"My Three Sons Theme" was composed by film and television composer Frank DeVol (1911-1999). "My Three Sons" was a TV Situation Comedy from ABC & CBS, running from September 29, 1960 through August 24, 1972 (369 episodes), about the trials and tribulations of the Douglas family: Steve, widower, aeronautical engineer, his sons Mike, Robbie, and Chip, their grandfather, Michael Francis O'Casey, "Bub", and Tramp, the family dog. The "My Three Sons Theme" also features in the film "The Cable Guy" (1996), starring Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick.
DeVol arranged music and conducted orchestras that played with vocalists like Doris Day, Rosemary Clooney (1928-2002), Tony Bennett, Vic Damone and Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) in the '40s and '50s, and was the arranger and conductor for Nat King Cole's (1919-1965) classic hit "Nature Boy" (1948).
Most baby boomers grew up listening to Frank DeVol's music without knowing it. He composed the theme music to "Richard Diamond" (1957), "My Three Sons" (1960), "Family Affair" (1966), "The Brady Bunch" (1969), and "To Rome with Love" (1969), but also "McCloud" (1970), "The Love Boat" (1977, not the main theme), "The Brady Brides" (1981). He did the filmscore for such diverse films as "Murder, Inc." (1960), "Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo" (1977), "Herbie Goes Bananas" (1980), and "Herbie The Love Bug" (1982).
Often credited in his television work simply as "DeVol", he was the model of a hard-working and versatile composer whose work graced more than fifty motion pictures. His early film career included the development of a lengthy professional relationship with director Robert Aldrich, for whom DeVol scored "World for Ransom" (1954), "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955), "The Big Knife" (1955), "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962), "Flight of the Phoenix" (1965) and "The Dirty Dozen" (1967), among others. He received Oscar nominations for his scores to "Pillow Talk" (1959), "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte" (1964), "Cat Ballou" (1965) and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967), and also provided memorable scores for the John Wayne romp "McClintock!" (1963) and the Doris Day comedies "The Ballad of Josie" (1968) and "The Glass Bottomed Boat" (1966).
DeVol also became familiar to television viewers as an actor, appearing in episodes of "Petticoat Junction" (1967 and 1969), "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster" (1962) and "The Betty White Show" (1977), and in the films "The Parent Trap" (1961) and "The Frisco Kid" (1979). He had a regular role as the ironically-named band leader Happy Kyne on the Norman Lear-produced talk show lampoons "America 2-Nite" (1978) and "Fernwood 2-Nite" (1977), playing opposite Martin Mull and Fred Willard. He played guest roles in "Bonanza" (1968), "My Three Sons" (1971), and "The Brady Bunch" (1972), and then some.
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