ABC in black-and-white. The first season, consisting of 36 episodes, was directed in its entirety by Peter Tewksbury, the Emmy-winning director of "Father Knows Best," who produced and occasionally scripted the programs.[3]

During the 1964 fall season, William Frawley, who played Bub, was declared too ill to work by Desilu Studios, as the company was informed that insuring the actor would be too costly. Frawley continued in the role until a suitable replacement could be found at midseason. He was replaced by William Demarest, who played his hard-nosed brother (great) Uncle Charley, introduced partway through the 1964–1965 season (the last on ABC). According to the storyline, Bub returns to Ireland to help his Aunt Kate celebrate her 104th birthday. Soon after, brother Charley visits and stays on. Charley, a cello-playing merchant sailor, was a soft-hearted curmudgeon, who proved to be a responsible caregiver. Frawley left the series before the end of the 1964–1965 season. He died March 3, 1966.[4]

The address of the fictional home in Bryant Park was 837 Mill Street. The phone number was LArson 0-6719, rotary dialed as 520-6719 (from Season 1, Episode 25 - 'Off Key' first aired March 16, 1961). The actual address of the home used for the Bryant Park episodes was 837 5th Avenue in Los Angeles California. The neighboring driveway to the right of the house was used as the Douglas' driveway on the show, although the real life driveway for that home is on the left hand side of the house. The fictional phone number for a neighboring home was 527-3601 Season 1, Episode 26 - Small Adventure aired March 23, 1961. Many of the 1960s My Three Sons external shoots were actually done on location on 5th Avenue.

Directors

Peter Tewksbury directed the first season. The succeeding director, Richard Whorf, took over the reins for one season and was in turn followed by former actor-turned-director Gene Reynolds from 1962 to 1964. James V. Kern, an experienced Hollywood television director who had previously helmed the "Hollywood" and "Europe" episodes of I Love Lucy, continued in this role for two years until his untimely death at 57 in late 1966. Director James Sheldon was also contracted to finish episodes that had been partly completed by Kern to complete that season. Fred De Cordova was the show's longest and most consistent director of the series (108 episodes) until he left in 1971 to produce The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Earl Bellamy rounded out the series as director of the show's final year.[5]

CBS years

My Three Sons moved to the CBS television network for the 1965–1966 season after ABC declined to underwrite the expense of producing the program in color. Along with the change in networks and the transition to color, Tim Considine (who had earlier worked with Fred MacMurray on The Shaggy Dog), playing eldest son Mike, had chosen not to renew his contract due to a clash with executive producer Don Fedderson over Considine's wish to direct but not co-star in the series. (Considine did, however, direct one of the last black-and-white episodes for ABC.) In an August 1989 interview on the Pat Sajak Show, he explained that he was also devoted to car racing, which his contract forbade. His character was written out, along with Meredith MacRae, who had played his fiancée Sally, in a wedding episode that was the premiere of the 1965–1966 season on CBS. After this episode, Mike is mentioned briefly in only four succeeding episodes (including the one in which the family adopts Ernie) and is never seen again, even at Robbie's or Steve's weddings. (Steve explains briefly in one of these episodes that he has another son who "lives away from home".) In the episode "Steve and the Huntress" (first aired January 27, 1966), Mike is specifically mentioned as teaching at a college. MacRae joined Petticoat Junction the following year, the last of three actresses to play Billie Jo Bradley.

To keep the show's title plausible, the show's head writer, George Tibbles, fashioned a three-part story arc in which an orphaned friend of youngest brother Richard (Chip, played by Stanley Livingston), Ernie Thompson (played by his real-life brother, Barry Livingston), awaits adoption when his current foster parents are transferred to the Orient. Steve offers to adopt Ernie, but faces antagonism from Uncle Charley, who finds Ernie a bit grating and forecasts major headaches over both the boy and his dog. It also transpires that a law requires a woman to live in the home of an adoptive family. A likable female social worker supervises the case and the Douglases speculate that Steve might marry the woman to make the adoption possible, but they agree that this is not reason enough for them to be married. Also, the family has no need for a housekeeper; Uncle Charley already has things running smoothly. The family soon appears before a judge who researches the law and determines that its intent is to ensure that a full-time caregiver is in the household. As Charley meets that role and has had a change of heart about Ernie, he assents to a legal fiction that declares him the Douglas family's "housemother".[6]

While the three sons were always central to the storyline, several major changes took place by the late 1960s. In the spring of 1967, the series' ratings began to sag, and it finished its seventh season in 31st place in the Nielsen ratings. It was decided that the 1967–1968 season would bring the program not only a new time slot but also new storylines to spice up the ratings. In the fall of 1967, CBS moved My Three Sons to Saturday at 8:30 pm ET. In the season premiere episode, "Moving Day", the Douglas family and Uncle Charley relocate from the fictional Midwestern town of Bryant Park to Los Angeles, California. Robbie (Don Grady) marries his girlfriend Katie Miller. Katie is played by Tina Cole, who had appeared in different roles on three previous episodes: "House For Sale" from the fourth season (February 13, 1964), "The Coffee House Set" from the fifth season (November 19, 1964), and "Robbie and the Little Stranger" from the sixth season (February 17, 1966). At the end of the 1967–1968 season, the ratings had improved from the previous year with the series placing at 24th in the Nielsens. The following season, the newlyweds discover that Katie is pregnant and she gives birth to triplets named Robert, Steven, and Charles. Originally played by sets of uncredited twins, the boys were later played uncredited by Guy, Gunnar, and Garth Swanson; and in the last two seasons by Michael, Daniel, and Joseph Todd.

The following year in the 10th season, 1969–1970, Steve remarries. His new bride, widowed teacher Barbara Harper (Beverly Garland), brings with her a five-year-old daughter, Dorothy "Dodie" (Dawn Lyn), whom Steve adopts. Dodie is wary of Steve at first, believing that he wants her to just forget her late father, but he explains that he wants her to always remember and love him, but since he's no longer alive, Steve wants to raise her in his place and he hopes she'll come to love him, too. The series' last year and a half feature fewer appearances from both Don Grady and Stanley Livingston. Grady's character was written out at the end of the 11th season, which allowed for his wife Katie and their triplet sons to remain in the Douglas household for the following season (as a structural engineer Robbie was working on a bridge construction in Peru). Meanwhile, Chip and his teenage wife Polly (Ronne Troup), who had eloped after Polly's disciplinarian father refused to sanction their marriage, move into their own apartment.

At the end of the 1970–1971 season, the show's 11th year, My Three Sons was still garnering healthy ratings. By the spring of 1971, it had finished in 19th place. A 1971 television pilot with Don Grady and Tina Cole called Three of a Kind, then retitled Robbie—about Robbie, Katie, and the triplets moving to San Francisco—was filmed but not picked up as a series.[7] The final episode of the 1970–1971 season, "After the Honeymoon", actually set up the premise for this pilot. Richard X. Slattery and Pat Carroll guest-starred as the landlords of the apartment block into which Robbie and Katie move. However, Don Grady had informed the producers of his intention to leave the series and pursue a new full-time career as a composer, which he ultimately did.

For the series' 12th and, ultimately, final season, CBS moved the show to Mondays at 10:00 pm ET. In addition to the time changes for the 12th season, a new four-part story arc is introduced with MacMurray in a second role, that of his cousin, the Laird (Lord) Fergus McBain Douglas of Sithian Bridge; English actor Alan Caillou's voice was dubbed over MacMurray's. The plot centers on Lord Douglas's arrival in Los Angeles from the family's native Scotland, in search of a bride to take back to Scotland with him.

He finds Terri Dowling (Anne Francis), a waitress at the Blue Berry Bowling Alley. While initially reluctant to give up her life in America and return to Scotland as nobility, she finally accepts. This storyline continues a plot idea that originally began in the fourth season, when the Douglases visited Scotland on the pretense of having been told they had inherited a castle in the Highlands.[8]

With a later time slot, the show finished the season outside the top 30. To save the series, CBS moved it in midseason back to Thursdays at 8:30 pm ET, its old time slot. Nevertheless, My Three Sons ended its primetime run in the spring of 1972 after 12 years on the air. CBS also aired daytime reruns starting in September 1971 (only the CBS color shows), for about one season.

Cast

Main

Fred MacMurray, Steve Douglas (1960–1972)

William Frawley, William Michael Francis Aloysius "Bub" O'Casey: Steve's father-in-law (1960–1965)

William Demarest, Charles Leslie "Uncle Charley" O'Casey: Bub's younger brother (1965–1972)

Tim Considine, Mike Douglas: Steve's son (1960–1965)

Don Grady, Robbie Douglas: Steve's son (1960–1971)

Stanley Livingston, Richard "Chip" Douglas: Steve's son (1960–1972)

Barry Livingston, Ernie Thompson-Douglas: Steve's adoptive son (1963–1972)

Meredith MacRae, Sally Ann Morrison-Douglas: Mike's wife (1963–1965)

Tina Cole, Katie Miller-Douglas: Robbie's wife (1967–1972)

Beverly Garland, Barbara Harper-Douglas: Steve's 2nd wife (1969–1972)

Dawn Lyn, Dorothy Anne "Dodie" Harper-Douglas: Barbara's daughter (1969–1972)

Ronne Troup, Polly Williams-Douglas: Chip's wife (1970–1972)

Michael, Daniel, and Joseph Todd, playing Robbie, Stevie, and Charley Douglas: Robbie & Katie's triplet sons respectively (1970–1972)

Recurring

Cynthia Pepper, Jean Pearson (1960–1961)

Peter Brooks, Hank Ferguson (1960–1963)

Cheryl Holdridge, Judy Doucette (1960–1961)

Ricky Allen, Hubert 'Sudsy' Pfeiffer (1961–1963)

Hank Jones, Pete (1964–1966)

Bill Erwin, Joe Walters (1962–1964)

Doris Singleton, Helen Morrison (1964–65) and Margaret Williams (1970)

John Howard, Dave Welch (1965–1967)

Joan Tompkins, Lorraine Miller (1967–1970)

Norman Alden, Tom Williams (1970)

Episodes

Main article: List of My Three Sons episodes

Season Episodes Originally aired Rank Rating

First aired Last aired Network

36 September 29, 1960 June 8, 1961 ABC 13 25.8[a]

36 September 28, 1961 June 7, 1962 11 24.7

39 September 20, 1962 June 20, 1963 28 21.0

37 September 19, 1963 May 28, 1964 27 21.9

36 September 17, 1964 May 20, 1965 13 25.5

32 September 16, 1965 April 28, 1966 CBS 15 23.8

32 September 15, 1966 May 11, 1967 29 20.2[b]

30 September 9, 1967 March 30, 1968 24 20.8

28 September 28, 1968 April 19, 1969 14 22.8

26 October 4, 1969 April 4, 1970 15 21.8[c]

24 September 19, 1970 March 20, 1971 19 20.8

24 September 13, 1971 April 13, 1972 42[9] 17.2[10]

My Three Sons had 36 episodes each in the first two seasons. The series had at least thirty episodes in each of the first eight seasons; the episode output then decreased by two episodes until the eleventh season, which had twenty-four episodes, along with the twelfth season. The first five seasons were filmed in black & white, then after the move to CBS, it was filmed in color for the remainder of its run.

Production

The series was initially filmed at Desilu Studios in Hollywood, but at the start of the 1967–68 season, the cast and crew began filming the series at the CBS Studio Center in Studio City, California. The reasons behind this move concerned the sale of actress-comedian Lucille Ball's studios to the Gulf + Western conglomerate, which owned Paramount Pictures. Don Fedderson Productions, which produced My Three Sons (along with Family Affair starring Brian Keith), had to quickly make other arrangements for filming.[citation needed]

Distribution

Although Don Fedderson gets the credit, My Three Sons was created by George Tibbles and produced by Don Fedderson Productions throughout the show's run, with MCA Television co-distributing the series during its 1960–65 ABC airing. When the series moved to CBS in 1965, the latter network assumed full production responsibilities (in association with Fedderson Productions) until the end of the series in 1972. CBS now holds the series' copyright. CBS Media Ventures presently owns distribution rights to the entire series (including the more widely seen and aforementioned 1965–72 CBS episodes). The show did not get syndicated until September 1976, when Viacom Enterprises assumed off-network distribution (although CBS did air reruns of the show in its daytime lineup from December 1971 until the fall of 1972), and even then, only the CBS color episodes aired, while the black and white ABC episodes did not air on broadcast TV at all. At the time, the first half of season 11 was in the same syndication package as seasons 6-10, while season 12 and the second half of season 11 were distributed with seasons 1–5.

Nick at Nite aired My Three Sons from November 3, 1985, to October 28, 1991, with episodes from Seasons 1–5, the second half of season 11, and season 12. The Family Channel also aired only the black and white episodes from September 7, 1992, to July 30, 1993. The Seasons 1–3 episodes had the original Chevrolet closing credits. The Seasons 6–10 (and the first half of season 11) episodes were later aired on TV Land in the late 1990s. Odyssey ran all of the color episodes in the early 2000s. They also briefly aired the black and white episodes. In 2000, TV Land briefly aired the black & white episodes again, using the same syndication episode rights that were on Nick at Nite during the 1980s. In 2006 the Retro Television Network broadcast the show. Only seasons 6-10 and the first half of season 11 were aired.

In 2009, FamilyNet began airing the program as a lead-in for its Happy Days and Family Ties program block, which ended in February 2010. From 2012 to 2014, and also from October 2015 to February 2016, MeTV aired the Season 6-10 episodes in heavy rotation, and most closing credits included the original sponsor tags, such as those for Kellogg's. In 2016, Decades began airing the CBS (color) episodes in its "binge" blocks on some weekends.

MeTV began airing the black and white episodes on May 29, 2017,[11] the first time the black and white episodes had aired on broadcast television since their original ABC airings. MeTV aired all episodes in order until August 3, 2018, when the series's last episode aired. This marked the first time a U.S. television station aired the entire series in full. MeTV started reairing the entire series again on August 6, 2018 and has continued to do so ever since. Additionally, Catchy Comedy aired a Catchy Binge of the series from September 9 to 11, 2023.

Reunion special

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MacMurray and most of the cast took part in Thanksgiving Reunion with The Partridge Family and My Three Sons, which aired on ABC on November 25, 1977. The retrospective special looked back at the history of My Three Sons and The Partridge Family (other than featuring single parents with a large family, the two series had no narrative, or even a studio, link). The special was notable for featuring footage from early black and white episodes of My Three Sons that, at this point in time, were not in syndication. While most of the collected casts gathered in a studio to reminisce, Demarest appeared in a brief pre-taped segment.

Home media

CBS DVD (distributed by Paramount) has released the first five seasons of My Three Sons on DVD in Region 1.[12][13]

In most episodes, the soundtrack was edited to remove the background musical score, which were originally stock music from the Capitol Records library; the licensing agreement with Capitol only covered broadcast rights, not home video rights, and clearing the music for home video release with the individual composers who worked on the Capitol recordings was deemed cost-prohibitive. The Capitol scores were replaced instead with more modern, synthesized music.[14] The original theme tune by Frank DeVol has been left unaltered; his musical scores in later seasons of the show, written specifically for the series, would less-likely be affected by licensing problems if the later seasons were released on DVD.[citation needed]

On May 13, 2019, the third season was released, in two volume sets, available exclusively through Amazon's made-on-demand (MOD) service.[15][16] Season 4 was released on September 10, 2019[17][18] and season 5 on December 17, 2019.[19][20]

DVD name No. of

episodes Release date

The First Season: Volume 1 18 September 30, 2008

The First Season: Volume 2 18 January 20, 2009

The Second Season: Volume 1 18 February 23, 2010

The Second Season: Volume 2 18 June 15, 2010

The Third Season: Volume 1 20 May 13, 2019

The Third Season: Volume 2 19 May 13, 2019

The Fourth Season: Volume 1 18 September 10, 2019

The Fourth Season: Volume 2 19 September 10, 2019

The Fifth Season: Volume 1 18 December 17, 2019

The Fifth Season: Volume 2 18 December 17, 2019