The Barkleys

- Season 1

(1972)

Arnie the bus driver hates long haired, hippie boys and is glad one turns down a ride, but at home, his teen aged daughter Terry and Mother have a surprise for him-the same boy wants to take her out. Reluctantly he lets them go next door to a party, but Arnie's caught by a cop eavesdropping on it. He gets an idea from a TV show that Terry and the boy are going to elope at a rock concert, which he crashes, destroying instruments and causing a scene on stage until he's arrested.

After his day's work, Arnie finds $500. He takes it home, dreaming of what he can do with it, but soon his conscience, personified as a tiny Arnie, begs him to seek the owner and return it. He places an ad in the paper, but before he can do anything, a robot created by Chester finds the money and puts it in the kids' fund box for a big party, which they soon spend. realizing what's happened, he buys all but one of the paper's run, but from that one, the money's owner, (a Judge) responds. To get a new $500 fast, Arnie enters a prize water ski competition.

After Terry gives a speech to her class about how women should be able to go to work, Arnie insists that Men can do everything better than women. This leads to a challenge that switches jobs with Agnes. Arnie the housewife tries running on a tight schedule, but he executes tasks unconventionally, like drying dishes with a hair dryer. A Door-to-door salesman gives him a hard time with a vacuum cleaner, and soon explodes same. When he takes the clothes to the laundromat, he creates a wet wash fight and overflowing suds fiasco. Meanwhile, bus driver Agnes waits for ...

After reading about a million dollar contract a basketball player just made, Arnie decides Chester must become a hoop star, though he's very short. He goes to sign Chester up for the school team, "The Small Frys" and becomes a coach, along with hated neighbor Beagle. He puts his diminutive son in as center, but is soon overwhelmed by the others. Chester tries to get taller, including listening to classical music, which only works on plants. Still short, his performance in the next game is pathetic. At school next day, Chester is discouraged, but his girlfriend Lulu ...

Bored with Chemistry class, but much more interested in boys, Terry and her girlfriend Marcia decide to be the first girls to sign up for shop. One of the prerequisites is they must have a car of their own to work on, so they borrow Arnie's. The gals soon prove they have no mechanical ability, leaving the car in a thousand-piece heap. At the same time, Arnie needs the car to drive Senator Bird Dog to Mr. Airedale's posh party. The kids bring the auto parts home and try to reassemble it while hiding from Arnie, but opt for using a friend's hot rod and convincing Arnie ...

An old schoolmate of Arnie's, Sammy Schnauzer, has become a millionaire and is moving to town. Though they were never close, Arnie schemes to have his son Roger marry the Schnauzer daughter, Elsie. For the two to meet, first Arnie drags his unwilling son to a flower show and then a concert, missing her each time. Roger poses a newspaper reporter, but only gets pictures of her car. Finally, Arnie has the whole family visit the Schnauzer penthouse, where they find Elsie to be an insufferable snob, and Arnie manages to get everyone soaked in the pool.

Next door neighbor Beagle has a pool that he graciously allows the Barkleys to use, but though his family happily takes advantage of it, Arnie is jealous. He tries to lure them away with a hamburger grill and a croquet set, which fail miserably. Then, thinking big, he opts to buy a yacht, until he finds they are fantastically expensive. Undaunted, he tells the kids they have to take jobs to pay for it. they won't, so he builds one in the backyard. To test it's seaworthiness, he decides to launch it in Beagle's pool, where it sinks to the bottom. With the help of the ...

Terry feels left out when Arnie spends all his spare time with Roger, So Agnes gets him to pay attention to his daughter more. He does, even though all her interests are feminine ones like sewing and taffy making, which he bungles anyway. But now Chester starts feeling unwanted, seeing his father's shifting attentions as a slight, even putting on a dress to cut in on Terry's time, for which, Arnie sends him home. Hurt, he runs away to join the circus instead. The family goes there to retrieve him, but Arnie mistakes a high wire acrobat for Chester, and tries to rescue...

Terry and her two girlfriends take a camping holiday with her mother as chaperone. But Arnie has second thoughts when he sees motorcyclists in the area and takes Roger and Chester to watch the girls. The Bikers turn out to be a botany professor and a student. Arnie gets deputized as a Park Ranger and does more spying, including hiding in a lake, breathing through a reed as the girls sunbathe. the girls and boys go to a malt shop, infiltrated by Arnie dressed in his idea of a hippie. He misinterprets their plans to inspect damaged trees, and tracks them in the woods, ...

Roger is a disc Jockey at station P.U.P., but Arnie can't stand the music and decides to become one too. He goes to "Disc Jockey Tech", where they give him diction instruction. He gets little sympathy from home when he wants to replace the Rock and Roll with grown-up stuff like "Guy Lombarko" selections. The School gives him a diploma just to get rid of him, and off he goes to audition for a spot at station "CHOW" where their DJ is leaving. He also takes his demo tape, but accidentally takes Roger's old one. He's Hired, and immediately starts a retro hit parade of ...

Tired of vacationing at a mosquito infested lake, Arnie buys a lot from a fly-by-night swindler sight unseen, at "Vacation Villa Estates", believing it to be full of marinas and golf courses. It turns out to be a gator-choked quicksand swamp. He gets his kids to launch a high pressure presentation to sell it to hated neighbor Beagle, who refuses. But without Arnie's knowledge, they do successfully pitch it to his employer's wife, Mrs. Airedale. Desperate to prevent the boss from seeing the property, he tries keeping them home, then some last-minute improvements at the...

Worried he'll fail a test the bus company holds, Arnie's family tries him out, but he can't remember his own name when under pressure. He tries to acquire the answers from the company that composed the test, but gets responses to a butcher test instead. He doesn't realize it until he's actually taking the test. All entrants' answers are put on punch cards and fed into "Cora Ann" a computer. Arnie's card is accidentally punctured by Mr. Airedale so as to show he's ready to take over as president. He does, but when the job overwhelms him, he takes a college course to ...

At the school play, Beagle's beaming because his son is a featured player, but Arnie's jealous because Chester only plays a silly "Cupid" character that flies over the stage like "Peter Pan". Even this is bungled, and he falls onto the other performers. Nevertheless, backstage, a talent scout from the "Bilkhound Talent Agency" convinces Agnes that Chester has all the makings of a star and he should represent him. Chester is obviously not that, but only his sister Terry and brother Roger realize it. They go over to the agency to stop him , but the scout (and owner) ...