The Douglases move to California, where at first they are depressed to find the residents as chilly as the weather is warm. Robbie enrols in the University and is totally captivated by a blonde girl, and Uncle Charley is initiated into the rapid-fire procedure of shopping in supermarkets. The family begins to feel that their next door neighbors represent the characteristic stand-offishness of all Californians until they discover that they moved into the neighborhood the day before they did.

After advice from his father who tells him it isn't right to tie himself down to one girl, Robbie Douglas, intending to break off his romance with Katie Miller, ends up proposing to her. Soon his heart over rules his head and he buys an engagement ring and sets a wedding date.

Robbie and Katie pick a wedding date two weeks off. Katie's sorority sisters decide to do some private investigating on their own. Prospective groom Robbie then undergoes the complete once-over by his fiancee's family and runs the gamut of numerous cousins, aunts and a crotchety grandmother.

The day before her wedding Katie Miller feels she faces complete disaster. When Robbie tries to console her, she flares up at him and after a short argument, the pair declare the wedding is off. Of course, Grandma Collins thinks otherwise.

Early on his wedding day, Robbie Douglas and his family are peacefully oversleeping. They awaken just in time and scramble madly to get ready as Robbie and Katie are soon married amid traditional confusion and tears. The lost family dog, Tramp, returns in time to join the family in the front pew.

Robbie and Katie come home from their honeymoon to face the problems of newlyweds in a previously all-male household. Katie finds her role difficult, for Charley insists on continuing as the family cook and attending to all the laundry. Robbie becomes worried about her frequent weeping spells.

For their fourth week wedding anniversary, Katie decides to earn some money for an expensive gift for Robbie by taking a one week job as a tea-room waitress. Robbie lunches at the tea-room and finds Katie, who has taken over as a last-minute replacement for the cigarette girl, in an abbreviated costume.

At school, Ernie meets Mike, who offers to play with him, but the family is exasperated to know Mike likes tomboyish pranks. Then there's a problem persuading Ernie to accept his new friend when he learns that she's really a girl.

Attractive lady engineer Eileen Talbot is assigned to help Steve Douglas on a rush project in his office, and she applies her many talents to assure romantic, as well as technical success. Only level headed Katie recognizes her as a manipulating female long before the gullible male Douglases do.

Chip learns the meaning of empathy when he helps Ernie out of a predicament when he somehow winds up with two dates with two different girls for the same dance, when he doesn't even like girls to start with.

One stormy night while Steve is in San Francisco, Katie is alone in the Douglas house while the rest of the family is attending a ballgame. Her tenseness builds as late in the night she hears a scary rythmic noise, and hysterically calls Steve to report that the family has not yet returned and that she hears a loud thumping sound.

Chip manages to outwit the machine age when a computer is used to select partners for picnic dates for the boys in his class and girls from another school. He is soon startled to find that his date, although sweet and likeable, is six feet tall.

Katie is worried when Steve invites her visiting Aunt to spend a week at the house while he is out of town. Before long, she is molding the entire household into her image of a cultured family. When she slips some money under Katie's pillow, the girl angrily announces that this behaviour cannot continue.

When minor irritations arise in the Douglas household, Robbie and Katie move temporarily into a borrowed apartment while their friends are away. Their life is complicated by the absence of a coffee pot, a pull-down bed that won't go up and the lack of a television set.

Chip Douglas is so nervous about taking his driving test that his new sister in law Katie decides to help by taking the test with him. Soon after they both get their driving licenses the family car collects a big scratch, but neither will plead guilty.

Chip invites his neighbour's long-haired, guitar playing boy from Liverpool as a key addition to his off-key rock and roll band. The English lad's soft, folksong guitar is a disappointment and obviously won't work with the raucous amplified trio, but he helps them to win a trophy in an amateur talent contest.

With his father Steve busy over the weekend, Chip suggests that newlyweds Robbie and Katie act as chaperones to him and his friends at a mountain cabin. At Katie's insistence, Robbie keeps strict checks on the three teenage couples.

Robbie Douglas displays a bit of jealousy when his bride innocently agrees to tutor a handsome student. Later, Katie confides to Uncle Charley that he was once her steady boyfriend, and Charley off-handedly warns Katie to be careful because Robbie has a jealous nature.

Katie tearfully complains when Uncle Charley makes her feel unnecessary in the Douglas household. Steve speaks to Charley who is flabbergasted at the accusation, but immediately makes amends. Meanwhile, Chip is on a five-man school committee; four of the 'men' are girls and they won't let him open his mouth.

A series of strange coincidences make young Ernie feel he's a jinx to anyone he contacts, but his father assures him that he has a loyal family who loves him in spite all of his trouble, and that they will stick by him no matter what.

Bored because he has been left at home alone on a day off from school, Ernie goes on a search for movie stars. The boy loses his footing on a steep path and falls into Zsa Zsa Gabor's swimming pool in Beverly Hills. The glamorous lady invites him in until his clothes dry and later takes him to a real movie studio. Now the whole family as well as the police are searching for Ernie.

Uncle Charley is talked into buying an 11 year old trotting horse in the hopes of capturing old racing glories. The family is delighted when they hear that the horse, driven by Uncle Charley, has qualified for a race after winning a trial competition.

Robbie goes to Camp Roberts for two weeks military reserve training. At home, Steve becomes alarmed when he sees Charley's card telling him that he and the boys who are camping at Yosemite, plan to look Robbie up at camp. But he arrives too late to divert them and one-by-one each member of the family is inadvertently caught as a military prisoner.

Dressed as a chorine named Apple Annie at his Lodge 'Frolics' night, a weary Uncle Charley awakens from a nap after a matinee performance and is forced to walk home and is arrested by the police for hitting a flirtatious man.

Ernie remains at home with Uncle Charley while the rest of the family travel to various locations. Charley invites an old friend to dinner, believing him to be down and out. However, Ernie immediately identifies their guest as a famous television sherriff and he invites the two to the studio.

The Douglas family cancels a camping trip to play host to unexpected Chinese friends from Bryant Park who are en route to Hong Kong and this ultimately upsets their Chinese relatives when they are asked to stay overnight.

The first time Robbie and Katie entertain at home they imperil the marriage of two close friends, Denise and Larry. Denise insists on playing a game in which each player tells what he dislikes about the other. After various uncomfortable truths are revealed, Denise angrily storms out insisting on a marital separation.

Steve Douglas is promoted to head up the Airflight Helicopter Division and the unmarried female employees quickly check and discover that he's a widower. Robbie's wife Katie takes a tour and Uncle Charley passes his girlfriend off as Steve's wife. When two Mrs. Douglases visit Steve at his new job, his employees suspect that he's a bigamist.

Uncle Charley persists in singing an old song about a guy who steals his best friend's girl. Chip listens with some sorrow but there is a misunderstanding that almost ruins the friendship between Ernie and his pal when Shorty sees Ernie walking to the movies with a new girl in the neighborhood.

Ernie and his friends sell two used tires they found in the family storage room so they can buy a water rifle, but they cease to enjoy their 'cops and robbers' games when the real cops turn up after Uncle Charley calls them.

While the family is doing some spring cleaning, Katie faints behind the couch. Soon her mother's intuition brings her to the house and she announces that Katie is going to be a mother. Once it is confirmed by a doctor, the family dotes on Katie, but seems to ignore the father to be.

Controversy erupts in the Douglas household over the selection of a doctor for Katie during her pregnancy. While Robbie and Katie want to choose their own doctor, Katie's mother insists on making an appointment with the Miller family doctor. Meanwhile, Steve stands in for an absent Robbie at his first baby class.

The baby stirs inside Katie and Robbie feels its movement and suddenly sheds his youthful ways to become very much the sober and altogether too serious expectant father. Meanwhile, fatherhood is taking a different approach when Tramp's puppies to the next door neighbor's dog Francis, are about to be born.

Because he is about to become a Grandfather, Steve has an easier time working out an important Air Force contract with a hard-shelled General. By watching the way Katie walks, the General predicts that she will have a baby boy. Meanwhile Ernie decides to run for class President at school.

When Robbie and Katie announce that they might hire a baby nurse, Uncle Charley is confident they will ask him. When they don't, he embarks on a marathon of baby sitting so he can learn the ropes by hiring himself out as a professional baby sitter.

In an advanced stage of pregnancy, Katie suffers qualms about her looks that are as out of proportion as her figure. She is temporarily distressed by her hugeness until she learns from her doctor that she is going to have more than one baby.

The day -- or rather the night -- of the big event finds expectant mother Katie quite calm, and Steve and Uncle Charley quite the opposite, and a hapless father to be off on Army manouvres. At the hospital, Katie gives birth to identical triplet boys and Steve must adjust to the fact that he is a Grandfather, three times over.

As the triplets come home from the hospital their names are announced by the happy parents: Robbie Jr, Charley and Steve II. Their father Robbie finds that he is totally unprepared for all of the attention that the infants attract.

It may not be poker, but nine in the Douglas family is a full house. Feeling somewhat responsible, Robbie decides to quit school in order to pursue work full time and find a new home for his family. A wise school counsellor takes steps to discourage the move. Meanwhile Steve designs some plans for an extension to the house to accomodate the babies further.

Robbie and Katie have been invited to a High School reunion and they are reluctant to leave their babies with an unknown sitter as everyone in the family is otherwise busy. They hire a professional sitter that is recommended by the family doctor.

On the rebound after his girlfriend Sally suddenly marries another younger man, Uncle Charley acquires many new lady friends when Katie schemes to put the wind back in the lovable old windbag's sails.

With three babies to look after, Dr. Osborne says Katie is completely exhausted and he prescribes a couple of days bed rest. She flies to Santa Barbara to be with her mother. While she is away the family must hire three cleaning ladies to restore the house back to normal.

The contractor that Steve hires to add a baby alcove to Robbie and Katie's room leaves much to be desired. He displays all the charm of a top sergeant and is putty in Katie's hands, but is exasperatingly gruff and non co-operative to the males in the Douglas home.

Steve meets an attractive widow who seems to be very interested in him but suddenly she turns cool towards his intentions. The family does its best to give the impression that Steve isn't really as old as he seems.

Although Katie confidently calls the look-alike triplets by name, other members of the family doubt her accuracy, and when Steve helpfully bathes them, she admits that she can no longer tell them apart because he washed off the inkdots put on their feet. They must be taken back to the hospital for proper identification.

Chip and his girlfriend announce to a startled Douglas family that they plan to marry and continue high school. Disapproving, Steve visits the girl's parents but they decide not to forbid the marriage but wait for further developments. When Katie becomes ill and Robbie takes her to the doctor, Chip and Debbie are left with the triplets for some hectic hours.

The Douglases feel that Steve is becoming sedentary, not knowing that he's just been assigned to help capture some enemy agents, but things get rough when he's taken to a Greenwich Village cocktail party where the spies start shooting when they find him hiding in the bathtub.

Steve Douglas gives Chip a well-preserved second hand car for his 16th birthday but he is astounded by his son's unenthusiastic reaction; he is embarrassed to drive it, and parks it a long way from school so he won't be recognized as the old car's owner.

Steve's old Chinese friend transfers to Los Angeles and happily renews his friendship with the Douglases. He confides in Steve and Charley that he is concerned about the man his daughter has married - an aparently aimless hippie with long hair.

Chip and Ernie observe their married older brother, Robbie, in the company of a glamorous woman. The boys report the upsetting situation to their father Steve, who assures them he has trust in Robbie and urges them to maintain confidence in their older brother too.

Young Ernie is crushed when he learns that his next door neighbors are selling their house, and his best friend is leaving the neighbourhood. Pending their separation, the two boys are together day and night; the Douglases give Gordon a touching farewell party.

Ernie and his girlfriend are dismayed when Uncle Charley and her grandmother don't act like old folks after they meet at a school band contest. Ernie confides in his amused family about his concern over Uncle Charley's behaviour.

Ernie bemoans the task of writing in Spanish to a Latin-American pen pal but she then astonishes him by accepting a dinner invitation by cablegram; Maria is the daughter of a high ranking diplomat.

After being the only one in his class to choose the correct color in a card test, Ernie is convinced he has extra sensory perception. He predicts disaster for Robbie and Katie if they keep an appointment for the babies with Dr. Osborne.

Steve's co-worker and golf buddy, suggests that Steve and two of his sons, go to the company picnic with him and his two children. To the parents' dismay, the youngsters take an immediate dislike for each other.

Ernie attempts to remould his image after a classmate he is attracted to, Margaret, refuses to give him a second look. Margaret, however, prefers Roger and is obviously disappointed when Ernie is selected as her partner in a poem recitation.

When old Bryant Park friends move into the neighbourhood, they renew their friendship with the Douglases at a family barbecue where Steve is cast in the role of marriage counselor by the eldest son who turns to him for help in saving his marriage.

Ernie's writing ability lands him in the dreaded special English class with its strict but efficient teacher. Her reputation as an ogre keeps him so uncomfortable that he not only performs badly in oral recitation but in his written work as well.

Robbie and Katie move into an apartment on the next block and widower Steve Douglas becomes the target of Katie's relentless matchmaking. However, Steve meets a remarkable woman in a high school corridor and the two are quickly attracted to each other.

Robbie needs to talk to his dad-who seems unreachable

The whole Douglas clan conspires to encourage Steve's romance with the lady in question, Barbara Harper. After dinner, Steve and Barbara go back to her house where Steve is predictably nervous around her. They are both serious about their relationship, but neither of them realizes it.

Everyone (Except Barbara) knows Steve is going to propose to Barbara

With the ring finally on her finger, Steve and Barbara's engagement is exciting for everyone except Barbara's five year old daughter who isn't sure she wants to share her mother. Meanwhile, Barbara employs her considerable store of diplomacy in an effort to gain acceptance by Steve's family.

Steve and Barbara have different ideas on how their wedding should go.

After a series of events at which the Bride and Groom wonder if they are doing the right thing, Steve and Barbara have an argument serious enough for them to consider cancelling their wedding.

On Steve's wedding day the groom is predictably nervous. Recalling certain mishaps from his own big day, super efficient Robbie determines that his own father's wedding will be perfect and after a few hours of hectic, last-minute preparations, Steve and Barbara are married in a simple church ceremony.

Steve and Barbara's Honeymoon in a remote fishing village is bustling with hordes of other, younger honeymooners. They end up counselling several couples who are not adjusting to married life. When a bottle of champagne arrives from the family back in Los Angeles, the other honeymooners realise that Steve and Barbara are indeed honeymooners as well.

With Steve and Barbara due back from their honeymoon in Mexico, Katie forces Robbie to lecture Uncle Charley on politeness, and the result of his very puzzling behaviour nearly drives Barbara out of her mind.

Little Dodie feels out of place among her three stepbrothers and her often grumpy uncle, and discovers that being a member of the Douglas family can be a rough and tumble proposition.

When Katie panics as she detects a few gray hairs in her youthful head, a family crisis is not far away. She further worries Robbie by suggesting they discuss preparation of life insurance and superannuation.

When her brothers have more pressing commitments, Steve gets cast in Dodie's school play as a tree, more or less proving Robbie's point that females are instinctive manipulators.

Barbara faces a fiasco when she prepares her first dinner party for Steve's business associates and their wives. The event has Barbara worried to death after a few schedule changes ruin most of her plans. Finally it is Barbara's mother who saves the day.

Barbara is jealous when a glamorous special secretary enters the lives of both Steve and his son, Robbie, and causes a double domestic crisis. Barbara ends up consoling a heartbroken young lady who is eventually fired from her position.

Little Dodie goes to the hospital for a tonsillectomy and insists that her new father stay overnight with her. Barbara understands because she knows that Dodie is finally accepting Steve as her real father. Meanwhile, Robbie and Katie go on a trip to Mexico and leave the triplets in care of the Douglases.

Hoping to renew her funloving friendship, Steve's old girlfriend from Bryant Park, who is now a rich divorcee, comes to town and gives Barbara a few jealous moments.

Robbie is asked to be the best man at the wedding of an old friend from Bryant Park. He decides to go back a week early to show Katie around the town where he grew up but ultimately makes a disappointing visit when he realises that time and years do change things.

Barbara tells her mother that she feels rejected when the boys never tell her their troubles and go to Steve or Charley instead. While Steve is away on business, she is forced to confront one of Chip's teachers when he and another student are accused of cheating in an exam.

Barbara feels that Uncle Charley is lonely playing his Cello, so she talks to a msuic store proprietress who invites three lady musicians to help join in a string quartet.

A Special time consuming project keeps Steve and son Robbie so pre-occupied that they are tired when they arrive home. After the project ends, the co-workers throw a celebration party and when Barbara and Katie arrive with supper for their hardworking spouses, and see a party in full swing, they storm out.

Young Ernie Douglas becomes the unwilling object of the affection of Dodie's six year old friend while Barbara is asked by the Board of Education to take a substitute teacher's job at a local high school. She finds her stepson Chip in the class and he embarrassingly becomes her prized pupil.

A bearded man of mystery confounds the Douglas family and the authorities alike, while Steve is working on a top priority project at home. Barbara soon identifies him as her former father-in-law.

Dodie calls upon her big brothers to help her fight her battles in the school playground when some girls say that Douglas is not her real name. Steve feels he should formally adopt Dodie to make it official but this only solves half of Dodie's problems.

Robbie and Katie have an unpleasant personality clash with the young couple who move into the next apartment in their building. Meanwhile, when Uncle Charley assures Dodie that Katie is her sister, she phones and leaves a message with Robbie. When he forgets to pass it on, a family crisis is not far away.

Chip turns on to economics and is enthralled by the latest book by his accounting teacher, and vows that he will become rich early in life by instituting a break-neck money earning schedule. Whilst working at several jobs, he doesn't take into account the expenses he begins to incur along the way to his goal.

Chip begins studying with a pretty co-ed whose disciplinarian father wants to know why her new friend is spending so much time with her. Meanwhile, on the eve of Steve and Barbara's first wedding anniversary, Dodie announces she is throwing a surprise party, but neglects to tell everyone when or where.

Uncle Charley and Barbara suspect that Chip and Polly are becoming serious about one another. Polly, unhappy at home because of her father's strictness, is afraid of losing Chip because of her parents' meddling. She asks Chip to elope, and taken aback, he asks his father for advice.

Barbara is flustered when she receives a phone call from a former college suitor, and is very apprehensive when Steve invites him to dinner. The entire family is anxious to meet her old flame, thus compounding her uneasiness.

Chip delights Polly with an expensive locket for her 18th Birthday and after their vague conversation, he thinks he's agreed to go steady, but Polly tells her mother that she has become engaged. Perturbed by her husband's probable reaction, Mrs. Williams arranges a luncheon to judge the seriousness of the matter.

Chip and Polly open a joint bank account and Chip takes on a box boy job at a supermarket to accumulate money for their future marriage. Later after she's had an argument with her father, Polly comes to the Douglases with her packed suitcase, but when Chip turns down the girl's offer to elope, she storms out.

Dressed as a cat for a costume party at the home of his employer in Bel Air, Steve goes for gasoline when his car stalls but the police arrest him as a burglar. Meanwhile, Polly notes that there is so much love in the Douglas household, that she just has to become a part of it.

Chip asks Steve's permission to elope, but before he grants it, he insists Chip give Mr. Williams the courtesy of asking his approval too. Chip goes to see Mr. Williams only to have him accusingly flaunt a private detective's report. Realizing that Polly's own father had hired a man to trail them, he storms out before asking for her hand.

Following their elopement to Las Vegas, newlyweds Chip and Polly are beset by nothing but trouble. The universal joint in their car gives out and they have to be towed into town. The hotel where Steve and Barbara stayed is no longer for honeymooners but for singles, and the newlyweds must spend their first night in separate rooms.

After Chip and Polly return from their honeymoon they spend a few days at the Douglases. Soon they move into their own college dormitory, and bridegroom Chip faces a father in law who refuses to speak to his newly married daughter.

Barbara becomes involved in presenting a fashion show for a woman's club luncheon, and Steve reluctantly agrees to become a model for a fashion show, but refuses at the last minute when he realizes he must wear a lacy, ruffled shirt and parade down a runway modelling it.

Chip becomes violently ill after eating Polly's cooking, and she learns from the family that Chip is allergic to some of the foods she's been preparing. Distressed, she feels it would be better for her husband if she left him.

Against his classmate's better judgement, Ernie uses the unwitting Douglas household as guinea pigs for an experiment assigned by his psychology teacher. He cuts inches off Uncle Charley's cane to make him think he is growing taller. Ernie soon finds his father Steve is a little less gullible.

Katie's mother gives Katie and Robbie a vacation by taking the triplets to St. Louis with her for a couple of weeks. Robbie figures that now is the perfect time to do all of the things they haven't been able to do when they had the boys to look after.

A boyhood friend from Bryant Park, rides his motorcycle back into Robbie's life and awakens Robbie's wunderlust with appealing tales of travel and adventure. Intrigued by Jim's stories of freedom, Rob agrees to take a holiday from Katie and the triplets.

Dodie and some of her girl classmates in the second grade get a big crush on Mr. Turley, their new teacher, and right away they make a batch of cookies for him. Dodie's crush begins to fade when she finds out that her Mr. Turley was once one of Barbara's students.

Barbara suspects that a promotion for Steve maybe in the works and as her suspicions become stronger, a routine investigation on Steve's family background turns up some rather startling information when it focuses on Uncle Charley.

Level-headed Katie becomes a jealous, suspicious wife when a pile of circumstantial evidence stacks up against Robbie, as she suspects him of seeing another woman.

Ernie and his friend Elmore both flunk their driving licence tests, while their dates for a dance both pass. Ernie and Elmore take part in a ruse to conceal this situation from their dates, but instead they end up in trouble with the law when they realise they are stranded after a date.

Ernie is left in charge for one day when Steve and Barbara are off to Chicago for a golf tournament while Uncle Charley attends a string music festival. Little Dodie and her friend take a shopping excursion into town but don't have enough money for the bus ride home.

Dodie studying piano, Margaret on the violin and Susan at clarinet, comprise the 'Rondelay trio' and Dodie tells Steve and Barbara the good news that they'll practice at the Douglas house for their upcoming recital.

Barbara leaves Ernie in charge of looking after Dodie after she has to go shopping. However Dodie goes to her friend Drucilla's house, and when Barbara returns he cannot remember where she is. After Dodie is found, Barbara sends them both to their rooms for the day. Then Ernie and Dodie rebel when they feel that they've been unjustly punished.

Uncle Charley is elated when he gets word that his pugislistic shipmate and buddy is going to visit him in a few days. However, Charley is forced to concede that times and people do change when the tough-talking, bad mannered ex-sailor he once knew isn't so terrible anymore.

Rob is laid off from work, but decides to move with Katie and the boys to San Francisco to accept a job at another company. They move into an apartment and meet several other tenants. One of them suggests Rob is always tired from the burden of supporting his family. Feeling disheartened by this and other remarks, Katie thinks that Rob doesn't want her and the triplets anymore.