The upper-class Pringles and middle-class Fosters are two Santa Barbara families. Widowed businessman Lucien T. Pringle's (Leon Ames') interests, including a bank and a radio station, keep him absent from his children's lives. Melvin Colner Foster (Wallace Beery) owns and operates a seafood packing plant, an offshoot of his days as a fisherman. Unlike Lucien, Melvin is very present in his family's lives. Judy Foster (Jane Powell) and siblings Ogden "Oogie" Pringle (Scotty Beckett) and Carol Pringle (Dame Elizabeth Taylor) are seniors at the local high school and have known each other all of their lives. Judy, the school's songbird, and Oogie, conductor of the school's orchestra, are musical collaborators and consider themselves more than friends; Judy and Carol are best friends, although Judy and Oogie are oblivious to Carol's actions being in her best interest, often at their expense.