THE FRIENDS OF TOMMY LOPAKA

When I can't find anything else to tape in the evening while I'm sleeping/getting ready for work/commuting, I turn to classic shows available on American Life Network.

Until my fave summer shows come back, I'll be doing that often, I think.

Monday night, I taped an episode of 'Hawaiian Eye' after 'Waking The Dead'. (That was on BBC-America.) It was called "Baker's Half Dozen" and it was about a pair of con artists who were swindling sailors in transit out of their money with the girl promising to marry each of them. The guy was a real scumbag (played by Peter Breck of 'The Big Valley'), but Dory Baker was never comfortable helping out in his hustle. Eventually, she helped Tommy Lopaka in nabbing her partner (who had killed his previous accomplice) and she promised to make things right for all of the sailors she conned.

In the end, it looked like Dory would even profit from the experience as she was probably going to end up married to one who was a member of an old-money family in Philadelphia. But first, she'd have to go to Denver, Colorado, and atone for a crime she had been involved in there.

As they parted at the end of the episode, Tommy gave Dory a letter of introduction to a friend of his in Denver who could probably help her. No mention of a name or occupation, and at first I thought it might be a reference to some other show from the Warner Brothers stable under the aegis of Wm. T. Orr, a member of the TV Crossover Hall of Fame (Creators' Wing). But my limited research didn't turn up any leads along those lines.

Basically that left me free to fill in the blanks as to the identity of this mystery character. I knew it couldn't be 'Perry Mason', as he didn't start practicing law in Colorado until the late 1980s. And a quick check of TV Acres (one of my favorite TV trivia sites, link to the left, of course!) didn't offer up any private eyes or police detectives who might have known Thomas Jefferson Lopaka.

So I chose Andrew Laird, an attorney who worked in Denver. By the 1980s, he'd be working almost exclusively for Carrington Oil (as seen in 'Dynasty' where he was played by Peter Mark Richman). Back in 1960, however, he could have been just starting out and willing to take any client who might help enrich his reputation. And Dory Baker's case may have been the perfect cause for him to champion.

And until somebody tells me otherwise, or gives me a convincing substitute that's even better, that's how it'll stand in Toobworld - one more tiny patch holding the great mosaic of the TV Universe together.

BCnU!
Toby OB