Phil Rash

Peter Foster, 23 ans, est enfant unique et vit à la maison où il entend constamment ses parents se disputer. Parce que Peter ne fait rien de la journée, la famille se rend dans une clinique où un thérapeute les filme. Après que Peter ait regardé sa cassette, il visionne celle d'une famille arménienne en difficulté, qui a donné son fils unique en adoption à son arrivée au Canada. Peter décide de rendre visite à cette famille et se fait passer pour leur fils, Bedros Deryan. La famille Deryan l'accueille à bras ouverts et Peter tente de réparer les mauvaises relations entre George Deryan et sa fille Azah.

Peter stows away on a ship from Italy, and arrives in New York, pursued by the ship's captain. He is advised that he will find other Italians in Little Italy, so he goes there, where Gepetto takes him in, after he attempts to steal some food. He tries to be good, but gets in trouble for stealing, so Jimmy the pizza man has to show him the way and get him to school. He thinks he isn't important, so he tells tall tales, scratching his nose each time. He tells people that Gepetto is a big important politician, so people automatically want to support him, though Gepetto is not running for anything.

Every day is boring and the same to Amy, even her birthday. All the evidence her family puts forth that each day is different she rebuts with well-thought out responses of sameness. She is supposed to visit her Aunt Lucy to pick up her present from her, and instead meets weird characters who insist that her aunt has a beagle named Charlie and that she has turned into a butterfly. Eventually she encounters fairytale folk who thought their lives were normal before the events in their stories occurred.

A television station is held hostage as a distraught father tries to bargain with a Carribean government for the release of his imprisoned daughter