Seven-year-old Johnny is excited about what he believes to be a vacation at his grandmother's Georgia plantation with his parents, John Sr. and Sally. When they arrive at the plantation, he discovers that his parents will be living apart for a while, and he is to live at the plantation with his mother and grandmother while his father returns to Atlanta to continue his controversial editorship in the city's newspaper.
Johnny soon comes upon the home of Uncle Remus, a kindly freed slave living on the plantation grounds telling tales to the local children of a character named Br'er Rabbit.