A lonely woodcarver longs for a son, so he builds a wooden puppet and names it Spinnolio (sound familiar yet?). But the cricket appears on the windowsill and is eaten by the cat, and Spinnolio comes alive only in the mind of the crazy old man. Spinnolio is dragged to class by the kids, where he does great for deportment, but rotten on academics; he gets a job in the complaint/return department of a large store, where he gets promoted to management, in part because of his great listening skills.