Nick Hart (Keith Carradine) is an expatriate American artist living in Paris among some of the great artists and writers of the time, including Ernest Hemingway (Kevin J. O'Connor), Gertrude Stein (Elsa Raven), and Alice B. Toklas (Ali Giron).
Nick Barzack ("Berzerk"), an irrational, unkempt and unpredictable cop, and Frank Hazeltine, his cultured, polite, and suave partner, follow a circuitous and highly circumstantial trail of clues, evidence, witnesses, and accomplices through Los Angeles. Barzack pauses only briefly for his mother, but repeatedly for his ex-wife. Hazeltine is almost too busy with every attractive woman he sees to pay attention to the thugs trying to kill him and his partner. But despite these distractions, Nick's dogged determination to get the man behind the dope scene eventually pays off.
A writer finds that an unsolicited television has been delivered to his house. The writer discovers that the only program the television is capable of picking up is a seemingly endless, plotless, black and white zombie film titled Zombie Blood Nightmare. Despite unplugging the television set, it nonetheless reactivates and spawns the film's zombies, who attack and kill the writer. The next day, the delivery men arrive to claim the set, realizing that it was meant to go to the Institute for Paranormal Research; they find only the body of the writer, bound in his front hallway and dressed in party clothes.
Widower Harry Keach is a construction worker who was raised to appreciate the importance of working for a living. He takes a dim view of his sensitive son Howard's lackadaisical lifestyle, devoted to a dead-end part-time job, surfing, chasing girls, and hot-tubbing while he dreams of becoming the next Ernest Hemingway. Harry also has a strained relationship with his daughter Nina because he dislikes her husband, an insurance salesman.
In 1840, in the rural and wooded hillside region of Kushiata near Kyoto, Japan, a samurai, named Shigero, comes home to find his wife, Otami, in bed with another man, named Masanori. In a violent scene, Shigero kills them both and then himself. Flash-forward to the present day, an American family of three, whom includes writer Ted Fletcher, his wife Laura, and their 12-year-old daughter, Amy, moves into this since-abandoned house and starts to experience incidents of haunting and possession. The three murdered people still haunt the house and subject each of the Fletcher family to various harassment and mischief which gets more frequent and serious with each passing day.
A brilliant young trainee can't stand the sight of blood. A doctor romances the head nurse in order to get the key to the drugs cabinet. There's a mafioso on the loose disguised as a woman - in other words all the usual ingredients present and correct, though in this case the laughs are intentional.
Alphie (George Gilmour) and Bibi (Catherine Mary Stewart), two youths from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in Canada, travel to America to take part in the 1994 Worldvision Song Festival. Despite being the most talented performers, they are beaten by BIM (Boogalow International Music) and its leader, Mr. Boogalow (Vladek Sheybal), who use underhanded tactics to secure a victory. The duo are approached by Mr. Boogalow to sign to his music label, but they soon discover the darker side of the music industry. Bibi is caught up in the wild lifestyle BIM offers, while Alphie risks his life to free her from the company's evil clutches. He eventually convinces her to run away with him and the pair live as hippies for a year (and produce a child) before being tracked down by Mr. Boogalow who insists Bibi owes him ten million dollars. Alphie and Bibi are saved by the Rapture, and all good souls are taken away by Mr. Topps (aka God).
Abel Rosenberg is an American Jew in Berlin after World War I. Poverty and inflation have destroyed the German economy at the time. He lives with his sister-in-law Manuela, a prostitute and cabaret performer. The story takes place in the week following his brother's death. Abel takes a job offered by an acquaintance, Professor Hans Vergerus.
It is the 1970s; Fritz the Cat is now married, on welfare, and has a child named Ralphie, who casually masturbates. As his wife screams at him for being an irresponsible father and husband, Fritz sits on the couch, staring off into space, smoking a joint. Tired of listening to his wife nag at him, he fades off into his own little world, imagining what life would be like for him if things were different.
The film starts out in live action, introducing the protagonist Michael Corleone, a 24-year-old virgin playing pinball in New York City. The scene then transitions into animation. New York has a diseased, rotten, tough, and violent atmosphere. Michael's Italian father, Angelo "Angie" Corleone, is a struggling mafioso who frequently cheats on Michael's Jewish mother, Ida. The couple constantly bicker and try to kill each other. Michael ambles through a catalog of freaks, greasers, and dopers. Unemployed, he dabbles with cartoons, artistically feeding off the grubbiness of his environment. He regularly hangs out at a local bar where he gets free drinks from the female black bartender, Carole, in exchange for sketches of the somewhat annoying Shorty, Carole's violent, legless bouncer devotee. One of the regular customers at the bar named Snowflake, a nymphomaniac transvestite, gets beaten up by a tough drunk who has only just realized that Snowflake is a man in drag and not a beautiful woman. Shorty throws the drunk out and the bar's white manager abusively confronts Carole over this. Fed up with her manager, Carole quits.
In Timbuktu, experienced guide Joe January (John Wayne) reluctantly joins a Saharan treasure hunting expedition led by Paul Bonnard (Rossano Brazzi), a man obsessed with confirming his dead father's claim to have found a lost city. Dita (Sophia Loren), a woman of dubious reputation, becomes infatuated with Paul and his willingness to overlook her past. She invites herself along, despite Joe's protests. During the tough dry ordeal, Joe and Dita become attracted to each other, raising tensions.