The plot revolves around the contestants and people involved with California's Young American Miss Pageant held in Santa Rosa, California. Barbara Feldon starred as Brenda DiCarlo (the pageant's Executive Director), with Nicholas Pryor as Andy DiCarlo (Brenda's alcoholic husband), Bruce Dern as Big Bob Freelander (the head judge), Eric Shea as Little Bob, Big Bob's opportunistic son, Geoffrey Lewis as Wilson Shears (pageant producer), and as the contestants, Joan Prather as Robin Gibson, Annette O'Toole as Doria Hudson, Melanie Griffith as Karen Love, and a small role played by Michael Ritchie's sister, Elsie Ritchie. Choreographer Michael Kidd starred as Tommy French, the pageant's stage director. The movie was filmed on location in and around Santa Rosa, with the pageant held at Veteran's Memorial Auditorium.
Smiley is a mischievous boy who lives in the small country town of Murrumbilla. His father is an alcoholic drover and he is always getting into trouble with his best friend Joey. He decides to save up enough money to buy a bicycle.
The story describes an eventful day in the life of Jane F, an unambitious young actress who enjoys smoking cannabis and lives in a Los Angeles apartment with her nerdy, somewhat disturbing roommate Steve. Jane's fateful day begins when she unknowingly consumes an entire plate full of cannabis-laced cupcakes. Realizing her mistake, she makes a list of tasks she must achieve, and how she plans to make them happen. What follows is a relentless stream of disasters caused by Jane's intoxication.
A young boy named Smiley desperately wants a gun. A deal is made between him and Sergeant Flaxman that if he gets 8 nicks (marks on a certain tree) for his good deeds he will get a £2 rifle. He has several adventures and is accused to stealing some gold. Smiley runs away but the real thief is caught and Smiley is rewarded with a gun.
The film follows the lives of multiple characters, all of whom are connected by their patronage of a small Brooklyn tobacco shop managed by Auggie (Harvey Keitel). Brooklyn Cigar Co. was located on the corner of 16th Street and Prospect Park West.
The stock plot deals with Roscoe Wilton (Jimmy McNichol), a teenage joyriding car thief, evading Cyco (psycho) County Sheriff Turner (Walter Barnes) and his unintelligent deputies.
"Smoking" and "No Smoking" are two segments of the film which are based on closely connected plays. The original plays covered eight separate stories, which have been pared down to three each for these movies. At a certain point in the story of each segment, the five female characters (all played by Sabine Azema) and the four male characters (all played by Pierre Arditi) have their lives skillfully recapped in terms of "what might have happened" if they had made or failed to make certain choices. For example, "No Smoking" focuses chiefly on the relationship between the mild-mannered Miles Coombes and his infinitely more aggressive and ambitious wife, Rowena.
Anthony (Padilla) and Ian (Hecox) are best friends and live in a small house, with Ian's parents. One day, Ian finds a video of Anthony reciting the Magic Pocket Slave Monsters theme (an obvious parody of the Pokémon theme song and reference to Smosh's deleted video) at their high school graduation. In the video, Anthony attempts to impress his crush, Anna Reed (Nelson), by trying to do a backflip, but he fails, landing on his face, and the microphone lands in his anus. They both decide to pull down the video before it blows Anthony's chances of reconnecting with his crush.