[1][2][3] Harry Grafton is a factory foreman at Osborne Industries, a company in Los Angeles, California, which manufactures a constantly changing line of items.

He makes money off his fellow employees by running the Osborne Industries coffee cart service[4] and through his ownership of the company′s vending machines.

[4] From his office at the factory, he also secretly operates his own company, Grafton Enterprises,[4] through which he habitually pursues scams and get-rich-quick schemes which never seem to work out for him.

[4] Four years after that show ended, The New Phil Silvers Show represented his attempt after a four-season absence from series television to reincarnate the successful Bilko character in the guise of Harry Grafton, with Silvers playing essentially the same character, albeit as a civilian factory foreman rather than a United States Army sergeant.

[3][4][7][8] Where Bilko had been popular, however, the Harry Grafton character turned viewers off: While Bilko had a soft spot, Harry was dishonest and manipulative through and through, and while Bilko was an underpaid, underdog sergeant trying to swindle faceless and implacable things like the United States Government and the U.S. Army just to make a little extra money, Harry had a good-paying job but still refused to do an honest day's work for a day's pay, and his scams and schemes involved exploiting and cheating blue-collar workers who were trying to make an honest living on the factory floor.