In the U. S. Army intelligence office, bumbling lieutenant Peter Stirling receives a coded message from his friend, Francis, a talking mule. The note urges Pete to hurry to the Coronado, California naval base, where Francis is about to be sold as surplus. Pete rushes to the train station, but before he can board, nurse Betsy Donevan mistakes him for her shell-shocked brother, Navy boatswain Slicker Donevan. She tries to forcibly remove his uniform so he will not get into trouble for impersonating an Army officer. Finally she realizes that Pete is not Slicker but merely his mirror image.
Charlie tells his co-workers about his event-filled vacation to California, including his run in with two vagabond hitchhikers.
Oliver's in trouble with his wife after missing a payment on their furniture, having given the money to Stanley, who used it instead to pay Mrs. Hardy for his room and board. At Stan's suggestion Ollie then withdraws the couple's savings from the bank to pay for the furniture and inadvertently pays virtually the whole amount at an auction for a grandfather clock which is soon crushed under a passing truck. Mrs Hardy then unintentionally causes serious injuries to Ollie requiring him to be rushed to hospital for a blood transfusion. The doctor conscripts Stan to be the unwilling blood donor. Problems occur with the transfusion and when Stan and Ollie leave the hospital they appear to have morphed into each other.
Stan and Ollie are greeting card salesmen who agree to help a woman put a spark in her loveless marriage by making her husband jealous.
Stan and Ollie have set up their own electrical appliance store but, unfortunately for them, the grocery right next door is run by the man and wife whom they encountered in "Them Thar Hills" (1935). Stan and Ollie go and visit to offer the hand of friendship, but the grocer again becomes convinced that Ollie and his wife are fooling around.
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are stopped by narrator Pete Smith for the purpose of showing the audience how much wood and wood by-products the average person carries.
Fish market workers Stan and Ollie are persuaded by a sea captain to shanghai a crew for him at the local bar for a dollar a head. Successful at first, the boys end up getting themselves shanghaied, and the crew vow revenge.
Stan and Ollie travel to the mountains for Ollie's health, and park their caravan near a well into which a gang of moonshiners have earlier dumped their moonshine; and the boys proceed to quench their thirst thinking that it is iron-rich mountain water. The real trouble doesn't begin, though, until a married motoring couple stop by to borrow some gasoline, and the already-cranky husband leaves his thirsty wife with the boys while he goes off to refill his car's empty gas-tank. A sequel was made to this film: TIT FOR TAT, q.v.
In a packed courtroom, Butch Long vows revenge on 'squealers' Laurel and Hardy whose evidence has helped to send him to prison. Frightened, the boys plan to leave town and advertise for someone to share expenses with them. The woman who answers the ad is actually Butch's girlfriend. Meanwhile Butch escapes and hides in a trunk in his girlfriend's apartment where he gets locked inside. Not realizing who it is, Stan and Ollie finally manage to get the trunk open and then Butch exacts his revenge.
Barbershop owners Stan and Ollie answer an ad in the newspaper from a wealthy widow looking for a husband. Ollie only mails in his response and is invited to the widow's mansion. Stan discovers his unmailed letter and insists on tagging along. At the mansion, the widow's creepy butler informs them that the woman is crazy. She was once jilted by an Oliver and now her hobby is marrying Olivers and then slitting their throats. Now the boys must figure out how to escape.
Stan and Ollie are chimney sweeps working at the home of mad scientist Professor Noodle.
Spanky's parents take their reluctant boy to get his portrait taken by a prissy photographer.
