Mama's in a hurry to get to the mall for a sale and tries to hurry Fran along to finish eating. But before that can happen Fran's boss at the newspaper calls. Telling her she has to come in and re-edit her latest story. Mama is obviously upset because she can't drive and has no way to get to the sale. Meanwhile Vinton, Mama's only son, drops by the house and announces that he and the kids have been evicted from their house. Now he's hoping that he, his daughter Sonja, and his son Buzz, can stay with Mama until he gets back on his feet. Against Fran's wishes Mama agrees. Vint gets the basement, Buzz gets the attic, and Sonja gets Fran's writing studio because she refuses to sleep on the couch. Fran is outraged by this, and her and Mama have a huge argument about it. Fran's mood turns even more sour when she finds out Sonja stumbled up on the book that she'd been working on recently and reads it. Fran says it's an invasion of her privacy and finally makes the decision that she'll move out. Because she can't take the stress anymore. Of course Mama had no idea that Fran was actually writing in her studio. But later as things settle down a bit, her and Mama have a heart to heart and she changes her mind and decides to stay after all.

Vint and Buzz go to a bachelor party in celebration of Vint's impending marriage to Naomi. Meanwhile back at the house, Fran, Ellen, and Mama are decorating the living room when Naomi arrives with a bottle of wine (which Ellen claims is cheap). They get drunk and learn that Ellen thinks her husband, Bruce, is cheating on her with his secretary Peggy.

Everyone pretends to be shocked at the news, but had thought that all along and try to convince Ellen that she is wrong. She phones his office and is surprised that Bruce answers and says that Peggy is a saint for letting him keep her there that late and that Ellen didn't to wait up for him. Ellen remarks that the only thing that could ruin this day is if Eunice showed up. The ladies start taking about how Eunice wants to sing at the wedding and all agree it would be a total disaster.

Eunice arrives through the back door and over hears the conversation and obviously becomes upset. Coming into the living room she looses her cool. Blabbing t

The day of the wedding is at hand, and Vint and Naomi are ready to tie the knot. While Eunice still wants to sing her solo, she first asks Vint who says she'll have to talk to Naomi about it. Mama then gives Vint his daddy's ring as a wedding present, problem is Eunice thinks it's her ring, because Carl always wanted her to have it. While Naomi is getting ready she shows Eunice the ring, saying it's something blue and she prepares to wear it around her neck.

Vint and Naomi say their vows and Eunice, who is already upset at Mama for giving her ring away and has had a few to many beers, prepares to sing her solo in front of the whole crowd. She starts yelling at Mama half way thru about the ring and Mama yells back and it turns into a free-for-all, with Eunice insulting everyone and eventually Ed has to carry out.

Later,Mama and Fran sit on the couch, and enjoy the peace and quiet that they now have. Vint (who decided to take the kids afterall), Naomi, and the kids have left for Arizona.

Vinton gets an idea of taking the family (eveyone except Sonja) on to the game show Family Feud, so that they can have a chance at winning $10,000. He's even selected each person for his team for different reasons: Buzz (the teenage heartthrob), Naomi (the beauty), Mama (the sweet old lady), and Ellen and Vint as the brains of the family and could prolly win the money on their own. Ellen disagrees and says that she is the only one that is smart enough to win the money (meaning that Vint is dumb).

Everyone takes a while to convince Mama to go, but she finally gives in. The opposing family is the very snooty Van Courtland's, who win the first round. Vint ends up winning the second match-up and decides to play in order to take the lead. After a short break, the point values are doubled and the Van Courtland's win the face-off and almost win the game, but Mama gets one last chance to steal.

The survey question was ""What do you wind up?"" and the Harper's are telling Mama to answer with ""A m

Vint, who has a bowling tournament, wants Mama to wash and iron his shirt and have dinner ready early. Then Fran, who has an awards banquet that night, asks Mama to iron the dress she plans to wear. Ellen comes by to pick Mama up and has to remind her of the her appointment she has. So Mama's is in a rush to get to her hair appointment, and she burns a whole in Fran's dress.

Ellen and Mama then go to Neidermeyer's in hopes they can find the same dress. After finding it and having to pay $55 for it, Fran comes home early and try's it on. Vint then comes in and finds out Mama not only didn't fix dinner early, she didn't iron his lucky yellow shirt either.

As for Fran's dress, turns out it's the wrong dress and it looks almost nothing like the other one. Fran throws a fit and her and Mama have a huge fight. In the end Fran decides to wear another dress.

Mama's going on about Vint's friend Claude being a bum and everything, when Ellen finally brings Mama's silver back. Mama wants Vint to put it up right then, so no one will steal it. But he first gets a call from Claude, who needs a favor. Seems Claude got in a bar fight and he's locked up in jail and needs $250 for his bail. Vint catches Ellen before she leaves and asks her, but she refuses. So he pawns Mama's silver to get the money.

The next morning Mama goes to put some stuff away in the closet and discovers it's gone. She wakes Vint up and he admits he took it and pawned it. Blowing her top Mama tells Vint to get her silver back and he then tells her why he needed the money. That only serves to get her madder.

In the midst of the screaming match, Vint decides to leave, and Sonya says she can stay with Nancy. So Vint goes to the basement to pack his stuff, but Mama can't stand to see him go and calls him back upstairs and in their own way they make peace, at least for a few moments

Ellen Shows up and announces she's been given the ""Woman of the Year"" award at the Raytown Country Club that night.But what she doesn't know is Mayor Tutwiller has invited Mama and the family along as a surprise for Ellen.

In a side plot Vint thinks Mama's lost his bowling ball after she says she put it in a ""Safe Place"".As expected the family arrives at the country club and Ellen is mortified.They ofcourse embarass her with the way they act.

Finally after dinner,which Mama complains wasn't done.Mayor Tutwiller starts the ceremony by letting Mama say a few words.It turns out to be more than few as she basically brings the house down with comments.

The story starts in the hosptal, and Vint comes into the scene with Naomi, Ellen, and Eunice standing the the middle of the lobby, looking worried. As he asks what happened, Naomi is the first one to tell him the story of what happened in the kitchen that day.

Mama and the girls were in the kitchen making gooseberry jam, and she was being the perfect daughter-in-law, Ellen was helping a little bit, and Eunice comes into the door late, claiming that her car broke down, and that she was almost run over out on route 5. Ellen said that she was out on route 5 getting the berries, and she didn't see her at all. However, Eunice thinks different.They pick a fight, and then the gooseberries start to stick to the pot. When Mama says: ""Sweetie, Get that pot for me"", they both run to the pot and start to argue for it. They tell Naomi to butt out, and then they fight for the pan. As they are swinging it around, they smack Mama in the afce with it. She is out cold.

The next one to tell the story is

Mama won't let anyone leave because Ellen (who recently divorced her husband Bruce) is on the way over for another one of her european slide shows. This being the 4th time in two weeks that she's been over, everyone is bored out of their minds, including Mama. But when Ellen shows up, she can't stay, seems she has a meeting with a new club she's joined called ""Quiters and Losers"". Meanwhile, Vint is involved in a key selling contest at work, where the winner gets a dinner for 4 at a very expensive restaurant.

Turns out Ellen is actually seeing a new boyfriend, who is a much younger man and he's invited her to the ShayRay for dinner. Only problem is, Vint won that contest at work and the prize is a dinner for 4 at ShayRay's. That's where they run into Ellen and the family finally meets her new boyfriend, Glen. After hearing one to many of Mama's rude comments Glen gets up to leave and wants Ellen to go with him, but Mama makes her stay.

Later at home, Ellen angrily confronts Mama over h

Mama's wanting desperately to go to the mall and pick up this blue hat she wants. But no one will drive her, seems everyone has plans. Then Frannie suggests she learn how to drive and Mama refuses, saying she's to old to learn a new trick like that. After Mama leaves the family goes about planning who will teach her. It comes down to Vint, who decides to teach Mama about keys first since he's a lock smith. Next it's Buzz and Sonya's turn to help her learn the rules of the road. Which doesn't go any better than Vint's lesson.

Mama finally begs Fran into driving her to the mall, but Fran makes Mama drive instead, which again turns into a disaster as they get stuck in a traffic accident and Mama gets out and leaves. Ellen thinking she can teach her, takes Mama to the mall parking lot, (it's empty on sundays). But Mama ends up crashing Ellen's car into the planter in the center of the lot.

Thinking she'll never learn to drive Mama gives up, until she gets a call from the store about the Bl

Ellen talks Mama into having Mayor Tutwiller's Re-Election press conference at the house.As the Mayor starts his speech starts going on about how the senior citizens are being treated in Raytown.The Mayor hears enough and he gets into a shouting match with Mama,and then challenges her to run herself.

Mama's story makes the local tv news,as they appear the next morning outside her house.She has a few unkind things to say about the mayor,before Ellen arrives and says she's not running. But eventually Mama decides to run against Mayor Tutwiller.

Mayor challenges Mama to a face-to-face debate on KRAY TV.Hoping to squash her chances of winning,by making her look unprepared.But she shows the Mama up forcing him to use fake an important phone call and leave suddenly.

On Election night,Mama and the whole family gather round the tv,to see the results.She trails early on, as the night wears and on one by one they all fall asleep.In the end Mama ends up falling alseep as they announce she won.

Mama and the whole family attend the Inauguration ceremony as the Mayor prepares to swear Mama in as the New Mayor of Raytown.Vint interupts things by trying in vain to take a picture several times.Thus upsetting the Mayor and he leaves.

Mama takes over as Mayor and it soon becomes clear she is unprepared for the job.Her first council meeting turns into a free for all,with Mama unable to make a decision or knowing exactly what's she supposed to do.

Soon enough the whole town is in an uproar.There's a garbage strike and a transit walkout after Thelma suggest they drop all senior citizens off at there doors.Plus the boyscouts are mad at her too and others are calling for her resignation.

Ellen hears about the mess on the radio and her and Mayor Tutwiller come to the rescue.He sends a pound of chocalate to the Boy Scouts and settles the garbage and Transit strikes.Mama realizes she doesn't have what it takes to be Mayor so she soon resigns her post.Telling the council she pressing family

It's Mama's birthday and she doesn't want no fuss. No cake, no party, and no presents. She only wants one thing, everyone to help clean out the attic. She thinks they could get it done in a couple of hours if everyone pitched in. But Vint, Sonya, Ellen, and Naomi all come up with some silly excuses to get out of it. Buzz is the only one who can't think of one so he agrees.

While there cleaning Buzz asks Mama to tell him about her 30th birthday party. In a flashback, we see Mama and the kids as she's getting ready for her party and thinking Carl is going to get a big promotion at work she orders a 19 cubic foot deep freeze. Then Grandma Crowley calls to say she can't make Thelma's Birthday cake.

Carl comes in and announces he didn't get the promotion, right as they deliver the deep freeze. Thelma has to use a fruitcake as her cake,topped by Vint's present of a paper heart.

Thelma soon finds out that Carl didn't the promotion as Burt Wembley Stops by to thank Carl for turning it down. He

Carl's long lost brother, Roy Harper, shows up out of nowhere on Carl's birthday. Not knowing that his brother has been dead for 11 long years. Vint, against Mama's wishes, asks Uncle Roy to stay with them for a while.

Meanwhile Sonya has entered a beauty pageant and Noami, Ellen and Mama help her get ready. That's where Uncle Roy tells her the story of when he saw Princess Grace at the White house and how beautiful she was and how she has the same smile. He also encourages Vint to chase his dream of being a firemen, even going so far as to get him an application for the Ray Town Fire Department.

Lastly, Roy is telling Thelma how her elbows remind him of Dorothy Lamure's and that that's what first attracted Carl to him and how he wishes he had seen her first. They hug but he leaves before anything really happens. Leaving his cooler, which means he'll be back, Thelma hopes.

Mama can't get anyone to go with her to Carl's grave, so she goes by herself. After arriving and having a long talk with Carl, Mama notices that the grave next to Carl's, that was supposed to be reserved for her, has another women's name on it instead. She panics and rushes home.

Ellen arrives an hour late (as usual) to take Mama to the cemetary, just as Mama comes in and tells everyone what she's just discovered. Fran and Mama soon head back to the cemetary to get the problem cleared up. It turns out Carl's head stone was accidently placed two plots down. So Mama feels like she's been cheating on Carl and says Carl has to send her a gift to let her know, it's ok.

Meanwhile, Sonya goes out with a loser named Michael and he ends up flirting with a sophomore cheerleader who likes him and Sonya dumps him. He then shows up with flowers and after Sonya refuses to talk to him, he gives the flowers to Mama. Who takes it as Carl's sign that everything's ok.

Mama is the editor of the years church bazaar cookbook, in it she plans to use her own recipe for Chili. Iola objects thinking it should be hers that Mama uses. Soon Naomi too throws her hat in the ring, saying she makes the best Chili. So the three decide to have to a chili cook-off with the winner getting her recipe in the cookbook. Vint, being stuck in the middle of this brewing argument, is choosen, against his will, as the judge of the contest.

All three have identical supplies, with Mama and Iola also have identical ingredients. While Naomi's chili is far different from the other two as it includes two giant cans of store bought chili, plus beer, cheetos and several other items not usually associated with chili. Each bringing back a certain memory from one of her ex-husbands or boyfriends.

Each bowl is lettered as the contest begins and Vint decides the 'B' bowl is the best, which belongs to Iola, and she runs home to show her father and dare her mother to throw it out again.