Since birth, Professor Thaddeus Proctor has lacked any attractive qualities, his only asset being a formidable yawn capable of precipitating anyone who comes into contact with it into a state of soporific compliance. The yawn's power remains untapped until Thaddeus is offered the chance of competing in a TV game show, and becomes its champion.

Not even then, however, is the yawn deployed to the utmost of its capacities. It takes Thaddeus's removal to Fairyland, and involvement in the protection of its precarious peace, to test the yawn's true might, and reveal the professor is no mere "bore."