It's a Great Life (I) (1954–1956)

Before she became Aunt Bee on the Andy Griffith Show, Frances Bavier rented out rooms in her house to William Bishop and Michael O'Shea, a pair of ex-GIs who even by 1954 hadn't settled down to anything. Hadn't these guys heard of or taken advantage of the GI Bill. I have to believe that they could have done better for themselves than just being vacuum cleaner salesmen.

But that didn't stop them from trying all kinds of get rich quick schemes, usually involving James Dunn who was Bavier's brother and who was essentially a freeloader. Dunn, Bishop, and O'Shea were always involved in some scheme or another, some of them as ridiculous as ones thought up by women named Lucy and Ethel.

The romantic figure of the show was Bishop who was trying to make it with Bavier's daughter Barbara Bates. Bates left the show halfway through its two season run. In the show she was an aspiring actress and no doubt did not want to be tied down with her deadbeat uncle and his pals.

It's A Great Life was a moderately successful show, the chemistry was good with the cast, but the premise of the show was thin. I mean at some point reality had to hit these deadbeats.