From the moment they depart their home town of Twin Oaks, Ohio, the couple suffers nearly every indignity out-of-towners possibly could experience: Heavy air traffic and dense fog forces their flight to circle around JFK Airport and the New York skyline for hours before finally being rerouted to Boston's Logan Airport, where they discover their luggage – in which George's ulcer medication and Gwen's extra cash are packed – was left behind.
Just missing the train at South Station in Boston, they chase it to the next stop by cab, board it (it is extremely overcrowded), and wait two hours for seats in the dining car, only to discover the only food left is peanut butter sandwiches, green olives, and crackers, with nothing to drink but tonic water and clam juice ("but they ain't cold").
What follows is a series of calamities that includes being robbed at gunpoint by a spurious good Samaritan, a man named Murray; the apparent apathy of the police when the Kellermans report the robbery; kidnapping by armed liquor store robbers after a high-speed chase while the Kellermans are riding in a police car en route to an armory; being mugged while sleeping in Central Park; George cracking a tooth on stale Cracker Jacks left by a rambunctious Great Dane under Trefoil Arch; Gwen's broken heels; accusations of child molestation; Gwen losing her ring; being kicked off a bus because they can't pay the fare; an exploding manhole cover; expulsion from a church; and an attack by protestors in front of the Cuban embassy.
The only thing that goes right for George is that he somehow manages to arrive on time for his 9:00 a.m. interview, unshaven, wearing rumpled clothing, a broken tooth, and virtually no food or sleep in nearly 24 hours.
"[8] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times stated, "There are a number of laughs in 'The Out-of-Towners' but only the shut-ins on Baffin Bay will genuinely be able to regard it as escapist fare.
"[10] Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote- "The Out-of-Towners was written by Neil Simon and, except that it doesn't have many funny lines, it is typical of him: an interesting idea but insufficient stamina or honesty to see it through".