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Friday, May 1, 2020

My Three Sons

Watching the old TV series, My Three Sons (things to do during the shutdown). This series ran from 1960 to 1972 amazingly enough--amazing because it's not a very interesting show, comparatively speaking.

This is straight formula situation comedy centered on a single (widowed) father with three raucous sons who are, curiously enough, fairly perfectly anonymous. There is nothing really to set them apart from any other boys, such as was the case with the Beaver and Wally (and Eddy) in Leave it to Beaver, or with Ricky and Dave in Ossie and Harriet.

I remember very little about the show now, probably because it was not much watched in my house. Perhaps it was in the same time slot with something more engaging, I don't know. I certainly did not have a particular fondness for the show as a child. I only remember thinking that Bob, or Bub, or whatever they called him--the live-in grandfather played by William Frawley--struck me as a bit creepy.

As with all of these old, old shows, the best thing about it is the foggy window it provides into those black-and-white times, the strange disconnect one feels now with a world that once seemed perfectly ordinary but which now is extraordinary indeed.

The one unusual thing the show does do, in the episodes I've watched thus far anyway, is to end each episode with a sense of non-resolution, not a pat 'everything-all-wrapped-up-when-the-theme-plays' conclusion, but with a hint of the perpetual irresolution of normal family life.

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