I apologize for the delay in posting this installment. I had to go out of town somewhat unexpectedly last week.

Written by: Henry Garson and Edmund Beloin. Directed by: Charles Barton.

It’s breakfast time in the Davis household, but not everyone is eating.

Cissy says she’s watching her weight so she can achieve the “Carnaby Street look,” like Twiggy.

“Oh for the days of Queen Victoria,” French sighs. How old is French?

Buffy is trying to eat, but every swallow leaves her wincing in pain. Uh-oh.

Bill, who’s getting ready to leave for Chicago, notices Buffy’s discomfort. He tells French to keep Buffy home from school and take her to see Dr. Felsom.

Buffy is upset about having to miss music appreciation at school. Jody, a boy after my own heart, suggests sending Buffy to school and letting him stay home.

Dr. Felsom gives French some bad news–Buffy’s tonsils are enlarged and will have to come out.

I hope Dr. Felsom doesn’t treat many asthma patients because those books look pretty musty.

He stresses that it’s a minor operation, but French says no operation is minor when you’re dealing with “two bachelors unaccustomed to the care and feeding of children.”

Uncle Bill reacts with alarm when French calls him in Chicago with the news. (Good thing his hotel room has a soothing Family-Affair-green decor.)

“What a time to be a thousand miles away!” he cries. During this scene, Brian Keith yells his lines into the phone, while French talks normally. Let’s fanwank that they have a bad connection, on Bill’s side only.

Jody, meanwhile, is impressed that Buffy gets to eat as much ice cream as she wants. “I wish I had tonsils,” he says, and tries to take a look at Buffy’s.

I bet the kids had a hard time keeping straight faces during this scene.

Having rushed back from Chicago, Bill tells Dr. Felsom to find the best tonsil man in New York for Buffy’s operation. He wants to reserve a private suite for her, but the doctor convinces him that Buffy will feel more comfortable in the children’s ward.

The adults break the news to Buffy that she’s going to the hospital overnight for an operation. She doesn’t seem concerned, although everyone telling her to stay calm and praising her bravery probably makes her a little nervous.

Jody and Buffy say a sad goodbye, and he offers to let her take his turtle to the hospital. She declines, but she does take Mrs. Beasley.

Poor Jody, all alone.

Bill gets Buffy settled at the hospital and apologizes to the nurse for acting so nervous.

“You wouldn’t be a parent if you weren’t nervous,” she says.

Ain’t that the truth.

Note that while the hospital corridors are Family-Affair-green, the children’s ward is Robby-and-Katie’s-room-pink. (I’ve been watching a lot of My Three Sons lately.)

Back at home, Jody is also complaining of a sore throat, but Bill and French assume that it’s a psychosomatic complaint brought on by Buffy’s illness.

Bill decides that Jody needs some attention, too, so he spends some time with him and gives him a piggyback ride.

That night at bedtime, French reads to Jody about Ali Baba, but Jody can’t concentrate. He keeps asking tonsil-related questions until French gives up on reading.

“I’m not a vet!” French snaps after Jody asks whether horses have tonsils.

The next day, Buffy’s operation goes smoothly, and Bill gets ready to head back to Chicago.

Not so fast, Bill.

French shows up at the hospital with Jody, who has been sent home from school because of his sore throat. Dr. Felsom takes a quick peek and pronounces Jody’s tonsils worse than Buffy’s.

Soon Jody’s checked in to the hospital right next to Buffy.

He’s glad to be reunited with his sister and delighted to start on his ice-cream diet. The only thing the kids can’t understand is why Bill and Mr. French are so afraid of hospitals. The next time they have their tonsils out, Jody thinks it would be good idea to keep Bill and French in the dark about it.

Buffy agrees, emphatically.

Commentary

Classic TV led me to believe that one day I would have my tonsils removed. I would get to eat ice cream all day. I would get to stay home from school and bask in adult attention.

It never happened. Thanks a lot, evolving medical standards.

The emotions in this episode ring true, from Jody’s feeling left out, to Bill and French’s panicky concern for Buffy, to the the way the kids sense the adults’ stress. At different points in the script, both French and Bill observe that no surgery is “minor” when it comes to children, and I would certainly agree with that as a parent. I was a mess when my daughter got tubes in her ears, and that didn’t even require an overnight stay.

Sweetness abounds in this episode. It’s touching to see how Jody worries about Buffy and misses her while they are apart. Brian Keith does his usual great job showing fatherly tenderness, especially in the scene just before Buffy’s surgery.

(I wonder if those hospital scenes were hard for Keith, who lost his 8-year-old son to pneumonia less than five years earlier.)

When an episode offers little to snark on, my eyes travel to the decor.

Look at this interesting cat statue in Dr. Felsom’s office. I’m guessing his wife takes ceramics because it looks like some of my mother’s 1970s output.

More disturbing is this clown picture in the children’s ward. How is it helpful to terrify the children before surgery?

Guest Cast

Dr. Felson: Oliver McGowan. Miss Jones: Carol Nugent.

Well, this is interesting. Former child actress Carol Nugent was the daughter of Carl Nugent, property master on My Three Sons. (On Family Affair, he served in that role for the pilot only.) Carol was married to Nick Adams, who starred as Johnny Yuma on the 1959-61 TV series The Rebel. Adams died of a drug overdose a week before this Family Affair episode aired. In 2002, Carol married none other than John G. Stephens, Family Affair production supervisor! (Stephens was widowed in 2001 after more than 40 years of marriage to actress Joan Vohs, whom we’ll see in our next episode.) Nugent’s son Jeb Adams had a brief acting career in the 1980s, highlighted by his role as Chris in the movie Flowers in the Attic.

Researching this family can lead you down quite a rabbit hole. Carol Nugent’s nephew, Adam Taylor, was married to Anne Lockhart. She’s the daughter of June Lockhart, a one-time Family Affair guest star. Taylor’s father was Buck Taylor and his grandfather was prolific character actor Dub Taylor; both of these men crossed professional paths with Brian Keith several times.

This is McGowan’s second of three appearances as a doctor on the show.

Continuity Notes

The script mentions Jody’s turtle and Captain Hippopotamus. We also learn that Jody and Buffy are still 6, despite being in second grade now. Time really drags in their world.

Written by: Ed James. Directed by: Charles Barton.

Bill’s date this week is cute, but he’s not paying any attention to her.

Eventually, she gets him to open up about his worries–he’s suddenly decided that New York is no place to raise kids.

Bill loves the city, but he thinks the “dirty air,” pushing and shoving, and three-block walk to the park make it a bad environment for his nieces and nephew.

His mood grows even darker on the way home.

Having had its one annual snowstorm last week, New York is now experiencing heavy rain.

Unable to get a taxi, Bill is a sodden mess by the time he walks back to the apartment.

French doesn’t make things any better by calling the rain “invigorating.” I guess that’s the Englishman in him talking.

Observing her uncle’s reaction, Buffy says, “I think he’s getting another mood.”

Bill sends the kids off to do their homework.

Somehow, they end up in the kitchen bothering French instead.

Giles French Cooking Tip: Always tear lettuce with your hands instead of cutting it with a knife, which can give it a metallic flavor.

Buffy and Jody wonder aloud why the metal bowl doesn’t have the same effect.

Then they wander off to find Bill, leaving French to ponder the metal bowl conundrum.

Buffy and Jody ask Bill if they can watch him make faces as he shaves. He obliges them, but he’s soon shocked to hear the foul language Jody has learned in the wicked city.

“It sure is a stinkin’ day, ain’t it?”

Before Bill’s delicate sensibilities can recover, Jody also mentions the “crummy rain.”

After Bill sends Jody off to fetch French, Buffy tells her uncle that she’s no longer taking Mrs. Beasley to the park. Buffy’s friend Pamela was nearly hit by a car the day before, and Pamela’s doll Gertrude suffered a smashed head. Buffy notes that Pamela is having a funeral for Gertrude when the weather improves.

“That should be fun,” Buffy notes brightly.

When French arrives, Bill sends Buffy to join her brother in the kitchen.

Bill interrogates French about where Jody learned such terrible language.

Of all the people he could blame–school friends, park ruffians–French chooses Scotty to throw under the bus. He does try to defend the doorman, though, by calling him “the salt of the earth” and adding that such language is “typical of city life.”

That was the wrong thing to say.

Just to make Bill’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day complete, Cissy barges in asking about the appropriate age to become engaged. Bill doesn’t care for her box-boy intended; he says the boy “looks like a refugee from the House of David.”

Cissy doesn’t get it and neither do I, but it seems to have something to do with the length of his hair.

After all this drama, Bill makes up his mind–he’s ready to chuck city life.

So, we’re off to Connecticut, which is having a very, very late fall, apparently.

“This is the only place to bring up kids,” Bill’s realtor assures him as they check out a lovely property.

The kids seem happy: Jody tortures water fowl while Buffy enjoys a tire swing. (Is that cut-off style common? My old tire swing was a whole tire.)

French notes approvingly that the place resembles the Duke of Glenmore’s weekend estate in Kent–although he does emphasize the word “weekend.”

And countryside or no, Cissy doesn’t let any grass grow under her feet. She’s already got her hooks in the grandson of a neighbor.

French, sensing that Bill has made up his mind, tells Buffy and Jody that “this bird sanctuary is about to be our new home.”

While the twins think the country is a nice place to visit, they don’t want to live there.

Jody says he’ll miss blowing Scotty’s whistle, and Buffy worries that she’ll miss Gertrude’s funeral.

Cissy tells them they all need to go along with Uncle Bill’s wishes.

She reminds them that “no one has ever been as kind to them” as Uncle Bill, and that if he hadn’t intervened, they’d still be scattered. Actually, she’s going a bit overboard here. Surely their own parents were “kind” to them.

The twins agree to put on a happy face about the move, which becomes more difficult when Bill tells them they’ll be moving by the end of the week. How do you close on a house that quickly?!

The kids “happy faces” look like this, but they manage to fool Bill.

Buffy returns some borrowed toys to Pamela, who’s upset that Buffy will miss the doll funeral.

She was supposed to serve as “all the pallbearers.”

Jody says his goodbyes to Scotty, who leaves him with some words of wisdom.

“If you think life is tough now, just wait till you grow up.”

Cissy parts with her boyfriend, despite his pleas that they get married. She could get a job, too, and they could have “a real swinging time.”

Cissy manages to resist this offer. (Is his hair really any longer than Connecticut Guy’s?)

Meanwhile, French vents to Miss Faversham about the move.

She makes the mistake of suggesting that he could give notice if he doesn’t want to leave the city.

French goes all “My Dear Miss Faversham” on her and says he owes Bill “a full measure of loyalty.”

Back at home, the Davis apartment is emptying rapidly.

This is the first African-American actor we’ve seen on the show for weeks. Too bad he doesn’t get any lines.

The kids are looking so miserable that even Bill starts to pick up on it.

Cissy explains that they are sad about leaving “the first real home we’ve had as a family,” a place where they’ve felt “warm and safe and loved.”

Once again, she’s forgetting their actual “first real home,” but she gets through to Bill.

He announces that the family is staying put.

Good thing that reversing a house purchase is not at all difficult.

Bill must be wondering, though, what to do with all the Family Affair green paint he’d undoubtedly ordered to spruce up the country house.

Soon, it’s raining again in the city, and Bill is searching in vain for a cab. (He should really think about buying an umbrella.)

But when he returns home to a happy family, and the Violins of Emotional Resonance ring out, he decides city life isn’t so bad.

Commentary

This script has lots of cute dialogue, but it also has room for improvement. If, for example, Bill overheard the kids talking about some Terre Haute experiences they missed, his desire to leave the city would seem less like a wild hair. If he reminisced a bit about his own Indiana boyhood, his motivation would be more clear. And his change of heart at the end would be more plausible if the house sale hadn’t already gone through.

Random wardrobe observation: Buffy looks like a xylophone in this dress…

…and like a drum in this matching one.

Guest Cast

Mr. Pendergast: Mauritz Hugo. Scotty: Karl Lukas. Jerry: Patrick Moore. Mr. Burgess: Walter Reed. Pamela: Debi Storm. Marcia: Lynn Borden. Danny: Dennis Olivieri. Miss Faversham: Heather Angel.
Most of our guest actors are familiar faces. Lukas and Angel, of course, are frequent guests. Borden and Olivieri are both making their second of three Family Affair appearances, and Storm and Moore are making their second and final ones. Hugo made a career out playing bit parts in TV and movie Westerns. Reed quit acting a few years after this episode aired and became a real estate broker.

I like this rainy Times Square establishing shot, with the Braniff sign and all. This interesting page about Braniff says the sign went up in 1964 and was the largest moving display billboard in the world at the time.

Written by: Ted Sherdeman and Jane Klove. Directed by: Charles Barton.

At breakfast in the Davis apartment, the kids ask how long Uncle Bill will be “living at his office.” Cissy explains that he’s not actually living there, and French reassures the kids that Bill’s time away from home doesn’t reflect a lack of affection for them.

We cut to the office where Bill is wearing his Denim Shirt of Manual Labor.

We learn that a serious problem is keeping Bill away from home. A thief has been plundering one of his company’s construction sites, getting away with 10,000 feet electric conduit and 100 gross of outlet boxes. (That’s an oddly specific bit of scripting.)

Bill has a plan, though–he’s posing as one of his own workers to catch the thief red-handed. Why this is a better plan than involving the police, he doesn’t say.

Calling home to let French know he’ll be working late again, Bill seems distressed to learn that all the children are out for the evening. Jody and Cissy are each visiting a friend, and Buffy is helping a neighbor with domestic tasks.

Bill heads to the construction site, where he makes a new friend–a welder who would rather be a draftsman.

They eat together, which Bill probably regrets since this welder likes to announce each food item as he removes it from his lunchbox.

Bill feels inadequate because his main course is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (French must have decided it was easiest to pack Bill the same lunch the kids get.)

When Bill returns home late that night, he frets to French about the way the family is disintegrating in his absence.

He also asks French to make tomorrow’s lunch “fancier.” Poor French sets his alarm for 4:30 a.m. so he can fry chicken.

The next day, Bill learns that Welder Guy is also a parenting expert. Hearing Bill complain about spending so much time away from the kids, he suggests that a shared project would bring the family together. Welder guy’s idea of a suitable project? Tropical fish.

Bill takes this advice to heart. When he returns home, he presents the twins with a couple of fish in a jar.”

Jody calls the “live sardines,” but Bill explains that they are guppies and they originated in Trinidad.

Jody gets a cute line here: “Just like our teacher said…everybody but the Indians came from someplace else.”

Bill also tells them that one of the guppies will soon give birth to 60 or 70 babies.

In preparation for the blessed event, they buy an aquarium and Bill dumps the fish in. (I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to transfer fish, is it?)

They also head to the pet store to get a few more occupants for the aquarium.

The Davis family must have chosen this pet store for its Family Affair green walls rather than for its customer service.  The clerk lets them pick out various species, based solely on looks, without offering any guidance.

The kids find their aquarium entertaining–for a little while. Soon, they want to start spending time with friends again, although they feel an obligation to “watch Uncle Bill’s fish for him.”

The downside of fish ownership soon becomes clear.

For one thing, the twins can only look on in horror as other fish devour the newborn guppy babies.

(I love this scene. It sums up my childhood experience with fish perfectly.)

Then Jody discovers a sick goldfish in the middle of the night and has to wake up Uncle Bill for help. (Random note: I like Bill’s bedding.)

Bill remembers that his mother used to put sick goldfish in saltwater, so he gives it a try and averts disaster.

The next day on the job site, Bill’s know-it-all welder friend says the fish would be healthier if they got to eat some live food, like mosquito larvae.

This only results in an implausible late-night attack by mosquitoes on every Davis family member.

Fortunately, Bill’s work problems are coming to an end.

He finally catches the thieves in action and gives them a good beat-down.

Revealing his identity, he offers his welder friend a drafting position, complete with on-the-job training.

At home, the kids are relieved that they don’t have to babysit Bill’s fish anymore.

He explains that he got the fish for all of them because families should do things together. Buffy suggests that the whole family learn to sew, as she’s doing, and Jody thinks the whole family should play toy soldiers with him.

“We never realized we should be interested in the same things,” a puzzled Cissy says.

Bill admits that they can pursue their individual interests without sacrificing family closeness.

Everyone seems relieved to hear that Bill’s giving the fish to the welder guy.

Normally, I would worry about the Davis tendency to acquire and relinquish pets at a furious rate, but I think the welder guy is getting what’s coming to him.

Commentary

This episode’s writers must have had experience with fish and kids. They did a good job portraying the gruesome learning opportunities an aquarium can provide.

It was nice to see Bill so active in this episode; for the past several weeks, he’s mostly been reacting to the kids.

Guest Cast

Scott Norvell: Ray Baxter. Bookkeeper: Gene Tyburn. Salesman: Gene Barton. Guard: Howard Culver. Driver: Jack Lilley. Helper: Guy Way.

Baxter was in The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming! with Brian Keith and Johnnie Whitaker.

Gene Tyburn as Uncle Bill’s bookkeeper has a certain geeky charm.

Lilley, who plays a driver here, appeared in many episodes of Little House on the Prairie as a stagecoach driver. He also worked as a stuntman and an animal wrangler.