An old man carved a son out of wood because loneliness demanded it. That puppet breaks his heart every single episode, running away and lying and choosing the world over the only person who loves him, while the carpenter just waits at home. This is not a story about becoming real. It's a story about what it costs the people who raise us when we refuse to stay.

Old Jeppet, a lonely carpenter who longs for a son, is carving a wooden puppet when it starts talking before he has even finished. He names the puppet, called Piccolino in this adaptation, and raises him as his own child. Piccolino is a troublemaker, but his good heart wins the old man's love. On the way to school, he falls for a trick by the sly fox Dino and his partner, the cat Witch, and ends up sold to a puppet show owner along with his friend Gina the duck. Escaping to look for Jeppet, he stumbles from one adventure to the next, trying to outsmart Dino and Witch and keep out of mischief so that his greatest wish can come true.