Father Knows Best: Season One

By Cyril Pearl -- Video Business, 3/24/2008

SHOUT FACTORY
Street: April 1
Prebook: now
> The first season of the classic all-American ’50s sitcom arrives in a well-supplemented edition.

The mother (or is that father?) of all family sitcoms, Father Knows Best ran for five successful seasons back in the ’50s and is only now making its digital debut. The show stars Robert Young as insurance salesman Jim Anderson and Jane Wyatt as his perfect wife Margaret, with Elinor Donahue, Billy Gray and Lauren Chapin as their sweet-faced children. Father Knows Best is what the 1999 Gary Ross movie Pleasantville affectionately pokes fun at—an idyllic world that is becoming more and more of a fantasy as the years go by. The show is a textbook depiction of upper middle-class, all-white American families of its day, as well as a perfect guide to the kind of TV that flourished from the early ’50s until the late ’60s, when everything took a serious (and rebellious!) turn. The package boasts a solid complement of supplements, led by a never-before-released episode created for the government and commissioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Shelf Talk: Surprisingly, Father Knows Best no longer makes the rounds of Nick at Night or other retro TV channels. Outside of I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, The Munsters and The Addams Family, it’s tough to find classic B&W TV on the tube these days. But there’s undoubtedly an older audience of fans and their boomer children who fondly remember Father Knows Best, so be sure to inform them about the availability of this well-priced dip into the yesteryear.

Classic TV, B&W, NR (nothing offensive), 660 min., DVD $34.99
Extras: actress interviews, Robert Young’s home movies, behind-the-scene color footage, previously unreleased episode, “Window on Main Street” pilot episode
Directors: various
First Run: CBS-TV, 1954