Father Knows Best - Television Series

Television Series

The May 27, 1954 episode of The Ford Television Theatre show was called "Keep It in the Family". This 26-minute episode stars Robert Young as Tim Warren, head of the Warren Family. With him was wife Grace (Ellen Drew), older daughter Peggy (Sally Fraser), younger daughter Patty (Tina Thompson) and son Jeff (Gordon Gerbert). This is considered to be the pilot of Father Knows Best. In the episode, Peggy dreams of making it as an actress but a talent scout who has raised her hopes just wants people for his acting school.

Only Robert Young remained of the radio cast when the series moved to CBS Television:

• James "Jim" Anderson, Sr. – Robert Young
• Margaret Anderson – Jane Wyatt
• Betty "Princess" Anderson – Elinor Donahue
• James "Bud" Anderson, Jr. – Billy Gray
• Kathy "Kitten" Anderson – Lauren Chapin

The series began on CBS on October 3, 1954. Originally sponsored by Lorillard's Kent cigarettes in its first season, Scott Paper Company became the primary sponsor when the series moved to NBC in the fall of 1955, remaining as sponsor even after it moved back to CBS in September 1958, with Lever Brothers as an alternate sponsor from 1957 through 1960. A total of 203 episodes were produced, running until September 17, 1960, and appearing on all three of the television networks of the time, including prime-time repeats from September 1960 through April 1963.

As before, the character of Margaret was portrayed as a "voice of reason," but Jim's character was softened to that of a thoughtful father who offered sage advice whenever one (or more) of his children had a problem. Jim was a salesman and manager of the General Insurance Company in Springfield, while Margaret was a housewife. One history of the series characterized the Andersons as "truly an idealized family, the sort that viewers could relate to and emulate." As the two eldest children aged from teen-ager to young adult, Betty (1956) and Bud (1959) graduated from high school and attended State College, located in Springfield; youngest daughter Kathy began attending high school by the final season.

The series had become so ingrained into American pop culture (as its idyllic presentation of family life) that in 1959, the U.S. Treasury Department commissioned a special 30-minute episode called "24 Hours in Tyrant Land." Never aired on television, the episode—distributed to schools, churches and civic groups—promoted the buying of savings bonds. The episode was later included in the Season One DVD.

Young left the series in 1960 at the height of the show's popularity to work on other projects, but reruns continued to air in prime time for another three years, on CBS from 1960 to 1962, and on ABC from 1962 to 1963. Following that, reruns were shown on ABC-TV in the early afternoon for several years.

On November 22, 1963, the third season episode "Man About Town" was being rerun on several ABC affiliates (WABC-TV in New York was airing a local repeat of The Ann Sothern Show) when at 1:42 PM EST, ABC News broke into the program with the first bulletin of the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas.