While Fred and Lamont are digging a garden, oil is discovered underground at the junk yard. Fred sees millions but before any money can be paid it must first be tested.
The police are looking for a fence named Alex Hacker who's been spotted coming in and out of The Sanford Arms. They use Fred and Lamont's home to stakeout the Arms. Meanwhile, Fred has a crush on a new lady tenant.
Fred works nights as a bus boy in a fancy restaurant so he can begin paying back the $6,000 bank loan he took out in order to give Lamont an impressive wedding gift.
Fred's old friend Carol shows up after 40 years, stirring up memories and sparking a flashback to the Summer of 1936 when Fred was a pool hustler in Cleveland.
Fred, Lamont, Donna and Bubba attend a taping of "The Gong Show" and are inspired to audition as contestants, bringing their musical act onto the show.
Rehearsing his magic act, Grady snaps a pair of trick shackles onto Fred and Esther, only to discover the instructions for removing them are printed in Chinese.
To avoid paying taxes, Fred buys a mail-order clergy ordination and transforms his home into the Chapel on the Junkpile for the church of the Seventh-Day Junkists.
Fred suffers amnesia after being bludgeoned with Esther's silver-plated Bible. Having looked death in the face, Fred wants to get his affairs in order and so prepares his last will and testament and summons his friends for its reading.
Fred and Lamont need to raise $4,000 by Friday or lose the Sanford Arms. Fred plans to parlay his $500 savings into the needed amount by playing poker, betting on horses and letting it ride in Las Vegas.
Inspired by Alex Haley's "Roots," Fred orders a family crest and genealogical scroll that states he's African royalty and a descendant of the Jewish Ethiopian Falashas.
Aspiring songwriter Fred invites B.B. King to dinner, but panics upon reading in the blues legend's biography that the singer has sworn to get even with the man who long ago stole his St. Louis sweetheart "E.W.", a woman matching Elizabeth's description.
For a month Fred and Bubba have been sneaking out at night, concerning family and friends and leading Donna to fear that Fred has fallen for another woman.