>my father, 75, told me he saw the TV characters come out of the screen and walk around the house last week…
>I didn't believe him at first.
There's a lot of different medications that cause hallucinations. The main active ingredient in many over-the-counter cough medicines is an insanely powerful hallucinogenic.
Double check to make sure he's not on anything that might cause him to trip out like that. A lot of times the moar powerful medications will have warnings not to use on children under a certain age, because it increases the potential risk, but everyone's body is different, and all it really takes is a lil moar than recommended to exacerbate the situation into dangerous territory. For elderly, sometimes this can mean accidentally taking a second dosage, whether out of forgetfulness or uncertainty or whatever. Also, could be a chance that two or medications might lead to these types of effects. Not trying to say anything mean about your dad or anything. Happens all the time to people at any age really. Can be incredibly frightening if you aren't sure what caused it to happen, which is often the case, since the person affected may not know every risk associated with the medications they are on.