The Weldons were the wealthiest family in the small town of Grand, Pennsylvania; they owned the largest industry, a piano factory which was starting to fall on hard times due to the declining sales of its pianos, a situation that patriarch Harris Weldon (John Randolph) blamed on Asian imports. In Weldon's household were his dimwitted son, Norris (Joel Murray) and the acerbic butler, Desmond (John Neville), whom Weldon kept despite his acid tongue as he had once been responsible for saving Weldon's life. Weldon's housekeeper Janice Pasetti (Pamela Reed) barely scraped by on what Weldon paid her; she lived in a mobile home with her daughter, Edda (Sara Rue). In between these two extremes were Weldon's niece Carol Ann Smithson (Bonnie Hunt) and her husband Tom (Michael McKean), who was constantly hoping to improve his finances by returning to a position (he was fired by Weldon on his first day), preferably an executive one, at his wife's uncle's factory.