When Dave's column about Shel's childhood is picked by the head of Paragon Pictures to be a feature film, Beth urges Dave to take Shel on as a writing partner for the screenplay. Dave has never been able to ""work or play well with others"" since kindergarten and he's never had a writing partner. Beth gently reminds him of his speech to Tommy and Willie about brothers sharing and that he's always said he and Shel are like brothers. Meanwhile, Mia wants Eric to learn to swim so they can honeymoon in Hawaii and Kenny volunteers to be Eric's swimming coach. However, Mia discovers that the pool pep squad is a bevy of beautiful girl bent on ogling Eric. Guest Brandon Tartikoff formerly served as President of NBC Entertainment, Chairman of NBC Entertainment Group and Chairman of Paramount Pictures.

With Beth and the boys away for the weekend, Dave savors the time alone to do as he pleases -- if only he can get his friends to stop trying to keep him company. Dave's weekend is filled with all the things dearest to his heart: naps, television, beer, pretzels and not bathing. However, Mia and Eric want his expertise on where they should honeymoon, while Shel and Kenny are certain that all this time alone isn't good for Dave. Meanwhile, Beth learns that she is the last to know that Tommy has discovered girls in the form of the beautiful Angela when she chaperones his class on a field trip to see a space shuttle launch.

""Is it me, or did people used to be nicer to each other?"" Dave wonders, after Beth's insulted on the road and Shel has several run-ins with an obnoxious waiter who's out to get him.

Dave grounds Tommy for a prank the child insists he didn't commit. Then Eric's father, Eric Jr., invites the gang to the Coconut Strip Club for Eric's bachelor party, where they wind up in a brawl and get a taste of injustice themselves before a judge who hates celebrities, especially colunists. Meanwhile, Eric begs the guys to convince Mia he was forced to accompany them to the club.

When Dave, Shel and Kenny are sentenced to do community service at the beach as a result of the fight at Eric's bachelor party, a Cuban refugee drags himself out of the water and the boys must decide what to do with him. Dave takes the refugee, Juan, home with him and tries to introduce him to the Dave Barry version of what it means to be an American: lots of naps, snacks and television. Juan's desire to work hard and become a citizen gets Dave thinking about his grandparents and what life was like for them when they came to the United States from Ireland. Meanwhile, Eric isn't sure he wants to give Juan a job, especially in light of Mia's enthusiastic reaction to the refugee's good looks.

When Dave's home town of Pewauketucket, Ohio, honors him with the key to the city, Dave and Beth begin to think that it might be a better place to live than crime-ridden Miami. With Dave mourning the theft of his prize Mustang from right in front of their Miami home, he and Beth begin to look at Pewauketucket, with its safe streets, clear air and good schools, as a possible new home. However, Shel is more interested in the antiques he can buy cheaply from the locals, who he thinks won't know their real value, and Kenny is worrying that his prom night romance years ago may have produced the young hotel bartender who looks a lot like him. Meanwhile, Mia and Eric are babysitting for Tommy and Willie at home and Eric gets his own taste of what it might be like to be a father.

The Barrys and their friends get caught up in the past as they try to relive their best childhood Halloween memories. Dave, determined that his boys will be able to pick a jack-o-lantern from a real pumpkin patch, the way he did when he was growing up in the Midwest, hovers over his pumpkin patch like a mother hen over an egg. Meanwhile, Mia tricks Kenny into helping her bake by convincing him that kneading dough is the ultimate sensual experience. And, when an elderly neighbor says she will give Shel a dilapidated player piano, his memories of a Halloween long ago make him determined to restore the instrument no matter what the cost.

When Dave meets an attractive female fan who invites him back to her apartment to ""talk about writing,"" Shel and Kenny are certain that Dave will be seduced if he goes. While Dave, Shel and Kenny are out of town visiting friends, Dave sees the beautiful Lisa reading his book. After introducing himself, he is overwhelmed by her enthusiastic praise and her excitement at meeting him. Before he knows it, she has given him her address and they have a date to meet at her home that night. Even though he later thinks better of it, Dave doesn't want to stand her up, as Kenny and Shel advise. Meanwhile, Beth is home dealing with a house badly in need of repair and a determination to show Dave that she is just as capable of dealing with contractors as he is.

Beth's decision to use the repair job on the kitchen and master bedroom as a reason to completely redecorate the house puts a major strain on the Barrys' marriage. Ever since structural damage plunged their bedroom into the kitchen, Dave and Beth have been camping out in the living room, which has put a definite crimp in their love life and stress on their marriage. Now with Eric and Eric Jr. practically living with them, blundering through the repairs, things go from bad to worse. But, when Beth goes against Dave's wishes and hires a decorator to redo the entire house, the fighting really escalates. Meanwhile, when Mia and Eric step in to help, they discover that it is really they who are the incompatible ones and split up.

Dave sees a way to meet his favorite '60s British rock star, Peter Noone, when Eric begins repairs on the man's Florida mansion. After Eric leaves Dave's bathroom sink still spouting water like Old Faithful in favor of a repair job at a rock star's house, Dave is furious until he discovers just who that rock star is. Then all he can think about is getting inside the mansion to walk in the footsteps of his idol. With Beth and the boys in tow, he cons Eric into letting him inside, and all goes well until Dave finds himself stuck in an embarrassing predicament. Meanwhile, Mia and Eric continue to try the ""friends"" thing now that they have discovered they are incompatible.

When Willie leaves Earnest, the family bloodhound, at the park by accident, all the Barrys and their friends come together for ""Operation Find Earnest."" The kids are heartbroken over the loss of the dog, and Dave and friends go to great lengths to find him. Kenny and Shel help to draw the missing dog flyers and Mia uses her psychic abilities only to discover that Kenny is about to meet the girl of his dreams. But when Earnest is finally found, new problems surface that may keep the Barrys from their family pet forever.

Dave writes a scathing column criticizing Tommy's teacher for staging a drastically rewritten politically correct version of Moby Dick; Shel and Kenny are dubious about taking Eric to an exclusive nightclub.

After Shel displays the new edition of Playboy in which the centerfold confesses that one of her lifelong ambitions is to meet Dave, the meeting is arranged but doesn't turn out exactly the way Dave and the guys envisioned it. Entertainment Tonight reporter Mark Steines guest stars as himself, covering the meeting between the Playmate and Dave. Dave's growing-by-the-minute ego is deflated, however, when, upon meeting the Playmate, he realizes that she is passionate about his writing not about him and that she views him as a father figure. Meanwhile, Shel, Kenny and Eric trip all over themselves trying to impress her.

Kenny encourages Shel to be more spontaneous -and Shel foolishly takes his advice. Meanwhile, Dave and Beth's hanky-panky in the car sends them straight to traffic school. Trying to embrace the ability to live impulsively, Kenny convinces Shel to go on a last minute cruise and Shel ends up married by the time the boat docks. Arriving back from the cruise married, Shel is distraught when he hears from his new wife's attorney, fearing that she may take him to the cleaners. Meanwhile, Dave and Beth end up at a very strict traffic school, where they are cited for a ""moving violation"" of an intimate nature in their car.

Dave finds out that his agent, Irving Bloom, has died and that Bloom's widow, Mel, is taking over the client list, much to his surprise. Bea Arthur plays Mel Bloom, the new agent, in the first of three guest-starring appearances. Talk show host Wink Martindale appears as himself. Dave finds himself missing his old agent when Mel goes into overdrive promoting Dave scheduling him with publicity interviews, talk shows and book fairs to publicize Barry Picking, his new book. Dave, however, didn't have a clue that he wrote a new book

Mel, Dave's aggressive new agent, has the Barry household spinning both physically and mentally when she sends Dave into New York for a PR tour and lands Willie a television commercial much to Beth's chagrin. Bea Arthur plays Mel Bloom, the new agent, in the second of three guest-starring appearances. Talk show host Roy Firestone appears as himself, as does singer Pat Boone, who has recently released a new heavy metal CD, In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy. In the green room prior to his appearance on the Roy Firestone talk show, Dave is anxious and nervous and decides to try joke material out on fellow guest Pat Boone. The situation becomes even more nerve-racking when Pat, who goes on the air first, then aces Dave by using the jokes. Meanwhile, Beth, who was reluctant to have Willie do the commercial, becomes angry with Mel when it backfires.

A publishing party at the Barrys' home, coordinated by Dave's new agent, Mel, links Dave to a dead mobster and thrusts him into the seedy world of tabloid publicity. After a photo of Dave with Carlo ""The Body Bag"" Lorenz, which was taken at the party, appears on the front page of the Miami newspapers when Carlo is found dead the next day, the Barry household gets a taste of life in the public eye. Meanwhile, the bad publicity rubs off on Shel when the bookmobile he sponsored is highjacked and taken on a crime spree.

A call from an old college classmate whom Dave despised reveals a long-hidden truth about Dave and Beth's dating history. When Dave, Beth, Kenny and Shel engage in their usual game of poker, the art of bluffing becomes more personal than usual. During the course of the poker game, Dave discovers that Beth, Kenny and Shel have been sharing a secret since their college days about a past fling Beth had with an old college flame. Feeling slightly betrayed, Dave ends up pulling off the ultimate bluff.

After Dave volunteers to take care of the family by himself so Beth can study without interruptions, he has to fly solo and deal with a variety of problems including Kenny's request for a loan of $2,000, Tommy's radical new hairdo and a pony in the backyard. Dave struggles to keep each ""event"" from Beth so she can focus on studying for an important exam. Meanwhile, Kenny's friendship with Shel is strained when Shel refuses to lend him the money to try his hand as a concert promoter.

Kenny auditions for a job as a weatherman. Meanwhile, Shel's investments bring him a substantial windfall; then he learns the truth about his shady accountant.

Shel has a hard time 'fessing up to his visiting high-maintenance daughter Carly that most of his money is gone. Instead of telling his daughter the truth, Shel tries to hide his financial situation from her by buying her a new wardrobe and a new car and renting a beach house. Meanwhile, Eric ""adjusts"" Beth's neck, which results in her becoming bedridden, and Kenny decides to get a dog, since they are such ""babe magnets,"" and ends up stuck in his apartment when his new canine, ""Bunny,"" turns out to be an attack dog.

After Eric accidentally sells Beth's wedding dress during their garage sale, Dave thinks Beth is upset for sentimental reasons, but the truth is she had $300 hidden in the dress. No matter how Beth tries to explain, Dave still doesn't understand why his wife has a secret slush fund. Meanwhile, Dave confesses to Mia that her high school idol, erotic romance novelist Letitia DeVore, is actually a pseudonym -- for Dave Barry.

Dave and Beth investigate the reason the FBI wants to speak with them, but it turns out they're looking for information on Shel; Mia courts a job with the NBA's Miami Heat.

When a giant sinkhole threatens to destroy the Barry house, the entire family evacuates to Shel's. Forced to flee on a moment's notice, Dave and Beth must choose what is most important to them. Meanwhile, Shel the consummate bachelor tries to make his pad more family friendly.