S01E01 Bud Takes Up the Dance
Bud tries to learn how to dance from a book for his first school dance.
Father Knows Best
Overview
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
S01E02 Lesson in Citizenship
Jim tells his family to help others which leads to complications.
S01E04 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...
S01E05 Live My Own Life
Bud moves out, but discovers he can't clean, cook, or take care of himself.
S01E07 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...
S01E08 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...
S01E09 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...
S01E10 Typical Father
Jim becomes worried that things between Betty and a new male friend of hers are getting too serious.
S01E11 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...
S01E12 The Christmas Story
Jim takes the family into the woods to cut down their own tree, and they become stranded there.
S01E13 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.
S01E14 Boy's Week
Jim receives a traffic ticket and Bud is appointed to be judge on that day.
S01E15 A Friend of Old George's
An unwanted visitor that won't leave spoils Kathy's birthday party.
S01E16 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...
S01E17 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.
S01E18 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...
S01E19 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.
S01E20 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.
S01E22 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...
S01E24 Father Delivers the Papers
Bud injures himself, so Jim delivers the papers on his route to avoid Bud being fired.
S01E26 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.
Cast
Robert Young
Jim Anderson
Jane Wyatt
Margaret Anderson
Elinor Donahue
Betty Anderson
Billy Gray
Bud Anderson
Lauren Chapin
Kathy Anderson
