A silent Western star has trouble adjusting to the coming of sound.

"Chick" Thompson is a puppet-master in a traveling carnival whose wife dies in childbirth and leaves him with an infant son he names "Poochy." His father-in-law and the baby's grandfather sues him for custody of the baby and Chick takes his son and hides out for a couple of years. He joins his former assistants, Daisy and "Fingers", in a circus act only to find that the persistent grandfather is still on his trail.

Aided by musicians at the Grand Ole Opry, a small-town mayor in the Ozarks takes on a group of crooked politicians.