Things just never went right for Prince Auric DeVrie. 

Having gathered the treasures of the world to impress Princess Marie-Therese Durand, he dies before he can deliver it.

Throwing his living spirit into a book of magic spells to find a way to confess his love to her, he gets trapped inside it for a thousand years.

When at last he concocts a plan to recreate the princess and himself that he might at last profess his love, the idiot sawdust man gets things so tangled up that Auric must rely on a whole cast of misfits to finally get a chance to see the princess.

Penrose, the sawdust man, finds a way to goof up everything. Pursued by the old wizard Shelburne the Magnificent, the vicious giant LaRoche, and the self-cursed Henri Dassault, he is reluctantly befriended by 17-year old Gavin Baycroft, a young man with romantic troubles of his own.

Dragged from 10th century France to 21st century California, Prince Auric finally gets his chance to declare his love for the princess.

Alas, the fair prince discovers that fairy tales have a way of surprising us all.