My Three Sons Season 7 Episode 23

When the show started, critics were concerned that MacMurray's lengthy career as a dramatic film actor who sometimes played villains would stand in the way of achieving success on a sitcom. Gail Ingram Clement viewed that as a challenge and set out to prove the critics wrong. "My mother had a way of writing lines for him that no one else could," her son Hal said. "She knew him and his speech rhythms so well that she would write them down on paper and they wouldn't appear funny. But when Fred MacMurray said them, they were funny. The show's producers loved that because she was doing what no one else could." She also was called upon to edit and rework scripts by Don Grady, an actor who played one of the sons on the show and wanted to become a writer. Hal Clement said he remembers visiting the "My Three Sons" set one day when Grady thanked her for all her help.