Private Meredith Bixby is so out of step in the Army that his six weeks of planned basic training has now stretched to 17 months. After he loses a tank, WAC Major Shelton, a psychologist, is assigned to make a good soldier out of him. She requests Corporal Dolan and Private Stan Wensalawsky to help with the training. Dolan and Stan both have scores to settle with Bixby and their "guidance" leads to more mishaps. Sergeant Pulley has them shipped out to Morocco. On leave in North Africa, Bixy wanders alone into a bar, has a few Moroccan Delights, which he thinks are malted milks, and becomes convinced that exotic singer-dancer Zita is THE girl for him.

A returning moon capsule goes off course and lands in Africa where a little-known tribe finds it. Washington sends Matthew Merriwether to recover it—thinking he's an expert on the region—when in fact he's no such thing. However, a foreign power sends Secret Agent Luba to try and acquire the capsule for itself and, when Matthew and Luba reach their destination, they find that the tribe believes the capsule to be sacred and won't give it up.

The long-lost father of a frigid, uptight Freudian psychologist contracts a wealthy American playboy who owes him a favor to woo his daughter.