A disc jockey fights prejudice against rock 'n' roll and the kids who dance to it.

Weary of constant performing and adolescent adulation, rock-and-roll idol Arnie Haines decides to take an extended vacation in his home town of Melondale. After arranging for Bill Haley and His Comets to take over the band's bookings, the band's press agent, Alan Freed, promotes Arnie's visit to Melondale as the triumphant return of a hometown boy. As Arnie is greeted by screaming teenagers, Arlene MacLaine, a columnist critical of rock music, arrives with her teenage daughter Francine to cover the story. Scandalized by the depravity of rock and roll, George Bagley, the mayor of Melondale, threatens to expel Arnie if he dares to perform in town. That night, the local kids gather at Arnie's parents farm to dance. When Francine stops by and offers to help change her mother's mind about the new music, Arnie drives her to the beach and serenades her with a romantic ballad. Afterward, Francine describes rock and roll as a form of teen expression, free from outmoded parental values and urges Arnie to perform in public to demonstrate the music's merits. Mayor Bagley's ban has sparked controversy across the country, and so Arnie asks Tom Everett, the mayor of the neighboring town of Friesville, to allow him to put on a rock-and-roll show. After the mayor gives his consent, Arnie recruits acts from all over the country to appear. Aware that Mayor Bagley will try to prevent the show, Francine and Arnie publicize it only by word of mouth. Francine attends the performance with her skeptical mother, but during intermission, Sunny Everett, Tom's precocious daughter, insists on making out with Arnie. When Arnie spurns her, Sunny speeds off to Melondale to inform Bagley about the forbidden show. Upon returning to Friesville, Sunny pours whiskey all over her clothes and pretends to be drunk. Arlene is about to recant her opinion of rock and roll when Sunny makes a drunken scene on the dance floor and Bagley arrives with the police. The raid provokes a nationwide scandal, and afterward, Arnie tells Francine that Sunny was pretending to be drunk to spite him. Determined to vindicate the reputation of rock and roll, Arnie uses the pageant of art and culture presented by the local youth theater as a forum. In a historical retrospective of dance, the pageant stages the raucous Charleston, the dance favored by the teens' parents. Recognizing her short-sightedness, Arlene rises to defend rock and roll and apologize to Arnie, and the rest of the adults follow suit.