My Three Sons and The Partridge Family Had a Bizarre Thanksgiving Reunion

Today, we look at the bizarre 1977 Thanksgiving reunion special that paired two disparate TV sitcoms, The Partridge Family and My Three Sons.

In I Can’t Cross Over, I spotlight interesting pop culture crossovers (that are actively crossovers, not like little shared universe cameos that I often spotlight).

A standard practice in TV world is to do reunion specials and/or reunion movies about classic TV series. And often, these specials/movies are tied into holidays, like Father Knows Best: Home for Christmas or A Very Brady Christmas. However, what these shows RARELY do is what happened in 1977, when ABC aired a TV special doing a Thanksgiving reunion between two DIFFERENT sitcoms that had nothing in common!

Yes, in 1977, ABC did a Thanksgiving reunion for My Three Sons, which had run from 1960-1972, and The Partridge Family, which had run from 1970-1974. First off, that’s actually a pretty short turnaround for a “reunion,” right?

Secondly, WHY?!

The shows had nothing in common, no shared production companies, no shared cast, they never even aired at the same on the same NETWORK (My Three Sons debuted on ABC as a black and white sitcom, but moved to CBS for its final seven seasons. The Partridge Family aired on ABC).

The whole thing is an awesomely bizarre experience. My favorite part in the whole thing is when the original Three Sons (Tim Considine, Don Grady and Stanley Livingston) all come on and explain what they’re doing now, and they all puff up their resumes big time in a way that is very transparent in terms of trying to make it sound like they’re all doing great. Barry Livingston, the youngest of the sons (he replaced Considine when the show moved to CBS), then comes in and is basically, like, “Yeah, I don’t have much going on. Just trying to keep acting.”

And oddly enough, he ended up with the best acting career of all of the brothers! He still worked fairly regularly up to about a decade ago.

The whole thing is so odd, but, at the same time, it WAS fun to see everyone again. Shirley Jones and Fred MacMurray do a good job hosting.

Here’s a promo…

and a clip from the start of the episode…

Don Grady and his TV wife, Tina Cole, had an off-screen romance (and would date in the future, as well, after they each got divorces from their then-current spouses), so that’s awkward, too.

There are a lot more songs that you would expect for something like this. The whole thing is fun enough, but SO WEIRD.

If anyone has a suggestion for a good other crossover event worth spotlighting, drop me a line at brian@poprefs.com

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!