About this season
Family man Jim Anderson copes with the everyday problems among his wife Margaret and their three children as they experience day-to-day changes.
Episodes (26)
1. Bud Takes Up the Dance
Aired 3 October 1954 • 30 min
Bud tries to learn how to dance from a book for his first school dance.
2. Lesson in Citizenship
Aired 10 October 1954 • 30 min
Jim tells his family to help others which leads to complications.
3. The Motor Scooter
Aired 17 October 1954 • 30 min
Jim buys Bud a motor scooter but Margaret won't let him have it.
4. Football Tickets
Aired 24 October 1954 • 30 min
Jim gets tickets to an important football game, and picks one of the kids to go with him—only to be blackmailed by an important client (who wants to go to the game, too) out of one of his tickets. He then tries frantically to find a second one.
5. Live My Own Life
Aired 31 October 1954 • 30 min
Bud moves out, but discovers he can't clean, cook, or take care of himself.
6. Grandpa Jim's Rejuvenation
Aired 7 November 1954 • 30 min
Jim comes to believe that he is over the hill.
7. Bud's Encounter With the Law
Aired 14 November 1954 • 30 min
Bud becomes increasingly paranoid when Kathy (who has a fascination with the new washing machine, and puts everything in there) places a letter addressed to him by the police department in the washing machine, and ruins the letter, so he doesn’t know why he is asked to be there within seven days.
8. Thanksgiving Day
Aired 21 November 1954 • 30 min
Kathy writes the best poem in the fourth grade on what Thanksgiving means to her, and Jim builds the poem up in his mind to unreasonable expectations for a fourth grader. When he actually finds out what the poem consists of, his hopes for Kathy’s future are deflated and he disparages the poem to Margaret, unwitting that Kathy has overheard.
9. Second Honeymoon
Aired 28 November 1954 • 30 min
Jim's weekend retreat, just he and his wife, seems like a perfect idea, at first. But he doesn't want to pass this on to the kids when he learns that the kids have plans with them; and then when the kids take the news too easy, Jim and Margaret are befuddled. They leave, but soon they start thinking about their kids and after reaching the lodge they want to phone in - but no one answers the call...
10. Typical Father
Aired 5 December 1954 • 30 min
Jim becomes worried that things between Betty and a new male friend of hers are getting too serious.
11. Margaret Goes Dancing
Aired 12 December 1954 • 30 min
Jim and Margaret rarely disagree on anything. But when he finds out Margaret signed them up to take dancing lessons, Jim refuses to do so, and ends up defiantly going to his old club, leaving her to take lessons alone.
12. The Christmas Story
Aired 19 December 1954 • 30 min
Jim takes the family into the woods to cut down their own tree, and they become stranded there.
13. Sparrow in the Window
Aired 26 December 1954 • 30 min
Kathy discovers a wounded Sparrow on the windowsill of the house—which she then considers hers—and the whole family becomes involved in trying to help it get better.
14. Boy's Week
Aired 2 January 1955 • 30 min
Jim receives a traffic ticket and Bud is appointed to be judge on that day.
15. A Friend of Old George's
Aired 9 January 1955 • 30 min
An unwanted visitor that won't leave spoils Kathy's birthday party.
16. Bud the Snob
Aired 16 January 1955 • 30 min
Bud is deemed a snob by the girls in school because he won’t speak to any of them. When Jim talks it over with him, he discovers that Bud‘s real problem is that he becomes tongue-tied around them.
17. The Promised Playhouse
Aired 23 January 1955 • 30 min
After making a big deal about people keeping their word, Jim is forced to put his words into practice to set a good example for his family.
18. Jim the Farmer
Aired 30 January 1955 • 30 min
Jim wants to give up his office job in order to move into the country to lead a quiet, and less stressful, life as a farmer. Margaret doesn't think that he means it seriously, but he crosses more lines to fulfill his dream than he ever has before.
19. Father of the Year
Aired 6 February 1955 • 30 min
Jim is happy to learn his kids are planning to enter him in a Father of the Year contest. But things, of course, don’t go smoothly.
20. The Mink Coat
Aired 13 February 1955 • 30 min
Even though finances have grown a little tight in the Anderson household, Jim buys Margaret a mink coat that ends up being more trouble than it’s worth.
21. The Matchmaker
Aired 20 February 1955 • 30 min
Margaret tries to get her cousin and her boyfriend married.
22. Bud the Bridesmaid
Aired 27 February 1955 • 30 min
Margaret's cousin (from the previous episode) is set to wed in the Anderson household, but things go wrong, due to the nervousness of the prospective bride and groom, and the wedding is called off. Poor Bud is reeled in to do a stand-in for the bride at the rehearsal.
23. Proud Father
Aired 6 March 1955 • 30 min
Jim tries to help the children regain their confidence.
24. Father Delivers the Papers
Aired 13 March 1955 • 30 min
Bud injures himself, so Jim delivers the papers on his route to avoid Bud being fired.
25. No Partiality
Aired 20 March 1955 • 30 min
Kathy and Betty fight for the attention of the same man.
26. Close Decision
Aired 27 March 1955 • 30 min
Margaret worries the entire day over what will become of Bud’s future if he doesn’t develop good character. This is tied in with a baseball game Bud is trying to get to play in.