The Americanization of Machiko

April 1, 1976: As a stuntman, Sam is to save the life of his younger brother, while trying to convince the pair's obsessive father to let the younger son go his own way, even if it means going into country-western music, rather than following the family tradition of stunt work.

August 4, 1953: As a sailor returning from Japan, Sam brings a foreign wife to a small town. He then has to fight against the prejudice of both a scheming ex-girlfriend, as well as his mother, in order to gain acceptance of his new bride.

October 16, 1961: Sam is shocked when he learns he's leaped into a woman, Samantha Stormer. As a gorgeous secretary for an automobile company, Sam has to cope with sexual harassment by the boss, a suicide attempt by a roommate, and the effect his looks have on Al's lecherous tendencies.

February 6, 1964: Although the concert pianist he leaps into is blind, a fact, which bothers his girlfriend's disapproving mother, Sam can still see. At least until an exploding flashbulb blinds him at the crucial moment: when he must rescue his girlfriend from a serial killer.

September 9, 1959: Rock 'n' roll is about to become big, but not in Peoria. That is, unless Sam, as DJ Howlin' Chick Howell, can manage to keep the radio station where he's employed from being shut down by overly conservative town elders.

February 2, 1974: Sam's task as a rabbi is to keep his sister-in-law from falling for a sleazy author and ruining her life. In the process he also helps the family recover from the year-old death of their son.

October 14, 1964: Since mainstreaming the mentally disabled is not yet a popular concept, Sam must help Jimmy LaMotta, the "slow" young man he's leaped into, get a job and gain his co-workers' acceptance, to prevent his brother from returning Jimmy to the institution.

July 29, 1957: Though he can't remember much more than habeas corpus, Sam finds himself the defense attorney for a young black woman accused of murdering the son of the most powerful man in a small Louisiana town.

May 21, 1979: Sam leaps into Ray Hutton, the understudy for the role of Cervantes just seconds before curtain time. His mission: prevent the drunken star from falling and seriously injuring himself during a benefit performance of "Man of La Mancha." Sam isn't helped by the presence of his former piano teacher, on whom he once had a crush, and who now appears to have caught the star's eye as well.

February 7, 1971: Sam leaps into a renowned parapsychologist where he must prevent a young widow from joining her husband at the bottom of a lake, while proving that she's not crazy, despite her claims of hearing her dead husband calling to her.

October 19, 1967: Trapped in the body of Knut Wileton, better known as "Wild Thing," the typical frat jock, Sam must win the confidence of an attractive campus radical before she bombs the college's chemistry building as a protest against the war in Vietnam.

September 30, 1981: As a divorced mother of three, Sam's job of preventing his teenage son from running away, never to be seen again, is made more interesting by the fact that his youngest daughter can see both him and Al.

November 6, 1962: Keeping his best friend from throwing the high school championship football game, costing both of them their scholarship offers, Sam must also get their families to consolidate.

September 26, 1973: Protecting a female member of the witness protection program from a mafia hitman proves difficult for Sam, since the FBI appears to have an informant confounding his attempts to hide her.

November 22, 1970: Rather than saving his grandfather's life, Sam has to escape from jail and elude the police long enough to get them both to the reservation, where the old man can die in peace, at home.

November 9, 1957: Rather than saving the damsel of the episode, who supposedly committed suicide, Sam is the coroner trying to prove that she was murdered, and find out by whom.

September 4, 1954: In order to help his granddaughter save a small bar from the slimy loan shark holding a note on the place, Sam has to play pool like a pro...with a little help from Al and Ziggy.

November 18, 1958: Sam remembers he's afraid of heights when he leaps into a trapeze artist, whose sister wants him to catch her as she does a triple without a net. Dad is less than pleased, since his wife died a few years earlier while attempting the same stunt.

March 11, 1963: Babysitting a kidnapped tot and a flaky, compulsively lying stripper keeps Sam busy as they cross Texas, on the run from the legal father and a squad of cops.

June 3, 1954: Aboard an ocean liner, Sam must stop the marriage of a young man's ex-wife to a mobster. In the process, he finds himself in one heck of a mess in the ship's garbage compartment.

April 1, 1969: When Sam leaps into the life of an undercover cop, Al explains that his mission is to convince a navy nurse that her MIA husband is still alive, and to prevent her from marrying a lawyer she meets on the day Sam leaps in. But a series of coincidences causes Sam to wonder about the true nature of his mission.