Father Knows Best serves as an interesting historical counterpoint to Mad Men, which is set just about a year after this episode was filmed. Mr. T and I are still watching the first season in reruns (don’t ruin it for me!) and so far there have been only glancing mentions of Communism or cold war issues other than Nixon’s campaign. But, while Father Knows Best is a contemporary look at the era, full of sincerity and warmth, Mad Men is crafted by Monday morning quarterbacks able to foreshadow the monumental changes that followed those 1960s days of American prosperity and discomfort. Margaret Anderson is cheerfully subservient to Jim, but Betty Draper is in psychoanalysis to uncover why she can’t feel fulfilled in her relationship with Don.
Jim arrives home at the same time every night (and changes his suit coat for a corduroy jacket but leaves on the tie) and eats dinner with the family while Don’s never home before the kids are in bed. This all leads me to believe that Father Knows Best was written by self-satisfied men of that era and Mad Men by kids who were raised in that era. Both series present an interesting take on that moment in history, but both kind of need the other to show a fuller picture. I watch Mad Men and I like the men’s lives all right, but the happy home where Betty spends her days is so clearly an illusion. I need a peek at the guileless archetype (Margaret Anderson, groomed to perfection, icing a cake or making a Halloween costume) to see what Betty’s trying to recreate. I watch Father Knows Best and I fantasize about Margaret snapping or sneaking a drink before Kitten arrives home from school.
My six-year-old wandered in as I watched Father Knows Best and wanted to know why it was in black and white. Because our kids are not allowed to watch television during the day, they will eagerly hunker down to watch the Weather Channel or C-Span if that’s what we have on. Loulou only lasted about two minutes with this particular forbidden fruit before he wandered off. After the jumpy, sugar-rush diet of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, I suspect the slow-paced, gentle laughs of this series may be too dull for my kids. But if you’ve kept TV to a minimum around the house and want to introduce your kids to it slowly (with accompanying lessons on the history of feminism, please), this four-disc set is for you. Just don’t kid them that it’s really history: this sweetly idealized, wholesome middle-class America never really existed except on TV.
Photo Courtesy of Offsprung
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