Christ knows Lester would do things differently if he could do it all over again.
The misery of his present situation… cigarettes as cash, eating with sporks, counting the days until it is over with a line drawn with an off-white pebble on a his wall… these things, and others much darker, force him to take his thoughts to elsewhere, another time, another place, anywhere but here.
In the black and white 1965 Zenith television of his mind, Lester never did the things they said he did to anybody. At least not permanent, or to anyone that mattered, or to anyone who would talk about it afterwards… and certainly not to that cop’s kid. He’s innocent as the day he was born, when he pissed all over that doctor.
In fact, he is not merely innocent, he’s famous. The star of his own tv show, a household name and idol of the hungry millions. It’s a sitcom, if you must know: Lester is the single father of three precocious children (Gary Coleman, Jaleel White and Emmanuel Lewis), trying to make it all work out in spite of comical hardships, often with the help of a wacky oddball neighbor played by Pat Harrington, Jr. Ted Knight plays the man who lives in the wall with a cat.