My Three Sons

Dodie studying piano, Margaret on the violin and Susan at clarinet, comprise the 'Rondelay trio' and Dodie tells Steve and Barbara the good news that they'll practice at the Douglas house for their upcoming recital.

Ernie is left in charge for one day when Steve and Barbara are off to Chicago for a golf tournament while Uncle Charley attends a string music festival. Little Dodie and her friend take a shopping excursion into town but don't have enough money for the bus ride home.

Ernie and his friend Elmore both flunk their driving licence tests, while their dates for a dance both pass. Ernie and Elmore take part in a ruse to conceal this situation from their dates, but instead they end up in trouble with the law when they realise they are stranded after a date.

Level-headed Katie becomes a jealous, suspicious wife when a pile of circumstantial evidence stacks up against Robbie, as she suspects him of seeing another woman.

Barbara suspects that a promotion for Steve maybe in the works and as her suspicions become stronger, a routine investigation on Steve's family background turns up some rather startling information when it focuses on Uncle Charley.

Dodie and some of her girl classmates in the second grade get a big crush on Mr. Turley, their new teacher, and right away they make a batch of cookies for him. Dodie's crush begins to fade when she finds out that her Mr. Turley was once one of Barbara's students.

A boyhood friend from Bryant Park, rides his motorcycle back into Robbie's life and awakens Robbie's wunderlust with appealing tales of travel and adventure. Intrigued by Jim's stories of freedom, Rob agrees to take a holiday from Katie and the triplets.

Katie's mother gives Katie and Robbie a vacation by taking the triplets to St. Louis with her for a couple of weeks. Robbie figures that now is the perfect time to do all of the things they haven't been able to do when they had the boys to look after.

Against his classmate's better judgement, Ernie uses the unwitting Douglas household as guinea pigs for an experiment assigned by his psychology teacher. He cuts inches off Uncle Charley's cane to make him think he is growing taller. Ernie soon finds his father Steve is a little less gullible.

Chip becomes violently ill after eating Polly's cooking, and she learns from the family that Chip is allergic to some of the foods she's been preparing. Distressed, she feels it would be better for her husband if she left him.

Barbara becomes involved in presenting a fashion show for a woman's club luncheon, and Steve reluctantly agrees to become a model for a fashion show, but refuses at the last minute when he realizes he must wear a lacy, ruffled shirt and parade down a runway modelling it.

After Chip and Polly return from their honeymoon they spend a few days at the Douglases. Soon they move into their own college dormitory, and bridegroom Chip faces a father in law who refuses to speak to his newly married daughter.

Following their elopement to Las Vegas, newlyweds Chip and Polly are beset by nothing but trouble. The universal joint in their car gives out and they have to be towed into town. The hotel where Steve and Barbara stayed is no longer for honeymooners but for singles, and the newlyweds must spend their first night in separate rooms.

Chip asks Steve's permission to elope, but before he grants it, he insists Chip give Mr. Williams the courtesy of asking his approval too. Chip goes to see Mr. Williams only to have him accusingly flaunt a private detective's report. Realizing that Polly's own father had hired a man to trail them, he storms out before asking for her hand.

Dressed as a cat for a costume party at the home of his employer in Bel Air, Steve goes for gasoline when his car stalls but the police arrest him as a burglar. Meanwhile, Polly notes that there is so much love in the Douglas household, that she just has to become a part of it.

Chip and Polly open a joint bank account and Chip takes on a box boy job at a supermarket to accumulate money for their future marriage. Later after she's had an argument with her father, Polly comes to the Douglases with her packed suitcase, but when Chip turns down the girl's offer to elope, she storms out.

Chip delights Polly with an expensive locket for her 18th Birthday and after their vague conversation, he thinks he's agreed to go steady, but Polly tells her mother that she has become engaged. Perturbed by her husband's probable reaction, Mrs. Williams arranges a luncheon to judge the seriousness of the matter.

Barbara is flustered when she receives a phone call from a former college suitor, and is very apprehensive when Steve invites him to dinner. The entire family is anxious to meet her old flame, thus compounding her uneasiness.

Uncle Charley and Barbara suspect that Chip and Polly are becoming serious about one another. Polly, unhappy at home because of her father's strictness, is afraid of losing Chip because of her parents' meddling. She asks Chip to elope, and taken aback, he asks his father for advice.

Chip begins studying with a pretty co-ed whose disciplinarian father wants to know why her new friend is spending so much time with her. Meanwhile, on the eve of Steve and Barbara's first wedding anniversary, Dodie announces she is throwing a surprise party, but neglects to tell everyone when or where.

Young Ernie Douglas becomes the unwilling object of the affection of Dodie's six year old friend while Barbara is asked by the Board of Education to take a substitute teacher's job at a local high school. She finds her stepson Chip in the class and he embarrassingly becomes her prized pupil.

A Special time consuming project keeps Steve and son Robbie so pre-occupied that they are tired when they arrive home. After the project ends, the co-workers throw a celebration party and when Barbara and Katie arrive with supper for their hardworking spouses, and see a party in full swing, they storm out.

Barbara feels that Uncle Charley is lonely playing his Cello, so she talks to a msuic store proprietress who invites three lady musicians to help join in a string quartet.

Barbara tells her mother that she feels rejected when the boys never tell her their troubles and go to Steve or Charley instead. While Steve is away on business, she is forced to confront one of Chip's teachers when he and another student are accused of cheating in an exam.

Robbie is asked to be the best man at the wedding of an old friend from Bryant Park. He decides to go back a week early to show Katie around the town where he grew up but ultimately makes a disappointing visit when he realises that time and years do change things.

Hoping to renew her funloving friendship, Steve's old girlfriend from Bryant Park, who is now a rich divorcee, comes to town and gives Barbara a few jealous moments.

Little Dodie goes to the hospital for a tonsillectomy and insists that her new father stay overnight with her. Barbara understands because she knows that Dodie is finally accepting Steve as her real father. Meanwhile, Robbie and Katie go on a trip to Mexico and leave the triplets in care of the Douglases.

Barbara is jealous when a glamorous special secretary enters the lives of both Steve and his son, Robbie, and causes a double domestic crisis. Barbara ends up consoling a heartbroken young lady who is eventually fired from her position.

Barbara faces a fiasco when she prepares her first dinner party for Steve's business associates and their wives. The event has Barbara worried to death after a few schedule changes ruin most of her plans. Finally it is Barbara's mother who saves the day.

When her brothers have more pressing commitments, Steve gets cast in Dodie's school play as a tree, more or less proving Robbie's point that females are instinctive manipulators.

When Katie panics as she detects a few gray hairs in her youthful head, a family crisis is not far away. She further worries Robbie by suggesting they discuss preparation of life insurance and superannuation.

Little Dodie feels out of place among her three stepbrothers and her often grumpy uncle, and discovers that being a member of the Douglas family can be a rough and tumble proposition.

With Steve and Barbara due back from their honeymoon in Mexico, Katie forces Robbie to lecture Uncle Charley on politeness, and the result of his very puzzling behaviour nearly drives Barbara out of her mind.

Steve and Barbara's Honeymoon in a remote fishing village is bustling with hordes of other, younger honeymooners. They end up counselling several couples who are not adjusting to married life. When a bottle of champagne arrives from the family back in Los Angeles, the other honeymooners realise that Steve and Barbara are indeed honeymooners as well.

On Steve's wedding day the groom is predictably nervous. Recalling certain mishaps from his own big day, super efficient Robbie determines that his own father's wedding will be perfect and after a few hours of hectic, last-minute preparations, Steve and Barbara are married in a simple church ceremony.

After a series of events at which the Bride and Groom wonder if they are doing the right thing, Steve and Barbara have an argument serious enough for them to consider cancelling their wedding.

Steve and Barbara have different ideas on how their wedding should go.

With the ring finally on her finger, Steve and Barbara's engagement is exciting for everyone except Barbara's five year old daughter who isn't sure she wants to share her mother. Meanwhile, Barbara employs her considerable store of diplomacy in an effort to gain acceptance by Steve's family.

Everyone (Except Barbara) knows Steve is going to propose to Barbara

The whole Douglas clan conspires to encourage Steve's romance with the lady in question, Barbara Harper. After dinner, Steve and Barbara go back to her house where Steve is predictably nervous around her. They are both serious about their relationship, but neither of them realizes it.

Robbie needs to talk to his dad-who seems unreachable

Robbie and Katie move into an apartment on the next block and widower Steve Douglas becomes the target of Katie's relentless matchmaking. However, Steve meets a remarkable woman in a high school corridor and the two are quickly attracted to each other.

After being the only one in his class to choose the correct color in a card test, Ernie is convinced he has extra sensory perception. He predicts disaster for Robbie and Katie if they keep an appointment for the babies with Dr. Osborne.

Ernie bemoans the task of writing in Spanish to a Latin-American pen pal but she then astonishes him by accepting a dinner invitation by cablegram; Maria is the daughter of a high ranking diplomat.

Ernie and his girlfriend are dismayed when Uncle Charley and her grandmother don't act like old folks after they meet at a school band contest. Ernie confides in his amused family about his concern over Uncle Charley's behaviour.

Young Ernie is crushed when he learns that his next door neighbors are selling their house, and his best friend is leaving the neighbourhood. Pending their separation, the two boys are together day and night; the Douglases give Gordon a touching farewell party.

Chip and Ernie observe their married older brother, Robbie, in the company of a glamorous woman. The boys report the upsetting situation to their father Steve, who assures them he has trust in Robbie and urges them to maintain confidence in their older brother too.

Steve's old Chinese friend transfers to Los Angeles and happily renews his friendship with the Douglases. He confides in Steve and Charley that he is concerned about the man his daughter has married - an aparently aimless hippie with long hair.

Steve Douglas gives Chip a well-preserved second hand car for his 16th birthday but he is astounded by his son's unenthusiastic reaction; he is embarrassed to drive it, and parks it a long way from school so he won't be recognized as the old car's owner.

The Douglases feel that Steve is becoming sedentary, not knowing that he's just been assigned to help capture some enemy agents, but things get rough when he's taken to a Greenwich Village cocktail party where the spies start shooting when they find him hiding in the bathtub.

Chip and his girlfriend announce to a startled Douglas family that they plan to marry and continue high school. Disapproving, Steve visits the girl's parents but they decide not to forbid the marriage but wait for further developments. When Katie becomes ill and Robbie takes her to the doctor, Chip and Debbie are left with the triplets for some hectic hours.

Although Katie confidently calls the look-alike triplets by name, other members of the family doubt her accuracy, and when Steve helpfully bathes them, she admits that she can no longer tell them apart because he washed off the inkdots put on their feet. They must be taken back to the hospital for proper identification.

Steve meets an attractive widow who seems to be very interested in him but suddenly she turns cool towards his intentions. The family does its best to give the impression that Steve isn't really as old as he seems.

The contractor that Steve hires to add a baby alcove to Robbie and Katie's room leaves much to be desired. He displays all the charm of a top sergeant and is putty in Katie's hands, but is exasperatingly gruff and non co-operative to the males in the Douglas home.

With three babies to look after, Dr. Osborne says Katie is completely exhausted and he prescribes a couple of days bed rest. She flies to Santa Barbara to be with her mother. While she is away the family must hire three cleaning ladies to restore the house back to normal.

On the rebound after his girlfriend Sally suddenly marries another younger man, Uncle Charley acquires many new lady friends when Katie schemes to put the wind back in the lovable old windbag's sails.

Robbie and Katie have been invited to a High School reunion and they are reluctant to leave their babies with an unknown sitter as everyone in the family is otherwise busy. They hire a professional sitter that is recommended by the family doctor.

It may not be poker, but nine in the Douglas family is a full house. Feeling somewhat responsible, Robbie decides to quit school in order to pursue work full time and find a new home for his family. A wise school counsellor takes steps to discourage the move. Meanwhile Steve designs some plans for an extension to the house to accomodate the babies further.

As the triplets come home from the hospital their names are announced by the happy parents: Robbie Jr, Charley and Steve II. Their father Robbie finds that he is totally unprepared for all of the attention that the infants attract.

The day -- or rather the night -- of the big event finds expectant mother Katie quite calm, and Steve and Uncle Charley quite the opposite, and a hapless father to be off on Army manouvres. At the hospital, Katie gives birth to identical triplet boys and Steve must adjust to the fact that he is a Grandfather, three times over.

In an advanced stage of pregnancy, Katie suffers qualms about her looks that are as out of proportion as her figure. She is temporarily distressed by her hugeness until she learns from her doctor that she is going to have more than one baby.

When Robbie and Katie announce that they might hire a baby nurse, Uncle Charley is confident they will ask him. When they don't, he embarks on a marathon of baby sitting so he can learn the ropes by hiring himself out as a professional baby sitter.

Because he is about to become a Grandfather, Steve has an easier time working out an important Air Force contract with a hard-shelled General. By watching the way Katie walks, the General predicts that she will have a baby boy. Meanwhile Ernie decides to run for class President at school.

The baby stirs inside Katie and Robbie feels its movement and suddenly sheds his youthful ways to become very much the sober and altogether too serious expectant father. Meanwhile, fatherhood is taking a different approach when Tramp's puppies to the next door neighbor's dog Francis, are about to be born.

Controversy erupts in the Douglas household over the selection of a doctor for Katie during her pregnancy. While Robbie and Katie want to choose their own doctor, Katie's mother insists on making an appointment with the Miller family doctor. Meanwhile, Steve stands in for an absent Robbie at his first baby class.

While the family is doing some spring cleaning, Katie faints behind the couch. Soon her mother's intuition brings her to the house and she announces that Katie is going to be a mother. Once it is confirmed by a doctor, the family dotes on Katie, but seems to ignore the father to be.

The Douglas family cancels a camping trip to play host to unexpected Chinese friends from Bryant Park who are en route to Hong Kong and this ultimately upsets their Chinese relatives when they are asked to stay overnight.

Ernie remains at home with Uncle Charley while the rest of the family travel to various locations. Charley invites an old friend to dinner, believing him to be down and out. However, Ernie immediately identifies their guest as a famous television sherriff and he invites the two to the studio.

Dressed as a chorine named Apple Annie at his Lodge 'Frolics' night, a weary Uncle Charley awakens from a nap after a matinee performance and is forced to walk home and is arrested by the police for hitting a flirtatious man.

Robbie goes to Camp Roberts for two weeks military reserve training. At home, Steve becomes alarmed when he sees Charley's card telling him that he and the boys who are camping at Yosemite, plan to look Robbie up at camp. But he arrives too late to divert them and one-by-one each member of the family is inadvertently caught as a military prisoner.

Uncle Charley is talked into buying an 11 year old trotting horse in the hopes of capturing old racing glories. The family is delighted when they hear that the horse, driven by Uncle Charley, has qualified for a race after winning a trial competition.

Bored because he has been left at home alone on a day off from school, Ernie goes on a search for movie stars. The boy loses his footing on a steep path and falls into Zsa Zsa Gabor's swimming pool in Beverly Hills. The glamorous lady invites him in until his clothes dry and later takes him to a real movie studio. Now the whole family as well as the police are searching for Ernie.

A series of strange coincidences make young Ernie feel he's a jinx to anyone he contacts, but his father assures him that he has a loyal family who loves him in spite all of his trouble, and that they will stick by him no matter what.

Katie tearfully complains when Uncle Charley makes her feel unnecessary in the Douglas household. Steve speaks to Charley who is flabbergasted at the accusation, but immediately makes amends. Meanwhile, Chip is on a five-man school committee; four of the 'men' are girls and they won't let him open his mouth.

Robbie Douglas displays a bit of jealousy when his bride innocently agrees to tutor a handsome student. Later, Katie confides to Uncle Charley that he was once her steady boyfriend, and Charley off-handedly warns Katie to be careful because Robbie has a jealous nature.

With his father Steve busy over the weekend, Chip suggests that newlyweds Robbie and Katie act as chaperones to him and his friends at a mountain cabin. At Katie's insistence, Robbie keeps strict checks on the three teenage couples.

Chip invites his neighbour's long-haired, guitar playing boy from Liverpool as a key addition to his off-key rock and roll band. The English lad's soft, folksong guitar is a disappointment and obviously won't work with the raucous amplified trio, but he helps them to win a trophy in an amateur talent contest.

Chip Douglas is so nervous about taking his driving test that his new sister in law Katie decides to help by taking the test with him. Soon after they both get their driving licenses the family car collects a big scratch, but neither will plead guilty.

When minor irritations arise in the Douglas household, Robbie and Katie move temporarily into a borrowed apartment while their friends are away. Their life is complicated by the absence of a coffee pot, a pull-down bed that won't go up and the lack of a television set.

Katie is worried when Steve invites her visiting Aunt to spend a week at the house while he is out of town. Before long, she is molding the entire household into her image of a cultured family. When she slips some money under Katie's pillow, the girl angrily announces that this behaviour cannot continue.

Chip manages to outwit the machine age when a computer is used to select partners for picnic dates for the boys in his class and girls from another school. He is soon startled to find that his date, although sweet and likeable, is six feet tall.

One stormy night while Steve is in San Francisco, Katie is alone in the Douglas house while the rest of the family is attending a ballgame. Her tenseness builds as late in the night she hears a scary rythmic noise, and hysterically calls Steve to report that the family has not yet returned and that she hears a loud thumping sound.

Chip learns the meaning of empathy when he helps Ernie out of a predicament when he somehow winds up with two dates with two different girls for the same dance, when he doesn't even like girls to start with.

Attractive lady engineer Eileen Talbot is assigned to help Steve Douglas on a rush project in his office, and she applies her many talents to assure romantic, as well as technical success. Only level headed Katie recognizes her as a manipulating female long before the gullible male Douglases do.

At school, Ernie meets Mike, who offers to play with him, but the family is exasperated to know Mike likes tomboyish pranks. Then there's a problem persuading Ernie to accept his new friend when he learns that she's really a girl.

For their fourth week wedding anniversary, Katie decides to earn some money for an expensive gift for Robbie by taking a one week job as a tea-room waitress. Robbie lunches at the tea-room and finds Katie, who has taken over as a last-minute replacement for the cigarette girl, in an abbreviated costume.

Robbie and Katie come home from their honeymoon to face the problems of newlyweds in a previously all-male household. Katie finds her role difficult, for Charley insists on continuing as the family cook and attending to all the laundry. Robbie becomes worried about her frequent weeping spells.

Early on his wedding day, Robbie Douglas and his family are peacefully oversleeping. They awaken just in time and scramble madly to get ready as Robbie and Katie are soon married amid traditional confusion and tears. The lost family dog, Tramp, returns in time to join the family in the front pew.

The day before her wedding Katie Miller feels she faces complete disaster. When Robbie tries to console her, she flares up at him and after a short argument, the pair declare the wedding is off. Of course, Grandma Collins thinks otherwise.

Robbie and Katie pick a wedding date two weeks off. Katie's sorority sisters decide to do some private investigating on their own. Prospective groom Robbie then undergoes the complete once-over by his fiancee's family and runs the gamut of numerous cousins, aunts and a crotchety grandmother.

After advice from his father who tells him it isn't right to tie himself down to one girl, Robbie Douglas, intending to break off his romance with Katie Miller, ends up proposing to her. Soon his heart over rules his head and he buys an engagement ring and sets a wedding date.

The Douglases move to California, where at first they are depressed to find the residents as chilly as the weather is warm. Robbie enrols in the University and is totally captivated by a blonde girl, and Uncle Charley is initiated into the rapid-fire procedure of shopping in supermarkets. The family begins to feel that their next door neighbors represent the characteristic stand-offishness of all Californians until they discover that they moved into the neighborhood the day before they did.

The older members of the Douglas family find their social lives complicated when little Ernie decides to accompany them on all of their dates. Uncle Charley decides he must be the one to put his foot down and set the boy straight.

Other fathers help their sons in a school science fair, but Steve tells Ernie he's on his own. Soon his project turns to disaster when his very crudely built electric clock absolutely refuses to run. After vainly pleading that most of his classmates are getting parental help, on the day of the fair, Ernie must be forced to go to school.

Ernie Douglas's new school friend is little Laszlo, whose gypsy family is camped outside of town. Soon the gypsies are camped on the front lawn of the Douglas home. To Steve's amazement and Uncle Charley's disgust they stage several hours of singing and dancing.

Uncle Charley's romantic tales of adventure captivates Ernie's teacher. The pretty, middle-aged lady is fascinated by the old boy's partially-true tales of his exciting life on the high seas. Soon the ex-seacook is aghast to learn she has given up her teaching job and he is further torn when she explains her savings will buy them both a one-way ticket to Pango-Pango and asks him to marry her before they leave.

To help out his Dad, Steve, Chip pretends to like the aggressive as she is pretty, daughter of a new executive woman that his dad is dating. Chip has the romantic notion that his close relationship with the daughter might help the social plans of his father.

Chip Douglas's junior high school is having an Olden Days dance and the boys are to bring their mothers, and the girls their fathers. Chip finds trouble going steady with two girls at the same time and arranges for Steve to escort his classmate's widowed mother.

Robbie is crushed when he learns that Denise DuBois, a French exchange student that Robbie had hoped to marry, has accepted his friend Tom's proposal of marriage the night before.

Robbie Douglas tries to impress his girlfriend by competing with a handsome bullfighter against a killer bull, but has to flee for his life when the bull charges him.

Uncle Charley puts down a deposit on a vacation lot at beautiful Whispering Pines, only to learn he's been hoodwinked in a high pressure real-estate operation. The family discover that it is located at the bottom of a steep canyon. It is next to a tumbledown shack, occupied by a slovenly family who prove themselves completely undesirable as prospective neighbours.

Ernie's friends all boast of their dads' college athletic trophies, which forces Steve into a grueling two mile cross-country race with the other fathers. Two of the men, once athletes are eager for the contest, but Steve thinks it is silly.

Television viewing at the Douglas household has dropped to zero because Uncle Charley, annoyed with the boys' quarreling about choice of channels, has withdrawn all TV privileges for a week. Robbie, a member of a new program committee, eagerly joins his co-ed girlfriend in her plan to bring true drama to the people. However, after viewing the show, the family isn't sure their attempt at 'realism' is really real.

Steve Douglas passes up his company's offer of a weekend in Rio because Saturday is the start of trout season. The boys do their best to get Steve to make Ernie his fishing buddy so Robbie and Chip can get out of the annual trip.

Robbie is delighted when college classmate Peggy moves in next door, and the pair immediately go to work on a joint assignment for their Shakespeare class. He plays Romeo to her Juliet when a feud between the two families seems imminent.

Ernie's excited reports of seeing a flying saucer are received with skepticism, but the next day he not only sees the weird vehicle again, but he snaps some pictures and is later told by the Air Force to keep quiet about it.

Chip's romance with a classmate flourishes when he rents a horse and buggy so as to impress the girl's strict, old fashioned grandmother. She is impressed, but still insists that the kids stay at home to have a taffy-pulling marathon.

Ernie sneezes as he brushes past the family dog, Tramp, and when a doctor verifies the boy's allergy to dog hair and says the dog must go, Ernie packs his bags as he feels Tramp has seniority over him in the family.

Steve Douglas meets a celebrated popular vocalist of 20 years ago whose career seems over. Although her famous voice is still there, the public demands music in the current style. Steve helps her update her style when he arranges for her to sing with Robbie's combo, the Greefs.

When Ernie sends for a picture of Chip's favourite movie star, planning to give it to him as a birthday gift, Chip gets an actual date with the movie starlet for a publicity stunt and is astounded by all the resulting hoopla.

Robbie is immediately infatuated when he hires a pretty chemistry instructor as a tutor, and their friendship seems to be blossoming. But when he finds out that his father has been dating her, the shock affects his ability to concentrate on his studies.

When Robbie's girlfriend's father calls from out of town and asks him to deliver a birthday cake to her, he thinks there might be a fortune in performing this birthday service and immediately goes into the cake business.

Ernie feels left out when the Douglas family orchestra begins to practise. Uncle Charley tries to teach Ernie the violin but runs into a major obstacle -- the boy's lack of obvious talent.

Robbie films a 'way out' movie for his Cinema class with the aid of a non-talented, 'way out' co-ed who earnestly tries to make an 'honest' motion picture. They begin a long week of filming uncinematic gems spotlighting the Douglases dull, drab meaningless family routine.

Steve Douglas gets a parking ticket from Robbie's girlfriend, a pretty meter maid, and another citation for not having his driver's license renewed -- and then flunks his driving test. Soon Robbie realizes that he's given his father last year's manual to study and that some laws have been changed.

Because Robbie's friend wants him to understand Italians better, he invites Robbie to his home. Robbie runs afoul of an old custom when he takes a girl walking in the park and learns that he is expected to marry her.

Three fathers face their sons in a quiz game at a school entertainment night, and when the boys easily beat the dads so much interest is aroused in town that a re-match is scheduled on the local television station.

Steve Douglas receives a perfumed letter from an old girlfriend announcing she will stop by and see him. She terrifies Steve by acting as though she plans to accept a proposal of marriage he hasn't made. Steve does his best to convince her that his old college chum is the man for her.

Steve Douglas takes his family to his birthplace of Bedford Springs. He tries to locate his 1940 fiancee Ellen, married and still living in town, but he is disenchanted by the changes in her. Still pretty, she lives with her obnoxious husband and ill-mannered children.

The usually all-male Douglas household becomes a refuge for an attractive girl dancer who has been evicted from her apartment, when Steve attends an office stag dinner. He takes her home where he lends her some of Robbie's clothes.

Chip demands a jury trial after he borrows four cents from a pile of brother Ernie's pennies and Ernie accuses him of taking a valuable penny from his coin collection. Finally Chip accepts Ernie's challenge to stand trial in a court composed of their friends.

Chip is worried when his younger brother Ernie becomes a close friend of a pretty sixth grader, because the girl is now interested in collecting postage stamps, and Chip is sure she has her eye on Ernie's precious Liberian triangle.

Ernie Douglas sends a letter to the French Embassy to thank France for the Statue of Liberty and receives, in return, an invitation for him and the rest of the family to visit Washington, the nation's capital. However the other members of the family are not too happy with the idea.

Robbie has a wonderful time going steady with two girls simultaneously -- a highschooler and a college co-ed -- until the two ladies compare notes one day and plot immediate revenge. They maneuver Robbie into dating the both of them on the same night.

Robbie Douglas learns how much of a pest a younger sibling can be when Chip and a buddy break up his date with a pretty girl by eating appetizers and otherwise making a nuisance of themselves. The next afternoon, for revenge, Robbie primes his other brother Ernie to haunt Chip and his date.

Two tomboys - a pretty lady engineer named Max and a member of the girls Hockey team named Georgie prove tough to handle for both Steve and Chip. Hoping to become a hero to his peers, Chip goes out for the girls hockey team when Georgie insists the coach must let her join the boy's track team.

Robbie Douglas is practically engaged to his girlfriend Joanne, and when they discover how their friends are both successfully attending university while raising a baby they begin to think that perhaps teen-aged marriages are workable.

When Chip adopts a Beatle-style, shoulder length haircut, the other members of the family feel that Steve should lay down the law to the long-haired one, but he and his associate consult a company psychologist for a solution. Steve decides not to be a strict father but to give the boy more attention, without affect.

Robbie takes on a heavy work load of waiting on tables in his girlfriend's sorority house and working as a chemistry laboratory worker, so that he can rent a room away from home. Worst of all, his romance with his current girlfriend languishes because he is too tired to take her on a date.

Steve Douglas is attracted to a beautiful female explorer who shows Steve and the family her exciting adventure films. She has to prepare for a safari, and as there is room in the party for one more, she begs Steve to come along.

When Robbie Douglas yanks pretty co-ed Terri Wong out of the path of a speeding truck, he becomes the unwilling beneficiary of an old Chinese custom when the girl whose life he saves insists on being his slave. The game is amusing at first but before long Robbie must ask his father for help.

Steve Douglas meets recently divorced Maggie Bellini, reputed to be one of the world's ten richest women. She sets her sights on Steve by showering his family with costly gifts. Robbie has the use of an experimental sports car, Chip is invited to fly to Austria for a weekend of skiing, and Ernie is provided with the use of a computer for his arithmetic homework.

A huge shaggy stray dog adopts Steve Douglas and disrupts the neighborhood with his howls when Steve tries to leave home. A neighbor and lover of stray animals, is delighted to learn that Steve plans to keep the dog until its owner can be found, rather than sending it to a shelter. However, the dog continues to regard Steve as his mother as well as his master.

When Steve travels to Washington on business, he leaves $50 with Robbie, to pay for golf club repairs but Uncle Charley limbers up his billiard cue to get revenge after two girl pool sharks take Robbie's $50 when they coyly ask him to show them how to play the game.

The Douglas family bravely accepts the challenge when 13 year old Chip decides to give a party -- with girls. On the party evening the record player breaks down and Chip contemplates the disintegration of his first teenage party. But Steve comes up with a solution.

Steve's unusual behaviour convinces his family that he is about to be secretly married. The boys plan to leave home to provide privacy for the newlyweds, and Charley arranges to ship out on a freighter. Steve brings the pretty blonde girl home to meet the family, only to find the house deserted.

Steve Douglas turns a business trip to Hong Kong into a vacation for the whole family. Uncle Charley, who once lived in China, is reluctant to visit modern Hong Kong, for apparently he still carries a torch for a beautiful girl he knew in the 1930s.

Ernie feels neglected when the other members of the Douglas family are busy with various girlfriends and he is left alone. Close to tears, Ernie is puzzled and saddened by the mysterious powers of the opposite sex. He's even more puzzled when he meets eleven year old Linda-Lou.

Robbie is so eager to make the track team that, to improve his timing, he agrees to join a ballet class. He proves an unwilling pupil, self-conscious in dancer's tights and ballet shoes, but after days of practising, his hurdling style suddenly improves. Reluctantly, he agrees to become the sole male dancer in the upcoming Ballet Class recital.

A seductive dance instructor named Helen signs Uncle Charley up for a lifetime membership in a dance club. Dreaming of a professional dancer's career, he purchases a top hat and tails for his appearance at the school's annual ball.

Ernie writes a play and volunteers Steve's services for his father-and-son night, so he dons a heavy robot costume. The family leaves early, and Steve finds himself alone on the street, helpless in his non-removable suit.

Chip's secret love is an older girl named Mary Lou. When Steve suggests his love sick son should find out where he stands by asking for a date, Chip calls and identifies himself as 'Douglas'. Mary Lou is delighted -- thinking she is going out with Robbie Douglas, a genuine college freshman.

An escaped circus lion makes a midnight call at the Douglas house, and Ernie sees it and awakens the understandably skeptical Steve who accompanies his new stepson to investigate. Steve eventually sees the lion and nervously plays a game of tag with it, warning the family to keep their bedroom doors closed.

Uncle Charley is upset when he learns that Robbie is dating a flashy chorus girl, but Steve refuses to worry because he trusts his son's common sense. Charley predicts Steve will be invited to pay the girl cash on the line if he wants her to stop dating his son.

Ernie's adoption into the all-male Douglas household is threatened by a regulation that there must be a lady of the house. Steve again makes a request to adopt the child, but Misses Coulter and Miller of the adoption agency, say they are powerless to change the regulations. Miss Miller has a brilliant idea, however, and soon the family is appearing before a judge who decides that housekeeper Uncle Charley can legally be designated the 'lady of the house'. Charley approves if this fact is kept secret and Ernie is enthusiastically welcomed into the family.

Steve explores the possibility of adopting 10-year-old Ernie but runs into antagonism from Uncle Charley, who can forsee nothing but more work with a new boy to take care of. The family desperately wants to adopt the boy and Robbie decides that Steve must make a play for the lovely Miss Coulter. Her boss comes to inspect the house just as the boys have made a shambles of the place. At eight the next morning, Miss Miller returns. She inspects the house, spic and span now, and ushers in a happy Ernie, who is to stay on a temporary basis.

Mike and Sally finally get married and leave for the East where Mike has a job as an assistant college psychology instructor. Robbie happily moves into Mike's old room. When Uncle Charley notes that they may soon be calling Steve 'Grandpa' he becomes somwehat concerned about growing old and calls up his former girlfriends. Robbie, now a college man, offers to help his father make friends with younger women, and while pretending to be disinterested, tries a few of his suggestions. When it is learned that Ernie must return to an orphanage, because he will not be allowed to accompany his foster parents in their move to the orient, Chip invites Ernie to move in permanently, giving Steve three sons once more.

Charley has a visit from an old Australian acquaintance who quickly fires the boys' imagination with tales of a paradise in the South pacific. The adults wonder if he is in fact an expert confidence trickster as he cheats Charley with an unexpected legacy that is responsible for a trip to the tropical island of Cocoa Fuji for Uncle Charley, Robbie and Chip.

Tramp causes confusion in two households when he runs away from home for fear of a cat. Meanwhile pampered 'Prince', pet in the mansion of a rich socialite, undergoes a complete and mysterious personality change.

Steve is having nightmares and his vision of the future has a computer named Betsy join the family. It interferes with wedding plans when it selects different mates for Mike and Sally. Hoping to prove the computer wrong, Mike decides he will have Steve fill out a questionaire for his dad and his mother. His reasoning is that they will submit the two forms and the computer will pick someone else for their perfect match, thereby proving to Sally how wrong the computer can be. But lo and behold the computer mates Steve and Mike's mom.

Chip feels left out of things when he is the only member of the family not working either full or part time. But watching 'Davy Crockett' and dreaming gives him a remarkable solution to his problem - he takes in a partner in his trapping business.

Robbie's friend has a grandfather that trains horses, but on the day of the big race when the thoroughbred racehorse loses her mascot, a rabbit, she loses her speed. But once she hears Robbie serenade on the guitar, the mascot problem is solved.

Steve is to show important engineering plans to a British scientist on a rush visit to the United States. But soon disappearing blueprints and home-baked cookies can't both be blamed on Steve's absent-mindedness - they become a plaything for Tramp and his friends.

Charley accompanies Robbie and his date to a reading by an old pal of his, Maggie McSterling. She is a veteran actress and she and Charley recall their friendship during their vaudeville days. Maggie looks much younger than her age, and decides that Charley needs a vigorous course of rejuvenation.

To avoid being absent from the family longer than neccessary, Steve declines an invitation to stay at a luxurious mansion in Mexico. So his host flies down the entire family, giving Robbie the opportunity for a few sharp lessons in the conservatism of old Spanish chaperoning customs.

Chip dates an older woman and Robbie finds his ideas misinterpreted when the Douglas boys face the troubles of growing up. Meanwhile, Robbie tries to come up with a novel idea for the school float, and proceeds to demonstrate that teenage is just a time in life, but his speech, activities and clothes prove that it something much more, a lesson Chip also begins to learn.

Steve's plan for an Hawaiian holiday is cancelled when Chip develops a case of bronchitis, so Charley and the boys plan to bring Hawaii to him in the form of a luau in the garden complete with ladies that he would undoubtedly have met on board ship.

A top woman pilot is preparing for her flight around the world and calls on Steve Douglas to modify the design of her plane. Steve takes more than a professional interest in the plane he is preparing for a long solo journey—as well as the lady aviator planning to fly it.

Robbie's glamorous girlfriend invites him to the exotic Brookdale Country Club, and he resolves to put pressure on Steve to join, despite the fact that his father isn't much of a joiner.

Robbie follows the fad and buys an antique aircraft to impress his new girlfriend. Steve lets him go ahead with trying to restore it, convinced it will never fly but as it becomes more airworthy, Steve becomes concerned.

A young engineer finds his lost half-Korean daughter who is staying temporarily at the Douglas House. But Uncle Charley finds that she exhibits more the cunning of the orphanage where she was found than the wisdom of the orient.

With Bub permanently away in Ireland, Steve finally resorts to domestic assistance and the Douglas home is afflicted with a fiery dragon of a housekeeper named Fedocia. When Steve is desperately trying to solve the problem of getting rid of her the situation is saved by the arrival of Bub's younger brother Charley, a recently retired Ship's cook on leave. With Steve away on business and Charley about to leave for San Francisco, Chip is unhappy that he won't have a parent to come to his school's Open Night. The family soon learns that Charley's crusty disposition masks a soft heart.

Bub decides to leave for an Irish holiday to help his formidable Aunt Kate celebrate her 104th Birthday in Dublin. Son-in-law Steve eagerly offers to do the housekeeping, rashly declaring that if all women organised their work efficiently, it could be done in just a fraction of the usual time. A belief which is hardly borne out by his own demonstrations.

When their best friends' marriage heads for the rocks, Mike and Sally pause for a second thought about their forthcoming wedding. Mike and Sally try to reconcile them by arranging visits to a marriage counsellor.

Robbie breaks a leg on the football field and becomes the first patient of a dazzling French nurse. Robbie doesn't mind being hospitalized when the nurse in training lavishes attention on him. Her constant attention baffles Steve until he is warned that her interest in him is more than in her patient.

It's a comedy of errors when Mike sets out to make an impression on his future father-in-law when Sally's father returns from an archeological expedition. Mike is unnerved about meeting him but practically kills him with a little too much kindness and enthusiasm.

After acting as the subject for a stage hypnotist, Robbie decides that hypnosis could help in his latest romance, which leads to a chain reaction when they try it out on his grandfather Bub who consequently does a weird dance whenever someone whistles.

Robbie consults Sally about his latest heartthrob—and he's sure he's too young for the girl. Robbie alarms Sally when he appears to be in love with her, and Steve must persuade him to grow up overnight.

At the Lotus Blossom Cafe, Steve is impressed by the timid and beautiful proprietress. The elegant Chinese widow contemplates returning to Hong Kong, but the Douglas family show her the American way of life, hoping she will stay.

Robbie's new girlfriend offers to get him and his guitar an audition at a club, and introduces him to a strange new world of far out youngsters who comprise the audience. When Robbie becomes a smash his family struggles to bring him back from stardom.

Mike's life is complicated by the return of his old girlfriend Jean Pearson. He can't bring himself to tell her that he is engaged to marry Sally. Chip and Ernie keep Mike under surveillance to report to fiancee Sally.

Chip and Ernie get an interesting lesson in honesty, and dishonesty from the school bully, who volunteers an insight to the underbelly world of swiping school lunches. Chip becomes bewildered by the differing standards of honesty among those he knows and Steve must do his best to sort out the problem.

Political overtones arise in the Douglas house when Steve becomes escort to a visiting congresswoman. Meanwhile Chip must entertain a small girl who aims to be class president -- even though Chip is campaigning to be.

Steve brings a business associate home for a quiet weekend of work, forgetting a prior commitment to the Cub Scouts where he has promised to lead the Moose patrol. He frees himself to do a rush design job while the hopeless Mr. Summers learns painfully what it means to be a moose.

The Douglas family continues to revel in the fun in the Irish village of Farnsea, ruled by the formidable Aunt Kate. Steve realises that her wisdom is helpful when Mary Kathleen Connolly becomes infatuated with him.

Bub decides to use his winning raffle ticket to take the Douglases to Ireland to visit his relatives. While in the village of Farnsea, they stay with his redoubtable 103 year old Aunt Kate and Cousin Mickey.

Realising the need for economy, Mike and Sally decide that her shower will be productive of useful gifts for the kitchen, but Bub is all for romance but Mike's practical ideas meet resistance when Bub plans a bridal shower for Sally. Chip and Ernie manage to turn the shower into something very impractical indeed.

Robbie and Ernie find that women are full of surprises and not all of them pleasing. Robbie tires of his noisy rock and roll girlfriend and switches to a more dignified girl who has no time for the childish pursuits of her peers, such as football and sock hops. And unfortunately for Robbie Douglas, Lorraine is also serious about getting married and before he knows it, he's engaged! Can even the sagacious Steve Douglas find a graceful way out of this mess?

Steve sails aboard the S.S. Carolina in order to establish a business contract with a firm but his task is complicated by Robbie who has a vacationing job as a steward onboard the same liner. They both find that business and pleasure do sometimes mix.

When Robbie's team gets slaughtered one too many times, their keenest fan Lissa Stratemeyer gets her girlfriends to ignore the boys for the victory rally until they do something about the score and break their losing streak.

Mike and Chip take part in good deeds -- Mike goes with his fellow U.S. Air Force Reservists to deliver ten thousand dolls to children in a South American disaster area. Mike meets a mute girl and tries to collect money for an operation she desperately needs. Meanwhile Chip becomes household slave of the demanding Mrs. Sowerby.

Anxious to get married, but unable to afford an apartment, Mike suggests that he and his fiancee Sally move in with him and his family. Bub has to continuously change plans for a shower for Sally and Mike when she and Mike keep changing their future wedding plans.

Disciplinarian Mrs. Proctor, Robbie's awful history teacher, breaks a leg and the replacement they receive is even worse. She is a charming, but inexperienced girl who earns her first battle star when she first encounters Robbie's class.

The town of Bryant Park takes sides violently when it is proposed to cut down the tree which stands outside of Robbie's girlfriend's home. The Douglas family are soon involved as Bub joins a women's group in the neighborhood to save his favorite tree from being torn down.

In order to get himself a date with an attractive magazine editor, Steve submits his house as an entry in her magazine's distinctive homes contest. He is very perplexed when she sends her business-like secretary instead.

Steve's high school sweetheart returns to town as a real-life Princess, complete with entourage and the Douglases are invited to a posh royal reception in her honor. However, Chip puts the wrong reply in his response and must try and retrieve it before the Princess reads it.