[1] A Black English nobleman named Desmond Pfeiffer, chased out of the United Kingdom due to gambling debts, becomes President Abraham Lincoln's valet.

In the show, he serves as the intelligent and erudite backbone of a Civil War-era White House populated by louts and drunkards.

Instead, it was intended as a critique of Bill Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky scandal, with the sexual world of the Oval Office played for laughs.

[5] The series was alluded to multiple times[6] in the unaired pilot episode of Clerks: The Animated Series, "Leonardo Leonardo Returns and Dante Has an Important Decision to Make", which featured Dante and Randal drawing inspiration from a nonexistent episode of The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, which Randal describes as "classic Pfeiffer".

In the also-unaired third episode, "Leonardo Is Caught in the Grip of an Outbreak of Randal's Imagination and Patrick Swayze Either Does or Doesn't Work in the New Pet Store", Dante and Randal are seen at the drive-thru for Desmond Pfeiffer's Civil War Burgers, a fictional fast-food restaurant.