MovieChat Forums > Family Affair (1966) Discussion > Wonder Why Uncle Bill never got married

Wonder Why Uncle Bill never got married


Sure on Family Affair Cissy's & Buffy's & Jody's Parents, named Bob Davis & Mary Patterson-Davis were killed in a car accident while Buffy & Jody were very very young & Buffy lived with Aunt Fran & Jody with another Aunt & same with Cissy but they all came to live with Uncle Bill & as guardians they had their Uncle Bill who was somewhat rich but an engineer who built bridges & other construction things & was always away on business. Plus their other guardian whom was a butler or as Mr. French says, a gentleman's gentleman. Today he would also be known as an Auppair similar to Charles who was a live in family helper but he was not known as a nanny or governess since only females are referred to as that. Right ways are live in Auppair or Gentleman's Gentleman.

Uncle Bill dated quite a number of different women but I am just surprised that he didn't marry one of them because the only female love young Buffy & Jody had was their sister Cissy. They would have needed an aunt or motherly person so why didn't Uncle Bill ever get married yet he dated & was in some short relationships with some people? I am wondering why.

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Maybe Uncle Bill was secretly gay.

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Or maybe the dynamics and entire premise of the show would be ruined...two single bachelors (Uncle Bill and Mr French) raising 3 kids.

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Do Butlers cook meals? It seems Mr French did that and everything else as well.

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He was a Gentleman's Gentleman...different from a butler and French stressed that thru-out the series

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10 or 20 years later that wouldn't have been allowed him taking in his brother's Children, being single and two men. I believe it used to be (don't know how it is now but look at Modern Family) you had to be a couple and married to be guardians of children or adopt.

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Maybe French polished more than one knob.

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LMMFAO. I always thought that.

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Sounds like you know from experience...dolt!

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That is true in a formal adoption (I'm talking about when you go through an adoption agency or a state agency), but since Bill was their uncle it is not a problem. At the very most, the state might send a social worker to make sure everything looks alright. Things haven't changed much in many decades. Remember the aunts just pushed this on Bill.

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Because the girls Bill brought home they took one look at Jody and said "Oh hell no!" then beat feet getting the hell out of Dodge asap! Any woman with any sense would want nothing to do with a kid like Jody, then there's Mrs. Beasley ....

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[deleted]

LOL! That's gotta be it.

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When this show was in production, the entertainment community cared about the premise of the program. unlike today. Had they married off "Uncle Bill," it would have ruined the program and it, in all probability, would have been canceled before it was time to retire it. (When you run a program for five or more years and it runs out of script ideas of the central characters get too old, it is NOT canceled. It is retired. Big difference.)

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Don Fedderson, the producer of the show, made a cottage industry of shows about two single men raising kids. He did it on "My Three Sons", had another success with "Family Affair", and tried again with "To Rome With Love".

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I recall an episode where Bill was engaged but his fiance just assumed that Buffy and Jody (Cissy was grown by this time) would live somewhere else and when Bill confirmed that they came as a package that was a deal breaker with her and the wedding was called off. I don't see why it should have mattered because Mr. French would still be there to take care of the kids and Bill and his new wife would have their time together and start a family together.

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Why buy the cow if you get the milk for free?

Bill was always traveling, so having a nagging wife always wondering when he's home would put Mr. French out of work, since in 1966 New York not a lot of older rich married women worked.

It made for better TV to have the combo of a swinging bachelor with a soft hearted, caring Dad-like figure who enjoyed a new woman every week. The same device was used in "Bachelor Father" years earlier.

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