Wait Till Your Father Gets Home
A conservative father butts heads with his family on various social attitudes of the day.
Wait Till Your Father Gets Home chronicles the lives of the Boyles, your average 1970's American family. Harry Boyle, the father, owns a restaurant supply company. His wife Irma portrays the typical housewife, with an occasional independent flare. Harry and Irma have three children: Chet, Alice, and Jamie. Chet, who is 22, is a college dropout, who spends most of his time sleeping. Alice is a rather robust 16-year-old, who teams up with her mother, to display the independence of women, in the 70's. Jamie is the Capitalist of the family, even though he is only 9. The show is set in the suburbs of Los Angeles, on Elm Street, to be precise. During the 1973 season, the show was host to many celebrity voices, including: Don Knotts, Phyllis Diller, Bea Arthur and many more (many of these guests were carried over from The New Scooby-Doo Movies, which were recored at this time).
Seasons
1. The Fling
Air Date: 1972-09-12
Restaurant-equipment dealer Harry Boyle helps a sexy female customer move into her apartment, prompting everyone around him to think that Harry is cheating on his wife, Irma.
2. Alice's Dress
Air Date: 1972-09-19
The Boyles are invited to a party. Alice decides to buy a dress for the event, but it turns out to be way too revealing.
3. The Hippie
Air Date: 1972-09-26
Chet befriends a hippie musician, which drives his family crazy and prompts Ralph and his anti-Communist Army buddies to create a wall around the neighborhood to keep out all hippies, alleged Communists, subversives, and free-thinkers.
4. The Beach Vacation
Air Date: 1972-09-03
The Boyles rent a beach house, but things get complicated when Alice wants to wear a string bikini and Harry must decide whether or not to press charges against a nude sunbather who will not leave his property.
5. Help Wanted
Air Date: 1972-10-10
Harry gets into trouble with special-interest groups when he fires his Jewish driver and must choose between hiring someone who is right for the job versus hiring someone in order to comply with the dictates of affirmative action and diversity.
6. Love Story
Air Date: 1972-10-17
Alice shocks her family again by dating a homeless man named Norman, but when Harry and Irma find out that Norman has rich parents, they push Alice into staying with him.
7. The Victim
Air Date: 1972-10-24
Harry gets mugged and beaten in the park by a young criminal. While Harry and Ralph want the young criminal to be locked away, Chet and Alice want Harry to go soft on his assailant since it is his first offense.
8. Chet's Job
Air Date: 1972-10-31
Harry gives his slacker son, Chet, an ultimatum: either find a job and pay rent or get out of the house. Chet decides to find a job — and ends up earning more than his father as a hardware-store grunt.
9. Chet's Fiancee
Air Date: 1972-11-07
Chet dates a young, attractive decent young woman named Prudence and brings her home to meet Harry and Irma...and ends up shocking everyone when he tells Prudence that he does not want to marry her.
10. The Mouse
Air Date: 1972-11-14
Jamie brings home a pet mouse. After being told that he can't keep it, the mouse escapes. Jamie blames Harry, and then he runs away.
11. Duty Calls
Air Date: 1972-10-21
Chet angers his parents when he tries to bail out of being enlisted in the Army.
12. Expectant Papa
Air Date: 1972-11-28
Irma worries that she may be pregnant again, which does not sit well with Chet and Alice, who feel the world is too overpopulated.
13. The New Car
Air Date: 1972-12-05
The Boyles are tricked into buying a crummy car, and fight back against the man who sold it to them.
14. The New House
Air Date: 1972-12-12
The Boyles consider moving into a bigger house, but Harry does not have the money for it.
15. The Prowler
Air Date: 1972-12-19
Ralph starts a neighborhood vigilante group in order to fight back against a burglar who has been breaking into houses in the Boyles' neighborhood.
16. Mama's Identity
Air Date: 1972-12-26
In an attempt to be more than just a housewife and mother, Irma takes a job as a secretary at a law firm, but struggles with sexual discrimination and competition from a younger, prettier coworker, while Harry and Ralph worry that women in the workplace will lead to men being treated like sex objects and second-class citizens.
17. Papa the Patient
Air Date: 1973-01-02
Harry is sent to the hospital after suffering from stress-related stomachaches.
18. The Swimming Pool
Air Date: 1973-01-09
Harry builds a swimming pool for his family, but the neighbors end up using it.
19. Sweet Sixteen
Air Date: 1973-01-16
Irma wants Alice to have an extravagant 16th birthday party, but Harry is too cheap to do it.
20. The Commune
Air Date: 1973-01-23
Alice runs away to a hippie commune to escape the stresses of school and home life.
21. Music Tycoon
Air Date: 1973-01-30
Chet and his friends get famous as a hot, new garage band, but Chet soon learns that fame is fickle.
22. Accidents Will Happen
Air Date: 1973-02-06
Harry splits his pants after slipping in a restaurant. Everyone advises Harry to sue, but Harry just wants a new pair of pants.
23. Papa in New York
Air Date: 1973-02-13
Harry goes to New York on business, and takes Ralph with him.
24. The Neighbors
Air Date: 1973-02-20
Newlyweds Mona and George experience trouble in paradise when they fight over a new couch. The Boyles must get Mona and George back together when George moves in with the Boyles.
1. Bringing Up Jamie
Air Date: 1973-09-11
A child psychologist recommends that Jamie take up photography to deal with his aggression, but Jamie only ends up photographing his family at their worst.
2. The Lady Detective
Air Date: 1973-09-18
An eccentric female detective (played by guest star Phyllis Diller) is hired to help Harry find out who stole from the company's payroll.
3. Permissive Papa
Air Date: 1973-09-25
Harry bars Alice from going to a concert and sets her up on a date with a nice man named Jay Jay, who turns out to be a pervert.
4. Boyles on T.V.
Air Date: 1973-10-02
The Boyles are invited to be interviewed on TV, but Harry thinks having the entire family on TV will ruin his reputation.
5. My Wife, The Secretary
Air Date: 1973-10-09
Irma re-tries to find a job...and ends up working as Harry's secretary at his restaurant equipment store.
6. Papa , the Housewife
Air Date: 1973-10-16
Harry takes Irma's place as a housewife...with disastrous results.
7. Jamie's Project
Air Date: 1973-10-23
Harry helps Jamie with a project for a school-wide competition.
8. Don for the Defense
Air Date: 1973-11-06
Harry goes to court to contest a traffic violation—and ends up in deeper trouble when he hires an incompetent lawyer.
9. Alice's Diet
Air Date: 1973-11-13
After being spurned by a crush at school, Alice goes to a beauty farm, and comes back slim and beautiful.
10. Mama Loves Monty
Air Date: 1973-11-20
Irma signs herself and Harry to appear on a game show, but Harry misconstrues it as a sign that Irma is leaving him for game show host Monty Hall.
11. Alice's Crush
Air Date: 1973-11-27
Alice has fallen in love; this time, her object of desire is one of her teachers.
12. Papa's Big Check
Air Date: 1973-12-04
Harry gets a tax refund check for $940,000, but learns too late that the amount is a misprint.
13. Mama's Charity
Air Date: 1973-12-11
Irma begins spending all of her time working for different charities.
14. Chet's Pad
Air Date: 1973-12-18
Chet finally moves out of the house and into his own place, but Harry keeps visiting Chet to parent him.
15. Papa the Coach
Air Date: 1973-12-25
Harry is named the new coach of the high school basketball team, and must contend with the pushy parents of the players.
16. Birdman Chet
Air Date: 1974-01-01
Chet gets a job at a pan factory, and suggests that the company change their image to help the endangered California condor.
17. Back to Nature
Air Date: 1974-01-08
Harry takes his family on a camping trip to break them of their addiction to TV, but after a few days in the woods, Harry wants out.
18. Alice's Freedom
Air Date: 1974-01-15
Irma's mother visits and insists that Alice be allowed her freedom since she is a woman. Alice enjoys her freedom to do as she pleases, but soon realizes that there is a downside to too much freedom.
19. The Beekeeper
Air Date: 1974-01-22
The Boyles call an exterminator to get rid of the bees in their backyard, but the exterminator ends up being more of a pest than the actual bees.
20. Maude Loves Papa
Air Date: 1974-01-29
While collecting back payment, Harry helps an old woman open a service station for motorcycles.
1. Rich Little, Supersleuth
Air Date: 1974-09-17
The bank next to Harry's store gets robbed.
2. Model Alice
Air Date: 1974-09-24
Harry objects when a painter asks Alice to pose nude.
3. Marriage Counselor
Air Date: 1974-10-01
Harry and Irma's visit to a marriage counselor threatens to destroy their relationship rather than save it.
4. Car 54
Air Date: 1974-10-08
Irma's brother-in-law (who works as a police officer) opens a kindergarten, which goes well, until a child goes missing.
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Rating
6.2/10
Release Date
1972-09-12
Episodes
48 (3 seasons)
Status
Ended
Cast
Production Companies
Hanna-Barbera Productions