The story's hero is an ant named Flik (Dave Foley), an inventor who is always getting the other ants in trouble with his hair-brained schemes. After he loses all of the grain that they've been storing up for the grasshoppers, he proposes to leave their island and go in search of "bigger bugs" that would be a match for the evil grasshoppers. Princess Atta (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), The Queen (Phyllis Diller) and the council agree with his proposal. They never expect to see him again, which would please most of them.