When Mabel catches her husband flirting with their maid, it leads to a sharp dispute. As part of making up, the couple decide to take a walk to the park. Nearby, another married couple have just had a similar domestic squabble, and they too go to the park together. But at the park, both men find it difficult to avoid getting themselves into further trouble.

The opening scene, a dream sequence prior to the vaudeville routines which follow, is what makes this film famous. In it Keaton plays everyone in a theatre simultaneously (through multiple exposures). He is the band leader, all its members, the dancers on the stage and everyone in the audience.

The new school teacher fresh from the city struggles with her unruly bumpkin students, while she awaits the arrival of her fiancé.

A housewife tires of her husband's annoying behavior and returns to her mother. At first, the husband is quite pleased to have the house all to himself. But he quickly discovers that even the most basic domestic chores can be fraught with difficulty.

Leila porter comes to dislike her husband James, a glue king who is always eating onions and looking sloppy. But after she divorces him and marries two-timing playboy Schuyler Van Sutphen the now-reformed James looks pretty good.

Virtuous Mabel rejects the improper advances of a villainous cad. The furious villain and his henchmen then seize Mabel and chain her to a railroad track. Mabel's anxious boyfriend turns for help to the great Barney Oldfield, who jumps in his racing car and speeds to the rescue.

Dr. Holepoke, his wife, and his son are at the horse races when the doctor begins to flirt with another woman. Then the doctor and the other woman's boyfriend lose their money betting on the same horse, leaving both of the women very unhappy. While Dr. Holepoke thinks about how to get some new patients, the other man has a plan to recover some of his losses at the doctor's expense.