A Missile launch, sleeping in and Daylight Saving make for an interesting Monday morning. The Douglas household is a chaotic affair of lost indian arrow heads for Chip's turn in show and tell at School, Robbie's missing trumpet and some important lost plans of Steve's that Mike has nearly burned in the incinerator.

Thanksgiving Day's turkey dinner is threatened when the electricity is short-circuited throughout the neighborhood. Chip decides to bring along his Indian friend as his sole guest much to the annoyance of his brothers who say he is a bum who lives near the railway tracks in a rundown old shack.

Aeronautical Engineer Steve Douglas and his youngest son Chip face a parallel problem -- how to rid themselves of two designing females.

Unaware of each other's problems, Steve and Robbie engage in what seem to be widely varied projects. Robbie is trying to construct a race kart and Steve is in a rush to help a missile manufacturer get his project off the launch pad in a race to beat a rival company.

The Annual School rag drive starts Chip off on a scavenger hunt of the neighbourhood. Every time the neighbor, Miss Pitts, looks out the window she sees strange happenings at the Douglas household.

On a dark night when Steve is away, Robbie and his date are frightened by a man in a trench coat. It all happens when Robbie is seen putting on the hubcap of his next door neighbour. Steve isn't too concerned when he hears about the incident as he thinks it all stems from Robbie's steady diet of spy and mystery stories.

When Mike and Robbie cross swords over a blonde schoolgirl, the issue widens until the whole family is involved in the argument. But it is difficult for Steve to teach his sons that violence solves nothing with a pugnacious father-in-law around.

Steve is enamored of his new business associate, an attractive woman who is strictly business. He is tempted to mix business with pleasure but finds that she thinks only about the job at hand and doesn't have any plans to expand her love life, despite this romantic interlude.

Feeling left out when Mike and Robbie decide to go camping at Gunman's Gulch, a lonely Chip uses a raft his brothers helped make in the backyard, on which he and Steve spend a night, pretending to float down the Mississippi. They are accidentally locked out when it begins to rain. Steve begins to worry when he wakes up from a nap and thinks it is way past 4am in the morning and thinks that Bub has not yet returned from his pinochle game.

Robbie is baffled when his girlfriend rejects the excitement of his new motor in favor of standard feminine frills. He tries to win her over by telling the boys on the football team that no girls are allowed, knowing this will upset her as she is considered one of the guys.

Chip begins to think it would be great to be an older brother, so he wishes for a little sister. After the new Hawkins family move into the vacant house across the street, a wild sequence of events results from an improbable case of mistaken identity -- an infant is somehow confused with a leg of lamb left in the boot of Steve's station wagon.

Mike and the girl next door arouse the suspicions of Steve and Bub when secrets are exchanged and the two are seen leaving with suitcases. Meanwhile, Robbie is on a clock salvaging attempt to find historic clocks after he gets into a spot of bother with his teacher.

When Bub is suddenly called out of town, Steve seeks an agency to get temporary help—unaware that he may be recruiting a wife. With his older brothers passing the buck, Chip accidentally rings Domestic Bliss, Inc. - a marriage seeking department who send out a woman inspector right away.

Robbie and Mike want some extra pocket money but Steve tells them that they will have to earn it by themselves. The boys ask their neighbours if they could paint their front fence and before long several neighbors pitch in together to help restore the yard to its former glory.

Mr. Pearson's idea of a quiet drive in the country with his wife is altered by a station-wagon load of Douglases. Meanwhile Robbie is trying to avoid the clutches of a girl named Mary Lou.

Constant comparison to his brother, Mike, leaves Robbie feeling inferior and angry—and their father has to face the consequences as Robbie and Mike are about to come to blows when Steve shows up just in the nick of time from work.

When Robbie Douglas sees his new friend's home he is envious of what he thinks is really the perfect teenage home and becomes almost as envious as Hank is of the turbulent, happy-go-lucky Douglas household.

Mike Douglas gets a Summer job with the Forestry Service and he thinks its going to be a barrel of fun until he learns that he's expected to do a real man's job. When his boss is stranded down at the creek and a wild storm brews up, Mike spends a harrowing time trying to stay calm.

When Steve invites his second cousin Selena to come and visit, Bub gets the strange impression that he is being neglected and isn't really needed. He decides to take up the offer of managing a movie theater in Plainview, and nothing the boys say or do can make him change his mind.

Robbie can't seem to arouse the interest of the affairs of the heart with his classmate Maribel Quinby. So with the help of his best friend Hank Ferguson, he proceeds to try and get her attention by noting the theatrical method of approach that his history teacher employs to make a dull subject interesting.

Its final exam time and Mike and his girlfriend Jean have thought up a test of their own - to try the strength of their affection by not seeing each other the week before school has its graduation ceremonies.

Mike prepares for the transition from high school to college and the question of joining a fraternity is one that complicates his life considerably. When Mike and Jean attend a party as prospective applicants, he later finds out the they have been dropped from the waiting list and suddenly the cold war turns pretty hot.

Mike Douglas and the family mongrel Tramp keep disappearing at night, and Jean becomes increasingly suspicious, unaware that Mike and his friend Tim are building her a hi-fi set for her upcoming Birthday.

Malcolm, a frog that Chip has captured for a school project is the focus of all eyes in the Douglas home. Bub discerns a marked resemblance to his his Uncle Clancey in Malcolm's face. Further evaluation of its character becomes quite difficult when he leaps out of sight.

Robbie's new girlfriend, lives in refined and elegant style, causing Robbie to turn a critical eye on his own home life. To impress her he tells her he really digs the classics, but in actual fact he doesn't know the difference between Puccini and Presley.