Best friends Max Mendelsson (Keith Gordon) and Perry Barnett (Wally Ward) are a pair of misfit high school teenagers who always cause trouble at school. After starting the first day with a large amount of destructive pranks, the duo are suspended from school. They later get themselves into more trouble when they intentionally misdirect several construction workers into drilling on the wrong area, ultimately causing roadside damage and getting themselves arrested by the police. For their mischief, the judge (Sherman Hemsley) sentences them to serve a year in Kirkland Military School to teach them discipline.