Mary Beamish (Martha Raye), a folksy Ozark girl, yearns for the glitter of show business and for a man. She knows she is anything but gorgeous, but figures her enthusiasm offsets that small deficit. The hillbilly family of Bob Burnside (Bob Burns) insists he marry Lobelia Sheppard (Terry Walker), hoping the wedding will patch up a generations-old feud. Since he knows that his brother,Ardinger (John Howard)loves Lobelia, Bob runs away and lands in the town on Monotny and starts a traveling Medicine Show. He also happens to suffer from a rare form of amnesia---when he is under its spell,after drinking mountain-likker, he thinks Mary is the girl of his dreams, but when he has sobered up via a splash of water, he is more real realistic and avoids Mary like the plague. Mary strives to keep him drunk and in a stage of amnesia.