Father Knows Best: Season 1

Episodes

# Air Date Title
1

Bud Takes Up the Dance

Bud tries to learn how to dance from a book for his first school dance.
2

Lesson in Citizenship

Jim tells his family to help others and winds up in more trouble than before.
3

The Motor Scooter

Jim buys Bud a motor scooter but Margaret won’t let him have it.
4

Football Tickets
5

Live My Own Life

Bud moves out, but discovers he can’t clean, cook, or take care of himself.
6

Grandpa Jim's Rejuvenation

Jim comes to believe that he is over the hill.
7

Bud's Encounter With the Law
8

Thanksgiving Day
9

Second Honeymoon

Jim’s weekend retreat, just he and his wife, looks like a perfect idea to
Jim. First he doesn’t want to pass this on to the kids when he learns
that the…

10

Typical Father
11

Margaret Goes Dancing

Jim and Margaret rarely disagree on anything. When a couple asks them to take dancing lessons, Jim goes to his own club only to find it dull.
12

The Christmas Story

Jim takes the family into the woods to cut down their own tree and become stranded there.
13

Sparrow in the Window
14

Boy's Week

Jim receives a traffic ticket and Bud is appointed to be judge on that day.
15

A Friend of Old George's

An unwanted visitor that won’t leave spoils Kathy’s birthday party.
16

Bud the Snob
17

The Promised Playhouse

Jim unwillingly says he will sleep in Kathy’s playhouse
18

Jim the Farmer

Jim wants to give up his office job in order to move into the country
to lead a quiet and less stressy life as a farmer. His wife doesn’t
think that he means…

19

Father of the Year

Jim sells the house and plans to move out into the country.
20

The Mink Coat
21

The Matchmaker

Margaret tries to get her cousin and her boyfriend married.
22

Bud the Bridesmaid

Margaret’s cousin gets married in the Anderson house with Bud as the stand-in bridesmaid.
23

Proud Father

Jim tries to help the children regain their confidence.
24

Father Delivers the Papers
25

No Partiality

Kathy and Betty fight for the attention of the same man.
26

Close Decision

About Father Knows Best

Father Knows Best was the classic wholesome family situation comedy. It was set in the typical Midwestern community of Springfield, where Jim Anderson was an agent for the General Insurance Company. Every evening he would come home from work, take off his sport jacket, put on his comfortable sweater, and deal with the everyday problems of a growing family. In contrast to most other family comedies of the period, in which one of the other parents was a blundering idiot, both Jim and his wife Margaret were portrayed as thoughtful, responsible adults. When a family crisis arose, Jim would clam the waters with a warm smile and some sensible advice. When Father Knows Best went on television in 1954, the three children were aged 14 [Bud], and 9 [Kathy]. As the seasons passed two of them graduated from High School, first Betty [1956] and then Bud [1959]. Neither left home, howevery, both electing to go to Springfield’s own State College.
The Andersons were truly an idealized family

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