The Princess is standing on a bucket looking into a large cardboard box. She explains that it contains "something all shiny", which the narrator thinks sounds exciting. He asks what it is, and the Princess doesn't know. The King and Queen arrive, and they tip the box out, revealing the item to be a swing, albeit a disassembled one.
The King anticipates that building the swing won't take more than a few minutes, but even with everyone else helping, it takes a lot longer and is very hard— the Gardener needs a spanner but no one can find one, the Admiral can't make sense of the instructions, and the King reads them upside-down. By the evening time, the pets have painted the box to look like a car, but the grown-ups still haven't made progress with the swing.
The next morning, the Princess looks out the window and finds her swing assembled. She wakes the King up (and, unintentionally, the Queen) to ask to go on the swing, but he thinks it's too early. The Queen also forbids the Princess from going on the swing on her own due to its size, lest she get injured. The King sums it up with four words: "No grownup, no swing".
The Princess walks outside complaining and sees the pets playing around in their box-car. She becomes jealous of them for having fun when she's not, so she makes up her own rule: "No grownup, no box" (even though the pets are fully grown). They disregard this "rule" and accidentally knock over a Cupid statue.
She approaches the swing and decides to skirt the rules by sitting on it, then kicking her legs without actually moving. Unfortunately, she accidentally gets it moving and it spirals out of control, scaring the Princess and eventually launching her into a bush. Thankfully, she doesn't hurt herself, but she does become scared of the swing. The King and Queen show up and invite her to play on the swing, so she stalls by bringing up breakfast.
After breakfast, the Princess is still scared, and when the Maid tells her to go out so everyone can swing, she stalls again by pretending she wants to tidy her room and then sneaking outside to play. However, she bumps into the General and Prime Minister. She tries to lie that she's waiting for the parents, but then they show up. The adults try to get the Princess to go on the swing, so she comes up with another excuse: her dress and face are dirty.
However, instead of changing, she just sits on the ground and cries. The King approaches and asks what's wrong, so the Princess fesses up. The King puts the Princess in charge of pushing people on the swing. Eventually, she wants to have a try on the swing, and does.
This episode provides examples of
- Artsy Beret: Puss wears a beret when he's drawing on the box.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Downplayed. The Princess goes onto the swing without being told (and not even intending to actually swing on it) and does have an accident, but she still manages to avoid injury despite the Queen bringing it up.
- Cock-a-Doodle Dawn: A rooster can be heard crowing in the morning.
- Companion Cube: The Gardener asks Nessie the hobbyhorse if she has a spanner.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: When painting the box, Puss wears a smock but no pants.
- Inelegant Blubbering: The Princess makes a bunch of gulping noises when she cries.
- Loophole Abuse: The Princess tries to skirt the "No grownup, no swing" rule by sitting on the swing and kicking her legs without actually moving. Unfortunately though, the swing starts moving when she kicks.
- Nobody Here but Us Statues: At one point, Puss pretends to be the Cupid statue that he and Scruff broke.
- Self-Deprecation: When the Princess tells the King that he's reading the swing instructions upside-down, he says to himself, "Silly Daddy".
- Tempting Fate: The Princess says, "I'm only moving a little bit", and then immediately the swing starts to move more.
