WISH-CRAFT: PAPER TRAIL

I'm in the process of cleaning out my apartment - LOTS of paper! Printouts, magazines, newspaper clippings, and abandoned notes for my Toobworld novel - three bags full have been consigned to the depths of my building's basement so far.

And I have found some stuff in that morass that I might share here; do a little recycling with it before sending it off to its fate.

Some of the notes, just jottings really, don't make much sense anymore. One has "Sherlock Holmes - The Munsters" and "Superman - Crime Story - Law & Order - Seinfeld".

I know the basic idea behind linking Holmes and Herman - it would have been a thematic piece on cryogenics as both the Great Detective and the Munsters went through the process.

The second one is a bit confusing in the middle. I know how I linked 'The Adventures Of Superman' to 'Crime Story' - the Man of Steel saved Ray Luca and Paulie Taglia from that A-bomb test site, but in the process he was exposed to irradiated Kryptonite dust which eventually killed him.

Making the jump from 'Crime Story' to 'Law & Order' was based on a family tree essay I wrote for the old Tubeworld Dynamic. My friend Tom O'Leary played a psychiatrist on 'L&O' who had the same surname as a character played by Ray Sharkey on 'Crime Story'. If I'm not mistaken, they were also in the same profession. (Shareky may have been playing a lawyer.)

So it was my theory that Sharkey was father to O'Leary's son, considering the difference in time periods for each show.

But for the life of me, I can't remember how I made the leap from 'Law & Order' to 'Seinfeld'. 'Law & Order' to 'Taxi' is easy enough; and I once linked 'L&O' to 'The Adventures Of Superman' with the presence of the Kent Foundation in Lenny Orbach's last episode. And thanks to that American Express commercial in which Jerry Seinfeld met the Superman of the Tooniverse, I can leap-frog from 'Seinfeld' to 'The Adventures Of Superman', thanks to a cameo by a much older Jimmy Olsen at the Daily Planet.

But unless McCoy and Kinkaid had lunch at the Soup Nazi's, I can't figure out why I was linking those two shows together.

Here's another note I have no clue what it was about:

"Rick/Nobu/Karol Ann"

I'm lost.

Another list was over ten years old, before I even started my first TV Universe web site. It was a roster of all the characters I wanted to see make a return to TV:

Doctor Bombay
The Andorians
Lt. Columbo
Jim Rockford
Emma Peel
Dr. Joel Fleischman
Honey West
Agent Dale Cooper

With 'Columbo', I was never sure we'd get one more tele-movie/special out of Peter Falk. And we've gone a disturbingly long time since his last venture. So here's hoping he might have one last case to solve for us; and that they can make it a fitting "Swan Song".

I got lucky with three of them - Dr. Bombay showed up on 'Passions', beginning with an appearance on the same day that 'Bewitched' was celebrating its 35th anniversary.

The Andorians were a major recurring presence on 'Enterprise', in much the same way as the Klingons and Vulcans and Ferengi and Bajorans were featured in earlier incarnations of the 'Star Trek' franchise.

And Jim Rockford came back for at least two TV movies.

As for Emma Peel, Honey West, and Fleischman, they could make key guest appearances during Sweeps periods on shows that had similar themes to their original series.

This type of guest shot is not out of the realm of possibility; we've seen it happen before in Toobworld. Cinnamon Carter of 'Mission: Impossible' showed up in an episode of 'Diagnosis Murder', and Alan Brady visited 'Mad About You' about thirty years after last being seen on 'The Dick Van Dyke Show'.

As for my wish-list, Emma Peel from 'The Avengers' could be sought for advice by Jack Bristow on 'Alias'; she may have been his mentor in the spy game. Speaking of mentors, 'Veronica Mars' could learn a thing or two from 'Honey West', who blazed the trail for beautiful blondes in the private eye biz. And Dr. Fleishman might find reason to show up in a variety of medical shows as a consulting physician - 'Grey's Anatomy', 'ER', and even 'Scrubs'.

Or he could be involved in a police investigation in any number of police procedurals at his old stomping grounds on the Eye Network - 'Without A Trace' or 'CSI: NY', especially since he was a Manhattanite at heart. And there's precedence for that - Dr. Roxanne Turner, lsst seen on 'St. Elsewhere', went head-to-head against Detective Frank Pemberton in "The Box" on 'Homicide: Life On The Street'.

And then there's Dale Cooper. He was left dangling with a very disturbing cliff-hanger of an ending for 'Twin Peaks', and it was always my secret wish-craft that it might be resolved on 'The X-Files'. Since that's no longer an option, 'Supernatural' could probably use the boost by a guest shot from Kyle MacLachlan - if he finds some time from doing 'InJustice' on ABC.

So that's one batch of notes I can now toss into the recycling bin, transferred for eternity to E-space. If only there was some way to write them all off on my taxes......

Coming up the next time I have a bit of a lull - the "Whatever Happened To?" theories that first got me started on the whole Toobworld concept.....

BCnU!

Tele-Toby