Joe Bowers, not the sharpest tool in the shed, becomes part of a government experiment on hibernation. When the experiment goes wrong, however, Joe awakens to find himself in the year 2025 in a society so dumbed-down by mass media that he is now the smartest guy on the planet.

Pathological liar Clifford Irving stages a complex hoax. In the 1970's Irving managed to fool a major publisher and LIFE magazine into thinking he was writing an authorized biography of Howard Hughes. Irving and his best friend and partner, Dick Susskind, go to extreme lengths to pull off the hair-brained scheme.

Joe Bowers is an average Joe. He is not the sharpest tool in the shed. He becomes part of a government experiment to go into hibernation. The experiment goes awry and Bowers awakens in the year 2505 to find a society so dumbed-down by mass commercialism and mindless TV programming that he's become the smartest guy on the planet. Now it's up to this average Joe to get human evolution back on the right track.