Ed James
Director
Father Knows Best (1954)
Season 1
Family man Jim Anderson copes with the everyday problems among his wife Margaret and their three children as they experience day-to-day changes.
Released Oct. 3, 1954
Episode 30 min
8+
Keywords: tmdb.middle-class, tmdb.family, tmdb.sitcom, imdb.fictional-city, imdb.based-on-radio-show, imdb.husband-wife-relationship, imdb.1950s + 13 more, imdb.teenage-girl, imdb.teenage-boy, imdb.sister-sister-relationship, imdb.family-relationships, imdb.brother-sister-relationship, imdb.mother-son-relationship, imdb.father-daughter-relationship, imdb.sibling-rivalry, imdb.mother-daughter-relationship, imdb.father-son-relationship, imdb.laugh-track, awards.emmy-award-winner, awards.emmy-award-nominated
Watch Providers: Amazon Prime Video, Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, Hoopla, fuboTV + 13 more, Pluto TV, Peacock Premium, Peacock Premium Plus, Shout! Factory TV, Plex, Shout! Factory Amazon Channel, Amazon Prime Video Free with Ads, Cineverse, Plex Channel, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, Dove Amazon Channel, Fawesome, Great American Pure Flix Amazon Channel
Production Companies: Columbia Pictures Television
Network: CBS
Country: United States
Languages:
English
S1E1 - Bud Takes Up the Dance
Bud tries to learn how to dance from a book for his first school dance.
Oct. 3, 1954, midnight
S1E2 - Lesson in Citizenship
Jim tells his family to help others which leads to complications.
Oct. 10, 1954, midnight
S1E3 - The Motor Scooter
Jim buys Bud a motor scooter but Margaret won't let him have it.
Oct. 17, 1954, midnight
S1E4 - Football Tickets
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.
Oct. 24, 1954, midnight
S1E5 - Live My Own Life
Bud moves out, but discovers he can't clean, cook, or take care of himself.
Oct. 31, 1954, midnight
S1E6 - Grandpa Jim's Rejuvenation
Jim comes to believe that he is over the hill.
Nov. 7, 1954, midnight
S1E7 - Bud's Encounter With the Law
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.
Nov. 14, 1954, midnight
S1E8 - Thanksgiving Day
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.
Nov. 21, 1954, midnight
S1E9 - Second Honeymoon
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...
Nov. 28, 1954, midnight
S1E10 - Typical Father
Jim becomes worried that things between Betty and a new male friend of hers are getting too serious.
Dec. 5, 1954, midnight
S1E11 - Margaret Goes Dancing
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.
Dec. 12, 1954, midnight
S1E12 - The Christmas Story
Jim takes the family into the woods to cut down their own tree, and they become stranded there.
Dec. 19, 1954, midnight
S1E13 - Sparrow in the Window
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.
Dec. 26, 1954, midnight
S1E14 - Boy's Week
Jim receives a traffic ticket and Bud is appointed to be judge on that day.
Jan. 2, 1955, midnight
S1E15 - A Friend of Old George's
An unwanted visitor that won't leave spoils Kathy's birthday party.
Jan. 9, 1955, midnight
S1E16 - Bud the Snob
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.
Jan. 16, 1955, midnight
S1E17 - The Promised Playhouse
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.
Jan. 23, 1955, midnight
S1E18 - Jim the Farmer
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.
Jan. 30, 1955, midnight
S1E19 - Father of the Year
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.
Feb. 6, 1955, midnight
S1E20 - The Mink Coat
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.
Feb. 13, 1955, midnight
S1E21 - The Matchmaker
Margaret tries to get her cousin and her boyfriend married.
Feb. 20, 1955, midnight
S1E22 - Bud the Bridesmaid
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.
Feb. 27, 1955, midnight
S1E23 - Proud Father
Jim tries to help the children regain their confidence.
March 6, 1955, midnight
S1E24 - Father Delivers the Papers
Bud injures himself, so Jim delivers the papers on his route to avoid Bud being fired.
March 13, 1955, midnight
S1E25 - No Partiality
Kathy and Betty fight for the attention of the same man.
March 20, 1955, midnight
S1E26 - Close Decision
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.
March 27, 1955, midnight
Network: CBS
Episode Runtime: 30 min.
Season Runtime: 6090 min.
Released: Oct. 3, 1954
Last Air Date: May 23, 1960, midnight
Status: Ended
Certification: TV-G
Common sense age: 8+
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