Ned starts a paper route to save up money for a bike, but Newton has more ambitious plans for him. He turns Ned's paper route into a media empire, making him extremely wealthy, but depressed because he doesn't even have time to ride his new bike.

Ned and Linda go on a date to the circus, after Newton accidentally sells Ned's parents' car to raise the $5 ticket price. The circus turns out to be a scam with the circus acts being subpar. However, to prevent the date from being a failure, Newton saves the circus by performing a series of astounding circus acts but also ends up causing the circus animals to stampede through town.

Ned is on a dull field trip at the Friendly Falls Museum of Dusty Old Things, and has to fill out a worksheet of questions about the historical exhibits in the museum. Newton wants to help, but many of the answers he gives are wrong and absurd, such as how Archimedes discovered the bathrobe, and how the Great Wall of China was a backyard fence built by one laborer who couldn't build corners. Ned finds out too late that all the answers are wrong, but Rusty McCabe forces him to trade his worksheet with him, assuming that Ned's answers will be better.

Newton has been acting stranger than usual, and when Ned takes him to see the veterinarian, Newton professes that he has fallen in love with her. As the day goes on, however, he keeps falling in love with dozens of other things, such as a passing roller skater, many different zoo animals, and mostly an ice cube tray. Ned eventually finds out that he's only acting this way because he's shedding his skin.

At Ned's family picnic, Newton develops amnesia, and thinks he is one of Ned's obnoxious uncles.

Ned is made to play with his obnoxious rich cousin, Norman, who has a female pet newt. When Ned feeds both Newton and the other newt Zippo food, they both change, and Norman's newt wants revenge on Norman for constantly neglecting him. Newton falls for the female newt, whom he names Buttercup, and Norman is terrified by the two giant creatures that have suddenly appeared.