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Created by Peter Tilbury, the British sitcom Shelley starred Hywel Bennett as the title character, a brilliant but habitually unemployed college dropout. Living with his girlfriend Fran (Brenda Sinclair) in a flat managed by the garrulous Mrs. Hawkins (Josephine Hewson), Shelley spent his waking hours expounding on the state of humanity, usually by recording his thoughts for posterity on a dictating machine. But the hero could not be bothered to go out and look for work, not even after wedding Fran and becoming the father of a bouncing baby girl. The first 39 half-hour episodes of Shelley were broadcast by Thames Television from July 12, 1979 to January 12, 1984. The series resurfaced on October 11, 1988, appropriately retitled The Return of Shelley. The premise: Having returned from a five-year teaching stint in the United States, Shelley fully expected to resume sponging off his hardworking wife Fran. Instead, she booted him out of their flat, forcing Shelley to fend for himself, which he did for an additional 32 episodes, the last of which aired on September 1, 1992.