The Smith Family: The Complete Series

I found this by accident watching YouTube.someone posted two full episodes and I got completely hooked.think of it like Dragnet meets the Brady Bunch.Henry Fonda plays a role very similar to the character he played in the 1968 “Yours Mine and Ours “but instead of a naval officer, he’s a police detective.throw in a top notch supporting cast and entertaining episodes & you get must see TV circa 1971-72.I highly recommend it.

Two reasons why I bought this DVD. One because it starred one of the Hollywood greats of cinema, Henry Fonda and the other was purely for nostalgic purposes as I had not seen this series since I was a kid.It's a drama all about the home life of a big city cop in Los Angeles.Stories touched on the generation gap and the problems of the young as well as on police work.Kind of like "My Three Sons" meets "The Streets of San Francisco".It was quite tame but it could include some dangerous situations.It was produced by Don Fedderson who had produced "My Three Sons" from 1960-1972 and then immediately produced this show in 1972.Apart from Henry Fonda it featured Janet Blair as his wife who had appeared in the final season of "The Rifleman". Ron Howard played the eldest son who had been Opie on "The Andy Griffith Show" and after this went into "Happy Days" as Richie Cunningham, later becoming a big time movie director with movies like "Cocoon" and "Apollo 13".Darleen Carr played the eldest child Cindy who would go on to play the daughter of Karl Malden on "The Streets of San Francisco".The youngest sibling is played by Michael-James Wixted.Charles McGraw,who had played in a number of 1950's film noir movies was the police Capt. in the first season.In the first season the theme song "Primrose Lane"was sung by Mike Minor who was on the TV series "Petticoat Junction" and is the son of Don Fedderson the producer of this show.Alll in all this is a mildly entertaining series.

I never seen this short lived series before but was intrigued. Picture quality is excellent. Every episode has excellent acting. Enjoy looking back at the streets and clothing styles of 1971-72. It ran only 2 seasons. 39 episodes all worth the watch. This is not filmed in front of a live studio audience.It’s really good..

The Smith Family is a dramedy from 1971. It was awful. I remember at the time thinking that Henry Fonda and Ronnie Howard and the rest of the cast were wooden in their performances. I see now that it was just a terribly written, right wing, stupid show. But I still enjoyed watching this nicely made DVD set. Try watching a few shows from the same era next to this dhow for contrast and a sense of time travel . You can even look it up and find stuff from the same week. All In The Family For instance, showed how great this era of television could be, and The Smith Family shows how mediocre it could be.

I was 9 years old in 1971 and this series reminded me so much of my childhood. Not that my Dad was a policeman, but just the lifestyle, the clothes, the differences in how the children felt from how their parents felt. Mostly, this is just a "feel good" series where people get along in ways the majority of families never got along. It is a fun trip down memory lane and I did enjoy it. I think it brought up many important issues of the time. It just didn't have the time to fully deal with most of them - this made the episodes feel too lighthearted at times. All-in-all, I am glad I purchased it & feel others who grew up during this time period might enjoy it, too.

I loved watching this TV series from the early 70's. I always admired Mr Fonda's performances, but I also enjoyed the other actors. I've wanted to see this series for a long time but couldn't find it on dvd. I've always enjoyed Darleen Carr. Its interesting that she plays the daughter of a policeman in this series. After this show was cancelled she was a year later a part of another TV show called Streets of San Francisco where she also played the daughter of Karl Malden's character Mike Stone - a police detective that series also starred Michael Douglas. I enjoyed the chemistry of all the principal actors in The Smith Family. It would have been a better show if it was longer, maybe an hour long show rather than half hour.

I can't believe that I had never heard of this show. I found out about it while reading Ron Howard's autobiography. The show is fabulous, and family friendly. Too bad they only made 1 season of it.

Anyway, when I was about 7-and-a-half years old while we stayed in the U.S. territory of Guam, I didn't know that there was "The Smith Family" aired over there on KUAM-TV. Now for my very first time which is now available on DVD, I think that "The Smith Family" complete series is now a very true TV classic, even if the complete picture is now remastered into its high-quality picture format. I like those series, and not bad at all.