Tuesday, August 2, 2005

SUNDRY O'BSERVATIONS

Calloo Callay!

Elisabeth Sladen will return to 'Doctor Who' next season as her character of Sarah Jane Smith, intrepid companion to both the Third and Fourth Doctor.

Even if you don't count the charity special 'Dimensions In Time', she did appear as Sarah Jane in 'K-9 And Company', so she is eligible for entry in the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.

I think K-9 and Brigadier General Lethbridge-Stewart are also qualified for eventual entry into the Hall.
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Even when I go to the movies, I can't turn off the Toobworld-obsessed portion of (what's left of) my mind.

My brother and I went to see "The Fantastic Four" Saturday night here in Winsted, and as soon as Stan Lee showed up as Willy Lumpkin the mailman, I began to wonder if his appearances in other Marvel-based films were as Willy as well.

The guy dodging debris in both "Spiderman" movies was unnamed, so it may as well be Willie. And as far as the hot dog salesman goes in "X-Men'? Maybe Willy needed to make a little extra money on the side.

And that same argument could be applied to Stan Lee's appearance as a security guard (with Lou Ferrigno!) in 'The Hulk'. My Dad was a mailman and he took on a few extra jobs now and then.

But the movies aren't my bailiwick. And there's no reason even to think much about 'The Fantastic Four' in the TV Universe, as all of its incarnations have been located in the Tooniverse.
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And the crossovers are happening over in the world of comic strips too. Since 'Blondie' had been adapted into a TV series, I figured I'd pass this info along as well......

From the New York Daily News:
Dean Young, "Blondie's" writer (and son of Chic Young, the strip's creator, who died in 1973) has arranged for the strip's All-American stars to celebrate a 75th-anniversary party on Sept. 4 in the pages of its 2,300 client newspapers.

Leading up to that moment will be an unprecedented three-month story line; there'll also be a month-long post-party cruise to Hawaii.

In the comic-strip world, this is the party against which all others will one day be measured. At various points, the Bumsteads will join and be visited by dozens of characters from other strips, including "For Better or for Worse," "Gasoline Alley," "Beetle Bailey," "Hagar the Horrible" and "Curtis."

They'll also get a congratulatory phone call from President Bush and the First Lady, and while Dagwood naturally manages to fumble it, Young says he got a warm letter of thanks from the real-life White House.
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The new comedy on Showtime, 'Weeds', has added a new location to the geography of Toobworld: Agrestic, California. Maybe it's just up the highway from Fairview which can be found in 'Desperate Housewives'.
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I love when TV shows make predictions that come true. In a way, Toobworld influences the Real World rather than the other way around. The one example that comes to mind is DC Fontana's claim in an episode of 'Star Trek' that the first moon landing flight would take place on a Wednesday.

Writer/producer Bryce Zabel trumpets one of his own from 'Dark Skies' in which there was a tenth planet newly discovered. And now Cal Tech is backing that up.

Here's the story:http://bztv.typepad.com/newsviews/2005/07/dark_skies_ahea.html
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I re-watched the Slitheen Family two-parter on 'Doctor Who'. And I think my new buddy Words Say Nothing was right - it's probably June of 2006 when the episode takes place. Nobody was walking around with the heavy winter clothing you'd expect if it was set in March.

And UNIT does show up in the episode, although fleetingly and on a video monitor. The Doctor does recognize the people in the scene, but none of the quartet look like any of the UNIT officers with whom we're familiar.
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I haven't added them yet to that list of recommended links off to the left, but here's a few blogs that I think might be of interest to others interested in the Toobworld philosophy.

SIFTIN'
http://siftin.blogspot.com/

NEWS! - VIEWS! - SCHMOOZE!
http://bztv.typepad.com/newsviews/

POP CULTURE JUNK MAIL
http://pcjm.blogspot.com/

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

4 comments:

WordsSayNothing said...

With regard to Stan "The Man" Lee, also recall that in Daredevil he played a guy crossing the street who nearly gets run over if not for young Matt Murdock. It's entirely possible that most of these Stan Lee appearances in Marvel Comics film adaptations are all Willie Lumpkin, given that X-Men, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Daredevil, and Fantastic Four all take place in or around the New York area. However, if one assumes the films take place in relative "real time" around the date of their initial releases, it would be difficult to include Hulk, since that crapfest of a movie takes place mostly out west somewhere, probably in Nevada or New Mexico or someplace with desert away from major centers of population--in other words, definitely not New York. (Of course, the "real time" theory also has to somehow account for Willie not changing much in appearance over 20 years between the flashback in Daredevil and his present-day appearances.) But there's nothing to say that he doesn't have a twin brother out there--Phillie Lumpkin, perhaps?

With regard to Dark Skies and Planet X (X being the Roman numeral for 10, of course), I just find it hard to believe that they were really the first ones to make a tenth planet prediction within the scope of the show. For instance, I believe the original Doctor Who had a tenth planet that was home to the Cybermen, though I suppose that planet probably didn't fit the exact parameters.

With regard to the Slitheen and Doctor Who, I stand by the June 2006 date for the two-parter. However, "Boom Town" takes place six months later, putting it around December 2006 (if we interpret it as exactly six months later, that would put it right between Christmas and New Year's). I've never been to Wales, but I have to imagine Cardiff is pretty cold in late December. Something's not right here.

I can't wait for The Christmas Invasion and season two. Much like "Bad Wolf" with season one, apparently season two will have another word or phrase that will span the season, and it's an anagram that has already been spoken in the first season. (I think this means I'm going to have to watch every episode of the season again.)

Toby O'B said...

Having read that interview with RTD, I've been rewatching my collection of the Eccleston episodes with an ear listening for any word that might be next season's "Big Bad".

I didn't hear that it would be an anagram; that makes it even more difficult to find!

But I was leaning toward "Tula" from the two parter that introduced Captain Jack.

I thought it might herald the big alien threat for next season.

As for Planet X, the Cybermen were from Mondas. This was Earth's twin, sharing the same orbital path around the Sun. (An idea that I think was used again in 'Earth II' pilot by Roddenberry.)

But ages ago, it broke free from orbit and sailed off into uncharted regions of space - only to make a disasterous return to our solar system in 1986.

At least from what I've gleaned so far....

WordsSayNothing said...

The Wikipedia entry for Bad Wolf in Doctor Who says that in an interview with RTD, he mentioned it was an anagram. Maybe the Tenth Doctor will go back in time and visit Teddy Roosevelt around the turn of the century: "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!"

Anonymous said...

That would be a palindrome.

Anagrams would be the rearranging of a word to spell another word.

I wondered if he might have found his inspiration in the Welsh poem seen on the front of that new building in Cardiff.

"In these stones horizons sing" - or one of the words in Welsh?

Jaia