I just watched the two season 12 episodes, "Bad Day for Steve" and "Bad Day for Barbara" back to back and I have to say, if ever there were sitcom episodes made that scream, "The final season is almost over, we don't need to try anymore", these two episodes do!

The one about Steve's bad day isn't quite as silly and meaningless, basically, Steve has a series of mishaps that Ernie, who is working on a school project about how the phases of the moon affect someone's luck, naturally attributes to the full moon. So what we get is a bland episode about how someone goes through his day having the same problems that millions of people have every day; finding a spot on the lapel of the suit that he was going to wear to work (like he doesn't have half a dozen others), putting on socks that don't match his suit and having to change them (the horror!), getting a bit of wet paint on his hand when someone at the plant didn't put a "wet paint" sign on his office door, not being able to think of a good joke for his work speech and other silly little mishaps that are, of course, played here as huge problems. There are next to no funny lines, and Uncle Charley is almost the most annoying and self centered that I have ever seen him (stay tuned...). Bleh. After that episode I'm thinking that the best thing they ever did was stop before season 13 was made.

And then "Bad Day for Barbara" convinces me that the creation of a season 13 would have almost been a crime against humanity if the writing continued like this.

Basically, we see Barbara wake up with a headache and decide that she needs to stay in bed all day, until we find that Uncle Charley's "rutabaga" in his right leg (per Dodie's precocious mispronunciation of any word with more than two syllables) is acting up and he has decided to go on strike for the day, basically lying around the house and being mean and bossy to everyone. Not that he isn't always mean and bossy, but at least on most days he contributes a little bit to the running of the household. Not on this day, though, nope, it is all up to Barbara because it is Katie's day at the Red Cross :confused: and Uncle Charley is on strike. Barbara gamely gets out of bed to save the day by cooking breakfast and getting the kids off to school. Have these people never heard of cold cereal and why does Ernie need help getting off to school when he is a senior in high school and why can't he help Dodie get ready?

Anyhoo...so the day only proceeds to get worse, as you knew it would, and Barbara puts on her game face (tons of makeup with false eyelashes and luxuriously poofy hair with a headband that matches her mod outfit, natch) and carries out such strenuous tasks as going to the market, taking Tramp to the vet, and cleaning all the mud off of Katie's developmentally delayed triplets who have just spent the morning playing in a mud puddle, monkey see, monkey do, because they are all equally covered with mud (triplets must always engage in exactly the same activity at exactly the same time or they are not truly triplets, you see). Dodie accidentally cuts a hole in her dress :confused: and the day culminates in Barbara cooking dinner while the old donkey, Uncle Charley, sits at the kitchen table and heckles her, telling her how to cook and being a basically miserable old cuss. Barbara should have told him to go to his room but of course, Barbara is too polite so she just does a slow boil while she stands at the stove. By the time Steve gets home, Barbara has had enough and she runs out the door to who knows where, leaving Steve to call all of her lady friends who all, like clockwork, have to comment on how Steve has lost Barbara while Uncle Charley sits by eavesdropping and scowling in disapproval. Shemp and Polly drop by to see Barbara (you really HAVE to see Chip's hair in this one, it is unreal), and apparently only Barbara, because they immediately leave when they find that she's not home (time filler). Katie finally comes home at 11 pm (long day at the Red Cross), and Uncle Charley orders her to make coffee for everyone as Barbara comes in through the kitchen, sans headache and cheerful as ever and Uncle Charley jumps up and acts all sheepish when confronted with the fact that his leg is somehow magically "unlocked". Was he faking all day when he knew Barb didn't feel good? What an old #&*#%#. Barbara went to a movie and all is now well, end of story.

I think what killed me the most with this one, aside from the lack of funny lines and what a jerk Uncle Charley was being, is that how many people wake up with a headache, take some Tylenol, and go about their day? Have any of you never worked with a headache or ran errands when you didn't feel good? Isn't this just part of the human experience instead of material for an entire sitcom episode? Bleh.

Sorry this got so long, I just needed to vent. If anyone is still reading at this point, let me know what you think of these klunkers, or were they good episodes and I'm the klunker?

There probably are a few good episodes in season 12--these don't sound like two of them! Another three that aren't very good are the Fergus episodes that opened the season. The minute I hear that fake dubbed in voice for Fergus (Fred MacMurray playing a dual role), I groaned.

Another thing that made me groan were the horrible edits on the Odyssey showings of season 12. Hopefully MeTV will do better, and we'll see an extra minute plus of each episode.

If the episodes are anywhere near as funny as your descriptions, they should be a laugh riot. I laughed all thru your completely disgusted by them descriptions. Maybe you should have written Season 12, it would have gone on longer.

I've seen My 3 Sons many times (thanks to my ever lovin' DVDs, I don't rely on a TV channel's good graces) and I remember well these episodes, though I haven't reached them yet in my own one episode per Monday viewings done in episode guide order, though I am in season 12 now, tomorrow I watch "Enthusiast".

But that one about Barbara's rough day, I do remember thinking what a lying rat Charley was for pretending to have a bad leg when he knew all along Babs wasn't feeling her level best. He must have been trying to get even with her for some unknown reason, maybe she starched his long johns?:lol: But the rest of your comments on Charley I don't really agree with, I like his grouchiness and tell it like it is attitude. I don't think of this as his being mean, just honest. (But, like I said, his faking a "rutabaga" leg [this alone could be the one funny thing in the episode to make it worthwhile] that faking WAS low down rotten. I've never seen Charlie (I like this spelling better) act deliberately deceiving or mean spirited in previous episodes, this must have been the results of a new unfamiliar with the series writer. Or just plain bad writing. I even think Bill Demarest should have registered an objection to this part, he knew the role of Charlie better than anyone, and should have changed this line himself.

I do agree with your assessments of all these so-called disasters with both Steve and Barbara, they are all a part of every day livin'. This is called life.;) Great review and your disgustedness made it funny:talk: .

Well, thanks for the endorsement, lol. After I wrote that whole thing I really reconsidered posting it because I didn't want any of you long timers here to misconstrue my intent and think that I don't love M3S, I absolutely do! But I do think that it's fun to poke fun at a show, even one of your favorite shows, when it is this silly, that's part of why I love it so much. It can be so silly and unrealistic and yet so unoffensive and entertaining.

I am also more comfortable with "Charlie" than "Charley", I only spelled it that way because everywhere I've seen the credits for this show they always spell it that way, which I find kind of odd. Maybe they asked Dodie how to spell it...:crazy:

I should add that I also have many episodes that I completely love and think are true classics and watch over and over, the latest being a season 10 episode, "It's a Woman's World" where Steve plays a tree in Dodie's school play. It is funny, sweet, and leaves you feeling warm all over. There are a lot of episodes like that. It's no mistake that Polly instantly wanted to be a Douglas almost immediately after meeting the family, who wouldn't? Lots of love and humor and Fred MacMurray for the patriarch, what could be more soothing than that?

Enjoy "The Enthusiast", I watched that one a few weeks ago. One of the things I find so endearing about Fred MacMurray is the way that he was willing to make himself look silly on this show for the sake of the story line, like in the episode I mentioned where he plays a tree in an elementary school pageant or this episode where he reveals what a terrible bowler he is. He was a huge star back in the day, and a lot of those guys had huge egos t match and would have thought that they were way above doing those kinds of things, and on a TV sitcom at that. I'm so glad that Mr. MacMurray didn't have that attitude, because no one else could have possibly been Steve Douglas, the part was made for him.

Oh, yeah, you can be a fan and also be super-critical. You should see what we post on the Leave It To Beaver board. I pick the show apart with the best of 'em.

I like the occasional fallibility of the Steve Douglas character. Like he can't help but dislike (and really show it) the Tom Williams character. And Norman Alden, a veteran character actor, really does a good job with that portrayal. I also like what you're mentioning--occasionally doing that slapstick stuff like the tree, or a much earlier episode where he dressed up as a tin man.

Am I the only one wondering why, with Barbara and Katie there, and with Steve and Ernie perfectly able bodied, they felt the need to keep Uncle Charley living under the same roof with the rest of them? By the time the show ended, he was at most, the great-great-uncle of the tornadic triplets since Steve's first wife (his niece) was dead, and Steve's actual bio sons had ALL moved out. Surely, the Douglases could have chipped in for him to live in an efficiency in a retirement complex and maybe visited him every so often to keep him around. He did nothing but dis Katie and especially Barbara's efforts and openly favored his namesake great-great nephew while letting him and his fellow brothers wreak havoc on the Douglas household!

Oh, yeah, you can be a fan and also be super-critical. You should see what we post on the Leave It To Beaver board. I pick the show apart with the best of 'em.

I like the occasional fallibility of the Steve Douglas character. Like he can't help but dislike (and really show it) the Tom Williams character. And Norman Alden, a veteran character actor, really does a good job with that portrayal. I also like what you're mentioning--occasionally doing that slapstick stuff like the tree, or a much earlier episode where he dressed up as a tin man.

LOL, I will have to check out the LITB board, I have never been a huge fan of that show, but I would check it out just for the funny comments. I always liked Tony Dow but I found the Beaver to be a bit annoying for some reason, and that perfect mom drove me crazy. She was even more perfect than Donna Reed. The funniest episodes for me usually involve Wally's friends because Eddie is so conniving and real and Lumpy is such a big, dumb lug that he's funny just for that.

I recognized Norman Alden immediately when I first saw him playing Tom Williams, because he played some bad guys and sidekicks of bad guys in some of the cop dramas of the era like "Starsky and Hutch" and "Charlie's Angels". He never had many lines, though, so I didn't realize what a good actor he was until I saw him in some of his scenes from M3S, especially the scenes where he is afraid of losing Polly to Chip. He should have had more of a career, he was good.

Am I the only one wondering why, with Barbara and Katie there, and with Steve and Ernie perfectly able bodied, they felt the need to keep Uncle Charley living under the same roof with the rest of them? By the time the show ended, he was at most, the great-great-uncle of the tornadic triplets since Steve's first wife (his niece) was dead, and Steve's actual bio sons had ALL moved out. Surely, the Douglases could have chipped in for him to live in an efficiency in a retirement complex and maybe visited him every so often to keep him around. He did nothing but dis Katie and especially Barbara's efforts and openly favored his namesake great-great nephew while letting him and his fellow brothers wreak havoc on the Douglas household!

Well, if you wanted to analyze it, you could say that this show took place during a time when people were more inclined to look out for and take care of the elderly people in their families and keep them at home as they aged, or you could say that Uncle Charley had been with them long enough that they didn't feel right about booting him out when women moved into the house to take over the domestic duties.

If you wanted to look at it in a practical "real life" way, William Demarest probably had a contract through the end of the show, or possibly the producers, writers, etc. thought that between the big move to California and the introduction of Katie, the triplets, Barbara, and Dodie, it would be too much change for viewers to see Uncle Charley get dumped too so they just kept him around.

I suppose it is conceivable that someone thought that Uncle Charley was lovable in a "crusty old curmudgeon with a heart of gold" way, but honestly, although I didn't hate him and he did have some funny lines, I feel that really living with someone like that on a day to day basis would be grating and difficult, especially in light of how pleasant the other members of the family were. Who would really want an old man who scowled and criticized everyone constantly and said things in a loud, cranky voice like, "Hey, get in here and eat your dinner or I'll throw it on the floor!" around on a day to day basis? I mean, what a downer!

My maternal grandmother was a bit like Uncle Charley, always negative, always critical, a real Debbie downer. She would come and stay with us for a week at a time and it was like living with a pit bull with hemorrhoids, and that's how I think it would have been living with Uncle Charley. Plus, I hate to say it, but with that face and that orange hair plastered to his skull, he was one scary and terrible looking dude. I'm surprised Dodie didn't wet her pants every time she crossed his path in season 10, so scary looking was he.

For me, Uncle Charley was tolerable in a sitcom because he wasn't real but in real life no one would have wanted him to wear out his welcome. I think he would have found himself dropped off at the Greyhound bus station quite often.

I've always liked the grouchy old men in TV shows. Grandpa (Walter Brennan) in The Real McCoys, Fred in I Love Lucy, Bub (older Fred) in My 3 Sons, Charlie in My 3 Sons, these guys are all my favorites. In some cases they make the series, Hello Real McCoys. Don't look on them as mean, but as meaning to do good or do what they see as right. They may not be the diplomat you're looking for, but they're real.;)

It's been quite some time since I watched the Season 12 episodes. Neither of the "bad day" episodes made much of an impression either way -- and regarding Chip's hair ("Shemp?" LOL), I did mention elsewhere that he was really pushing the limits at that time. It's ironic that in one episode, Barbara advocated for another boy's hair (played by Jon Walmsley) to be cut, when her own stepson looked like that...!

I recall the Fergus eps much more vividly, partly because I don't think Anne Francis ever looked better (as "Terri Dowling"). I'll have to recuse myself as far as opinions of the quality.

One thing about having Charley remaining on is that it made sense if Barbara were to continue her teaching career -- anyway, compare with the late episodes of Family Affair, where Bill Davis acquires the services of Emily (Nancy Walker) on top of his continuing "gentleman's gentleman." Two servants for an apartment, albeit a lavish one, with one being a "live-in?"

Finally I have to add my agreement regarding Norm Alden -- what a great choice he was to play Tom Williams. As a guest actor he made a lasting impression. I was always aware that the character was over-the-top in protectiveness of his daughter, but the more closely I look at what Alden did with the role, the more I'm impressed.

Uncle Charley or Charlie (whichever)--probably no reason to kick him out. They had that room off the kitchen, which no one would probably use, anyway.

I agree about the curmudgeons. And Walter Brennan really made the Real McCoys. The other ones mentioned added a lot to each show.

It's been quite some time since I watched the Season 12 episodes. Neither of the "bad day" episodes made much of an impression either way -- and regarding Chip's hair ("Shemp?" LOL), I did mention elsewhere that he was really pushing the limits at that time. It's ironic that in one episode, Barbara advocated for another boy's hair (played by Jon Walmsley) to be cut, when her own stepson looked like that...!

I recall the Fergus eps much more vividly, partly because I don't think Anne Francis ever looked better (as "Terri Dowling"). I'll have to recuse myself as far as opinions of the quality.

One thing about having Charley remaining on is that it made sense if Barbara were to continue her teaching career -- anyway, compare with the late episodes of Family Affair, where Bill Davis acquires the services of Emily (Nancy Walker) on top of his continuing "gentleman's gentleman." Two servants for an apartment, albeit a lavish one, with one being a "live-in?"

Finally I have to add my agreement regarding Norm Alden -- what a great choice he was to play Tom Williams. As a guest actor he made a lasting impression. I was always aware that the character was over-the-top in protectiveness of his daughter, but the more closely I look at what Alden did with the role, the more I'm impressed.

Another poster referred to Chip's season 12 hair as his "Shemp hairstyle", and he really did somewhat favor Shemp Howard of The Three Stooges with it parted down the middle and stuck to the sides of his face like that.

I always thought that John Walmsley was the cutest of the Walton boys but when I saw him in that episode of M3S where he played a kid "hiding behind his long hair" because he was so shy, I almost fell off of my chair. Nothing could prepare one to see Jason Walton looking like that. It was almost frightening, and Grandma Walton would have taken him out behind the wood shed for sure...after she stopped laughing.

Speaking of unnecessary sitcom household help, why did the Bradys need Alice? Mom, Dad, and six able bodied kids should have been able to keep that house in order. Eight people was a lot to cook for, I'll give her that, but what else did Carol do all day except sit around sipping coffee and working on needlework projects anyway? Can you imagine being the stay at home mom of a bunch of school aged kids who are gone all day and having your husband provide you with a live in maid? Carol is the one who should have had the bad day, she could have easily stayed in bed all day with a headache and loyal old Alice would no doubt have been bringing her her meals on a tray.

You have a point about the Bradys. Those kids never seemed to have any chores to do, either.

It's been awhile since I've seen a season 12 episode, but didn't Ernie part down the middle, too?

You have a point about the Bradys. Those kids never seemed to have any chores to do, either.

It's been awhile since I've seen a season 12 episode, but didn't Ernie part down the middle, too?

Once in a very long while you would see them doing some token little task like carrying a waste basket out to the garbage can or something, that was probably the extent of Sherwood Schwartz's version of "keeping it real" and trying to convince us (unsuccessfully) that these kids weren't lazy, spoiled brats.

Ernie did change his 'do in season 12, and yes, it was parted down the middle but for some reason it worked a lot better on him than on Chip, probably because he kept the sides pretty short. Made him look a lot cuter and less geeky too.

I feel badly about the comments that I made about Uncle Charley now, I was just reading an excerpt from Barry Livingston's autobiography, The Importance of Being Ernie: From My Three Sons to Mad Men, a Hollywood Survivor Tells All and he says that making season twelve wasn't a very happy experience, in part because William Demarest was almost 80 and having "memory issues" so they had to limit his lines...how sad. :(

He also said that Fred MacMurray, by then in his mid-sixties, was getting a bit cantankerous and what didn't help was that Dawn Lyn would yank on his toupee on purpose during shooting to elicit a response from him. Ha, I can just imagine how much he appreciated that, he probably channeled his inner Uncle Charley at times.

So according to Barry, between things like that, plus the fact that the show was just getting stale and Don Grady had left, the rest of them were pretty much ready to be done already when they wrapped season 12.

ETA: Funny trivia-I was watching "The Great Ziegfeld" (1936) with William Powell and Myrna Loy today on TCM and who should show up but Uncle Charley himself, William Demarest, dressed as a clown for one of the Ziegfeld Follies shows in the movie. He was very nice and chipper, nothing like his Uncle Charley character, but then he was 30+ years younger at that time and playing a clown so I guess that's not so surprising.

MacMurray may have caused some hard feelings with the other actors, since much of the time, he was not there due to his contract. So, they were working with stand-ins a lot, and he would come in and film his scenes later. All this would causes scenes and episodes to be filmed out of order...I imagine it created quite a bit of confusion. For the actors, and the post production people like film editors, as well.

Too bad about Demarest in the last season--never heard that one...

MacMurray may have caused some hard feelings with the other actors, since much of the time, he was not there due to his contract. So, they were working with stand-ins a lot, and he would come in and film his scenes later. All this would causes scenes and episodes to be filmed out of order...I imagine it created quite a bit of confusion. For the actors, and the post production people like film editors, as well.

Too bad about Demarest in the last season--never heard that one...

There is an interview with Barry Livingston on YouTube where he discusses the way that the show had to be filmed to accommodate Fred MacMurray's work schedule, which stipulated that he not have to work for more than three months out of the year. He said it could be very tough and confusing to film those sequences out of order like that, literally a scene from, say, episode 2 of that season followed immediately by a scene from, say, episode 8 of the same season, just so that they could get in all the scenes with MacMurray in them within his 3 month time frame. Barry said that it really honed their skills as actors, doing it that way, and that there were times where it would appear in a scene that he was having a conversation with MacMurray when he was actually speaking to a tall female stand-in, lol.

I'm not an actor but it sure does seem to me like that would be extremely hard, especially for the younger actors, like Stanley and Barry in the early years and then Dawn in the later years (those triplets didn't have a clue). Like for example, maybe they filmed scenes from the episodes with Steve and Barbara's honeymoon and the family adjusting to all living together before they filmed some of the scenes from the episodes where Steve and Barbara first met or were still dating. It may have been easier in the earlier episodes after Mike left and the family still lived in Bryant Park, since those episodes didn't seem to follow such a specific sequence of events.

Dawn Lyn yanking on Macmurray's toupee... I wish they'd given Dodie that kind of stuff! One of the best things about the 2002 Family Affair was the bubbling dark undercurrent that they gave revival Buffy Davis.

Huh? Dark atmosphere in Family Affair? It's been a real real long time since I've watched Family Affair, may have to watch this again, to look for it. I will watch again eventually, but no immediate plans.

As for Charlie being senile and unable to get his lines out, I say BULL.:mad: I remember seeing William Demarest several times in interviews on Johnny Carson's Tonight, each time he came on (by the way, his hair looked exactly the same as it was on ..Sons except it was snow white, not red, but he wasn't bald) and in each appearance, many years after the end of My 3 Sons, he was sharp, funny, told jokes, was quick, witty and on the ball. These interviews were at least 8 to 10 years AFTER My 3 Sons ended, and Charlie was in top form even in his late 80's. If he was supposedly slow and out of it in 1971 he would have been hopeless in the late '70's and early '80s, and he wasn't.

I still remember to this day the funniest line I heard him say, Johnny was telling Charlie what good shape he was in and how sharp he was, he asked Charlie, Do you exercise? Demarest, in true Uncle Charlie manner, answered, "Anytime I get the urge to exercise, I lay down and wait for the urge to go away.":lol: I still remember that and how Bill Demarest talked and acted in real life just like his Uncle Charlie character.:talk:

Hazel, I'm talking about the 2002 version of Family Affair with Sasha Pieterse as Buffy and Tim Curry as Mr French. That's the version where Mr French is a more typical British butler that does not really like children, and Buffy is more sassy and snarky.

As for Charlie being senile and unable to get his lines out, I say BULL.:mad: I remember seeing William Demarest several times in interviews on Johnny Carson's Tonight, each time he came on (by the way, his hair looked exactly the same as it was on ..Sons except it was snow white, not red, but he wasn't bald) and in each appearance, many years after the end of My 3 Sons, he was sharp, funny, told jokes, was quick, witty and on the ball. These interviews were at least 8 to 10 years AFTER My 3 Sons ended, and Charlie was in top form even in his late 80's. If he was supposedly slow and out of it in 1971 he would have been hopeless in the late '70's and early '80s, and he wasn't.

I still remember to this day the funniest line I heard him say, Johnny was telling Charlie what good shape he was in and how sharp he was, he asked Charlie, Do you exercise? Demarest, in true Uncle Charlie manner, answered, "Anytime I get the urge to exercise, I lay down and wait for the urge to go away.":lol: I still remember that and how Bill Demarest talked and acted in real life just like his Uncle Charlie character.:talk:

Beats me, I like your report better, just repeating what Barry said in his book. I thought about buying the book but I have a feeling that there isn't as much in there about M3S as I would like, and frankly, although he seems like a very nice guy, I'm just not all that interested in the rest of his career post-M3S.

Not long ago I purchased a book about Gene Rayburn thinking that I would get all the dirt on the behind the scenes stuff from "Match Game" but there was surprisingly little about that show in the book, considering that that was Gene Rayburn's main claim to fame. It was disappointing and honestly, quite boring. Who really cares what Gene Rayburn was doing in the 1940s and 1950s other than a die-hard fan of his which I am not. I'm a "Match Game" fan.

Now to be fair, I have heard many times how William Frawley (Bub) in his latter years on the show couldn't remember his lines and would fall asleep on the set. Bub was slowing down (even though at the time he was only in his 60's) and did fit Ernie's description of Charlie, but unless Charlie slowed down in the last year of his life in the early 1980's when Charlie was in his early 90's that's possible, but not in 1971.

Oh, OK Paul. I never even saw the 2002 version of Family Affair, I vaguely remember hearing about it, but that's all. I thought I had missed some dark overtones in the last year of the real Family Affair. Glad I was wrong. Unfortunately, there was a dark overtone in the real life of Buffy.

Oh, another funny line I remember Charlie telling Johnny, (Charlie was about 88 or 89 at the time on the show) he said, "If I knew I was gonna live this long, I'da taken better care of myself." That guy was a natural entertainer.

As for Charlie being senile and unable to get his lines out, I say BULL.:mad: I remember seeing William Demarest several times in interviews on Johnny Carson's Tonight, each time he came on (by the way, his hair looked exactly the same as it was on ..Sons except it was snow white, not red, but he wasn't bald) and in each appearance, many years after the end of My 3 Sons, he was sharp, funny, told jokes, was quick, witty and on the ball. These interviews were at least 8 to 10 years AFTER My 3 Sons ended, and Charlie was in top form even in his late 80's. If he was supposedly slow and out of it in 1971 he would have been hopeless in the late '70's and early '80s, and he wasn't.

I still remember to this day the funniest line I heard him say, Johnny was telling Charlie what good shape he was in and how sharp he was, he asked Charlie, Do you exercise? Demarest, in true Uncle Charlie manner, answered, "Anytime I get the urge to exercise, I lay down and wait for the urge to go away.":lol: I still remember that and how Bill Demarest talked and acted in real life just like his Uncle Charlie character.:talk:

I agree with all of this. He was also on the Partridge/Sons reunion show, and he sounded fine (via videotape, but still good.)

Yeah, he was getting old, but getting old doesn't always mean losing it.

I'm betting Livingston was mixed up, and was thinking of Frawley. Livingston started on ...Sons around the 4th season, so he'd know about Frawley, too.

I agree with all of this. He was also on the Partridge/Sons reunion show, and he sounded fine (via videotape, but still good.)

Yeah, he was getting old, but getting old doesn't always mean losing it.

I'm betting Livingston was mixed up, and was thinking of Frawley. Livingston started on ...Sons around the 4th season, so he'd know about Frawley, too.

I tend to agree with both of you, Uncle Charley seemed pretty darned sharp in season 12 to me too. For example, he had a major part in the"Bad Day for Barbara" episode and he seemed just fine.

Here is the link to that excerpt from Barry's book:

https://books.google.com/books?id=pecBYFaAqw8C&pg=PT115&lpg=PT115&dq=dawn+lyn+memories+of+dodie&source=bl&ots=EQs0wXLGBv&sig=hyDlNgcZb0Zy6Fx5zpSr6XEbR50&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi1s5m0mb3bAhXBsFQKHV4qBNsQ6AEwE3oECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=dawn%20lyn%20memories%20of%20dodie&f=false

The "MacMurray Method" results have become both a distraction for me as well as something fun to watch for. It turns out that one of the most revealing was the episode in which a girl believes she'll be going out with Robbie, and instead Chip arrives, just a case of her not knowing the younger brother (Season 6, I think offhand, maybe 7). The girl's hair is much longer in the scenes without Fred M.

It was a lot of extra work for the staff, using photos to match things up, etc., and I think at times things could be simplified to make for a little less work -- for example, Charley in the light blue dress shirt & dark pants so often.

I buy Barry’s story that Bill Demarest was having problems remembering his lines. He was 80 after all. You can still be as sharp as a tack but have trouble remembering my lines for a weekly series. My mom is in her 80s and is very sharp. But she’d never be able to memorize a script if you gave it to her. Demarest worked a few more times after MTS, but it was never a weekly series. Perhaps that was a better situation for him, where he didn’t have the sheer volume of memorization he had with MTS.

I watched Bad Day for Barbara, and I kept waiting for her to stop being such a martyr. Tell everyone you’re sick and go to bed. The rest of the world will somehow manage to go on. I will say that Beverly Garland looked much better in season 12 than she did in season 10, when she looked a little schoolmarmish. She was the best thing about the show’s later years.

And yes, Chip’s hair was terrible in season 12. Either go back to the short style or let it grow legitimiately long. He had this sort of longish helmet and it looked ridiculous.