Joe McDoakes imagines himself as a private detective on a murder case. Throughout the film, he spars verbally with narrator Art Gilmore.

Aspiring actor Joe McDoakes blows his first part at Warner Bros. and has to settle for being a stand-in.

Joe McDoakes and his wife love to participate in radio show contests, but something seems to interfere every time they are lucky enough to be chosen as participants.

Joe McDoakes pleads "not guilty" to a traffic violation but is convicted anyway. Handling this setback in his usual manner, the two-dollar fine quickly pyramids to a 10-year jail sentence.

"I never knew what happiness was till I got married—and then it was too late," Joe recalls, flashing back to bachelor days and his courtship with Alice.

It's a dangerous hypnotic suggestion when a psychiatrist tells married couple Joe and Alice McDoakes to switch points of view during a session.