'Father' knew best when it came to '50s family fare

Father may or may not have known best in the 1950s, but television executives certainly didn't. The beloved series "Father Knows Best" - - which, since first airing a little more than 50 years ago, has become a lightning rod for questions of cultural and social values of the 1950s -- almost didn't make it to a second season.

The series, which debuted on CBS at 10 p.m. Eastern Time, Sunday, Oct. 3, 1954, did not do well in the ratings. In March of the next year CBS announced it was canceling the show.

A flood of viewer protests poured in, and someone got the word. But apparently not at CBS, for NBC picked up the show and moved it in August to the more family-friendly time slot of 7:30 Mountain Time on Wednesday nights, where it remained until September 1958. After that it moved back to CBS and finally, in 1962, over to ABC, before leaving prime time in April 1963.

A durable and popular property, indeed, especially when you consider that a series season in those days consisted of anywhere from 32 to 39 episodes, not the 22 (or fewer) of today. Its final season with original episodes, 1959-60, was also its most successful, when it ranked sixth among all TV programs. Equally as impressive, from 1960 to 1963, CBS and ABC got away with airing only reruns.

Actually, it probably was actor Robert Young who knew best. He helped create the show for NBC radio in August 1949. Young, who had the title role of insurance salesman Jim Anderson, was the only cast member to make the transition to television.

The radio show, which ran until November 1953, had been sharper, harsher than the subsequent TV version, filled with quarrels and bickering.

Writer Paul West calmed it down for television, building it around "puffball" crises, occasionally to the point of vacuity. That's the way Young wanted it.

West told Gerald Nachman, author of the book "Raised on Radio," that when people would say life isn't like that, Young would reply, "No, of course, but that's how we'd like it to be."

And therein lies the crux of the disagreement about the show's values and message, even now, a half-century on, when the program crops up on cable channels. Some say it was nothing more than an idealized version of American life, and what's wrong with that? Others say it institutionalized complacency and conformity and male dominance, and there's everything wrong with that.

Young and producer Eugene B. Rodney were candid about their efforts to project moral lessons. Nothing unusual about that; so were "Leave It to Beaver" creators Bob Mosher and Joe Connelly.

So why is it that "Beaver" doesn't draw the same complaints about being an unrealistic portrayal of the American nuclear family? After all, it could be argued that "FKB" was better written and better acted and had more interesting characters.

Perhaps it is because "Beaver" is more jokey than "FKB." West says they never thought of it as a comedy, even though it won awards in that category, but as a family drama.

One thing "FKB" was not was "Ozzie and Harriet." Nor "Leave It to Beaver." You might say it was on its way from one to the other.

Even in the radio version Jim Anderson as husband and father was a departure from the usual witless incompetents who filled that role on such shows as "The Life of Riley," "Blondie" and even "Ozzie and Harriet" (all of which also began on radio before moving to television). Young's Anderson was wise, kind, stable and helpful, a forerunner of Ward Cleaver of "Beaver," Andy Taylor of "The Andy Griffith Show" and Steve Douglas of "My Three Sons."

When the show moved to television, the three children were played by Lauren Chapin (Kathy, a k a "Kitten," age 9), Billy Gray (Bud, or James Anderson Jr., 14) and Elinor Donahue (Betty, a k a "Princess," 17). Margaret Anderson was played by Jane Wyatt, and she was her husband's equal in the kindness and wisdom departments; in fact, one of the show's strengths was that, its title notwithstanding, mother often knew best.

At first Kathy was cute, Bud was cool and Betty was winsome, with a hint of sexual allure appropriate to the constraints of the times. Margaret was always a little stiff, certainly more so than Harriet Nelson, or, even with her ever-present pearls, June Cleaver. Interestingly, Margaret rarely if ever pops up as an example of a favorite "TV mom." Even Donna Reed pulls in more votes. (On the other hand, maybe there is something to the eternal-youth stuff of "Shangri- la." Wyatt in this series does not appear much older than when she played the ageless and non-aging young woman in the movie "Lost Horizon" 20 years earlier.)

And Jim Anderson was, well, the heart of the show, dispensing sage advice, needed sympathy and constant support, whether the situation involved tracking down a lost cat for Kathy on a rainy night or helping Bud out of an ethical and/or financial dilemma. Young's two decades of work in Hollywood showed in the suppleness of his performance in a role that easily could have become a one-note samba.

But nothing is forever. The show, based on the premise of two parents guiding their children in the way they should go, lost much of its logic when the children actually went -- though they didn't go far. Betty and Bud decided, conveniently, to attend the local state college, a sign that the series was trying to have it both ways.

Kathy became annoying as she got older.

Except for Wyatt, cast members were beginning to look as if they would rather be elsewhere.

Arguments over the program probably never will cease as long as it continues to be associated with the contentious '50s. Some will continue to see the show (and the decade, for that matter) as synonymous with white-bread mores; others will see the show as a beacon of such true family values as compassion, warmth, community, humor and love.

Two things are certain. One, "FKB" never lost its simple sweetness. It succeeded without relying on irony, condescension or self-absorption -- an achievement not to be disdained.

Second, once again Young knew best. Having done the show 11 years on radio and TV, he had had enough and decided to call it quits and go out while it was still on top. A few years later, of course, he launched a new series, "Marcus Welby, M.D.," that became even more popular, and that has, with some justification, been called "Doctor Knows Best."

E-mail: Roger K. Miller, a journalist for many years, is a free- lance writer and reviewer for several publications, and a frequent contributor to the Deseret Morning News.

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