Widowed aircraft engineer Steve Douglas is raising his three sons in the town of Bryant =Park; college student Mike, high schooler Robbie and Chip the youngest. Helping Steve out is the boys' maternal grandfather, Bub O'Casey. As the years go on, Bub leaves and moves to his family's homestead in Ireland and is replaced by his brother Charlie, a retired merchant marine, Mike marries his college sweetheart Sally after his graduation and Steve adopts Chip's friend Ernie. The biggest change comes when the Douglases and Uncle Charlie move from Bryant Park to North Hollywood, California. Almost immediately, Robbie meets and eventually marries Katie Miller. Robbie and Katie eventually have three sons of their own in the form of Robbie Jr., Charlie and Steve. It is also there that Steve himself falls in love with Barbara Harper and the two eventually marry and Steve winds up adopting Barbara's daughter Dodie. Not to be outdone, Chip gets into the act and marries his college sweetheart Polly a few years later.

At Fred MacMurray's insistence, all episodes were filmed out of sequence during the show's entire run using a technique now known as the MacMurray method. MacMurray would do all of his scenes in 65 nonconsecutive days. The cast regulars got haircuts once a week in order to maintain continuity. Guest stars would have to return months later to complete an episode. All kitchen scenes would be done together, then all scenes in the upstairs hallway would be filmed together, etc. This fact was well concealed until Dawn Lyn joined the cast as Dodie. Her upper front teeth grew in irregularly during the entire 1969-70 season, from being barely visible in scenes with MacMurray to being plainly visible in scenes without him. William Frawley never felt comfortable with this method of filming, having grown accustomed to filming I Love Lucy in sequence during its entire run.

Ernie Douglas:
Do you think the house is going to miss us?


Charley O'Casey:
Sure, it'll miss us. The minute we get out of sight, it's going to break right down and start to cry out of all the faucets. The neighbors will sell tickets to see the crying house.


Steve Douglas:
I'd like to think the house is going to miss us, Charley.


Charley O'Casey:
Look, are we going to California, or are we going to stand here waving bye-bye to a pile of lumber?


Steve Douglas:
Charley's right, fellas. Let's all...let's all pile in.


Charley O'Casey:
Come on, let's go. Come on, move.


Chip Douglas:
[They all climb into the car.]


Chip Douglas:
Boy, Dad.


Steve Douglas:
Now, Chip, when they transferred me to California, you fellas all thought it was a great idea, so... Well, there's no turning back now.


Chip Douglas:
I know.


Chip Douglas:
[to Ernie]


Chip Douglas:
Hey, are you crying, Ernie?


Ernie Douglas:
Heck, no. Tramp just breathed on my glasses and they steamed up.

Written and Performed by Frank De Vol (1960-1972)