Seasons & episodes

Robbie's glamorous girlfriend invites him to the exotic Brookdale Country Club, and he resolves to put pressure on Steve to join, despite the fact that his father isn't much of a joiner.

A top woman pilot is preparing for her flight around the world and calls on Steve Douglas to modify the design of her plane. Steve takes more than a professional interest in the plane he is preparing for a long solo journey—as well as the lady aviator planning to fly it.

Steve's plan for an Hawaiian holiday is cancelled when Chip develops a case of bronchitis, so Charley and the boys plan to bring Hawaii to him in the form of a luau in the garden complete with ladies that he would undoubtedly have met on board ship.

Chip dates an older woman and Robbie finds his ideas misinterpreted when the Douglas boys face the troubles of growing up. Meanwhile, Robbie tries to come up with a novel idea for the school float, and proceeds to demonstrate that teenage is just a time in life, but his speech, activities and clothes prove that it something much more, a lesson Chip also begins to learn.

To avoid being absent from the family longer than neccessary, Steve declines an invitation to stay at a luxurious mansion in Mexico. So his host flies down the entire family, giving Robbie the opportunity for a few sharp lessons in the conservatism of old Spanish chaperoning customs.

Charley accompanies Robbie and his date to a reading by an old pal of his, Maggie McSterling. She is a veteran actress and she and Charley recall their friendship during their vaudeville days. Maggie looks much younger than her age, and decides that Charley needs a vigorous course of rejuvenation.

Steve is to show important engineering plans to a British scientist on a rush visit to the United States. But soon disappearing blueprints and home-baked cookies can't both be blamed on Steve's absent-mindedness - they become a plaything for Tramp and his friends.

Robbie's friend has a grandfather that trains horses, but on the day of the big race when the thoroughbred racehorse loses her mascot, a rabbit, she loses her speed. But once she hears Robbie serenade on the guitar, the mascot problem is solved.

Chip feels left out of things when he is the only member of the family not working either full or part time. But watching 'Davy Crockett' and dreaming gives him a remarkable solution to his problem - he takes in a partner in his trapping business.

Steve is having nightmares and his vision of the future has a computer named Betsy join the family. It interferes with wedding plans when it selects different mates for Mike and Sally. Hoping to prove the computer wrong, Mike decides he will have Steve fill out a questionaire for his dad and his mother. His reasoning is that they will submit the two forms and the computer will pick someone else for their perfect match, thereby proving to Sally how wrong the computer can be. But lo and behold the computer mates Steve and Mike's mom.

Tramp causes confusion in two households when he runs away from home for fear of a cat. Meanwhile pampered 'Prince', pet in the mansion of a rich socialite, undergoes a complete and mysterious personality change.

Charley has a visit from an old Australian acquaintance who quickly fires the boys' imagination with tales of a paradise in the South pacific. The adults wonder if he is in fact an expert confidence trickster as he cheats Charley with an unexpected legacy that is responsible for a trip to the tropical island of Cocoa Fuji for Uncle Charley, Robbie and Chip.

Chip meets a group of Vaudevillians at a black tie affair with Uncle Charley and loses his sneaker in a Cinderella-like adventure when he falls for little Alice Vail.

Preparations for Mike and Sally's coming nuptials get confusing when Sally's mother arrives two months early and takes over organising for their wedding. The daunting list of chores she hands Mike sends him off into a dream world as he and Sally imagine how other cultures decide who can wed.

Sally has her hands full when her glamorous cousin comes to visit after being expelled from three colleges. She attracts so much attention from the boys that Uncle Charley uses his vaudeville make-up box to transform her into an ugly duckling.

Charley refuses to believe that a polite and quietly dressed man is in fact the last Chief of Owahnanee Tribe and his disbelief is deepened when the Indian asks for permission to visit their Tribal Burial grounds which just happens to be the backyard of the Douglas House.

Mike and Sally finally get married and leave for the East where Mike has a job as an assistant college psychology instructor. Robbie happily moves into Mike's old room. When Uncle Charley notes that they may soon be calling Steve 'Grandpa' he becomes somwehat concerned about growing old and calls up his former girlfriends. Robbie, now a college man, offers to help his father make friends with younger women, and while pretending to be disinterested, tries a few of his suggestions. When it is learned that Ernie must return to an orphanage, because he will not be allowed to accompany his foster parents in their move to the orient, Chip invites Ernie to move in permanently, giving Steve three sons once more.

Steve explores the possibility of adopting 10-year-old Ernie but runs into antagonism from Uncle Charley, who can forsee nothing but more work with a new boy to take care of. The family desperately wants to adopt the boy and Robbie decides that Steve must make a play for the lovely Miss Coulter. Her boss comes to inspect the house just as the boys have made a shambles of the place. At eight the next morning, Miss Miller returns. She inspects the house, spic and span now, and ushers in a happy Ernie, who is to stay on a temporary basis.

Ernie's adoption into the all-male Douglas household is threatened by a regulation that there must be a lady of the house. Steve again makes a request to adopt the child, but Misses Coulter and Miller of the adoption agency, say they are powerless to change the regulations. Miss Miller has a brilliant idea, however, and soon the family is appearing before a judge who decides that housekeeper Uncle Charley can legally be designated the 'lady of the house'. Charley approves if this fact is kept secret and Ernie is enthusiastically welcomed into the family.

Uncle Charley is upset when he learns that Robbie is dating a flashy chorus girl, but Steve refuses to worry because he trusts his son's common sense. Charley predicts Steve will be invited to pay the girl cash on the line if he wants her to stop dating his son.

An escaped circus lion makes a midnight call at the Douglas house, and Ernie sees it and awakens the understandably skeptical Steve who accompanies his new stepson to investigate. Steve eventually sees the lion and nervously plays a game of tag with it, warning the family to keep their bedroom doors closed.

No episode summary available yet.

Chip's secret love is an older girl named Mary Lou. When Steve suggests his love sick son should find out where he stands by asking for a date, Chip calls and identifies himself as 'Douglas'. Mary Lou is delighted -- thinking she is going out with Robbie Douglas, a genuine college freshman.

Ernie writes a play and volunteers Steve's services for his father-and-son night, so he dons a heavy robot costume. The family leaves early, and Steve finds himself alone on the street, helpless in his non-removable suit.