The BEST episodes of My Three Sons
Every episode of My Three Sons ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of My Three Sons!
Widower Steve Douglas raises three sons with the help of his father-in-law, and is later aided by the boys' great-uncle. An adopted son, a stepdaughter, wives, and another generation of sons join the loving family in later seasons. 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].
#1 - The Elopement
Season 11 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/7/1970
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.
#2 - You Can't Go Home
Season 10 - Episode 18 - Aired 2/7/1970
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.
#3 - Roman Holiday
Season 3 - Episode 18 - Aired 1/17/1963
Steve's reluctance to make a business trip to Rome with the family puzzles everyone in the Douglas household except Bub. He remembers that Steve and his late wife were once there and that the place may hold too many memories for him.
#4 - Happy Birthday, Anyway
Season 12 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/1/1971
Uncle Charley leaves for a week's vacation in San Francisco but meanwhile, birthdays disrupt the Douglas household, when Barbara, Katie and Polly turn against their spouses over the men's apparent oversight.
#5 - A Perfect Memory
Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/2/1961
An old high school sweetheart calls for Steve while he is out. Feeling nostalgic, Steve tries to locate her in town, but never seems to be able to catch up with her as he reminisces about their past relationship. As he arrives home the door bell rings and he gets a disappointment then a surprise.
#6 - Bub Leaves Home
Season 1 - Episode 16 - Aired 1/12/1961
When Steve invites his second cousin Selena to come and visit, Bub gets the strange impression that he is being neglected and isn't really needed. He decides to take up the offer of managing a movie theater in Plainview, and nothing the boys say or do can make him change his mind.
#7 - A Car of His Own
Season 4 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/17/1963
Mike offers to give Robbie his old car but his response baffles everyone. Robbie says he needs his own car to impress a new girl and does some fancy wheeling and dealing to get it.
#8 - The Romance of Silver Pines
Season 2 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/11/1962
Steve takes a week's vacation from the family where he soon finds that he can fall in love with someone as easily as fall out of love with them. Sure that an older couple he's met are trying to play matchmaker, Fran is unsociable towards Steve at first until he points out that he only came along on the trip to appease his fellow campers.
#9 - House for Sale
Season 4 - Episode 22 - Aired 2/13/1964
The family is excited when Steve might travel to Hawaii on business, but there is dismay on their faces when the 'For Sale' sign goes up outside 837 Mill Street. Going on a trip to Hawaii is one thing, but could the entire family pack up and move there?
#10 - Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year
Season 1 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/8/1960
Robbie is baffled when his girlfriend rejects the excitement of his new motor in favor of standard feminine frills. He tries to win her over by telling the boys on the football team that no girls are allowed, knowing this will upset her as she is considered one of the guys.
#11 - Trial by Separation
Season 1 - Episode 34 - Aired 5/25/1961
Its final exam time and Mike and his girlfriend Jean have thought up a test of their own - to try the strength of their affection by not seeing each other the week before school has its graduation ceremonies.
#12 - Stone Frog
Season 4 - Episode 23 - Aired 2/20/1964
Chip believes in a magical stone frog, given to him by a lady from India and as coincidences stack up, the magic is hard to deny. The boy's belief causes some very interesting circumstances.
#13 - The Proposals
Season 4 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/28/1963
Mike gets cold feet when he decides to propose marriage to Sally. His bungling attempts further confuse the issue. He tries a combination of methods derived from the attempts made by his father and grandfather when they proposed to their respective spouses.
#14 - How Do You Know?
Season 4 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/24/1963
Steve gives Mike advice on love after he announces his passion for his new girlfriend Darlene, who Mike wants to devote time to, so he hardly welcomes Steve's suggestion that he help find a date for the girl in his office.
#15 - Dear Robbie
Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/10/1963
Robbie is chosen to write an 'advice to the lovelorn' column for the school newspaper, but Steve gets caught in the middle when a baffling love letter arrives. Robbie suggests that the writer should elope with her boyfriend and Steve tries to talk her out of it.
#16 - The Ugly Duckling
Season 2 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/23/1961
Robbie is heading for an “F” in world literature until the teacher assigns a beautiful blonde newcomer as his study partner. He is attracted to her right away but soon discovers that her looks don’t even compensate for her loss of mind.
#17 - Small Adventure
Season 1 - Episode 26 - Aired 3/23/1961
With Steve away in Seattle on a business trip, the Douglas household's version of man's best friend has been known to drag home anything he can get his jaws into. This time Tramp slinks in with a large stick of dynamite that has somewhere and somehow survived since the end of the Second World War.
#18 - The Delinquent
Season 1 - Episode 21 - Aired 2/16/1961
Mike Douglas and the family mongrel Tramp keep disappearing at night, and Jean becomes increasingly suspicious, unaware that Mike and his friend Tim are building her a hi-fi set for her upcoming Birthday.
#19 - Other People's Houses
Season 1 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/9/1961
When Robbie Douglas sees his new friend's home he is envious of what he thinks is really the perfect teenage home and becomes almost as envious as Hank is of the turbulent, happy-go-lucky Douglas household.
#20 - Organization Woman
Season 1 - Episode 19 - Aired 2/2/1961
Steve's ever efficient sister arrives for a visit, and immediately changes and complicates the entire Douglas household. The challenging aspect to the whole deal is a decision that Harriet soon regrets, especially once Steve returns home from his business trip.
#21 - Fire Watch
Season 1 - Episode 36 - Aired 6/8/1961
Mike Douglas gets a Summer job with the Forestry Service and he thinks its going to be a barrel of fun until he learns that he's expected to do a real man's job. When his boss is stranded down at the creek and a wild storm brews up, Mike spends a harrowing time trying to stay calm.
#22 - What's Cooking?
Season 3 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/8/1962
A cooking contest at school upsets Chip when he realizes he doesn't have a mother to submit a recipe. But there is much rejoicing when Steve's favourite recipe reaches the finals. The prospect of winning keeps Steve on edge, much to the displeasure of the boys and Bub.
#23 - Raft on the River
Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/24/1960
Feeling left out when Mike and Robbie decide to go camping at Gunman's Gulch, a lonely Chip uses a raft his brothers helped make in the backyard, on which he and Steve spend a night, pretending to float down the Mississippi. They are accidentally locked out when it begins to rain. Steve begins to worry when he wakes up from a nap and thinks it is way past 4am in the morning and thinks that Bub has not yet returned from his pinochle game.
#24 - Countdown
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/20/1960
A Missile launch, sleeping in and Daylight Saving make for an interesting Monday morning. The Douglas household is a chaotic affair of lost indian arrow heads for Chip's turn in show and tell at School, Robbie's missing trumpet and some important lost plans of Steve's that Mike has nearly burned in the incinerator.
#25 - Robbie's Employment Service
Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/27/1962
Robbie and Hank think there is only one thing in the whole world that impresses girls -- money! So they decide to open their own home help unit in the hope of making the big bucks that they are constantly in need of. However, they run into competition from Chip who organises baby-sitting as a means of increasing his allowance to buy a new bicycle.
Want to see the rest of the rankings?
Episode Ninja is a small business run by one person.
Pro memberships help fund servers and new feature development!