Follows the title reptile who lives in a house on East 88th Street in New York City. Lyle enjoys helping the Primm family with everyday chores and playing with the neighborhood kids but one neighbor insists that Lyle belongs in a zoo. Mr. Grumps and his cat, Loretta, do not like crocodiles, and Lyle tries to prove that he is not as bad as others might first think.

Sandy, upon discovering her husband's infidelity while watching her son's birthday video, leaves the suburbs and moves into the city. She gets an apartment that's above a coffee house where she befriends one of the workers, Aram, a guy whose wife only married him so she could get a green card. Aram's family thinks he's wasting his life and education by working in the coffee house. Soon after moving into the apartment, Sandy hires Aram to be her nanny while she takes on work for the first time...