The Terrible Catsafterme

SEASON 1 – CBS

Created by Ed James.

This series is a continuation of the radio show of the same name that aired between 1949-1954. The show’s pilot was part of “The Ford Television Theatre” in an episode entitled “Keep It in the Family”

Theme song: “Waiting” by Don Ferris and Irving Friedman. Unused lyrics were written by Leon Pober. Rod O’Connor is the announcer.

• 001. Bud Takes Up the Dance – 10/3/1954
  • Jim Anderson (Robert Young) is a middle-class insurance agent living with his wife Margaret (Jane Wyatt) and children Betty (Elinor Donahue), Bud (Billy Gray), and Kathy (Lauren Chapin) in the town of Springfield. Jim is ready for a nice quiet evening at home, when he hears commotion going on in Bud’s room. Bud is teaching himself to dance from an antique dancing book but is embarrassed to tell anyone. Betty finds out and spills the beans to her parents, but they are concerned that bud is taking a girl named Marcia (Susan Whitney) who is known by the nickname “Dynamite.” Jim goes to visit Kathy and her grandmother (Claire Meade) and finds out that Kathy is just as shy about admitting that she can’t dance. Her nickname comes from her explosive nature on the debating team. Jim offers to teach her to dance, and then goes home and insists that Bud leave the basement, where he hides away when embarrassed, and let Betty teach him to dance. Jim and Margaret chaperone the dance, and Margaret notes that Bud and Marcia’s dancing seems to have come from the same source. 3/1/14

• 002. Lesson in Citizenship – 10/10/1954
  • Tired of his children’s laziness, Jim gives them a talk about civic duty and volunteering. It backfires when Kathy gives away Jim’s suit jacket to a poor man named Will Potter (Eddy Waller), Bud volunteers him to be the chairman of the entertainment for the school father-son banquet, and Betty volunteers to be a witness to a car accident because she is attracted to the college senior named Greg Patterson who was in it. The other victim in the car accident ends up being one of Jim’s best clients, Mrs. Paisley. Potter uses Jim’s name as a work reference after seeing it stitched in the suit. Greg’s insurance company ends up resolving the accident. Jim ends up hiring Potter and his wife to perform a dance and Greg to piano as entertainment for the school banquet. 3/1/14
• 003. The Motor Scooter – 10/17/1954
  • Jim brings home a motor scooter that he got for $50 and is both excited to give it to Bud and thrilled that he beat out his rival Fred Hartley (Joseph Forte) by getting a great deal. Margaret however is adamantly giving it to Bud as she thinks he is too irresponsible to have it. Jim disagrees but hides it in the garage so Bud will not get his hopes up, as Kathy does her utmost to reveal the secret. Jim ends up selling it to Fred for $40, and giving Bud $20 because he feels bad. Bud ends up adding some of his own money and buying the scooter back from Hartley’s son Freddie for $30 because his mother wouldn’t let him have it either. Margaret is impressed that Bud searches out a book on scooter safety and allows him to keep it, even trying it out herself. Betty randomly fears she’s gaining weight, tries to wear a low-cut dress on a date, and studies handwriting analysis. 3/11/14
• 004. Football Tickets – 10/24/1954
  • Jim has two tickets to the big local high school football game and Margaret helps him decide to take Betty. But when colleague Bob Harris (Charles Watts) offers to buy a big insurance endowment if he takes him, Jim has to tell Betty that she can’t’ go. To make matters worse, the shirt that Jim put the tickets in was sent to the cleaners, so Jim heads there to retrieve them. They’re not in the shirt pocket, but the laundryman has two tickets that he sells Jim, who naturally assumes that the laundryman stole them. When he gets home, Betty has found the tickets and headed off to meet Harris at the game. Jim gives the two tickets he bought to Bud and Kathy and then tries to buy tickets from neighbor Bill Lawrence (James Dobson) who has measles. His mom has given them away, so Jim heads to the home of one of the players who has the mumps, and he ends up getting those and sitting in the cheering section. 3/11/14
• 005. Live My Own Life – 11/1/1954
  • Bud feels like he is constantly being told what to do and what not to do by everyone in his house. Jim overhears Bud’s friend Claude (Jack E. Stewart) telling him that if  he would move out into a vacant room above Engel’s Feed Store, then his parents would ultimately come groveling for him to return. Margaret is beside herself with worry, but Jim plays it cool toward Bud and encourages him to leave. As the moment of departure comes, it is clear that neither Bud nor his parents want him to leave, but Bud and Jim are both too stubborn to stop it. Jim takes Bud over to his new room, but then privately expresses his worry to Mr. Engels (Harry Tyler), who gives him the advice to give Bud a reason feel needed at home. Jim sabotages Betty’s radio and Kitty’s roller skate and then they call Bud to come back and fix them. Feeling needed, Bud decides to stay around – much to everyone’s relief. Betty’s boyfriend Freddie Beachem is played by Leon Tyler. 6/5/14
• 006. Grandpa Jim’s Rejuvenation – 11/7/1954
  • Jim is excited to play badminton with his friends, but soon starts to reflect on how far in the past his college days are. His mood gets even worse when he gets a letter form his slightly younger friend Eddie Gilbert (Donald Curtis), who is now a grandfather with rheumatism. He even has a dream that he runs into Eddie, who is actually a long-bearded crotchety old man (Bert Mustin). As the kids head out to a wedding, he laments that soon they’ll be old and married and they’ll hardly ever visit. He finally snaps out of it when the kids start running through the house acting like children. In addition, Eddie pays him a visit and is as youthful and vibrant as ever, loving having the time to travel now that his kids are moved out. Jim drags Margaret to go play badminton and go horseback riding to celebrate his newly found ‘youth.’ 6/6/14
• 007. Bud’s Encounter with the Law – 11/14/1964
  • It’s a chaotic morning in the Anderson house. Betty has been named the new Street Commissioner during Girl’s week, Bud is building a raft out of oil drums, and Kitty is pretending the new washing machine is a spaceship. Jim and Margaret find their mail in the washing machine, and among the letters is a summons for Bud to appear in court. He assumes that it is because he took the oil drums from an alley without asking from Mr. Trumble (William Fawcett). When policeman Sgt. Rice (Stafford Repp) shows up to escort Betty to a City Hall meeting, Bud thinks that he is there for him. Bud also attempts to apologize to Mr. Trumble, but he had no idea that anyone had taken the drums, and only wants to buy insurance from Jim. It turns out that Bud had left his license behind when he renewed his bike license, and the police only wanted to return it. But when Jim finds out that the police sergeant wants to see him, he can’t sleep either. Maudie Prickett is Trumble’s secretary. 8/23/14
• 008. Thanksgiving Day – 11/21/1954
  • When Jim finds out that Kathy has won the best Thanksgiving poem in the fourth grade, Jim’s expectations soar, and he brags to everyone about the poem. He announces that the family will celebrate Thanksgiving at the best restaurant in town with Kathy as the guest of honor. But once he finally hears it, he thinks it is amateurish and is embarrassed to have her read it on television…and Kathy overhears him express this opinion and is heartbroken. In fact, she breaks down on TV when she goes to read it. Jim meanwhile has reconsidered about the holiday and wants to eat at home. The more he reflects on Thanksgiving, the more he realizes how good Kathy’s poem really was. Kathy returns home and bursts into tears, until her father apologizes and tells how poor of a poem critic he is. Betty and Bud, who had decided to eat elsewhere, return home to be with the family, who sit down together to eat hamburgers. Jim leads the family in a prayer of thanksgiving. 8/23/14
• 009. Second Honeymoon – 11/28/1954
  • Jim gets envious of his co-worker Fred and his wife Lila that they are able to pick up and leave whenever they like since they have no children. He decides to take Margaret to Cedar Lodge for the weekend and breaks it to the kids. Betty is excited for them and cancels her date with Ralph, who continuously phones throughout the evening. She eventually stops answering the phone, so when her parents try and call they get no answer. Fred and Lila join them at the lodge and attempt to teach Jim the hula, but worried about their kids, they rush back home – only to find nothing wrong. They end up taking the kids and returning to Cedar Lodge. 9/21/14
• 010. Typical Father – 12/5/1954
  • Betty is smitten with a boy named Armand Bradley (Chester Marshall), the lead actor in a school play in which Betty is starring. Jim is skeptical, especially after reading about so many 17-year-olds eloping. He insists that Betty invite Armand to their house, and when she does, he cannot help but eavesdropping from the kitchen where Margaret is forcing the family to paint. When he overhears them talking about their roles in the play, as wells as gathering play props such as a road map and suitcase, he assumes they are eloping. Locked outside after spying through the window, the Jim and Margaret end up following Armand to the Justice of the Peace where they believe Armand and Betty are getting married. Turns out that Armand is only acting as a witness for the Justice, who happens to be his father. Jim acknowledges that he has been acting like a ‘typical father’. 9/21/14
• 011. Margaret Goes Dancing – 12/12/1954
  • Margaret’s friend Myrtle Davis (Vivi Janiss) talks her into getting Jim to attend dance lessons with her and her husband Ed (Robert Foulk). She tries to butter up Jim in order to get him to attend, but he is on to her and knows that she wants something. While talking to Ed, he finds out that Margaret has said they’d be attending the lessons. This leads to an argument and Margaret decides to attend the lessons by herself, while Jim goes out to the club with his friends. Jim has a boring evening and Margaret gets worn out by the lessons. They both come home and Jim serenades Margaret with his old banjo like he used to, and asks her to go out dancing. Oliver Blake is Roy. 10/27/14
• 012. The Christmas Story – 12/19/1954
  • On Christmas Eve, Jim grows tired of the materialism and commercialism being exhibited by his family. He suggests that they all head up to Old Pine Mountain to cut down their old tree. Bud warns him that it is supposed to snow, but he doesn’t heed the warning, and soon enough the car gets stuck in a snowbank. They find refuge in the seemingly abandoned Sunny Pines Lodge, but a man named Nick (Wallace Ford) comes back to the lodge and invites them to stay. Nick gives some mysterious answers about his ownership of the inn, but soon wins over the family and puts up a beautiful tree, which the family decorates excitedly. Park ranger Les Turner (William Traylor) shows up and tells Jim that Nick doesn’t live in the lodge, but Jim wants to take responsibility for breaking into the lodge. Les lets Nick stay and play host, while Cathy spots Nick outside with his bag and mistakes him for Santa Claus. 10/27/14
• 013. Sparrow in the Window – 12/26/1954
  • It’s Jim’s first day off in after a long week and his golf game is rained out. He tries to enjoy TV but the kids keep bothering him. He sends a restless Kathy upstairs, where she finds a sick sparrow in her window. She brings it in and makes a bed for it in Jim’s hat. She names the bird Mr. Quiqley and the family rallies around trying to restore it to health. Jim explains to Kathy that only God can assist in curing him. Nearly everyone get up in the middle of the night to tend to the bird. The next morning Kathy finds the bird missing and hears it upstairs trying to get out the window, but he finally crawls on her finger. She wants to keep it as a pet, but Jim equates her plight of being forced inside on a rainy day to how the caged bird would feel…so she lets him go free. 11/25/14
• 014. Boy’s Week – 1/2/1955
  • Jim is called at work and informed that Kathy has thrown a baseball through Mr. Brown’s window. Instead of playing golf, he comes home to talk to Kathy about it, but she denies doing it. He takes her to the scene of the crime where he determines that she is guilty. While there he gets a ticket from an officer (Dick Wessel) for parking in front of a driveway, which he denies doing. Meanwhile Bud is participating in the Boy’s Week, whereby he takes the place of a public official, which turns out to be Judge Mitchell (James Todd) who will try Jim’s case. Jim tries to butter up Bud, as well as Kathy who is his number one witness. Things don’t go Jim’s way when he gets into court and Bud fines him – in addition to fining his mother for contempt of court – with the Judge’s backing. The Judge accompanies Bud home, and they draw a parallel to how Jim ‘convicted’ Kathy in the name of justice. All ends well and the Judge is invited to dinner. Sarah Selby is Jim’s secretary Miss Thomas. 11/25/14
• 015. A Friend of Old George’s – 1/9/1955
  • The Anderson family is getting ready for Kathy’s ninth birthday dinner followed by a trip to the circus, when a man named Lyle Hebert (Parley Baer) shows up, claiming to be a friend of Jim’s good friend from college George Noonan. It turns out that Lyle had just met George, who is now a judge, and fined Lyle in traffic court earlier that day. No matter how much they hint, Lyle will not leave and invites himself to dinner, getting their names wrong and boring them with tales of his hobby: streetcars. He also moves in on the birthday celebration since his was the day before. Finally, Jim places a fake call to Lyle, claiming to be a man with a large streetcar collection. Lyle leaves and the family heads off to the circus. Unfortunately, by the time they get there, the circus is sold out. However they run into Lyle again, who happens to be the manager and insists that they all get seats right in the front row…and he joins them for the performance. 1/4/15
• 016. Bud the Snob – 1/16/1955
  • Some of the girls at school are telling his sisters that he behaves like a snob. In reality he is just too scared to talk to girls. He tries using his friend Claude Messner’s (Jimmy Bates) advice but that gets him slapped. Betty tries to get him to talk to her friend Virginia (Joyce Coates) on the phone, but he freezes up. But when a Campfire Girl comes to the door selling cookies and Bud hides in the closet and dons a mask, he comes out sounding like a British ladies’ man. He is even able to be suave on the phone with Virginia while wearing the mask, but when he asks her out, he forgets that his courage only lasts when the mask is on. He cancels the date, but then has the idea to have a masquerade party at his house. Just before the party, he can’t find the mask, but his father pretends to apply one with make-up. This gives him courage to talk, even though he has no makeup on. But when he glimpses himself in the mirror, he freezes again…but it is only temporary. By the end of the evening, he is chatting up comfortable with Virginia. Margaret reveals that she hid the mask in the first place. 1/5/15
• 017. The Promised Playhouse – 1/23/1955
  • While Kathy has the measles and is stubborn about taking her medicine, Jim promises her that if she takes it he will let her build a playhouse in the backyard and that he’d eat and sleep out there with her. A month later Jim stresses the importance of keeping promises to Betty, who wants to break a date with a boy named Bert, and to Margaret who talks about taking back her invitation to Ed and Myrtle to come over to play bridge. Jim wants to see Ed’s fishing slides and asks him to come over earlier, and the family settles down for a big meal before the visit. Kathy decides to invoke her promise and insists that Jim eat graham crackers and radishes with her in the ramshackle house she constructed from a shipping crate. After his family reminds him of his speech about promises, he has no choice but to comply. Kathy also makes him get in his pajamas and sleep outside, even though the Davises had arrived. Bud frequently interrupts Jim and Kathy to talk to Jim about a job he is trying to get as a night watchman at a bakery. Kathy eventually falls asleep, and Jim puts her to be and joins the slide show… even though Kathy is actually awake and has let him off the hook. Margaret has a nice time with Bert and talks her parents into letting some of his visiting family stay the night, so Margaret and Jim end up sleeping in the clubhouse. NOTE: This episode was later recapped during Season 5 in episode #175 also titled The Promised Playhouse. 2/28/15
• 018. Jim the Farmer – 1/30/1955
  • Feeling the pressure of his insurance business, Jim decides to give farming in California a try for a while and hands over his office to his friend Lloyd (John Alvin) while he does. No one is very excited about leaving, and Margaret believes it’s all talk… but when Jim talks about putting the house for rent, she starts to become concerned. He shows some signs of weakening when he finds out they are getting along with him fine at work but assures Margaret that it is something he just has to try. In truth Lloyd and Miss Thomas are floundering back at the office, but she won’t call Jim for help because she believes he doesn’t want to be disturbed. Margaret stops at the office to tell them that he’s chomping at the bit to help, so they call them. He rushes to the office and finds Margaret’s glove there, which causes him to become more resolute in buying an almond farm. But as he talks to Grace (Mary Young), the elderly cleaning lady, he is inspired to continue doing what he does best: selling insurance. When he gets home, he finds that Margaret never mailed any of his correspondences regarding the farm. 4/12/15
• 019. Father of the Year – 2/6/1955
  • The kids decide to nominate Jim for newspaper’s “Father of the Year” but struggle coming up with the twenty-five-word essay to enter him, so Margaret gives them some ideas which they still have trouble getting onto the page. Jim knows about the contest and daydreams about winning. Unfortunately, he starts to get on the kids’ bad sides when he refuses to let Bud’s friend Joe Phillips use Jim’s car to go on a trip with Bud, forces Betty to return an expensive pin given to her by a boy named Donald and refuses to raise Cathy’s allowance. He ends up giving Cathy the raise, and then takes the pin to Milan’s Jewelry to find out how much the pin costs, only to find that it was only $5 – but that he bought five more of them for various girls to get the discount. Bud finds out that Joe was only going to use him to dig ditches, and Betty finds out about the other rings and is pleased that she is the only one that Donald didn’t fool. Still the kids blow him off to hang out with him that night, and he starts to question whether he is in fact a good father. But it turns out that the kids went to write their essay… which turns out to be one that really touches Jim about how he is their guidepost but never says ‘I told you so.’ At a dinner in the future, the kids are again arguing with their father. 4/12/15
• 020. The Mink Coat – 2/13/1955
  • Jim extols the virtues of being prudent with money to his family, but then gets an offer from his friend Morrie (Lester Sharpe) to by a mink coat for the wholesale cost of $1000. Jim snaps it up and gives it to Margaret, who is initially pleased with it but then becomes concerned with looking pretentious. She reluctantly wears it anyway and gets asked to attend some fancy events with the lofty Mrs. Wynn-Sheraton. Meanwhile Jim gets badgered by Mrs. Morell (June Vincent) with the Women’s Aid League to make a significant contribution to them. Margaret goes clothes shopping so that she can attend the social functions, and soon Jim realizes he doesn’t have enough money to pay the paperboy (Lee Erickson). Jim and Margaret both realize the coat is affecting them negatively. However they decide to keep mink, and the first thing Margaret does is loan it to her friend Myrtle. 7/6/15
• 021. The Matchmaker – 2/20/1955
  • Margaret invites her cousin Louise (Lyn Guild) and her boyfriend Tom Goodwin (William Hudson) over for dinner with the intention of getting Tom to propose to Louise. Despite Jim thinking it is foolish, Margaret prepares a steak dinner by candlelight, builds a fire, and sends the kids out, so he will not see how chaotic family life can be. Tom spends most of his time talking about his car, and Jim starts to get jealous of his freedoms. When the kids come home unexpectedly, Tom makes up to them and gives Betty advice on how to get a date for a dance and helps Bud fix his radio, which blows a fuse and causes a power outage. When the lights come back on, Louise – using the advice that Tom gave to Kathy – has proposed and Tom has accepted. Jim later remarks how fruitless Margaret’s ruse was, but she reminds him that she had used the same techniques on him the night he proposed. 2/28/15
• 022. Bud the Bridesmaid – 2/27/1955
  • Louise and Tom are all set to get married, but Louise starts to have reservations about Tom’s pointy ears, and Tom gets worried about Louise’s green eyes. Jim is merely worried about the amount of his money that everyone is spending on the wedding that is going to be held in his house. Louise starts to exhibit strong pangs of jealousy when Tom mentions an old girlfriend, which leads to a fight and them calling off the wedding. When Dr. Swain (Robert Lynn), the Justice of the Peace, shows up, Margaret convinces Louise to at least witness the rehearsal, and they force Bud to stand in for the bride against his will. Louise finally comes to the rescue and stands in herself, which fills both her and Tom with love for one another again. Henry Kulky is Sam, the delivery man. 7/2/15
• 023. Proud Father – 3/6/1955
  • Jim runs into his friend Roger Darling (John Gallaudet), who brags about the various successes of his children, which causes a crisis of confidence in Jim’s ability to raise successful kids. Kathy is afraid to lose her tooth, and Bud is being chased around town by bully Beanie Brugendorfer (Tom Mann), which causes Jim to be ashamed of him. Jim uses Betty as an example of courage since she will be performing her first live dance at a school performance, but his pep talk induces her to panic. As Jim tries to coach Betty, he finds out that Roger has come down with laryngitis and he is asked to fill in. He feigns fear of public speaking in order to get his kids to face their own fears. During the dance, Betty makes a mistake causing Beanie to laugh at her from the audience. Bud gets angry and takes Beanie outside and punches him until Beanie comes back in and apologizes. Betty finishes her dance successfully. Roger later admits to Jim that he never had laryngitis… only stage fright. NOTE: Roger is named “Roger Garland” in both a newspaper article and the credits, but called “Roger Darling” on screen. 9/4/15
• 024. Father Delivers the Papers – 3/13/1955
  • Star News route manager Mr. Collins (Dabbs Greer) stops by the house one night to tell Jim that Bud has generated an enormous number of complaints from his customers, but Jim pleads his case to give Bud one more chance. Bud would just as soon give up the route, but Jim sends him back out with instructions to do better. When Bud crashes his bike, and then hurts his back when a rolled-up tent falls on him in the garage, Jim doesn’t have much choice but to deliver the papers himself. He runs into some of Bud’s stranger customers (Cheerio Meredith, Jack Tesler) and ends up caught in the rain. Mr. Collins stops by the house with more complaints but then takes pity on Bud, and Jim, whom he admires for stepping up. Margaret joins Jim on the route with coffee and dry clothes, and they share a romantic moment on the sidewalk of an old man customer. While laid up alongside Bud with his cold, Jim decides not to complain when the substitute paper boy throws his paper in a puddle. 9/4/15
• 025. No Partiality – 3/20/1955
  • Kathy is upset that she is getting only hand-me-downs from her older siblings, and Jim understands her point so agrees that she will get one of everything that Betty and Bud get. When Betty is excited about a new boy and gets permission to have him over for dinner, Jim also agrees that Kathy will get to invite a boy over too. Jim helps her call Howard Williams (Norman Ollestad), the older playground monitor at her school, not knowing that he happens to be the exact same boy in which Betty is interested. Betty throws a fit and goes to great lengths to make sure Kathy is excluded when Howard arrives for dinner. Kathy ends up in tears, causing Betty to feel guilty and promise to step aside so that Kathy can have his attention. She makes good on her promise by feigning a headache, but when Kathy’s young friend Jimmy Wood (Bobby Diamond) comes over with hot dogs to grill out, Kathy gives Howard back to Betty so she can play with Jimmy. Margaret learns that Jim had arranged for Jimmy to come over to smooth out the situation for everyone. 12/2/15
• 026. Close Decision – 3/27/1955
  • Margaret has had enough of Bud’s procrastinating him doing his chores and memorizing the poem The Game of Life for a presentation at church, so she forbids him from playing in church boys baseball game. Jim tries his best to get Bud out of trouble, but Bud squanders every opportunity until Margaret becomes even more resolute in not letting him play. When Jim visits the game and talks to Reverend Swain, who laments Bud’s absence, Jim returns home and sneaks Bud out of the house. Margaret give up on trying to make Bud grow into a conscientious man. Bud returns from the game with a black eye and depressed because his team still ends up losing the game. The next day in church, Bud still hasn’t memorized his poem and apologizes to Reverend Swain, who then announces to the church how proud he is of Bud for what he had done at the game: during a close call in which no one could agree if Bud tagged a runner out, Bud was honest and admitted that he had not, costing the team his game. Bud’s parents feel proud, but Bud later tells his mother that he only did it because he was afraid the Reverend knew that he hadn’t tagged the runner… and would have been too ashamed to have his mother think he is a liar. He promises to start behaving better. Diana Christian is Virginia Harris. Gary Pagett is Joe Phillips. 12/4/15

SEASON 2 – NBC

• 027. Art of Salesmanship – 8/31/1955
  • As Jim and his friend Howard ‘Mac’ McGrath (Ralph Dumke) struggle to come up with a funny sketch for their Rafter’s Club outing, Jim watches Bud out the window lazily lying next to the lawnmower. Although he hopes that Bud will take after him and become an ace salesman, he makes it known that he is getting tired of his lack of initiative. However, when a giant box five dozen gravy boats arrive in the mail, Jim is proud that his son is going to try and sell something for profit. Margaret has doubts about Bud’s salesmanship and points out a couple of failures from Bud’s past selling initiatives. Sure enough Bud gives up quickly, much to the chagrin of Jim, who tries to coach him on the finer points of selling. Bud goes out and gives it a whirl but just can’t make a sale. Jim tells him that he feels let down, and gives Bud a quota of selling ten gravy boats a night. As Jim continues to work on the Rafter’s sketch and can’t come up with anything, he suddenly realizes that not everyone has the same talents. He rushes home to apologize to Bud, only to find ten sales slips filled out with fake names and the promise from Bud to bring home the money later. When Jim realizes that Bud is actually earning money doing dishes at the drive-in, he goes to help him. Juney Ellis is one of Bud’s customers who turns him down. 2/9/26
• 028. Father’s Private Life – 9/7/1955
  • After a long hard day of work, Jim just wants to rest, but Kathy wants to play, Bud needs help making a weathervane, and Betty needs help with a report on the Industrial Revolution. Margaret convinces Jim that he needs some time to himself, so he shuts himself in his den to work on a phonograph and Margaret tries to keep the kids from bothering him. When Bud breaks his father’s car window with a golf club, he wants to tell him but is told again not to bother him. Kathy and her friend Patty Davis (Tina Thompson) take a giant standee of a jungle man that they name Floyd, and Kathy brings it home and leaves it in her father’s den. She later finds out that the theater is angry that the standee was stolen. Kathy gets scared that she is going to get caught and thrown in jail, so she tries to get it from the den, but she isn’t allowed in there. Margaret ends up taking it outside for the trash. Kathy asks Bud to help hide it, and Jim sees Bud sneak out in the middle of the night as he is retrieving it from the curb. Jim discovers his broken windshield and gets angry that Bud never told him what he had done, but Margaret takes the blame since she was supposed to tell Jim. Once Jim realizes that all of the miscommunication around the house revolves around no one wanting to bother him, he pleads with everyone to talk to him whenever they need to. 2/9/16
• 029. Lessons in Civics – 9/14/1955
  • When Jim finds out that the Mayor has approved tearing down the old Meeting Hall in town, he goes on a tirade to his family against Mayor Mitchell (James Todd) for allowing such a thing to happen. Margaret talks to the PTA mothers to take action, Bud tries to talk to the construction foreman to get it stopped, and Betty tries to talk to the mayor’s son Billy (Ken Hardison). Jim is later called to the mayor’s office and thinks that he is getting action, but then finds out that Kathy has written a letter to the mayor and included everything that Jim said, including that he is a crook. The entire family goes in to see the mayor, and he criticizes the family for not directing their complaints to the right person. However, the Mayor also says that the idea to relocate the Meeting Hall to a new public park to recognizes the town’s heritage was a great idea. He appoints Jim to head up this action and become the ‘people’s representative’. Lane Bradford is F.W. Burns. 4/19/16
• 030. First Disillusionment – 9/21/1955
  • Bud is excited to apply for a job in the sporting goods department at Gorman’s. When Jim catches him exaggerating on his application, he advises Bud that honesty will always win. However it doesn’t turn out that way when the manager Mr. Stagg (Hal Taggart) hires Eddie Wardlow (Peter Miles), whom Bud knows has lied on his application. Bud becomes very disillusioned with his father and with being honest and conspires with his friend Joe Phillips (Peter Heisser) to write a letter to Mr. Stagg to get Eddie fired. Margaret catches them in the act and intercepts the letter. Jim finds out that Eddie is going to be fired for not being trustworthy and decides not to tell Bud that the letter was never married. When Bud catches wind that Eddie is getting fired he goes down to the store and claims his job, finding out that Eddie was fired for being dishonest and lying on his application. Bud goes home feeling terrible, concerned that Mr. Stagg will read his letter and know who wrote it. Jim finally shows Bud that the letter was never mailed, and Bud recognizes that he behaved stupidly and that his father is actually a smart man. 4/21/16
• 031. Woman in the House – 9/28/1955
  • Jim’s old friend Virge Carlson (Harry Hickox) returns to town and pays a visit to Jim, who invites him and his wife Jill (Mary Webster) over for dinner. Jill is much younger and rather loud and uncouth. She smokes and pontificates on how well-read she is. Margaret and Betty take an instant dislike to her and feel insulted by her comments about Margaret being a housewife. Jim says they won’t have to see Jill any longer, but when Virge has to leave town to help his mother, who also doesn’t like Jill, Jim says that she is welcome to stay with them. Jill plays baseball with Bud and gets hit by the ball, and continues to make a nuisance out of herself in Margaret’s eyes. Jill finally gets the hint, but Virge’s stay becomes extended, much to the dismay of both Margaret and Jill. While helping Kitten wash her hair, Jill breaks down crying because she has no friends. When Margaret finds this out, she gives a Jill a chance to help her in the kitchen and become friends. Soon Jill has bonded with Betty, and Margaret takes advantage of her free time by catching up on some reading of her own. 8/2/16
• 032. New Girl at School – 10/5/1955
  • The Adams family moves into the Anderson’s neighborhood, and Bud has an immediate crush on the daughter April (Sue George), and their little boy Grover (Richard Eyer) becomes Kitten’s new boyfriend. Bud tries to improve his appearance and runs into April at the shoe store… but is mortified when she sees him with a hole in his sock. Grover, who is doing Kitten’s bidding, tells Bud that his sister said he was cute. Bud makes a further fool of himself in class when the teacher (Anne Barton) catches him writing April a poem. Now feeling low, he tells Grover to tell his sister how depressed he is, and finds out that April is now hanging out with his classmate Bobo Little. Bud gets prepared to read April the riot act, but is charmed by April once again, who asks that Bud hold onto one of her dresses that she is going to have altered while she runs some other errands. Although April has made plans to study with Bud, Betty finds out that she is really going to go out with Bobo that night. Since she is not permitted to date, her plan is to be dropped at Bud’s house, where she will change into her date dress. Jim suggests that they let it all play out. When Bud finds out what it is going on, he delivers his original stern speech and tells her to go on with Bobo. She melts at his authority and cancels her date with Bobo. Jim thinks that his macho act will win her over, but Margaret reminds him of the female’s ‘clinging vine’ persona, asking him to do some favors for her, to which he jumps up to get them done. 8/2/16
• 033. Kathy Makes Magic – 10/12/1955
  • Kathy brings up a magic set that she traded her skates for with her friend Patty Davis and starts to believe that she has real magic powers. When she uses it on her cat Fluffy, she thinks that she has turned it into a bird when a bird appears, and the cat runs off. Then when she mentions Betty will get hit in the head, a newspaper boy accidentally does just that with a newspaper. Meanwhile Bud and his friend Joe Phillips try smoking Joe’s father’s Cuban cigars. When the boys shoo Kathy away, she puts a curse on them to get sick, which they do thanks to the cigars. Kathy begins to think her spell is going to make Bud die, and when she finds out that Joe is sick as well, she prays to God that He take her first. Bud finally recovers, while Kathy waits for her own death. Jim brings in Dr. Conrad (Harry Antrim), who diagnoses Kathy as having ‘child’s belief.’ But when Fluffy returns, she becomes convinced that all of the voodoo has been lifted. 10/9/16
• 034. Advantage to Betty – 10/19/1955
  • A photographer named Hal Berdhal (Charles Tannen) takes photos of Betty’s tennis team, but only prints a solo picture of Betty, which causes the homely team captain Eula Craig (Tamar Cooper) to get irritated and jealous. Things get even worse when the photo spreads to other papers, and Hal gets Betty elected queen of a banquet of sports writers and photographers. Coach Gabener (Harry Cody) can see that Betty and Eula have personal issues, so she puts another player in Betty’s place, prompting Betty to break down and consider quitting. Jim drops a few hints to get Eula to the banquet, so Betty calls Hal and tells him she can’t make the banquet, then calls Eula to try to have her take her place… but Eula refuses. Jim goes to talk to Eula and convinces her that she should be going to the banquet and brings her home to have Betty lend Eula her formal. Betty is angry for Eula’s refusal, and yells at Jim for meddling. Jim feels terrible and apologizes, but as he prepares to tell Eula that he made a mistake, Betty feigns illness and invites Eula up to try on her formal. Eula warms up to Betty and plans to begin practicing together, which elates Betty. 10/10/16
• 035. The Big Test – 10/26/1955
  • Bud desperately wants his father to help him pay for a new outboard motor, but Jim is very disappointed in Bud’s report card, in particular his D grade in science. Jim tells him that if he can bring it up to a B, he’ll buy him the motor. Jim begins studying very hard, but when he lets another student copy his homework, the teacher Mr. Glover (Jack W. Harris) assumes that it was Bud who did the copying and gives Bud a C. Mr. Glover tells him that he will need to get an almost perfect examination for him to get a B in the class, so Bud nearly gives up. Meanwhile Kitten starts purposely getting lower grades so that she can make a ‘deal’ to bring them higher, thus proving Margaret’s assertion that ‘buying’ grades isn’t a good practice. Nevertheless, Jim encourages Bud to keep studying to earn the B. Bud is caught in more circumstantial evidence when he is caught with a copy of the test, which he claims he had just found on the floor in the classroom. Glover takes the situation to student council, on which Betty sits, and not knowing the Bud is the suspect, suggests that if the suspect receives a high grade, they’ll know he cheated. Once she finds out that it is Bud, she warns him that the test is a trap, but Bud scores an extremely high grade regardless. Jim and Margaret can’t discern whether Bud cheated or not, so they suggest that Glover deliver him an oral exam with different questions… which Bud manages to pass with flying colors. 1/13/17
• 036. Father Is a Dope – 11/2/1955
  • Jim is annoyed when he watches the sitcom Father Does It Again to see that the father George (Herb Vigran) is always made to be a fool by his family teaching him a lesson. He begins to think his family is doing the same thing to him when he plans a duck hunting trip with his friend Ed Davis (Robert Foulk). Although they never ask him not to go Betty makes it known she wants help with a job interview, Bud comes down with chest pains and a fever, and Kathy needs a ride to a friend’s birthday party. Jim is determined to outsmart them, even when Margaret wrecks the car into the fence and he has to have it fixed before leaving. He and Ed start to head out and lock bumpers with Dr. Conrad (Harry Antrim) who has come to see Bud. Convinced that the doctor won’t lie, he is shocked when he diagnoses Bud with pleurisy. Jim decides to cancel his trip and assist the family with their needs, while realizing that he is just as dumb as the fictional George character. 1/13/17
• 037. The Spirit of Youth – 11/9/1955
  • Bud starts to realize that his parents are getting older, and in order to convince herself that she still has some youth in her, Margaret talks Jim into going to his Class of 1933 college reunion. She even arranges that she stay with her old sorority and Jim stay with his old fraternity. One of the fraternity pledges Bob (Steven Terrell) makes Jim feel old as well, and gives him the schedule for the washroom. At the sorority house Margaret is given the chance to chair their meeting, as former president, and gets volunteered to help raise money for their new house. Jim sits in on the fraternity meeting where the boys decide whether to buy corsages for their dates. Jim and Margaret make a ‘date’ to meet up that night and they reminisce about their youth. However they decide they wouldn’t do it over if it meant giving up their kids. They end up spending a restless night, and Jim comes to the sorority to serenade Margaret. They end up leaving to head home before the end of the reunion dance the next day, so that they can tuck in their kids, who are fast asleep. Kathryn Grant is Maxine. 4/21/17
• 038. Bud, the Ladykiller – 11/16/1955
  • Bud is exasperated when a homely classmate named Dora Fenway (Susan Odin) begins calling and pursuing him, especially when his friends Claude and Joe begin teasing him. When his parents witness Bud be especially rude to Dora when she stops by the house, Jim has a talk with Bud about decency and hurting people’s feelings. Jim goes to Dora’s house to apologize, but Dora has decided to stand up for herself and slams the door in his face. Jim convinces Bud that he shouldn’t be happy that Dora is angry at him and that he should ask her to the Junior Prom. She accepts plants a kiss on a cheek. Jim advises that Bud try to get the other boys interested in Dora so that she will leave him alone. He convinces the others that Dora is brilliant on the subjects of baseball and bugs – which turns out to be true. Dora comes to visit Bud and let him off the hook about the dance, but when Bud hears him telling his parents how much a gentleman he is, Bud tells Dora that he really does want to take her now… but it is too late, as Dora has found another date with a pipsqueak named Horace, am ove that hurts Bud’s ego a bit. Bud suddenly takes an interest in studying bugs. 4/21/17
• 039. Margaret’s Premonition – 11/30/1955
  • Margaret is thinking about her Aunt Matty all day, and when she calls to report that her husband fell off the front porch, Betty makes a big deal about her mother’s amazing premonition. Margaret chalks it up to coincidence, but when Jim tells her about his golf game with Ed Davis and how he referred him to his x Ernie in Hillsboro, Margaret gets another premonition that Jim shouldn’t go see him for an insurance deal on Wednesday night. Margaret discusses it with Ed’s wife Myrtle, and then tries to start working on Jim to skip the trip…but he finds it to be merely silly superstition and won’t have any of it. Margaret even offers to go with Jim, but he again refuses, which clearly upsets Margaret. When it begins to storm before the trip, Jim starts to get a little nervous about leaving. Right as he’s pulling out, Margaret informs him that Ernie has postponed the meeting until Friday. However, Jim finds out from Ed that Myrtle had called Ernie to tell him how frightened Margaret was. Jim is furious until he finds out from Bud that the road and bridge to Hillsboro had been wiped out during the storm. 12/18/17
• 040. Stage to Yuma – 12/7/1955
  • Robert Young (himself) addresses the audience and says that while his family is on vacation, they will be sharing a different tale entitled Stage to Yuma, in which he stars. In 1860 a stagecoach travels across Arizona carrying six passengers, a lawman named Watts (Robert Griffin) handcuffed to a man named Deuce (Rayford Barnes) who has been convicted of a murder he says he didn’t commit, a schoolteacher named Miss Quimby (Sarah Selby) and her student Porfio (Ricky Vera), Major Alden (Lester Matthews) who is looking to relocate, and Tate Ibsen (Robert Young) heading to Yuma to break his innocent friend out of jail. As they head westward, Ibsen spots an Apaches in the hills and warns Boggs (Harry Hickox) the driver, just before Boggs is shot and killed with an arrow. Trapped inside the stage, Ibsen reveals that that the friend he intends to save is Deuce, but now they need some way to save Porfio and Miss Quimby. Alden helps free Deuce from his handcuffs, and Watts tries to run out on them as he pretends to test to see if an area is clear…. however, he is shot and killed as well. Needing the Apaches to come out into the open so they can shoot them, Ibsen speculates that the Apaches know there is at least one man remaining in the coach based on what they’ve seen. Alden volunteers to sacrifice himself to give the Apaches better ‘odds’ and more courage to attack. He is immediately killed upon exiting the coach. The Apaches do in fact attack after this, but most are killed at the hands of Ibsen, Deuce, and Porfio… but Deuce is killed during the battle. Ibsen sets out on foot to reach two horses that Ibsen had stored away for the escape. Porfio spots the two Apaches on the ridge, and Ibsen goes after them with his one remaining bullet, despite the fact that Miss Quimby believes that Ibsen is only interested in saving himself. Ibsen uses his last bullet to take out the Apache who is aiming toward Porfio and Miss Quimby, then uses the empty gun to bluff and scare off the remaining Apache before he can kill Ibsen, thus saving himself along Miss Quimby and Porfio. 12/18/17
• 041. Bad Influence – 12/14/1955
  • Bud’s new friend Arty Merrill (Lee Erickson) is always giving Bud gifts, and Margaret is suspicious that he is stealing and encourages Jim to not allow Bud to hang out with him. Bud is working on earning money to buy a frogman outfit but comes up short when Betty takes most of his money for a debt that he owes her so that she can buy a new camera. When Arty finds out that Kathy has money saved up in her piggy bank, he suggests that Bud ‘borrow’ it to buy the diving gear. Bud refuses, but Arty takes the money himself with intention of buying it for Bud. When Bud catches him in the act, he is furious and plans to return the money to Kathy, but he is caught by his mom red-handed with the money. Bud doesn’t squeal on Arty and takes the blame himself, laying out his own punishment to his father, agreeing that he will never buy a frogman outfit. Jim wants to try and reform Arty and offers to take him to the baseball game with Bud. Arty is touched and the next day shows up with new underwater gear for Bud, who knows he can’t keep it, but tries it on anyway. He is caught by his parents, but before he can be severely punished, Arty steps forward and admits that he had stolen Betty’s camera to sell it and buy the frogman outfit. Arty agrees to return the suit so that he can retrieve the camera, and he is invited to have dinner with the family. 8/14/18
• 042. Betty Hates Carter – 12/28/1955
  • Jim’s old friend Ward Mawson is in town for the insurance convention, and Jim fixes up Betty with Ward’s son Carter (Robert Easton) to go to the convention dance. Betty is absolutely livid that he had one this, and becomes even more mortified when she sees how gawky and homely Carter is. When forced to talk to him, she does however find that he feels the same way about being set up. Gradually Betty becomes more and more interested in Carter but refuses to admit it to anyone. Carter keeps coming back to the house when he keeps leaving a letter behind. During one visit, Betty’s friend Janie Little (Cindy Robbins aka Cynthia Chenault) stops over and Carter mentions that she seemed nice, prompting Betty to set Carter up with her. Betty is clearly distressed about this and lights up whenever Carter comes around. When she starts taking it out on Janie, the get into an argument, and she Betty finds out that Carter hasn’t contacted Janie once since their date was made. When Jim runs into Janie at the flower shop, she tells Jim that Betty is clearly crazy about Carter and agrees to resolve the issue herself. On the night of the dance, Carter shows up and tells Betty that Janie said she didn’t feel well and cancelled their date. Betty is anxious to get ready and go with Carter. 8/6/18
• 043. Jim, the Tyrant – 1/4/1956
  • Jim is having a particularly bad day at work when he can’t find a report that a client is demanding, and then he loses another client, so he decides to head home where he hopes to find the loving embrace of his family. However, when he arrives, everyone seems to busy for him, and Betty is taking up the entire living room so he can’t even relax. Furthermore, he goes outside to sit in the hammock and falls through it. More irritations at the dinner table when the older kids refuse to babysit Kathy so they can go to a card game with friends prompt him to threaten to become a tyrant if his kids don’t straighten up. When Kitten looks up the word ‘tyrant’ in the dictionary, she becomes frightfully afraid of her father. When she later gets in trouble when her siblings ignore her and she ends up breaking a window and using Betty’s face cream, Jim can’t even scold her without her cowering in fear. Margaret has to take over and quell her fears. When she finally agrees to talk to her father, he explains that he never should have used the word ‘tyrant,’ and also explains that not everyone in the house can do things with her as they all lead busy lives… at the same time as realizing he had no right to expect his family drop everything for him when he came home early the day before. Jimmy Bates is Kippy. 4/5/19
• 044. Betty’s Brother – 1/11/1956
  • In the wake of Kathy making a scrapbook of all of Betty’s accomplishments, and Betty getting chosen to represent Springfield High on a television panel show called Young America Speaks hosted by William C. Clark (S. John Launer), Bud bring home different news in the form of a letter from his Principal Hubert T. Armstead (Sam Flint). Bud has been letting his grades slip and getting in trouble in school, so Mr. Armstead comes to visit the home, but Bud is too nervous to explain his actions. However, he does make an effort to crack the books, and the next day in school he is pleased to volunteer to his teacher Miss Ames (Claudia Bryar) that he has completed his report on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He becomes flustered when another student refers to him as “Betty Anderson Jr.” and attacks him, leading to another visit to Mr. Armstead’s office. The janitor Mr. Jeffries advises a nervous Bud to picture Armstead in his underwear to keep him from getting tongue-tied, but this only leads to Bud laughing in Armstead’s face. Jim and Margaret struggle to figure out what is wrong with Bud, and then realize that he is living in Betty’s shadow. They are unable to come up with a solution, but Betty tells Bud she can’t make the TV program and asks him to fit in. He is reluctant but finally agrees when he realizes he has the support of his family. During the broadcast, his family is on pins and needles as Bud fidgets with his water glass and chair, but he eventually spouts out a terrific answer and earns the admiration of everyone. 4/7/19
• 045. Betty Earns a Formal – 1/18/1956
  • Betty is excited when she is asked to attend a Cinderella Ball with Don Fredericks but needs $89 to buy a formal for the dance. Jim is already irritated with the amount of money that Betty is costing him, so he tells her that this amount of money is out of the question and that she will have to earn it. Don’s father Hal (Grandon Rhodes) does business with Jim, and tells him how his daughter Linda just got married and ran off to London, and how he regrets pushing her out of the nest. Jim instantly regrets not helping Betty with the dress, but when he tells her he is going to pay for it, she refuses and tells him she already got a job that works on commission, needs to do things for herself, and asks that no one ask her where she works. When Bud finds Betty asleep while studying, he sees her paycheck but doesn’t reveal it, but does tell his parents that she needs put to bed. That night Jim dreams of Betty working in the Red Devil Saloon where an evil hostess (Claire Carleton) and bartender force her to dance with customers. Later her parents spot Betty coming home wearing what appears to be a burlesque outfit. They also find out that Bud is now working at Hixon’s Country Market and deduce that Betty is working at the same place. She is in fact working there sampling Peachy Peaches. Jim helps her hide from Don when he comes into the store, and she is grateful for his help. She earns the money for the formal and she and Don have a great time. Later a delivery man from the market delivers Jim ten cases of peaches. 1/28/20
• 046. The House Painter – 1/25/1956
  • Jim is trying to find peace and quiet around the house, but everyone is jabbering, including old Shively Everett (Parker Fennelly), who insists on telling Jim about his history on the job. Jim escapes back inside where he is bombarded by Betty, who wants help with her report. She asks what gives humans their drive, and Jim thinks the answer is integrity, while Betty and Margaret feel it is selfishness. To prove his point, he tells them he is going to tell Everett that they are moving soon, and thus he would like him to use cheap paint to paint the house. He even promised to buy Margaret a cheap car if her theory is correct. Jim is surprised when Everett agrees to do what he asks. All day long as Everett preps the house, he gives Margaret and the children unsolicited advise on how to handle themselves with virtue. He finishes prepping and prepares to paint, but thinking he is using the cheap paint, Jim tells Margaret to ask Everett to remove the paint he has already applied. Everett becomes angry and refuses to do it, so Jim tells her to fire him. Jim comes home and works with the paint store to get good paint and another man to perform the work. The paint store tells him that Everett had actually bought the more expensive paint, which means he was going to earn less on the job, but still wanted the house to have better paint. Everett disappears and his wife can’t even find him, but eventually he returns to the Anderson household. Jim apologizes profusely to Everett and tells Betty that this proves that integrity has won out. Everett however believes it is selfishness that made him act as he did, saying that only after a job is performed correctly and completely that he can begin to have a happy life. 1/28/20
• 047. Bud, the Wallflower – 2/1/1956
  • There is a school dance coming up and Betty is charge of coming up with the theme, Kathy has been absent-minded and flighty with everything he touches, and Bud is adamantly against anything having to do with the dance. When Betty can think of nothing else, Margaret suggests a Sadie Hawkins Dance, which repels Bud even more. It is clear that both he and his friends Claude and Kippy Watkins (Paul Wallace) are afraid that no one will ask them, so they plan a camping trip for the night of the dance. Their friend Freddie Norton (Anthony Sydes) agrees to go with them as well, but then he is asked to the dance by a girl named Mary (Gail Ganley) so he backs out. A girl named Wanda passes Bud by several times but only says hello. Bud is hyped for the trip, but then Claude backs out when Maxine Malone asks him to the dance. Then while Bud and Claude are shopping for supplies with Jim, a girl named Marge asks Claude to take her. Bud is crestfallen that no one has asked him, so Jim offers to take him camping. He nearly gets his mind off the dance and excited for the trip when Betty’s friend Dottie Snow (Yvonne Lime) comes over and mentions that only the ‘droops’ are left without dates. When Betty tells her that Bud hasn’t been asked, Dottie says she is sure that there was a freshman girl who asked him but she can’t recall who. Later Wanda comes over to the house and wonders if Bud has anything to tell her. When Kathy sees her, it sparks her memory that Wanda had given her a note to pass off to Bud. She gives it to him and he excitedly rushes downstairs to tell his parents that he’s been asked, only to find Wanda there, to whom he gleefully accepts her invite. Since Jim no longer has a camping trip to go on, he and Margaret agree to chaperone. 5/11/20
• 048. The Bus to Nowhere – 2/8/1956
  • Betty is suffering an existential crisis and believes that she is an ’empty sack’ and life has no meaning. No one in the family knows quite how to react, but ultimately they just blow her off, and her father tells her to get off the could and get back on the ground. Meanwhile Bud is writing a true-life incident for school, so he uses his friend Claude’s Uncle Smedley, who at one point during a depression bought a bus ticket for as far as his $9 could take him and wound up in a town called Whitcomb. In Betty’s state, she tells everyone that she is going to try this in order to arrive somewhere where the people know she is alive and well. Even her friend Dotty can’t snap her out of her funk when she plans a Friday night hayride. On that night, no one can find her for dinner, and sure enough she has taken a taxi to the bus depot where she bought a $9 ticket from the agent (Pitt Herbert), which will take her to Montgomery. As she spends the evening waiting for the bus, she chats with a grouchy woman (Kathleen Freeman) who is worried about getting a pillow on the bus, and an elderly man (John Qualen), who is alone and confused because he is supposed to meet his son Carl at the depot and he hasn’t shown up. Betty helps him realize that he got off the bus too early and needs to travel on to Hepner, and since he doesn’t have enough money for the ticket, Betty helps pay for it and get him on the bus, missing her on bus to Montgomery in the process. The man wants to give Betty something, so he offers his ratty old umbrella and tells her that she is an angel sent to help him. Back home, the family has become concerned and Jim heads to the depot and arrives just after the old man leaves. By this team, Betty feels as if she has found some meaning in life in assisting the man. As it starts to rain, she covers herself and father with the old umbrella. 5/12/20
• 049. Kathy, the Indian Giver – 2/15/1956
  • Kathy talks Bud into trading her cap for his paintbrush, and he agrees just so she’ll leave him alone. However when she sees Betty’s new hat with sequins, she wants her old one back, but Bud declines. She tries to demand it, but Jim intervenes and tells her that once a trade is made, both parties have to agree. Later she goes for a walk with her doll Genevieve and runs into her neighborhood friend Susie Martin (Reba Waters), who is being forced to babysit her baby sister Debbie. Kathy offers a trade, and after her mother (Lois January) verifies that Debbie belongs to Susie as much as she does to them, they make the trade. After Kathy brings the baby home, Jim and Margaret hear her crying, and when they find out what is going on, they immediately return the baby to Mrs. Martin. Kathy is furious with her parents, and then starts to sulk and refuse to eat. Jim talks the other two kids into being nice to her, and although they try, she wants no part of it. Jim decides to teach her a lesson by brining over Claude Messner and acting as if they traded him for Bud. Kathy hardly reacts, and Margaret begins to think that she is simply being stubborn. Jim however feels bad for the trick and goes upstairs to apologize. Before he can get it out, she apologizes to him and tells her that she was being stubborn, and of course that she didn’t really believe that Bud had been traded. Later when Margaret gets a chance to babysit Debbie, Kathy realizes how thankful she is that they didn’t keep the baby since Margaret ignores Kathy in favor of taking care of the baby. 8/26/20
• 050. The Historical Andersons – 2/22/1956
  • Bud needs to do a term paper on a Revolutionary War Hero, and with all of the well-known heroes taken, Jim suggests that he do one on their ancestor Major Nathaniel Oliver Anderson. Bud initially looks through their family tree that he finds in the attic, and a painting of Nathaniel that looks quite a bit like him gets him imagining life during the Revolution, and he pictures himself going off to war and leaving his parents, and then offering George Washington advice as they cross the Delaware… namely to sit down so he doesn’t rock the boat. In school Bud announces the choice for his paper, only to be met by skepticism by the teacher Miss Woodruff (Claudia Bryar) and the other students, led by Orlo Bates (Don Bender). However once Miss Woodruff realizes he is serious, she becomes excited and asks Jim if they can present Bud’s paper at a PTA meeting, along with the family performing in some historical tableaus. Unfortunately, Bud can’t find any info on Major Anderson in the school library, so the librarian (Elizabeth Harrower) at the Public Library allows them to look through their lock-and-key records room. As Bud and Betty study the text, they find out some disturbing information about Major Anderson, and bring it home for Jim to look over. He and the family are embarrassed by what they find, so Jim decides to combat it by being truthful and humorous to pre-emptively keep other students from making fun of Bud. Jim presents the stories at the meeting, while the family acts out the tableaus. Apparently, Nathaniel participated in the Boston Tea Party, but stole some of the tea and attempted to sell it, got arrested, and then later deserted the army and was hung. Miss Woodruff seems most disappointed, but Jim gives a speech on making one’s own mark on the world without worrying about the legacy of ancestors, and also having a sense of humor about life, which earns the respect of everyone at the assembly. The family is presented a scroll, which Jim suggest still be displayed to convey the sense of humor sentiments to everyone. 8/26/20
• 051. The Grass Is Greener – 2/29/1956
  • Jim comes home excited to show his family that his old college friend Charlie Bradley (Frank Wilcox) is on a local interview talk show, as he is now a successful industrial tycoon and is building a steel plant in Springfield. On the show he reminisces with the host Ted Anders (Richard Norris) about being a part of the ‘Four Musketeers’ at the state college along with Jim, and  two other successful classmates, Russ Perry and Robert Sylvester. After the show airs, Charlie calls Jim and they make plans to get together for dinner. When Kitten makes a comment about him not being as successful as the other, Jim starts to think that he may have been a business failure. As he’s mulling it over at work, he meets with a colleague named Mr. Gribble (Paul Harvey) who tells Jim that success comes from mental alertness, which can be achieved by exercise. He also asks Jim to help him find someone to speak at the State Educational Convention. Jim is hurt that Gribble didn’t ask him to be the speaker. Bud tries to help by planting a book called How to Be a Success in Business where Jim will find it. Jim takes the bull by the horns and gets up at the crack of dawn to try and exercise, but after he does a few push-ups, he falls asleep on the floor and is late for work. Things get worse for him when the kids try to cheer him up by asking him about work, and then Charlie cancels their dinner. But he does agree to try and return from Europe to speak at the convention. Later that night, Charlie makes time to stop by before flying off to New York and can’t get over how nice Jim’s home and family life is. He makes it clear that he sees Jim as the greatest of successes and laments his lack of satisfaction with the hustle of the business world. 12/11/20
• 052. The Persistent Guest – 3/7/1956
  • While having lunch with his friend (Frank Bank), he is interrupted by a fellow student named Fred Wyman (Barry Truex) who offers his help with algebra, and he agrees to tutor Bud if Bud will help him with English. His friend warns him that he’ll be sorry if he has Fred over because he’s a creep. That night Jim’s friend Lou Miller (Ray Walker) laments that he and his wife Grace (Virginia Christine) never had children, and often jokes about buying Jim’s kids from him. Fred shows up that evening and is invited to dinner and proceeds to pile the food onto his heaping plate. Fred pitches in and helps do the dishes with the family, earning the respect of the family, including Betty. He and Bud study into the wee hours of the morning, and when he doesn’t take the hint to leave, Jim invites him to sleep on the couch. The next morning, Fred has gotten up early and made breakfast for the family. Everyone seems to like him, but when Betty’s friend Allison stops by to pick up her sweater, she sees Fred and announces that he’s been sponging off different kids at school and that he actually lives in an old bus in the junkyard. Fred admits that his parents had separated and his father recently abandoned him, and now the bus has been sold. Jim gets the idea to polish Fred up and then present him to the Millers, who are pleased to take him in and claim him as their own son. 12/11/
• 053. Family Reunion – 3/14/1956
  • Margaret gets a letter from her sister Esther about attending the annual family reunion in Lemon Falls and asks her to pick up Cousin Ione (Lillian Powell) along the way, even though it is over fifty miles out of the way. None of the family is excited to go, and Jim is the first to try and get out of it by saying he planned to stay home and repair the screens. Betty had promised to attend a track meet with Ralph, and Bud was planning to build a gymnasium in the garage with Claude. Kathy was planning to sell doughnuts door-to-door. As if Margaret isn’t frustrated enough, she overhears everyone in the family mocking her extended family telling the same old stories year after year. She then gets angry and vindictive and speaks sarcastically to everyone in the family. She plans a shopping trip with Myrtle and refuses to make her baked beans, even though Ione phones and tells Kathy that she plans to come to the house, so they don’t have to pick her up. Jim and kids agree that they’ve made a mistake and want to get out of it by going, but Margaret won’t hear of it… even when Ione shows up. Margaret tries to leave, but Jim convinces her that he knows he was completely in the wrong and tells her that they need to set an example by working through their problems. She finally sees it his way, and they all load up in the car cheerfully. Jim even buys some baked beans from the Star Delicatessen to take along. 4/5/21
• 054. Family Dines Out – 3/28/1956
  • Betty has a new wealthy friend named Eloise Sanford (Mary Hennessy) who drives her home in the limo. Before Betty goes inside, she tells Eloise that her family will be at the charity event at the opening of a new country club the next night. However, Jim refuses to spend $20 per plate that it would cost him and her mother take her. Betty mopes around the house, embarrassed that they are too poor to attend such an affair. Meanwhile, Bud is impressed with the rich lifestyle and vows to start working to become rich himself. Betty finally agrees that Jim is not being unreasonable, even though Mr. Sanford has offered to save them a spot at his table. However, the next morning, Jim has a change of heart, especially considering that the $60 will go to charity, and he agrees to go. Bud gets a job at Snow’s Drugstore working as a cook, but only by telling the manager Pete (John Dennis) that he will be bringing in a lot of business. Bud asks his father to bring the family on the same night as the event, and although Jim tells Bud it would be impossible to switch around their plans, at the last minute, he decides that Bud’s night is more important than attending the charity function. Betty goes along reluctantly, and while they are at Snow’s, Eloise comes in and tells Betty and the family that they are doing a nice thing helping out their brother and she doesn’t blame them for skipping the dinner. She invites the family to come to dinner as her father’s guest and even tells Bud that her father would like to meet him since he seems like a hard worker. Jim scolds Betty for being a middle-class snob and says she should be proud of her brother. Unfortunately, before he can even serve them, Bud is fired for burning the meat. Later Betty not only apologizes to Bud for the way she acted, but also talks to Pete and gets him his job back. 4/5/21
• 055. Bud, the Boxer – 4/4/1956
  • Bud is reluctant to go to school one morning, and it turns out that there is a boy named Eddie Jarvis (Skip Torgerson) who Bud got into a scrap with and who wants to fight him. Bud didn’t show up when Eddie challenge him to meet under the bleachers at school, and now wants to avoid him altogether. Jim warns him that he needs to face down a bully and suggests that he try to settle the dispute peacefully, but if Eddie insists on a fight, to go to the YMCA and ask the coach Bill Neuman (Joel Cranston) to referee a boxing match between them. Eddie winds up hitting Bud and knocking him down, and Bud refuses to get up. Jim doesn’t take the loss well, and suggests the Bud join the boxing team. Margaret and Betty aren’t very happy with hit, but Jim assures them that Bud doesn’t have the personality to do much fighting. However, Bud comes home ecstatic and bragging that Coach Neuman says he has caught on quickly and has potential. Bud challenges Eddie to another match, and this time he knocks Eddie down and defeats him in the first round. Bud’s head quickly swells when he gets a fan club in the boxing club, and he starts to plan out a career as a pugilist. The coach agrees to let him box Carl Ames for the championship of the class. Although the coach tells Jim that he’s not ready to beat the champion, Jim allows him to go forward with it, even with the likelihood that Bud will lose. On the night of the fight, Bud is disappointed when none of the women of his house show up, but when they finally come in, he really gives it his all. Even though he gets some good punches in, he is still defeated after being knocked down twice. Bud is afraid that his family will laugh at him, but Jim assures him that they are all proud that he did his best. Jim even gives him a pair of sunglasses to cover up his black eye. 8/1/21
• 056. Betty, Girl Engineer – 4/11/1956
  • The school is giving students the opportunity to sign up for practical work experience, so Betty meets with her vocational counselor Mr. Glover (Jack Harris) and tells him that she’s like to be an engineer. He is surprised she doesn’t want a secretarial job, but he signs her up to work with a county surveying crew at job site over her Spring break. Back home, Margaret has made Betty a new dress, but she is more interested in telling her parents about the opportunity. Both of her parents are shocked that a girl would want such a job and blow her off. She shows up using the name BJ, so everyone at the site is surprised as well… including the man John Len Scott initially assigned to train her. Soon the younger, but just-as-stern crew leader Doyle Hobbs (Roger Smith) takes over the training. He is fast-talking and direct, and regularly breaks into questions for her, mainly in the nature of asking her why a woman would want to learn this trade rather than a ‘womanlier’ vocation. Although it starts to become obvious that they have a crush on each other, Betty starts to get annoyed with his snide comments and walks off the site. She goes home and can do nothing to continuously criticize Doyle to her mother. She doesn’t want to speak to her father, as she’s afraid that he’ll make fun of her. Freddie Beacham is also being trained by Doyle, and Doyle keeps asking him about questions about Betty, including where she lives. Betty is determined to make good by studying Engineering books. That night Doyle stops over at the house, but when Betty hears him at the door, she hides in her room. Jim plans to give him a talking to for the way he acted toward Betty. Doyle changes the subject quickly to talk to him about Betty taking up a man’s job, and how it might affect her future husband who works all day and wants to come home to his housewife in a pretty dress. Betty finally comes down to see him, wearing the new dress that Margaret gave her. Betty doesn’t come down to see him initially, but as he’s leaving, she comes to see him and accept his candy and a date with him for Saturday night. 8/1/21
• 057. The Martins and the Coys – 4/18/1956
  • Jim and his friend Bob Tyler (Don Garner) butt heads severely when there is a fire in Tyler’s company’s warehouse. Tyler had neglected to make payment on the policy, and Jim had sent him a notice of policy termination ten days earlier. Bob, however, claims he only received the notification that very morning, after the fire. The conversation gets extremely heated and they decide to terminate both their business and personal relationship. Before Bob leaves, he gives Jim Betty’s handbag that she left in car on her date with Bob’s son Frank (Tristram Coffin). The word gets to Betty first, as Frank sneaks over and tells her about the fight, but it too scared to stay until Jim gets home. When Jim comes home, he verifies that the story is true. This naturally upsets all concerned, and Betty and Frank each sneak out to talk to each other at the malt shop, deciding they can’t really date if their fathers will forever be at odds. Jim tells Betty his story, while Bob tells his wife Dorothy (Ann Doran) his version. Bud is rather upset when he thinks about old times when he and Mr. Tyler and the families discussed building a giant model train set as a project for the two families. Jim tries to assure Betty that he encourages her relationship with Frank, but she thinks it will be too complicated. Bud likes Jim to a locomotive, in that all of the cars he is pulling will be affected by his decision… or his crash. Jim reluctantly agrees to go talk to Bob, but on his way out, Frank shows up to see him. They both apologize to each other, but still cannot come to terms on the solution. Jim is about to throw him out again, but then remembers the comment about him being a locomotive, so they start the dialogue all over, this time with Jim agreeing that he will work out the fire claim with his company. The two families decide to go the malt shop, and all celebrate their reunion. 1/30/22
• 058. Dilemma for Margaret – 4/25/1956
  • As Margaret and the girls are making pies for the upcoming PTA fundraiser, Jim comes home and excitedly points out that he just read that Margaret is going to be a speaker at the PTA meeting and talk about her exemplary efforts at guiding children. Meanwhile, Betty is pledging a club at school, and all of the pledges plan to run around town as ghosts. Betty sneaks out and dons the outfit, and puts quite a scare into Kathy before she leaves. She calls her parents up to her room, and Jim promises to check around the yard. While he is out there, a policeman pulls up and tells Jim that there are a group of ‘skeletons’ running around town, and that they’ve caused a lady to collapse in fear and have broken a school window. Bud and Kathy go out to see what is going on with cop, and they catch Betty returning and putting her costume in the trash incinerator. Bud promises to burn it the next morning. Jim is livid that the high schoolers have performed such a reckless and dangerous prank… and his glad that his kids weren’t involved. Margaret and Mrs. Tyler (Barbara Wooddell), another PTA mother, are called in to talk to the principal Mr. Armstead, and tells the ladies that unless the culprits step forward by the end of the next day, he will put all of the school clubs on hold. Bud tries to burn the garbage at home, but he is whisked off to school by Jim, before he can fire it up. Kathy then goes out and brings the ghost outfit inside to try and hide it, but she makes some noise and Margaret catches her with the costume. Betty finally admits that she was involved, and Jim is quite disappointed, suggesting that she admit her role to the principal. Betty is insistent that she can’t tattle on her fellow students and doesn’t have the influence to talk them into confessing. Margaret wants to give Betty the option to make her own decision, but tells her that she can’t, in good conscience, give a speech to the PTA when she can’t even convince her daughter to do the right thing. In the end, Betty calls another one of the club sisters Evelyn (Eileen Janssen) and a member of the boys’ club who joined them that night and broke the window, to help her make their confessions to Mr. Armstead. The principal lets them off easy, with the girls having to apologize to the woman they frightened, and the boys paying for the window. Margaret is therefore able to move forward with her speech, and both Margaret and Jim are quite proud of Betty, who is also grateful for the support of his sibling. 1/30/22
• 059. Hero Father – 5/2/1956
  • Bud and his friends Sandy Bramer (Tommy Ivo) and Kippy Watkins and see a promotional sign for baseball player Duke Snider (himself) and his all-stars, and the cities where Duke is bringing his exhibition games. Bud notices that they are heading to Deluth and thinks that maybe they could stop in Springfield for one game, although his friends think he is just dreaming. Sandy’s father Jack Bramer (Kenneth Tobey) drives by and says hello to his son, but when Sandy finds out he is heading out of town again, he refuses a ride with him to take him home. Back at home, Jim is having a run of good luck being the hero when he helps Margaret put a nail in the wall that will stay, and help Margaret get sold-out tickets for Betty for Romeo & Juliet at the theatre. However, when Bud asks his father about getting Duke Snider’s All-Stars to play in Springfield, Jim has to tell Bud that there are limits to what he can do, and that this would be impossible. However, the more he thinks about it, he thinks it might be feasible to get the team to play a charity game in order to raise money for the new hospital wing. Kathy also begins to beg him to get Duke Snider to come to town she can get her ball mitt autographed. The next day, Jim calls Snider and works out a deal that if Jim can guarantee their expenses are paid and 25% of the profit, he’ll get the team to Springfield. This still doesn’t sound doable to Jim, but then Mr. Bramer shows up at his office and vows to put up the money, to make himself a hero to his son Sandy, who he doesn’t think like him very much. Jim wants him that it will be a risk in case they can’t sell out the game. Bud doesn’t seem all that excited, only because he always believed his father could pull it off anyway. Then Jim gets a call from Bramer asking for a meeting with Jim the next morning and tells Jim that he stands to lose money by fronting the money to Duke Snider, and that Jim could make it up by swinging zoning votes from the zoning commission to allow him to build a manufacturing plant wherever he wants it. Jim refuses to mix dirty politics into the deal and denies him the money two days before the game. All of the kids are disappointed, but Jim only tells them that he made a mistake and takes the full rap, telling his kids that he’s not a superman and can’t always bring about miracles. Bud gives his father his understanding and tells him that he’s always known that his father was fallible and tells him not to worry about the baseball game. Jack Bramer checks in with his son Sandy and is surprised that Bud or Jim hadn’t said anything about Bramer being the cause. Sandy also tells his father that Bud had told him that he should spend more time with his father. Bramer then feels the full impact of his guilt and tells his son that he was the one who was responsible for the game being called off. He makes up for it by giving Jim the money after all. The whole town is abuzz on the day of the game, but no one can find Duke Snider and Bud can’t find his mitt to have Duke sing it. It turns out he is outside of the the Anderson house playing catch with Kathy, and she is using Bud’s mitt… just before she throws it through the window. 6/4/22
• 060. Father, the Naturalist – 5/9/1956
  • Kathy is a member of the Little Squaws of American, Pocahontas tribe, and is about to become promoted to a Tribal Princess if she can get her completed Nature folder on time for the ceremony powwow. Unfortunately, it is due that day, and Kathy does not have it. She has plenty of excuses and promises that she will get her father to help her complete it that night, which will entail and 30-mile drive to the woods to gather edible plants for her display. Her leader Mrs. Davies (Anne Loos) insists that if it isn’t complete, she won’t be promoted. Kathy calls her father at work and lays this on him, which will mean he will have to leave early and then work on Saturday. Nevertheless, he agrees to help her, so they head to the woods together once he gets home. Meanwhile, Betty wants Bud to help her build a valence for her curtains, but he refuses because he has to oil his fishing pole reel before a fishing excursion on Saturday morning. Margaret insists that he clean his room that night, or that he won’t be allowed to go in the morning. She also suggests that Betty help him clean his room, and then maybe Bud can help her with the valence. As they argue about it, no one ends up helping anyone. Jim and Kathy manage to collect all the samples for her folder, but they wind up leaving the folder itself in the woods. They don’t realize this until they get all of the way back home. Kathy is broken up by the fact that she won’t get promoted. Margaret even tries to call Mrs. Davies and explains the situation, but she says that it is out of her hand. Jim says the only thing he can do is head back to the woods at daybreak to try and find the folder. That night he wakes up on the middle of the night and finds out that it is getting ready to rain, so he leaves to go look for the book. The next morning, the family finds him sound asleep on the couch, and he has located the book and brought it home. Bud and Betty are so inspired by the way that he pitched in to help Kathy, that Bud cancels his plans to fish in order to help Betty, while she starts working on Bud’s room. 6/4/22
• 061. The Ten-Dollar Question – 5/16/1956
  • Bud starts in with a sob story after his father denies him a ten-dollar advance on his allowance to put toward an old jalopy that he and his friends want to go in on and fix up. Kathy is hiding under the table to find out how Bud asks for money, since she wants ten bucks also so she can buy an imitation rocket ship. Betty has earlier been turned down to pay for lessons in a charm school. This also causes the kids to start snapping at each other, calling each other names, and telling on one another. Jim gathers the three kids into the living room and presents them with a contest: whichever kid can go one week without snitching will win a ten-dollar bill. He sets the money aside in a desk drawer in the living room. The kids work overtime to behave, but Jim starts to notice that Bud is coming home with grease on his hands, and Betty is walking around balancing a book on her head. Jim checks the drawer and finds that the money is missing. He calls in the kids and reminds them that honesty is the best policy. However, none of them come forward to mention the missing money. Margaret knows something is wrong, but Jim won’t tell her about the agreement or the missing money. A delivery man (Wilson Wood) brings a package from the Helen of Troy Charm School, and then he finds Kathy with a toy airplane, and wants to know how she got it. Kathy says she can’t tell on anyone per the rules, but Jim assures her that she is allowed on herself. Jim takes the kids all out for breakfast the next morning, and they are excited for the treat, but he insists they stick to cereal and milk, much to the annoyance of the waiter (Frank Sully). He gives them all a lecture about stealing and tells them that the money is gone. While he had hoped that one of them would have come forward with an explanation, he’s disappointed that none of them have. He tells them that he’s heading to the office and expects on of them there within the half-hour. Eventually, Betty shows up and admits that she took the money and promises to pay it back by canceling her dates and just babysitting. He feels better that the problem has been laid to rest, but then Bud phones and admits that it was him who took the money. Jim is confused but agrees to give him his punishment later. Then he finds a note under his door from Kathy, admitting that it was her who took the money. Betty and Bud discuss it privately, and they think they have covered for each other, but they both insist they didn’t really take the money. Betty has simply claimed her first free lesson in charm school, and received the book to review before purchasing. Bud’s friends bought the car, but the guy he bought it from is working off the debt by washing cars. Betty is touched by Bud looking out for her. They deduce that Kathy must have taken the money. Margaret then calls everyone down and demands that everyone tell her what is going on. Jim tells her about the missing money, and she admits that she took the money when she found it accidentally and put it back in his wallet. Kathy admits that she charged the model plane. Jim re-learns not to jump to conclusions, and he takes the family out to eat. However, he is broke from paying all three kids $10 each, so Kathy has to foot the bill. 9/29/22
• 062. Adopted Daughter – 5/23/1956
  • While Kathy is walking home from school with her friend Patty Davis, they run across their friend Alicia May (Linda Lowell), whom Patty tells Kathy that she heard was adopted. Patty convinces Kathy that it’s possible that any kid is adopted, even Kathy. Although she insists that she wasn’t adopted, she starts to second guess the fact… especially when she comes home and looks through her parents paperwork but can’t find her birth certificate or any entries in her baby book. Margaret explains that her birth certificate is missing, and she just was so busy by the time she came along that she didn’t fill out the book. Kathy asks point-blank if she is adopted, and Margaret dismisses the ridiculous notion and tells her to get busy cleaning up the mess of papers she made. When Jim comes home, Kathy starts asking him if she was born in a hospital or if her birth was at all strange. He jokes around with her and tells her that it was the milkman who brought her. Meanwhile, Bud wants to rent his father an electric sander that belongs to Claude’s uncle, and Jim agrees it is a good idea, but insists that Bud help do the sander. Kathy starts staring in the mirror asking, “who am I?” and starts treating her parents like strangers and calling her father Mr. Anderson. She tells them they are a nice family to live with. She tells Patty that she is adopted after all. She also starts doing chores around the house to earn her keep and runs across a check that her father made out to the Children’s Home Society for $25, and thinks it is the check that he used to buy Kathy. Her mother finds that she’s made another mess in the den while trying to clean and sends her to her room until Jim comes home so they can figure out what to do with her. Bud brings home the sander and he and Jim start moving Kathy’s furniture out of her room, so they can start in there. This causes her to believe that they’re putting her out on the streets. She throws a fit when Bud tries to take her bookshelf out of the room. Jim sends her down to clean up the den, and Betty then grabs her to come to dinner… but Kathy grabs her coat, silently says goodbye to the Anderson and leaves the house. She goes to see Alicia May to tells her that she is adopted. Alicia tells her that kids who are adopted are extra special because they were specifically chosen to be part of the family and are the luckiest kids in the world. Kathy decides to return home, as Betty is calling her friends and finds out from Patty that she thinks she’s adopted. Jim heads out and find her downtown at the bus stop. Jim tells her emphatically that she’s not adopted. He explains the contribution he made to the Children’s Home. Kathy makes him tell her that he would pick her if he had the choice of any little girl in the world. She finally believes him and asks him to buy her a new birth certificate. 9/29/22
• 063. Betty’s Graduation – 5/30/1956
  • It’s a busy morning in the Anderson home, as Betty is getting ready for her graduation dance that night and practicing giving her valedictorian speech the next day at graduation. Bud had been dragged into wearing Betty’s dress so that their mother can make alterations to it. Kathy has found her mother’s old diary in the attic and is walking around the house reading it, although no one is giving it much attention. Betty’s demeanor seems to take a blow when she receives her corsage for the dance from Ralph via courier. Jim tries to make sure she is okay, and he begins reminiscing about the days when she used to go to contemplate and sit by the water at Sycamore Park. When Ralph calls to talk to Betty, she suddenly tells him that she’s not going to go to the graduation dance. She says she can’t bear for her time in high school to end, and if she doesn’t let it begin, it will never end. Her parents are incredulous, but Betty wants to be alone and won’t talk to anyone about it. She later sneaks out of the house to go for a walk. Ralph frantically keeps calling for her to see if she’s changed her mind. Eventually, Betty calls to tell her parents that she’s at Sycamore Park, trying to recapture her youth and find answers by the creek. In the process, she misses the rehearsal for the graduation ceremony. Jim goes to pick her up and joins her at the creek side. He compares time to the fresh flowing water and how graduation is just one bend in the curve, as she will really begin to live her life as an adventure. He notes where the water is standing still, and how it has become stagnant and murky. Eventually, he breaks through to her and they head back home. On the day of graduation, Betty delivers her sleep, which she has dramatically altered to use the creek analogy. She receives her diploma, and not even Bud can maintain a dry eye. 1/23/23

SEASON 3

• 064. No Apron Strings – 9/12/1956
  • Margaret’s birthday is coming up, and Jim is looking forward to having a dinner at home and a singalong with his banjo, though the girls are trying to make it an a cappella affair. Meanwhile, Bud is continuously visiting the small grocery store of Pietro Amaldi (Frank Puglia) since he and his daughter Georgia (Denise Alexander) have started seeing each other. In fact, when he brings her his class ring to put around her necklace, it makes them officially going steady. Unfortunately, he had to leave quickly because he needs to pick up an iron from the shop for his mother. Georgia resents this, as well as the many other times their time together has been interrupted by Bud doing things for his mother. Bud tries to get her to forgive him, and she tells him how she wishes they could go on a real date and suggests a Planetarium show that occurs twice a month. He promises her that he will take her on Friday night, and vows that nothing could make him cancel their plans. Later, Kathy shows up at the store looking for Bud, and mentions to Georgia that her mother’s birthday is on Friday. When she hears this, she questions Bud and makes him vow again that nothing will change their plans. When Bud goes home, he is reminded of the birthday by Betty, and his heart sinks. He tries to find a graceful way out of having dinner at home, even suggesting that his mother and father should go out to dinner and a movie. Over at Georgia’s little apartment above the grocery store, Georgia is frantic and keeps calling Bud because she’s afraid he won’t show. She also expresses to her father how she knows they are worlds apart in their wealth, home, and status. This makes her father angry at Bud as well, and he wants to call him and berate him, but Georgia won’t let him. With no other options, Bud tells his mother that he made a date before he remembered her birthday and that he has to go. Margaret is cheerful about it and decides to let him go without a guilt trip. His father isn’t as understanding, but Margaret insists that it is the right thing. Mr. Amaldi has to run a customer a banana squash, and he decides to go see Bud. They cross paths as Bud leaves to go get Georgia. She is surprised and elated when he shows up, but when Bud asks what her father was doing at his house, she demands they go over and get him before he ruins everything. When they arrive, they find that Mr. Amaldi has joined the Andersons in a singalong with Jim’s banjo. Georgia is so pleased to see everyone having fun together that she insists that she and Bud stay there for the evening and join in singing Polly Wolly Doodle. Mr. Amaldi brings Margaret the customer’s banana squash for her birthday. 1/23/23
• 065. Never the Twain – 9/19/1956
  • Betty tells her friend about a 22-year old cowboy she met during their vacation on a dude ranch the previous summer. His name is Elwin “Utah” Kramer (John Smith) and he is planning on stopping to see Betty on his way to Chicago. Betty’s friend Bob (Michael A. Monahan) stops by, but Betty is so busy daydreaming about Utah that she can barely remember Bob’s name. Betty shares the scrapbook that she created of their trip with her family, and they flash back to their arrival at the H-Bar-J Ranch, run by Harvey Johnson and his farm hands Ace (Will Wright), Curly, and Utah. Each member of the family gets a horse, with Kathy receiving a burro named Nemo, and one of the farm hands will guide them through the trails. Once Betty lays her eyes on Utah, she is smitten by him, and asks her father to gather info on him. They all enjoy a meal prepared by Johnson’s Ace and his helper Earl (Emil Sitka). The next morning, they all meet on their horses to go for a ride, but Betty is disappointed when Aces shows up to be the guide. However, Utah then shows up and tells Ace he will take over. They enjoy a ride with Betty riding up from with Utah. He admits that Harvey didn’t really need Ace for an errand, but he wanted to ride with them. Romance blossoms with Utah and Betty throughout the week, as the whole family has the time of their lives at the ranch. Back in the present, Betty can barely contain her excitement, yet panics that she only has two hours to get ready. When Utah finally shows up, his meeting with Utah is as awkward as can be, with neither of them knowing what to say to one another. After a few minutes, Utah tells her that he has to leave to catch his train to Chicago. Once he is gone, she asks her father what went wrong, and he tells her that Utah was part of a dreamy other-world that was their vacation on the dude ranch. Since their magical meeting has become so romanticized, the Utah whom she knew was just a memory. Bob shows up to ask Betty to go to the movies, so she heads out with him. 7/7/23
• 066. Betty Goes to College – 9/26/1956
  • Betty tells her friend Dottie Snow that she will be visiting State University over the coming weekend, and despite the fact that most of her friends will go to Springfield Junior College in the Fall, she plans to go to State, which is both of her parents’ alma mater. Although Jim and Margaret assure the kids that they all have their own choice of where they go to college, they are very excited that Betty will follow in their footsteps. They take all three kids to drive to the campus and begins looking around, remembering their days at the school, and repeatedly having Betty stop to pose in places where they once sat. They visit the Drama Department stage and Margaret recalls some of her lines from The Merchant of Venice. The drama teacher Mrs. Blair (Nancy Evans) stops in and they all talk about how they’re sure that Betty will join the club as well and would be fabulous repeating the role. The more Betty hears the phrase “following in her parents’ footsteps”, the more agitated she gets. She privately tells Bud that she absolutely can’t go to State. Jim overhears her saying this, but before they can address it, they run into Dean Walton (Ray Collins). They introduce him to Betty and he invites them back to his place for tea, sending Bud and Kathy to the co-op for an ice cream. Jim keeps trying to sell the benefits of State, and how they can help her through it since they went through the entire college experience. Dean Walton has made appointment for her to talk to the registrar to try and plan her classes for the Fall. When the Dean leaves the room, Jim addresses the fact that Betty has changed her mind about the college. He continues to try and convince her how they have it all mapped out for her. She tells them that she wants to experience it all for herself and not follow their exact pattern. She also wants to be with her friends for her first year in college and prefers to go to J.C. The Dean returns and shows Jim a paper that he wrote when he was there called The Purpose of Education, which spells out his thought on that education should stimulate and not regulate, to teach you how to think and not what to think, and most importantly, should direct students down new paths and not the paths of past generations. Jim then realizes that he is not following his own advice and tells the Dean that they are going to skip the registrar’s office and that Betty is now thinking about starting her college career at J.C. Dean Walton tells them all that he is surprised, but that Betty has a good idea with her plans. She says she wants to be become broad-minded and understanding… just like her parents. Kathy is gung-ho about going to State when she is of age, thanks to the extra scoop she got on her ice cream. 7/7/23
• 067. Man About Town – 10/3/1956
  • Bud’s friend Kippy owes him $3, but they work out a deal that Kippy will set Bud up on a date with his beautiful cousin Marissa (Kathleen Case). They work it out so that Bud can get a look at her when she arrives, and once he sees her, he is totally smitten. The only catch is that Kippy had forgotten how much older Marissa is than Bud. She doesn’t want to date anyone younger than 19 or shorter than six feet tall. Unfortunately, Bud is fifteen and about five inches too short. He and Kippy meet up to try various implements such as sideburns, a fake mustache, shoe lifts, and powder that makes Bud’s hair look grey. Bud comes home and fools his mother with the lifts and the gray hair, making her start to feel much older than she is. Jim, however, can tell that the powder is fake right away. Bud later talks to Marissa on the phone, and she requests that they go to the Top Hat nightclub. A downtrodden Bud tells his father that he can’t afford the Top Hat, and Jim reminds him that he has to be eighteen to enter anyway. Jim then offers to take Margaret and go as a double date, and even volunteers to pick up the bill. Bud accepts this offer but tells Marissa that his parents are actually old friends, and then throws in that they are distant relatives since they are both named Anderson. Bud can’t help but make quite a few mistakes at the dinner, calling his father Dad, balking at the expensive food on the menu, and not asking Marissa to dance because of his aching feet. The kicker, however, is when the evening’s entertainment, a magician named The Great Merado (Philip Van Zandt) comes out and brings Bud onto the stage for a mind-reading act. He actually pickpockets Bud’s wallet to get his information and reveals everything about him including his parents’ names and his actual age. After the dinner, Bud walks Marissa to the door and tells her that he deserves a ribbing for what he did. Marissa confesses that she knew he wasn’t nineteen as soon as she met him but went along with the date because he obviously used his imagination to find a way to go out with her. She rewards him with a kiss goodnight, leading Bud to pontificate to his father how much smoother he will be by the time he is actually nineteen. Lee Millar is the emcee. Eric Feldary and Sol Murgi are the waiters. 11/3/23
• 068. The Homing Pigeon – 10/10/1956
  • Bud has been experimenting with his homing pigeons Charlie and Mable, with Charlie’s most recent successful flight being a 100-mile trip that took Charlie two and a half hours from Rockford. Now he plans to have an ice cream truck driver named Eddie Frasier (Jack Lomas) take him 500 miles away to Green Falls and release him. After a a day of rest for Charlie, Eddie drives him there and releases him from a farmhouse just outside of town at 5:30am. Bud expects Charlie to be home around 6:00pm. Throughout the day, Bud starts to worry about the weather and keeps a close tab on it in the paper and the weather bureau. Meanwhile, Betty has decided that she’s like to take a crack at moving out of the house and into an apartment with her friend Jean Barrett (Donna Jo Gribble). Jim and Margaret do not want her to leave, but when they discuss it, Jim feels that they should leave it up to Betty, which might increase her chances of deciding not to stay home. He compares the human desire for home to that of the homing pigeons. After they give her permission, Betty seems to continue to ponder her choice. However, after some thought, she packs a bag, and decides to move in with Jean that night. They are dumbfounded by her choice, but Jim accompanies her to the apartment. The family has a lonely dinner that night while Bud and Kitten fret about Charlie, and Margaret and Jim worry about Betty. Over at the apartment, Betty clearly is having second thoughts as she realizes she is on her own for dinner since Jean has a date that night. As the storm reaches them, no one has an appetite for dinner, as Bud and Kitten go outside to wait for Charlie, who is now an hour late. Jim joins him, but Bud has given up hope and thinks Charlie is a goner. Suddenly, they spot him silhouetted against the stormy sky, and he makes a safe landing. As they are drying him off, Jim finds a poem William Cullen Bryant called To a Waterfowl about the nature of finding home. As he finishes reading it, Betty walks in with her suitcase. 11/4/23
• 069. Spaghetti for Margaret – 10/17/1956
  • Bud is excited to inform his mother that she has won 13th place in a charity raffle that he had sold her tickets for, with the prize being 52 free spaghetti dinners at Lazarro’s Pizza House. She doesn’t share his enthusiasm and throws away her coupon, while Bud is so excited that he calls his father at work to tell him the good news. Jim is busy with one of his clients, Harper Eames (Herb Butterfield), one of his old teachers who fancies himself an author although he hasn’t had anything published in many years. He is constantly borrowing money against an insurance police that lapsed thirty years ago, and paying him money out of how own pocket, much to the displeasure of his secretary Miss Thomas and his wife Margaret. In addition, Jim realizes that Eames has taken his pen with him after the loan is made, but he insists to everyone that it was an honest mistake. Sure enough, Eames shows up at Jim’s house to return the pen, and while he is there, he tells Kathy that he is going to be honored by the town with a fancy banquet celebrating all of his accomplishments, a pipe dream that he truly believes, but which is completely rooted in fantasy. Kathy has been laughed out recently by her fellow students when her dress ripped and then she tripped in front of the class, so she is delighted when Eames invites her to be his special guest at the banquet. Since Mr. Eames is an adult, and a published author at that, she doesn’t think he would lie to her, and Jim has no choice but to agree. However, when students start making fun of Mr. Eames and his pipe dreams, Kathy starts to become disillusioned. Jim gets the idea of throwing him a real banquet in order to make both Kathy and Mr. Eames happy. When Bud finds Margaret’s spaghetti coupon that she ‘accidentally’ tossed in the garbage, Margaret gets the idea to visit with Mr. Lazarro (Don Orlando) and ask that she get her 52 spaghetti dinners all at once so that they can host the banquet for Mr. Eames there. Although he is resistant to the idea, Margaret reminds him that the publicity of hosting a banquet for important people is terrific advertising. Jim and Margaret make the arrangements and send out the invitations, but at the last minute, they realize that the address they had for Eames was incorrect, and his invitation has been sitting at his old residence untouched. While Jim is stalling Mr. Lazarro from beginning the proceedings, he realizes that Mr. Eames is actually Mr. Lazarro’s dish washer. Jim tells Lazarro to fire Eames and then send him out into the banquet area, where everyone surprises him and begins the celebration of Mr. Eames. 3/11/24
• 070. Betty’s Birthday – 10/24/1956
  • Betty is getting ready to turn eighteen, and Bud has no idea what to get for her. Margaret suggests that he buy her a sweater that she likes, but he only has 75 cents, so she and Jim also suggest that he do come work to earn more money. Meanwhile, Betty is studying native cultures in Mr. Brown’s class, and learns about the natives’ custom of giving gifts to each other, which originally was a barter system by which every traded item should have the same value. Betty tells her friend Dottie that she took the lesson to heart and wants to break the cycle of the reciprocal purchasing of gifts and move away from the custom. Although she tells her parents she doesn’t want anything, they think she is simply being coy like she has in the past. Kathy has entered a jellybean counting contest at the drugstore, and winds up winning a gold heart with a real diamond inside. Mr. Marx sends the prize home with Betty to give to Kathy, and Betty expresses her wish that she had won such a beautiful prize. Jim buys Betty a wristwatch, not truly believing that Betty doesn’t want any gifts. Bud works at mowing lawns until he has blisters, finally coming up with enough to buy a basic sweater, where a saleslady (Eleanor Audley) offers to pick out the gift since Bud seems clueless about the size and color that he wants. On the evening of her birthday, the entire family is shocked when Betty expresses the fact that she truly wants no fuss made over her birthday. Both Bud and Kathy are hurt, as they both have gifts to give her. They have dinner but put away the fried chicken in favor of bacon and eggs, and serve the cake without any special birthday icing or candles. By this time, everyone has lost their appetite, and Betty heads up to her room, clearly depressed by the situation. Jim approaches her and asks if she will accept the gift from Kathy, as she is too young to understand Betty’s viewpoint, and seems to be sad that she can’t give her sister the gift she got for her. Betty agrees to accept the gift, which turns out to be the prize heart and diamond that she wants. Betty is moved to tears, and having realized that a big part of accepting gifts is making the giver feel good, she decides to come down and resume her birthday party after all. Everyone, including Bud, is moved to tears. Betty expresses how wonderful the birthday custom really is, and Margaret continues with another custom by bringing in the cake. 3/11/24

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