Father Knows Best (1949-1954) aired “The Meaning of Freedoms” on July 5, 1951 as the 88th of its 196 episodes. Carried by the NBC Radio network, it starred film star Robert Young (1907-1998, photo at left), who would later also star in the beloved tv series (1954-1960) of the same name. The radio show features a “typical” suburban midwestern American family, the Andersons, where the father (Jim) is an insurance salesman, his wife (Margaret) is a homemaker, and their three children are Bud and Betty–both teenagers with Betty the slightly older–and younger sibling Kathy. The photo at right is of the television Anderson family, and from left to right we have Lauren Chapin as Kathy, Elinor Donahue as Betty, Robert Young as Jim, Billy Gray as Bud, and film star Jane Wyatt as Margaret, as they listen to Jim read about the real meaning of Independence Day. While both the radio and television shows were hits and retained the basic family structure and setting (the generic town of Springfield with house being on a generic Maple Street), a few things differed when the show moved to television. First, Robert Young was the only member of the radio cast to make the transition to the tv show; and second, at his specific request the father’s character became softer, less irritable and hard-nosed, becoming warmer and gentler, a more thoughtful and wise father than portrayed on radio, the one thing he actively disliked about the show. It worked, of course, and the television show became one of the most fondly remembered family sitcoms ever to air on tv. Of peripheral interest for fans of the show and other tv shows of the 1950s and into the mid-1960s is that the Anderson’s middle American house was also the same house repurposed for the Dennis the Menace show (1959-63), and later as the home of Major Nelson (played by Larry Hagman) for I Dream of Jeannie (1965-70, starring Barbara Eden).

Interesting also is that after having roles, or starring (many times as the handsome male lead), in over 100 films dating from the 1930s, Robert Young made a conscious decision to quit his film career in 1954, and almost immediately after the demise of Father Knows Best on radio in 1954 was one of the prime movers in getting the show on television, and in the same year. He never looked back, having become thoroughly disgusted with how Hollywood worked and how it treated most of its actors. Coincidentally, his final film in 1954 was Secret of the Incas starring Charlton Heston (Heston, photo at left; Young in center of photo at right). If ever there was a precursor or model for the Indiana Jones films, this was surely it. Heston plays Harry Steele in Secret of the Incas as a pilot, adventurer, and tour guide in Peru, who then gets involved in attempting to find a  “golden starburst” relic stolen from the ancient Temple of the Sun, believed to have the power to restore the once proud Incan civilization. Lux Radio Theater ran an hour long dramatization of the film in December of 1954 with most of the major film actors reprising their roles.

It would seem that Robert Young himself, with his role in both the radio and tv versions of Father Knows Best, the factoid about his final film role having a link to the future Indiana Jones films, and the home of the television version of the show having ties to two other famous tv sitcoms, would be enough to help fuel cocktail party conversations should the need arise to help fill any inevitable voids (and there is much more of interest surrounding the show and Young that could be told). Suffice it to say that both radio and television versions of Father Knows Best, in different ways for individual people or entire families, touched enough emotional chords to make the show one of the most iconic representations of an idealized midwestern family ever shown. It has been released in tv reruns on numerous stations over the ensuing decades.

“The Meaning of Freedoms” opens with a slow flurry of whining and complaining from the Anderson youngsters, more so than anyone else from the youngest, Kathy, to the point where Jim calls a firm halt to the endless cacophony and settles the family down to remind them of the true meaning of the freedoms they enjoy from simply living in the best country on the face of the Earth—America. It’s a wonderful story he tells as he takes them back several centuries to another family much like his own, thereby illustrating that their hard won freedoms are not to be taken for granted, but celebrated. Definitely worth a listen. Enjoy your 4th of July as America puts on the Ritz for its 250th birthday.

(The linked CD at the top includes this episode and 9 others, all remastered and restored.)

Play Time: 29:19

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