A married couple, Bob and Jane MacAvoy, and their son, Stevie (Harvey Grant), sell everything and move out to California to buy and start up a newspaper company, the Eden Archive. To the surprise of the MacAvoys, the Eden Archive is a bit worse for wear. A pregnant Jane MacAvoy begins to go into labor and gives birth in the upstairs of the Eden Archive to the couple's second child: a daughter. To kickstart their paper, Jane has the idea of putting baby pictures of townspeople in the paper and let people take a shot at who the babies are as a guessing game, making the paper exponentially more popular. This turns into a location guessing game in which a picture of a mansion was shown on the front page. The mansion, unbeknownst to the MacAvoys, is now a prostitution house run by an old lady, Mrs. Holmes, whom the townspeople are not too keen on. This edition of the paper is flamed by the town, leading to the loss of a large number of subscriptions. Jane, while canvassing the town's businesses to persuade them to purchase ads in the paper, runs into Myron Trout, the owner of a clothing store and presumed villain of the story, whom makes flirtatious advances toward her. Jane quickly rejects the advances and moves on, much to Trout's chagrin. The MacAvoys decide to socialize within the clubs of the town to gain more supporters. The couple also does a drawing for a new car to anyone who subscribes, leading to even more subscriptions. A drought has been going on for months in Eden, so Bob MacAvoy, after promising in the newspaper to bring rain, intends to employ his
Air Force flying experience to use
dry ice and
cumulous clouds induce rain in Eden. In fact, it starts raining before Bob can conduct his experiment, but Jane, seeing the rain outside, reports in the newspaper that Bob made the rain appear. The rain stays for several days after, flooding the streets, and the town blames Bob for the disaster. Myron Trout, still upset about Jane's rejection, attempts to get the mayor to kick the MacAvoys out of town. The town holds a meeting asking Bob to reimburse them for rain damage. Bob decides to take his old job back in
NYC and the MacAvoys are about to leave when the town has a change of heart and a
meteorologist that Jane phoned came and explained that Bob did not in fact cause the rain. The MacAvoys decide to stay in town and buy a new
press, continuing the Eden Archive. The title "
It Happens Every Thursday" comes from a line and
trope within the film in which their printing press breaks down every Thursday on printing day. ==Cast==