Ernest P. Worrell (Jim Varney) has no talent at all when it comes to playing basketball, but after an angel bearing an uncanny resemblance to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar gives him a pair of magic sneakers, he all of a sudden, becomes a basketball star!
A Persian Gulf dictator, Tufuti, invades the country of Karifistan, subsequently plunging the United States into war. The U.S. Army’s most unlikely soldier, Ernest P. Worrel, finds himself responsible for saving the world when he and his troopmates are sent out to take down a tyrant.
Kamp Kikakee janitor Ernest finally gets to be counselor, for a bunch of juvenile delinquents. The clumsy Ernest has to care for them, although he doesn’t even know how to take care of himself. He goes out of his way to help the campers, but his efforts instead lead to slapstick chaos.
Ernest gets into deep trouble when he decides to build a treehouse for the neighborhood kid and accidentally digs up an ugly, evil-tempered troll that plots to transform children into wooden dolls in the town of Briarville, Missouri.
Santa Claus (Douglas Seale) is looking for his successor, and hapless taxi driver Ernest P. Worrell (Jim Varney) is just the man to help him out. Failure wouild mean that there would be no Christmas.
Dim-witted Ernest is a janitor at a bank who gets called for jury duty, where a crooked lawyer notices a resemblance with crime boss Mr. Nash, and arranges a switch. So Ernest goes to jail while Nash stays on the outside to plan a major bank heist at where Ernest works as a security guard.