A kid finds a orphaned raccoon and decides he's responsible for it now. That's the entire show, and it never apologizes for that simplicity. Robby North spends 52 episodes learning what it actually costs to care for something wild that will never fully trust you, in a 1977 drama that has no interest in manufactured conflict or neat resolutions. This is a show about a boy growing up one small failure and small victory at a time, with a raccoon that bites him and leaves him anyway because that's what wild things do. You watch it because you remember being told you could save something, and you believed it, and this show doesn't mock you for that.

Robby North, an eleven-year-old boy in Wisconsin also known as Sterling in some listings, sets out on a fishing trip with his friend Oscar and his dog Hauser. Along the way they find an orphaned raccoon kit whose mother a hunter has shot for her fur. Robby brings the kit home, names it Rascal, and cares for it as it becomes his constant companion. With his mother in the hospital and his brother away fighting on the Western Front, the tender-hearted boy leans on his bond with Rascal. As the raccoon grows, its habit of raiding the neighbors' sweet corn at night shows him how hard it is for people and wild animals to share the same place. Based on Sterling North's autobiographical novel, the drama is a quiet slice-of-life story about a boy and the animal he raises.