Riley worked in an aircraft plant in California, but viewers usually saw him at home, cheerfully disrupting life with his malapropisms and ill timed intervention into minor problems. His stock answer to every turn of fate became a catch phrase: 'What a revoltin' development this is!"

A young man builds a hot rod despite the disapproval of his father, a Juvenile Court judge. Circumstantial evidence points to the innocent teenager when his car is involved in a hit-and-run accident and he must reconcile with his father.