The blue-collar working world of 1950s Indiana, with period-style footage and clips from Fritz Lang's Metropolis, is accompanied by Shepherd's voiceover narration as the adult Ralph.

The fourteen-year-old Ralph and friends, Flick and Schwartz, endure bureaucratic "terminal official boredom", to get their "working papers", to be able to apply for their first summer jobs.

The three friends interview at Scott's Used Furniture Palace, where adult Ralph describes the owner as "a cross between Rasputin and The Wolfman" (played in the film by Shepherd himself).

Over the next two weeks, Ralph "toils ceaselessly" at Scott's, while Mom relentlessly "like Ahab" searches for Fuzzhead, with visits to dog pounds and repeatedly dragging the Old Man out to drive around looking for her.

Then "a miracle" happens - the Old Man, driving around again with Mom, spots Fuzzhead in the rear window of a black Rolls-Royce, and gives chase, all the way to the home of the rich dowager at whose doorstep she appeared.

The trip includes drastic overpacking of the brown Chevy sedan, a reluctant starter motor, an endlessly carsick and complaining Randy, side trips to shop for unnecessary "slob art", a flat tire, running out of gas as the Old Man insists on only "Texas Royal Supreme Blue" gasoline, a misadventure at a gas station with an unseen enormous growling "meers hound", a boiled-over radiator as an occasion for a roadside picnic, and a missed detour sign and resulting circular detour due to squabbling among the kids.

Rounding out the road trip, more unnecessary shopping, a Dutch lawn windmill being bought and put on top of the car, Ralph's confession of forgetting the fishing tackle, being stuck behind a live poultry truck, and panic over another "magically appearing" carbound bee.

[10] It was produced from Shepherd's studio in Florida, and exterior scenes were shot in several locations around Dallas, Texas, to stand in for the film's "Hohman, Indiana".

[14] Daniel Ruth of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars, described it as "cute", and a "wistful, yet chaotic drive down memory lane", and stated, Shepherd "never loses" his "ability to see the world through a child's eyes".

By this time, Shepherd was making far more money from the reruns and home video sales from A Christmas Story and decided to focus on producing another feature film.