Joe McDoakes is president of the local Do-Gooders Club, where he takes care of all the most difficult tasks himself. Same at work and at home, causing everyone around Joe to exclaim about him, "What a prince!"
Joe's peers and his boss decide he's the perfect guest for "Know Your Relatives," a "This Is Your Life"-style show for ordinary folks. Joe's boss takes him and Alice out, on the pretext that they're going to dinner and a show. The show turns out to be "Know Your Relatives," hosted by Harry Frisby (famously fake-cheery Frank Nelson, a portent of things to come). The show brings on relatives and cohorts from Joe's past, revealing that he's not nearly as good a Samaritan he's been passing himself off to be.
These later McDoakes entries are starting to dip into black comedy. First Joe inadvertently becomes a bookie (So You're Taking in a Roomer), then Joe turns out to have become a fake saint to make up for a sleazy past. What's next, Joe turns into a gangster to promote the latest Warner Bros. movie?
Our rating: (C) 2012, Steve Bailey.
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