50 Fun Facts About Father Knows Best

Three years after Father Knows Best ended, ABC News interrupted a rerun with its first bulletin on which event?

Kennedy's assassination was first reported on ABC at 1:42 p.m. Eastern, cutting into the third-season episode Man About Town on the stations showing the rerun.

The Anderson house facade from Father Knows Best was later remodeled as astronaut Tony Nelson's home in which sitcom?

I Dream of Jeannie put Major Nelson behind the same front door on Columbia's Burbank ranch. The facade also turns up in Hazel, The Monkees and The Partridge Family.

Billy Gray, Bud of Father Knows Best, lost the part of Plato in which film when shooting delays hit?

Rebel Without a Cause went ahead with Sal Mineo as Plato, and the part brought him an Oscar nomination. Gray had to step aside when the delay clashed with his commitment to the Andersons.

The actress who played Margaret Anderson on Father Knows Best later appeared in Star Trek as which character's mother?

Spock's human mother, Amanda Grayson, was hers in a 1967 episode and again in a 1986 film. She said the part brought her more fan mail than her famous role in Lost Horizon.

Jean Vander Pyl, Margaret on radio's Father Knows Best, later became the voice of which Hanna-Barbera character?

Wilma Flintstone was hers from the 1960 premiere, and she outlived the rest of the original Flintstones cast. She also voiced Rosie, the robot maid of The Jetsons.

Betty Anderson of Father Knows Best signs up by initials alone for a career-day placement in which job?

Engineer was the placement, and her surveyor boss spent the day insisting that a woman's place was in the home. The 1956 episode ends with Betty in a new dress, accepting a date with him.

Robert Young followed Jim Anderson of Father Knows Best with which title role as a caring physician on ABC?

Marcus Welby kept him on screen for seven seasons and won him an Emmy in 1970. The medical drama was the first ABC program to finish a season as the country's top-rated series.

Which actress won three straight Emmys as Margaret Anderson, the calm voice of reason in Father Knows Best?

Jane Wyatt won an Emmy for the role in 1958, 1959 and 1960. Her film career had suffered earlier after she spoke out against Senator Joseph McCarthy.

In which town, whose state is never named, do the Andersons of Father Knows Best live?

Springfield is generally taken to be in the Midwest. As a child Matt Groening believed it was the Oregon town of the same name, and he later borrowed it for The Simpsons.

Jim Anderson, the father in Father Knows Best, is a salesman and manager in which line of business?

Insurance pays the bills: Jim runs the General Insurance Company office. On radio the character was noticeably more sarcastic than the gentle father of television.

Kathy, the youngest Anderson child in Father Knows Best, answers to which affectionate nickname?

Kitten was played by Lauren Chapin, who felt she won the part by resembling one of Robert Young's real daughters.

Which pet name does Betty, the eldest Anderson child, go by at home in Father Knows Best?

Princess was Elinor Donahue's star-making part. By the end of the third season she was visibly pregnant, and the production tried to hide it on screen.

Bud is only a nickname in Father Knows Best: what is the real first name of the Andersons' son?

James Anderson Jr. is his full name, after his father Jim. On radio the part belonged to Ted Donaldson; Billy Gray took it over for television.

After Father Knows Best, Elinor Donahue played pharmacist Ellie Walker in the first season of which rural sitcom?

The Andy Griffith Show billed her ahead of Don Knotts in its opening credits. She asked to be released from a three-year contract after a single season.

Marion Ross, a swimming teacher in one Father Knows Best episode, later played the mother on which nostalgic sitcom?

Happy Days cast her as Marion Cunningham for its whole run, 1974 to 1984. In the 1960 Andersons episode she is Miss Abrams, who lets slip that Jim has been asking about the pool.

Dick York guest-starred in Father Knows Best as a man Betty hauls home in a cart; which sitcom later made him famous?

Bewitched made him the first Darrin Stephens. In his 1958 guest spot he sneers that modern women could never manage a pioneer trek, then hurts his foot and has to be pulled the rest of the way.

On Christmas Eve in Father Knows Best, what strands the Andersons near a closed mountain lodge on a tree-cutting trip?

A snowdrift traps the car after Jim insists on driving to the mountains for the tree. Their host at the lodge, Nick, turns out to be a vagrant, and Kathy takes him for Santa Claus.

What does a friend try to sell Jim in the Father Knows Best episode Swiss Family Anderson, stranding the family?

An island with a beat-up shack looked less romantic once the untied boat drifted off and supper was potatoes and onions. Back home, the Andersons decided their old house was not so bad.

In the Father Knows Best episode The Gold Turnip, which heirloom does Jim Anderson hand Bud on graduation day?

A watch passed down through the family leaves Bud overcome with emotion, although he had mocked it and asked for a sports car. Jim then leads everyone outside to show him a car as well.

Which honor does Betty Anderson hold at the high school graduation she nearly skips in Father Knows Best?

Valedictorian Betty nearly skipped the ceremony, convinced her best days were over. Jim found her at a grove she loved as a child and talked her round with help from Margaret's diary.

Father Knows Best ended in 1960 while still a top-ten show in the ratings for which reason?

Its star walked away: Robert Young wanted to work on other projects while the series sat sixth in the ratings. Prime-time reruns kept airing for another three years.

CBS dropped Father Knows Best after one season; which network picked the sitcom up for the next three years?

NBC kept the Andersons until 1958, when the series moved back to CBS for its last two seasons. Repeats later ran on ABC, so it appeared on all three major networks of its day.

After Kathy freezes on television, what do the Andersons eat for Thanksgiving in Father Knows Best?

Hamburgers at home replaced the planned restaurant feast. Kathy had been due to recite the best Thanksgiving poem in her class but burst into tears, having overheard Jim say it was not very good.

Natividad Vacío appears in Father Knows Best as Frank Smith, who says his name as Fronk and does which job?

Gardener Fronk talks his way into the job before Margaret knows what has happened, then runs up bills nobody approved. He is later arrested for taking park flowers that he was in fact planting.

Which instrument does Bud Anderson take up in Father Knows Best, dreaming of being a musician all the girls love?

Bongos, handed on by his friend Claude, fed Bud's calypso ambitions, and for once he kept practicing. Then the girl he hoped to impress complained that Claude's playing bored everyone.

Which Brooklyn Dodgers star plays himself in Father Knows Best when Bud hopes his father can book an all-star team?

Duke Snider asks for the team's expenses up front plus a quarter of the profits. A local man offers Jim the money in exchange for a political favor, and Jim turns him down.

Robert Young, the father in Father Knows Best, appeared until 1982 in television commercials for which coffee brand?

Sanka kept him on screen long after his two hit series. He also has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one each for film, television and radio.

Rhoda Williams, Betty on radio's Father Knows Best, was the voice of Drizella in which Disney animated feature?

Cinderella reached cinemas in 1950, a year into her five-year run as Robert Young's eldest daughter on the air. Drizella is one of the heroine's two stepsisters.

Where does Betty of Father Knows Best choose to study instead of State University, her parents' old school?

A local junior college lets Betty stay with her friends and, as she tells her parents, live her own life instead of reliving theirs. A dean who overhears helps Jim accept her choice.

Elinor Donahue plays two parts in the Father Knows Best episode Betty's Double: Betty Anderson and which lookalike?

A movie star named Donna Stuart is the double, and Betty wins a Hollywood trip for resembling her. After signing autographs as Donna, she feels a fraud and nearly skips a television interview.

In an Emmy-winning Father Knows Best episode, Margaret, the only Anderson with no trophy, secretly learns which sport?

Fly fishing lessons go well until Margaret sprains her arm the day before the contest, so the family hands her homemade trophies instead. Peter Tewksbury won a directing Emmy for the episode.

Which year-long raffle prize does Margaret of Father Knows Best cash in at once to fete a failed writer?

Spaghetti dinners, one a week for a year, become a single banquet for Harper Eames, an old friend of Jim's who dreamed of being celebrated. On the night, Jim finds him washing dishes in the kitchen.

In the first television episode of Father Knows Best, how is Bud secretly learning to dance for his first date?

From an old book, more than 50 years out of date, Bud practices noisily in his room while the family pretends not to notice. His date turns out to be just as afraid that she cannot dance.

Which lucky charm from Betty does Kathy lose just before the county spelling bee in Father Knows Best?

A penny turns up in a dress Kathy had lent to her rival, Mara, and she gets it back mid-contest. The two girls reach the final, where Kathy loses on purpose out of sympathy.

Bud's new shortwave set in Father Knows Best picks up a distress call from what, a thousand miles away?

A cabin cruiser named the Betty Ann had lost both engines in a storm, and its calls were not getting through. Jim phoned the Coast Guard with its position, and the family aboard was saved.

Robert Young drops Jim Anderson to play Tate Ibsen in one Father Knows Best episode told in which genre?

A Western set in Arizona in 1860 replaced the Andersons for a night in the second season. Young introduced it himself as a special program while the family was on vacation.

After a makeover in Father Knows Best, how does Kathy get a party full of boys fussing over her?

Faking a sprained ankle, blamed on her high heels, has every boy at the party fawning over her. Earlier in the episode she had pinned one of them in a backyard wrestling match.

Which future Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star played Betty's daughter Ellen in the 1977 Father Knows Best reunions?

Kyle Richards was a child actress who also appeared in Halloween. The two 1977 television films found Betty a widowed mother of two and Bud married with a son.

Lauren Chapin, Kathy in Father Knows Best, launched which star by taking her daughter's Texas friend to Los Angeles?

Jennifer Love Hewitt was signed by an agency on that trip. Chapin had second thoughts and withdrew her own daughter, who had been signed alongside her friend.

A never-made Father Knows Best film in development at Paramount in 2000 was drafted as a vehicle for which comedian?

Tim Allen would have played a man whose son wins him a father-of-the-year contest by lying on the entry form. He then falls for the woman running the contest and has to keep up the act.

Billy Gray, who played Bud in Father Knows Best, spent 25 years from 1970 racing what on speedway tracks?

Motorcycles kept him busy as a Class A speedway racer and race promoter until 1995. He then turned inventor, coming up with a guitar pick called the F-1.

Which cigarette brand sponsored the first season of Father Knows Best, then declined to renew during a cancer scare?

Kent's maker, Lorillard, decided after 13 episodes not to renew. Billboard blamed the program's cost, a weak lead-in and falling cigarette sales.

Which US government department commissioned a 1959 Father Knows Best episode that never aired on television?

Treasury officials wanted the Andersons to promote savings bonds. The half-hour, 24 Hours in Tyrant Land, went to schools, churches and civic groups instead of the airwaves.

The house used for the Andersons' home in Father Knows Best was built in 1941 for films based on which comic strip?

Blondie gave the house its first tenants, and the studio lot kept the comic's name for the street. A catastrophic fire in 1970 burned the house along with a quarter of the ranch.

Father Knows Best director Peter Tewksbury quit Hollywood for Vermont and became known as Henry the what?

Cheeseman was the name he earned as a Vermont cheese expert after declaring that Peter Tewksbury the director was dead. He also farmed, ran a mill and founded an alternative school.

When Bud moves out to live his own life in Father Knows Best, his rented room sits above what?

A feed store owner, Mr. Engel, rents Bud the room after Jim's reverse psychology backfires. Bud regrets the move almost at once, and Mr. Engel suggests a way home that spares everyone's pride.

The Andersons of Father Knows Best guess a pool, a convertible and a Hawaii trip, but what is Jim's big surprise?

A civic award, the Chamber of Commerce's Gold Key for Father of the Year, was the news. Jim told his deflated children the luxuries had to wait while he saved for their education.

In Father Knows Best, a wrongly accused school janitor sends the Andersons $500 to repay which kindness from Kathy?

A piece of gum, offered while both sat waiting for the principal, got him through the day he was dismissed. Every Anderson had tried to claim the check before the rest of his letter arrived.

The Anderson family home in Father Knows Best stands at number 607 on a street named for which tree?

Maple gave the Andersons' street its name, though it existed only on Columbia's backlot, where most of the houses were just facades.

Elinor Donahue of Father Knows Best played a Judge Anderson at a 2010 wedding on which daytime soap?

The Young and the Restless held the wedding at a house whose interior copied the Anderson home. The newlyweds on the soap often called each other Jim and Margaret.