My Three Sons
| My Three Sons | |
|---|---|
My Three Sons opening titles
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| Genre | Sitcom |
| Starring |
Fred MacMurray William Frawley William Demarest Don Grady Stanley Livingston Barry Livingston Tim Considine Meredith MacRae Tina Cole Beverly Garland Dawn Lyn Ronne Troup Daniel, Joseph, and Michael Todd |
| Theme music composer | Frank De Vol |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 12 |
| No. of episodes | 380 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Don Fedderson |
| Producer(s) |
Peter Tewksbury (1960-61) George Tibbles (1961-62) Edmund L. Hartmann (1962-72) |
| Running time | 25 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Don Fedderson Productions (1960–1972) Gregg-Don, Inc. (1960–1965) MCA Television (1960–1965) CBS Productions (1965–1972) |
| Distributor |
Viacom Enterprises (1971–1995) Paramount Domestic Television (1995–2006) CBS Television Distribution (2007–present) |
| Release | |
| Original network |
ABC (1960–1965) CBS (1965–1972) |
| Picture format |
Black-and-white (1960–65) Color (1965–72) |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original release | September 29, 1960 – April 13, 1972 |
My Three Sons is an American sitcom. The series ran from 1960 to 1965 on ABC, and moved to CBS until its end on April 13, 1972. My Three Sons chronicles the life of widower and aeronautical engineer Steven Douglas (Fred MacMurray) as he raises his three sons.
The series originally featured William Frawley as the boys' live-in maternal grandfather, Bub O'Casey. William Demarest, playing Bub's brother, replaced Frawley in 1965 due to Frawley's health issues. In September 1965, eldest son Mike married and his character was written out of the show. To keep the emphasis on "three sons", a new son named Ernie was adopted. In the program's final years, Steven Douglas remarried and adopted his new wife's young daughter Dorothy ("Dodie").
The series was a cornerstone of the ABC and CBS lineups in the 1960s. With 380 episodes produced, it is second only to The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (14 seasons, 1952 - 1966, 434 episodes) as television's longest-running live-action sitcom. Disney producer Bill Walsh often mused on whether the concept of the show was inspired by the movie The Shaggy Dog, as in his view they shared "the same dog, the same kids, and Fred MacMurray".
The show began on ABC in black-and-white. The first season, consisting of 36 episodes, was directed in its entirety by Peter Tewksbury, who also produced and occasionally scripted the programs.
These early episodes held to no specific generic type, so that any episode from one week to the next might be either comedic or dramatic. Tewksbury's episodes are also unusual for their use of cross-talk (a way of having the voices of off-screen characters heard in the background of the soundtrack, just under the voices of the main characters). Using this clever directorial twist, Tewksbury realistically portrayed the chaotic, fast-paced, and ever-changing sequence of events; coordinate and conflicting, that was the daily routine of living in the Douglas household. An example of Tewksbury's use of cross-talk is the fourth episode, "Countdown", written by David Duncan, which chronicles the Douglas family's attempts to wake up, prepare for the day, have breakfast, and get out of the house by a common, agreed-upon time, all carefully synchronized to a televised rocket launch countdown – to comical and often ironic effect. Tewksbury returned to directing feature films after concluding the season because the producers could not handle his perfectionist attitude, which was costing thousands of dollars in lost time and reshoots.
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