Journey Into DVD: My Three Sons

Paramount strikes again with its notorious music replacement strategy, butchering "My Three Sons" Season 1 Volume 1 (really, I wince each time I say or write that title) by stripping the original underscore on most episodes and replacing it with a new one. This tactic, of course, ruins the most recent release of "The Fugitive."

I certainly wasn't looking to buy this overpriced, overedited set, but I did want to check out the show again. It had been a long time since Nick at Nite aired the first black-and-white episodes with William Frawley, and in fact I hadn't seen much of the color ones lately, either. While the score was certainly vital to a tense drama like "The Fugitive," it couldn't be AS important to a family sitcom, right? Besides, I was curious to see if, not having seen the series in so long, I would even recognize the new music. So I rented the first disc from my good friends at Netflix (but if they were really good friends, they'd give me a freebie or two for plugging them).

Turns out, yep, the new music is noticeable, and it is bad. Even if you've never seen "My Three Sons," you'll be able to pick out the replacement scoring. If you watch any TV from that era, you'll probably cringe in places.

I had read that most but not all episodes had monkeyed-with soundtracks, with the pilot standing out as one that was intact. So I picked another title at random, hit play, and started fast-forwarding through looking for musical cues. Turns out "Countdown" wasn't loaded with a lot of tunes, but within a minute or so, I saw Bub getting sprayed in the face with a stream of water from a washing machine. Naturally, I had to see this. So I backed it up, watched the scene unfold, and--bam--when the water hits, the hilarious moment is accompanied by a grossly modern-sounding tuba blast.

Maybe that tuba would have been apt had Frank Cannon been washing his clothes, but here it seemed modern and jarring. I went online to confirm my suspicion and found that, yes, the original orchestra sting had been dubbed over.

After starting the episode over and watching it from the beginning like a normal person, I put on another one, and almost right away, I heard the blatantly contemporary new underscore as it wrecked the whole mood. Yep, I almost hoped I wouldn't notice the replacement music--I wouldn't have bought the DVD, but I could have enjoyed renting it--but it really is a travesty.

What a shame that is, because the show itself holds up pretty well. It's not a belly-laugh kind of sitcom, but if you appreciate it as the gentle family show it is and not compare it to the adult-oriented TV comedies of the day, "My Three Sons" is pretty good. "Countdown" paralleled the family getting ready for work and school with the televised film of a rocket launch Chip watches. It's not subtle, but it's a clever approach and well executed. It shows that there is some room for creativity within the basic series framework.

Fred MacMurray arranged for as many of his scenes as possible to be filmed at the same time so as to minimize his time on the set, but his bemused, laid-back manner is perfect and looks natural in the finished product. Then, of course, there's the great William Frawley, who ensures there is something cool in every episode just by showing up. Whether he's griping, meddling, or singing an old drinking ditty, Bub always provokes at least a chuckle.

This long-running sitcom deserves a better DVD release than Paramount is giving it. The show itself is fun, but the music replacement, lack of extras, and the exorbitant price for a limited number of episodes make it difficult to recommend that even die-hard fans buy Season 1 Volume 1.

Oh, and one more note: Ken Tucker in "Entertainment Weekly" gave this set a nice blurb, but, even given his space limitations, couldn't he have mentioned the music replacement? It's sad that we can't even rely on a major media outlet like "EW" to raise flags when a DVD release butchers a popular show.