It is a satirical film for adults about family, the father is an embezzler, the daughter is a hunter for favorable gentlemen, and the son is a blockhead and a drunkard. The offscreen text is the story of the little girl who repeats idiomatic expressions which she doesn’t understand ("he has set going the refrigerators ", "he whips vodka", "he has lost his head"...) and these idiomatic expressions are shown in as they are represented in her mind – in the literal sense. It is one of the first films of "new", "non-Disney" Soviet animation.

Semyon Danilovich Petukhov was very surprised to found upon returning from vacation that he was declared dead and... buried.

Alexei Ivanovich Tyutyurin, a very kind and gentle man by nature, has been working as a hairdresser for twenty years. When the opportunity arises to upgrade to the head of the hall, he is faced with a problem — in the team he has a reputation as a constantly late person and an incorrigible liar. But Alexei doesn't deceive anyone — he really gets into unusual situations on the way to work. No one believes in these fables until amazing visitors begin to come to the hairdresser.

To Moscow have arrived the participants of the international conference of the zoophilologists and also the international jury which is to elect for the world festival the best performance of the program of Moscow circus. Mrs Whistler (Iva Janzurová), British associate professor, makes her understood with the animals in their language but the Czech professor Ruzicka (Jirí Sovák), though he is capable of using the animals language, prefers teaching the animals the human language. Ruzicka's friend, the poodle Archibald, speaks "in Human" very well. The scientific dispute ends with a bet - if Ruzicka teaches the circus elephant to sing, Mrs Whistler will eat up her hat.