User Reviews

Once again we have an IMDB plot summary that misstates things. It says that Chip likes a girl named Mary Lou, who is one year older than him, but she likes his brother Robbie, who "is one year ahead of her." That would make Robbie two years older than Chip, even though on this episode Robbie was a college man and Chip was stated to not yet be in high school. Earlier episodes stated that Robbie is 6, or 7 years older than Chip.

Facts are that in this episode, Mary Lou is stated to be one year ahead of Chip, but all I heard on the ME-TV version today was that Robbie was older than her-never how much older.

We learn in the early scenes, from Ernie, that Chip keeps following Mary Lou around after school, but that she doesn't seem to know Chip is alive, because he keeps out of sight. Chip asks his older family members for advice and is bold enough to actually phone her for a date.

We also learn from a scene with Mary Lou and a girlfriend, that she adores Robbie Douglas, seen driving by the pair. How she would know him when she isn't herself yet in high school is a mystery to me.

What really stood out as unrealistic was the scene where Chip telephones Mary Lou to ask her out. He lowers his voice to sound older, but when she comes to the phone, he says, "This is Douglas." She figures it is Robbie-even though there's no reason for her to think that he knows she is alive-and happily accepts a date.

Most of the episode deals with Chip getting help from the others on where to take her. Ernie's suggestion was an overnight camping trip, which Chip thought was so bad he didn't even want to mention that suggestion to his dad, in mentioning the bowling and dancing suggestions of the others. He opts for a movie, as suggested by Steve and on his own picks a show he has seen, figuring he won't be paying any attention to the film anyhow-which does make sense.

But he never asked her what show she might like to see. That would have seemed like an automatic. So he later learns she has also already seen it. No matter, as it turned out.

The big surprise was when Mary Lou found out there is such a person as Chip Douglas. When she opens the door expecting Robbie, she asks Chip who he is. He says, "I'm Chip Douglas." She gets a look of panic, says "CHIP Douglas," screams, and slams the door. Chip dashes back to the car and tells his chauffeur father what happened, figuring his date is over, wondering how he said his name in a way that made her react like that, failing to pick up on the stress she put on the word "Chip" before slamming the door.

Steve tells his son he wants to talk to Mr. Walker, and he gets the story straight from the embarrassed young girl, who properly realizes her rudeness and happily decides, if Chip still wants to, to go ahead with the date. They get their date after all, but Chip decides she isn't his type-even though he doesn't know what his type is. Steve concludes that it'll be fun figuring that out over time.

There was no secondary plot at all. One of the funniest lines came in the opening scenes, when Steve asks Ernie how he knows that Chip follows this girl around. Ernie's answer was, "Because I follow him around." A few chuckles came from Uncle Charley, Robbie, AND Steve each phoning in a corsage order on Chip's behalf, leaving Mary Lou puzzled over three flower deliveries.

This leads to another plot hole: When they phoned in their orders for the flowers to be delivered to Mary Lou, they surely would tell the florist to sign the card either "Chip Douglas" or just "Chip." So she would have to have learned before Chip got to her door that he was the one expecting the date, not Robbie. Really a corsage was a bit much for a movie date. That would be saved for a school dance.

The whole plot hinges on the unbelievable bit where this girl about 6 years younger than Robbie, somehow knows him and dreams of dating him, and Chip phoning and only giving his last name. Nobody would do that. Remember that in Chip's mind, she doesn't know he exists-which she didn't, as stated later. With a first name for a last name, her reaction (if she also didn't know about Robbie, which would have been logical) would be for her to ask, "Douglas who?" when he said "This is Douglas." Had it really been Robbie, I cannot imagine Mary Lou thinking her parents would let her go out with a college-age man-not when she's that much younger. How many dozens of shows have presented parents not willing to let their high school juniors, or so, date a college man? For this 13-14 year old to think she'd be allowed to do this also is totally unrealistic. Few parents would let their 14-year-old date a 16-year-old guy.

So with all of the plot holes making most of the show unrealistic, I cannot give it more than a score of 4. Earlier, this series had a date mix-up between Mike and Robbie, who were 4 years apart. That was done much more realistically than this one. I wonder if in a couple of years they had another round of this, between Chip and Ernie-who were the closest in years to each other of all the brothers Douglas.