In Bam Bam & Celeste, Celeste (Margaret Cho) and Bam Bam (Bruce Daniels) are best friends still stuck in the white bread Midwest hometown where they grew up. Celeste lives at home with her out of touch Mommy (also played by Cho) and has retained her outcast status since high school. She and Bam Bam are free-spirited rejects in a town where looking or dressing differently is perpetually uncool.
Shunned on a good day and taunted on a bad one, the only thing they have is each other. Bam Bam and Celeste both feel that life is passing them by and after seeing an ad for a contestant search for "Trading Faces", a realty makeover show, they decide to follow their dreams to New York City.
Their adventure is strewn with potential disasters and comical crises as they encounter thugs, survivalists, racists, a "lesbian Lone Ranger" (Jane Lynch), and other roadside distractions before finally reaching the city. They arrive, only to find their hometown high school nemeses, now the style dictators of the world-famous Salon Mirage, sitting in judgment at "Trading Faces".
Helped by the show's booking assistant (Alan Cumming) and Celeste's Mommy, the two friends persevere and are rewarded when they discover that true beauty lies within.
