Plot

Prince Horace is the spoiled and arrogant heir to the throne whose continual pranks are designed to get his distant father's attention. Young Jemmy is a desperate streetwise orphan trying to survive with his sister.

The king of tiny Bratenberg hopes in vain his lazy, unruly heir Horace will behave for the sake of his whipping boy, abandoned commoner Jemmy, whom he had absurdly arrested as later his kid sister Annyrose, who lands in jail. Alas Horace only regrets Jemmy who bravely fails to wince or whine when whipped for the prince's faults. After Horace's tomfoolery sabotages vital border negotiations with related King Philip's ambassador, he flees the palace with Jemmy. They get kidnapped, and Horace learns to appreciate his street-smart 'inferior' while growing up a little. The king realizes emotionally neglecting Horace is, the root of his pranks for attention.—KGF Vissers

Based on Sid Fleishman's wonderful novel for children, this film depicts the unlikely friendship between a spoiled prince and his "whipping boy." When the orphan Jemmy is roughly plucked from the streets of London and taken to serve in the palace, he has no idea what's in store for him. He soon discovers that he is fated to serve as the spoiled prince's "whipping boy"-- a boy who takes the prince's punishments in his place. Since it is forbidden to spank the heir to the throne, Jemmy is forced to endure these punishments himself. Sick of the humiliation of these countless spankings (not to mention his ever-sore bottom), Jemmy decides to run away from the palace. When the Prince decides to accompany him, everything goes wrong. Jemmy and the Prince soon find themselves in the hands of two common criminals, who decide to kidnap the two runaways in hopes of receiving a ransom. However, when the criminals mistake Jemmy for the Prince (and vice versa), they commit a dreaded a mistake, delivering a spanking to the Prince himself.