Truly, by the third season, everything clicked for the series. The writing, the acting, and the gang even took a side trip to a lake. Some of the best episodes were filmed on location, in this case the famous Andy Griffith lake at Franklin Canyon near Beverly Hills.
It's picnic time, and old Fred Rutherford invites co-worked Ward and the family to a quaint picnic at Friends(?) Lake --where everything goes wrong. Yet another exercise in Murphy's Law. It all starts when everyone SQUEEEEZES into Fred's car, and Violet Rutherford (Veronica Cartwright) has to sit on Beave's lap!
Worse... Fred happens to have a camera around his neck and takes a quickie photo of Violet kissing stunned Beave --which goes viral in the office magazine! To tell you the truth, the photo ain't bad and kind of looks like a classic calandar or magazine sketch.
Nevertheless...
An exercise in pure embarrassment that many of us kids could relate to. Applause to producers and writers Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher who nailed this one. Top directing by series regular David Butler, who probably had a couple of chuckles himself, remembering the films he directed with Shirley Temple.
The episode also holds the distinction of featuring two distinguished actresses; Veronica Cartwright (sister of Angela), who would gain fame in a few years in Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS. Since Hitch worked at Universal, he may have spotted her playing Fred's daughter and decided to cast her. An excellent child actress. Not to forget the "First lady of Star Trek," Mjel Barnett who played the famous computer voice for years, also in the cartoon series. This was the only time she appeared on the show as Fred's wife.
Special honor to Whitey (Stanley Fafara) who always had some of the best lines and wild expressions. We all loved this little guy.
SEASON 3 remastered Universal dvd box set. Thank you so much to METV for running this classic.