Father Knows Best   

The Anderson's were America's favorite 50's family.  The show aired with a total of 203 episodes and appeared from October 3, 1954 to April 5, 1963 on all three networks.  It won six Emmy Awards during it's long run.

Father Knows Best, like so many television shows from the 1950's, originally began on radio before becoming a television series.  The radio characters were created by Ed James in 1949 for the radio show version of "Father Knows Best".  The only member of the radio show to be cast in the television show was Robert Young.

Set in white-bread suburbia, Jim Anderson was an insurance salesman who never had to leave early or got home late.  Always dutiful, Margaret had a stack of pancakes on the table for breakfast and a full 4-course dinner promptly at 5:00 pm.  Her standards made many women of her day (and even today) try to keep up to a schedule that was truly unrealistic.  It was a family that everyone envied, but hardly anyone could create for themselves.  It was escapism at its' best.

The only celebrity in the late 1950's to enjoy more national recognition than Robert Young was Lucille Ball.

Cast: