Ma and Pa Kettle have their hands full with a ramshackle farm and a brood of ramshackle children. When the future comes a-callin' in the form of modern houses, exotic locales and newfangled ideas, Ma and Pa must learn how to make the best of it with luck, pluck and a little country charm.
World War II veteran Bob MacDonald surprises his new wife, Betty, by quitting his city job and moving them to a dilapidated farm in the country. While Betty gamely struggles with managing the crumbling house and holding off nosy neighbors and a recalcitrant pig, Bob makes plans for crops and livestock. The couple's bliss is shaken by a visit from a beautiful farm owner, who seems to want more from Bob than just managing her property.
The Kettles and their fifteen children are about to be evicted from their rundown rustic home when Pa wins the grand prize by coming up with a new tobacco slogan. Birdie Hicks is jealous of the family's new wealth, which includes a completely automated modern home, and accuses Pa of stealing the slogan. Reporter Kim Parker proves Birdie wrong and marries Tom Kettle.
When Pa wins a jingle-writing contest, he and Ma head for New York City. They they get in trouble with gangsters when they lose some stolen money which they had already agreed to deliver to one of the thugs.
The Kettles leave their ultra-modern home and return to the country looking for uranium. Ma and Tom's mother-in-law, Mrs. Parker, fight over whether their grandchild will be raised "hygiencially."
Ma and Pa are trying to raise enough money at the county fair to send their daughter Rosie to college. Ma competes in baking and Pa enters a trotter in a horse race, while Rosie takes up with handsome young Marvin Johnson.
The Kettles are in Paris along with their daughter-in-law's parents the Parkers. Pa tries to buy racy postcards. He also gets in big trouble when he is given a letter to deliver to Adolph Wade, a spy who gets killed by spies Inez and Cyrus Kraft.
The Indians try to make a fire in the Kettles fireplace the old fashion way, the smoke signal way. Judges are a comin' to award a child with a scholarship. However, who ever has the nicest looking farm and raises their kids in a good enviroment has a chance of winning.
Ma and Pa, along with daughter Rosie, go off to Hawaii in answer to cousin Rodney's call for help running his pineapple farm while he recovers from an illness. Pa soon causes a major explosion and gets himself kidnapped.
Ma and the kids head out to help Pa's brother Sedgewick with the his farm in Mournful Hollow, Arkansas. Things get tighter when a couple of bootleggers rent Sedge's barn to manufacture moonshine. With Ma and the kids, the bootleggers get their pay.
Ma and Pa do their bit to hook lumberman Brad Johnson up with spoiled socialite Sally Flemming. Ma teaches Sally how to behave like a hick so she'll be compatible with Brad.
