Darby Clyde Fenster and Jerry Martin are a pair of penniless nincompoop-drifters who hop a freight train on their way to Florida. Our intrepid heroes find themselves facing one comic situation after another in this gloriously loopy Southern fried comedy-with-music.

Overlooked when the Tennessee legislature reapportioned the state, the 40-acre community of Shagbottom is discovered and notified to elect a state representative. The feud between Pa Culpepper and Uncle Foxey Calhoun resurfaces, with several incidents occurring at Postmaster Amos Quint's general store between Simon Crumb and Uncle Foxey, while at the Culpepper farm Ma Culpepper is trying to persuade Pa not to run for office. Lovers Nancy Calhoun and Del Culpepper are separated by the hostilities until the Smokey Mountain Jamboree arrives to televise the election and their country music revue.

New York gangsters head South in search of that magical Nashville sound. Unfortunately, they misunderstand the directions given to them by a friendly gas station attendant and wind up in Atlanta instead.