Tom and Susan, newly transplanted to Kansas City, are invited over for dinner and game night. The reserved Tom, terrified at the prospect of being thrown in feet first with such a tight-knit group of people, begs Susan to decline the invitation. But, of course, she accepts and soon Tom finds himself thrust into the close-knit Kelly clan – complete with game-playing, dinner-song-singing and collective corn-shucking, and initiated into the dreaded "doghouse system."