The cost of tuition continues to outpace inflation, forcing more and more college students to work summer jobs to meet their mounting expenses. But if 1984's Odd Jobs is to be believed, summertime employment can result in wealth, important life lessons, and all manner of comical monkeyshines. As the film opens, its shenanigans-prone protagonists have been named "Entrepreneurs Of The Year" and are relating their tale to a female reporter. The rest of Odd Jobs is told in flashbacks, as the wisenheimers temporarily depart from college for their summer jobs. Robert Townsend invites fellow student Paul Provenza to stay at his staid parents' home, only to recoil in horror after his suggestion that Provenza "be cool" results in a flurry of outdated jive talk, Roots references, and Provenza's observation that his Rice Krispies are "snap, crackle, and pop-locking in my bowl." Meanwhile, suspiciously mature-looking college student Paul Reiser struggles to find suitable employment. A job as a mover eventually leads to a temporary assignment tagging along with Leo Burmeister, who doesn't cotton to Reiser's neurotic big-city ways, and insults the future My Two Dads star's "twinkie" name and "tutti-frutti" hairstyle. Burmeister eventually schools Reiser in the ways of greaser masculinity, and the two form a close bond. Consequently, when Reiser's boss shakes him down for half his moving fee, Reiser decides to follow Burmeister's lead and go into business for himself, recruiting his college chums as his employees. After getting off to a rocky start, the boys discover that staying afloat in the cutthroat business world sometimes involves borrowing money from unintelligible mobsters, sabotaging the competition, and attending to the sexual needs of busty divorcées. Still floundering, they resort to plan B, which involves Townsend donning a jheri-curl-damaged fright wig, dressing like a pimp, and driving a group of breakdancing black moppets into a conservative white neighborhood, where one of them informs a terrified white resident, "We's your new neighbor, Whitey." The pals' appeal to the worst impulses of racist whites pays huge dividends when the terrified squares immediately decide to move, but Reiser's ex-boss gets revenge by burning down the house of one of Reiser and company's clients. The heroes retaliate by stealing a truck and uncovering the ex-boss' auto-theft ring, actions that score the newly successful movers a ,000 reward from the mayorafter running over his tiny dog, causing the hapless politician to faint in wide-eyed disbelief.
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