My Three Sons: The First Season, Volume One – DVD Review

DVD Reviews, Reviews

Deep in the jungles of the Amazon rainforest there must be a tribe that worships the genius of William Frawley. Who is he? You probably know him best as Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy. Frawley didn’t merely slouch into the sunset when Desi and Lucy finally pulled the plug on the show. He reinvented himself from the childless landlord to a grandfather on My Three Sons. Instead of dealing with a frumpy wife and her scheming friend, he supervised the motherless Douglas boys. My Three Sons: The First Season, Volume One gives us the initial 18 episodes that reminds us that Frawley ran the house.

The premise of My Three Sons has Steven Douglas (Fred MacMurray) as a widowed father. He’s a busy aeronautical engineer that needs Bub, his wife’s father, to manage the kids. Mike (Tim Considine) is a senior in high school who is learning about being an adult. Robbie (Don Grady) is more crazed about cars than girls. Chip (Stanley Livingston) is the kid in the family who gets frustrated with all the grown up talk around the house. The series varied in tone between serious family drama action and comedy.

Fred MacMurray didn’t want to interrupt his movie career to work on TV. In order to accommodate him, they shot all of Fred’s footage for the season over 65 days. The cast members would shoot all their non-Fred shots during the rest of the year. This strange production schedule created a strange chemistry between the actors. The boys are formal and rather scared when around Fred. But they have a familiarity in their attitude and posture with Frawley. There is a wait till your father gets home fear in their eyes.

The best episodes have a healthy does of Frawley in the action. “Chip off the Old Block” starts the series with a father and son date plot. We learn that Steve isn’t completely mourning for his late wife. He doesn’t mind dating the ladies in search of the next Mrs. Douglas. However the woman with an eye on him doesn’t really turn him on. Chip also gets a female admirer that he can’t stomach. How can they perform a tandem dumping while remaining gentlemen? Bub wants Steve to get married so he can quit being the woman around the house. “Bub in the Ointment” has him upset each one of the sons. They think he’s an old coot who doesn’t understand what they need. But very quickly they learn that he’s got a clue about the way the world works and what they need.

“Countdown” is a landmark episode for daring to do more than recycle the normal sit-com plots. This is perhaps the first 24 moment on network TV. We experience the Douglas family waking up and heading out of the house in real time. But that’s not all. On the TV is coverage of a missile launch. The episode uses the narrator from the TV to comment on the action in the Douglas house. The ending is pitch perfect. They really tried to do something beyond a Bachelor Father retread.

“Lady Engineer” has Steve getting the hots for a visiting expert worker at the plant. He does his best to seduce her. If this action took place in the 21st century, Steve would probably be up on sexual harassment charges. “Lonesome George” makes us believe that Hollywood Stars icon George Gobel was once a superstar that elderly ladies wanted to ravish. Could he have really been the original Matlock? The boys want Bub to prove he really was friends with all the showbiz folks. They send him off on a mission to bring the visiting Gobel over for dinner. What are the odds that George dines with the Douglas family? Who can resist the charms of Frawley? “Bub Leaves Home” is shocking as Bub senses he’s no longer wanted around the house. He makes plans to run a movie theater and let a second cousin take over the family duties.

The disappointing news is My Three Sons is another victim of the Capitol Music Library being disbanded. What does that mean? Instead of completely using original music composed and performed for the show, the producers used pre-recorded tunes to augment their soundtrack. It was a convenient way to work on a tight budget and fast production schedule. This library program allowed producers an easy negotiation to secure the rights to use the library music on DVDs. Capitol eliminated this program over a year ago. Various music publishers now control their songs and set their own prices. There are reports of music publishers demanding astronomical fees for a few seconds of their composers’ work. Instead of being held hostage, certain studios are rescoring their shows when faced with this issue. This practice upsets purists, but it appears to be the only way studios can insure that they’ll be able to distribute and sell their TV shows without being at the mercy of indifferent music publishers. Musicologists say that they can help identify the Capitol music cues from ones the studio control so they don’t have to replace all the notes. But if one three second ditty from the Capitol library accidentally slips onto a DVD release, there’ll be a nasty lawsuit. Music publishers want their money and rarely care about the art and history angle. The replacement tracks on My Three Sons do a fine job of cloning the musical style of the time. The original opening and ending themes remain.

In my area of the country, the local station only rerun the color episodes which started right after William Frawley left. That was the Uncle Charlie era. It’s nice to see what Frawley could do when let loose on children. He brings the humanity to the house that MacMurray lacks with his intellectual, pipe smoking ways. My Three Sons: The First Season, Volume One gets the series off to a great start thanks to Frawley reminding us that these were his three grandsons.

The Episodes

“Chip Off the Old Block,” “The Little Ragpicker,” “Bub in the Ointment,” “Countdown,” “Brotherly Love,” “Adjust or Bust,” “Lady Engineer,” “Chip’s Harvest,” “Raft on the River,” “Lonesome George,” “Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year,” “My Three Strikers,” “The Elopement,” “Mike’s Brother,” “Domestic Trouble,” “Bub Leaves Home,” “Mike in a Rush” and “The Bully.”

The video is 1.33:1 full frame. The transfer gives a richness to the black and white image. The audio is Dolby Digital mono. The levels are perfect for receiving the wit and wisdom of William Frawley. The big problem for hardcore collectors will be the replacement of the incidental music. For those who didn’t grow up with these early episodes, your ears won’t be offended.

None.

My Three Sons: The First Season, Volume One has William Frawley dominate the action. Fred MacMurray might get top billing, but he’s second banana when they share the screen. After all those years of surviving Lucy, Ethel and Ricky on I Love Lucy; Frawley was ready to shine even if he had to wear an apron to be the man about the house.

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CBS DVD presents My Three Sons: The First Season, Volume One. Starring William Frawley, Fred MacMurray, Tim Considine, Don Grady and Stanley Livingston. Box set Contents: 18 episodes on 3 DVDs. Released on DVD: September 30, 2008. Available at Amazon.

Joe Corey is the writer and director of "Danger! Health Films" currently streaming on Night Flight and Amazon Prime. He's the author of "The Seven Secrets of Great Walmart People Greeters." This is the last how to get a job book you'll ever need. He was Associate Producer of the documentary "Moving Midway." He's worked as local crew on several reality shows including Candid Camera, American's Most Wanted, Extreme Makeover Home Edition and ESPN's Gaters. He's been featured on The Today Show and CBS's 48 Hours. Dom DeLuise once said, "Joe, you look like an axe murderer." He was in charge of research and programming at the Moving Image Archive.