Thane Furrows, an extremely cynical but unintentionally hilarious children's book writer, wakes up one morning, and, since pretty much everyone and everything annoys him, begins another day of complaining to himself. However, the day proves to be much different than normal when Thane begins to recieve strange phone calls, letters, and voices in his head, all indicating that something will happen at 8 o'clock. As the day goes on, Thane rants and raves about the things that annoy him, as the clock slowly ticks closer and closer to his destiny
Paul Snider is a narcissistic, small time hustler who fancies himself a ladies man. His life changes when he meets Dorothy Stratten working behind the counter of a Dairy Queen. Under his guidance Dorothy grows to fame as a Playboy Playmate. But when Dorothy begins pursuing an acting career, the jealous Paul finds himself elbowed out of the picture by more famous men.
Famous detective Charlie Chan is called out of retirement to help a San Francisco detective solve a mysterious series of murders. With his bumbling grandson as his sidekick, Chan also encounters an old nemesis known as the Dragon Queen who is the prime suspect.
When politicians try to force out a renter in a corrupt real-estate deal, the man decides to take matters into his own hands. He takes a police officer hostage, hoping to expose the scam and save his home.
A young female doctor discovers something sinister going on in her hospital. Relatively healthy patients are having 'complications' during simple operations and ending up in comas. The patients are then shipped off to an institute that looks after them. The young doctor suspects there is more to this than meets the eye.