Starting over at a new school is never easy, but for a shy teen forced to drive a car with a statue of a reclining hula girl on the roof, it's nearly impossible. After moving from Washington state to California, Paradise Motel star Gary Hershberger faces humiliations beyond wacky automobiles: Dad Bob Basso, the new owner of the titular Hawaiian-themed hotel, makes him live in a room below the honeymoon suite, where Hershberger can barely sleep for the sound of penny-pinching honeymooners enjoying each other's company. But that changes when slick jock Robert Krantz takes him under his wing. Inspired by the Paradise's homonymic motto "Free lei with every stay" (and possibly by watching Billy Wilder's The Apartment), Krantz coaxes Hershberger into commandeering the honeymoon suite for the convenience of horny teenagers. Suddenly, Hershberger is the most popular kid in school. Now, instead of listening to others have sex above him, he can stand guard outside the door as it happens. But popularity has its price: Tricked by Krantz into showing up at a strange address, supposedly to get some action of his own, Hershberger finds himself climbing into a shower with the football coach's wife. "Mellow out... it's California," Krantz responds, and shortly thereafter, he tries to buy Hershberger's favor by offering him two tickets to "the concert." Shoring up his courage, Hershberger invites popular, suspiciously 20-ish co-ed Jonna Leigh Stack to "the concert," but she stands him up to spend time with Krantz instead. After some misadventures while trying to pick up women in the bar next to a male strip club on a friend's advice ("It's called overflow"), Hershberger finally scores a date with Stack. But Basso, wising up to his son's scheme to turn the Paradise into a "teenybopper whorehouse," shuts down the honeymoon suite. Angry at the loss of his private space and Hershberger's interest in his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Krantz decides that Hershberger has outlived his usefulness. But he doesn't realize that his one-time lackey has been newly emboldened by love, and a single punch teaches Krantz to "mellow out" on the motel pavement. Problem solved, at which point Hershberger says "Aloha" to his pimping days and heads off with Stack for a California-style happy ending.
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