The BEST episodes of My Three Sons season 1
Every episode of My Three Sons season 1, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of My Three Sons season 1!
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 - 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.
#2 - 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.
#3 - 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.
#4 - 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.
#5 - 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.
#6 - 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.
#7 - 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.
#8 - Mike in a Rush
Season 1 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/19/1961
Mike prepares for the transition from high school to college and the question of joining a fraternity is one that complicates his life considerably. When Mike and Jean attend a party as prospective applicants, he later finds out the they have been dropped from the waiting list and suddenly the cold war turns pretty hot.
#9 - The Bully
Season 1 - Episode 18 - Aired 1/26/1961
Chip falls foul of the school bully who isn't interested in fighting with him. Steve soon realises that Chip is deliberately provoking the boy each day in the school yard to prove a point, and feels the boy must must solve his own problems even though it costs him detention in the Principal's office.
#10 - 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.
#11 - 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.
#12 - The Horseless Saddle
Season 1 - Episode 33 - Aired 5/18/1961
Bub has no plans to join the horse race set, but a mysterious someone sends him a saddle. Chip takes his girlfriend for a pony ride along with the old saddle that the Douglases just can't seem to be rid of.
#13 - 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.
#14 - Mike's Brother
Season 1 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/29/1960
Constant comparison to his brother, Mike, leaves Robbie feeling inferior and angry—and their father has to face the consequences as Robbie and Mike are about to come to blows when Steve shows up just in the nick of time from work.
#15 - Soap Box Derby
Season 1 - Episode 27 - Aired 3/30/1961
Unaware of each other's problems, Steve and Robbie engage in what seem to be widely varied projects. Robbie is trying to construct a race kart and Steve is in a rush to help a missile manufacturer get his project off the launch pad in a race to beat a rival company.
#16 - Domestic Trouble
Season 1 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/5/1961
When Bub is suddenly called out of town, Steve seeks an agency to get temporary help—unaware that he may be recruiting a wife. With his older brothers passing the buck, Chip accidentally rings Domestic Bliss, Inc. – a marriage seeking department who send out a woman inspector right away.
#17 - Chip Off the Old Block
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/29/1960
Aeronautical Engineer Steve Douglas and his youngest son Chip face a parallel problem -- how to rid themselves of two designing females: Widower Steve is introduced to attractive and eligible Pamela MacLish, and is pursued by her because she wouldn't mind being the new Mrs. Douglas. Steve's youngest son Chip, aged eight, has similar problems with his classmate Dorine Peters, who would love to be his steady girlfriend. Pamela decides to call upon Steve with some leftover cake from their dinner, only to be met with a rambunctious houseful of children. Michael O'Casey, Steve's father in law, affectionately known as 'Bub' attends to the household chores. The eldest son Mike, aged eighteen and named after his Grandfather, is talking on the telephone, while middle son Robbie, aged fourteen, plays with the family's shaggy dog, known as Tramp. Before long Steve is accompanying Pamela and Chip to Chip's grade school dance. Chip takes it upon himself to give his father some sonly advice. Me
#18 - The Croaker
Season 1 - Episode 31 - Aired 5/4/1961
Malcolm, a frog that Chip has captured for a school project is the focus of all eyes in the Douglas home. Bub discerns a marked resemblance to his his Uncle Clancey in Malcolm's face. Further evaluation of its character becomes quite difficult when he leaps out of sight.
#19 - Bub in the Ointment
Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/13/1960
When Bub steps on the toes of each grandson in turn, Steve is about to rebuke him when the household returns to normal once again. Being chief cook, dishwasher and housekeeper to three boys is not fun for a grandfather as Bub soon finds out.
#20 - The National Pastime
Season 1 - Episode 30 - Aired 4/27/1961
Chip is so discouraged by his batting slump that he quits the baseball team. After his brothers encourage him to return, one of the parents, a volunteer umpire, calls in sick and Steve is asked to substitute. Chip thinks this will be the perfect opportunity to become the team hero.
#21 - Deadline
Season 1 - Episode 23 - Aired 3/2/1961
Mike Douglas is highly vocal in his criticism for the Sports page of the high school newspaper and to prove his point he is given one shot at revamping it, and he tackles the job with gusto.
#22 - Off Key
Season 1 - Episode 25 - Aired 3/16/1961
Chip brags to his new playmate that his genius brother Robbie can fix almost anything. Soon Robbie is repairing a Grand Piano and has five minutes to have it fixed before the boy's mother comes in and wants to practise a new tune on it.
#23 - Lonesome George
Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/1/1960
TV Star George Gobel is invited to dinner by Bub, who forgets to tell his son-in-law Steve who returns from an out of town business trip and arrives home late at night. He tiptoes around the house only to find a strange man occupying his bed.
#24 - Unite or Sink
Season 1 - Episode 28 - Aired 4/6/1961
Robbie and Mike want some extra pocket money but Steve tells them that they will have to earn it by themselves. The boys ask their neighbours if they could paint their front fence and before long several neighbors pitch in together to help restore the yard to its former glory.
#25 - Chip's Harvest
Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/17/1960
Thanksgiving Day's turkey dinner is threatened when the electricity is short-circuited throughout the neighborhood. Chip decides to bring along his Indian friend as his sole guest much to the annoyance of his brothers who say he is a bum who lives near the railway tracks in a rundown old shack.