BOB GARFIELD: Talk about class mobility. TV's George Jefferson who owned a dry cleaning business often sparred with nemesis Archie Bunker, a dock foreman on the seventies sitcom All in the Family. Eventually George opened a chain of stores and left his blue collar neighbor far behind, in Queens. By the way, according to a chart of TV dad earnings compiled by Salary.com, George earned more than half a million in today's dollars, compared with Archie's 45 grand. On the bottom was James Evan, Sr. of Good Times who made zero. Blake Carrington, the passionate oil magnate dad of the eighties prime time soap Dynasty managed, between family intrigues, to earn TV's top salary, roughly 857,000 dollars. That was in the go-go eighties, but even in the go-slow era of the late nineties and today, TV dads are much richer than real life dads, richer even than their TV predecessors. In fact, adjusted for inflation, TV dads now earn twice that of their fifties counterparts, fueled, says Salary.com, by the popular TV dad jobs of today, such as lawyer, neurosurgeon, psychiatrist and real estate developer. Even Homer Simpson is relatively well off. A nuclear safety inspector, he takes home about 65 grand. {MUSIC UP AND UNDER) How expensive can it be to live in Springfield? The culture of TV families has changed along with their class. Accountant Ward Cleaver made only 48,000 dollars but as sole breadwinner he earned the respect of June, Wally and, of course, the Beaver. Now with so many mothers in the workforce, regardless of class, it's often been noted that on TV today, Mom is the Ricky and Dad's the Lucy. TV usually lags behind reality, but it catches up and then--quickly overdoes it. [music up and under]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Oddly enough, TV's first reality show of sorts arrived in the form of a family sitcom, running from 1952 to 1966, the Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet offered the comings and goings of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson and their real-life sons Dave and Ricky. Although Ozzie once alluded to a past life as a bandleader, he seemed to have no visible means of support. He just hung around the house and enjoyed his time with the fam, as the boys grew up, got married, and their real-life wives joined the show, which put us in mind of another TV dad, a much more recent one, who was also an erstwhile musician with no money problems who hung around the house. His show also featured his real wife and kids. Come to think of it, his name was Ozzie too.

OZZIE OSBORNE: Please don't go get drunk or, or get stoned tonight. So f--- piss off ( ? ) Don't be--don't drink, don't take drugs, son.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ozzie Osborne must have understood that he was just another in a long line of TV dads, though perhaps the richest of them all. His life was retro, his theme was retro, but his paycheck was very third millennium. (MUSIC, "THAT'S HOW IT GOES")

BOB GARFIELD: Up next, how to ransom your invention for fun and profit, and how rich newspapers cover poor people.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media from NPR. (MUSIC) (FUNDING CREDITS)