IT'S COMPLICATED - AND CONCLUDED

Back in June, I catalogued some examples of a TV writer's crutch - the use of the phrase "It's complicated". And now, months later, the season finale of 'Burn Notice' has provided the perfect coda for that batch of examples:

Michael Westen:
"It's complicated."
Madeleine Westen:
"I've had enough of 'It's Complicated'!"
'Burn Notice'

BCnU!
Toby OB

WURG 2 WJM?

Did you ever suddenly wake up because something finally clicked in your brain that was right in front of you the whole time? I saw it happen in the movie 'The Stranger', when Edward G. Robinson's character suddenly woke up and called Washington. He was convinced that Orson Welles' character was a Nazi - because only a Nazi would think that Freud wasn't a German but only a Jew.

The same happened to me just now. Just before I went down for nappies this morning after work, I watched my DVR recording of the 'Back To You' pilot from Wednesday, the new FOX sitcom starring Kelsey Grammer, Patricia Heaton, and Fred Willard. And just a few minutes ago, I woke with a sudden realization - the show may have made a veiled link for itself with 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'!
Back in 1997, anchorman Chuck Darling left the anchor chair at WURG Channel 9 in Philadelphia to begin his ambitious climb to reach the big time - Los Angeles. I'm sure it was in his game plan to make it to New York and perhaps from there to an anchor position on either the Big Three networks or one of the cable news outlets like CNN or MSNBC or - ah, who am I kidding? This is a FOX sitcom! And Kelsey Grammar is a conservative. His character of Chuck Darling was probably aiming for FOX Noise - er, FOX News.

Before L.A., he spent time at a Denver station. And between that gig and Philly, he was in Minneapolis........

So why couldn't he have been at WJM, Channel 12?

I believe that unlike the actor who portrayed him, Ted Baxter is still alive in Toobworld. But that doesn't mean he would still be the top newsman at that TV station. Perhaps Chuck Darling was brought in to WJM to replace Ted once he retired/was fired.

And even if it wasn't to be at WJM, then it could have been that he replaced Ross Nelson at WJM's rival station, Channel 8. It was certainly a step up in that market, since it was the number one rated station in Minneapolis.

But Chuck definitely said that he was at a station in Minneapolis, so that means we can rule out KOGD in St. Paul, even if the Twin Cities can pick up each other's broadcast signals.

Good night and good news!

SHOWS CITED:
'Back To You'
'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'
'The Tom Show'

BCnU!
Toby OB

Lou Grant:
"You take away their helicopters, their mobile units, their fancy equipment...
And what have you got?"
Mary Richards:
"Us."
'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'

ACE OF ZONKS II

In my quest to go through every episode of 'Psych' to find all of the pineapple references, I caught one from the second season (Or was it the second half of the first season? I'm so confused!) called "Poker? I Barely Know Her!".

There were two possible Zonks in the episode in which Shawn and Gus cited the names of past TV shows, shows that should be sharing the same universe as 'Psych'.

The first one is easy to splain away: during one of his fake psychic seizures, Shawn shouted out "Chips! Ponch! Jon!"

Now for us, that was a reference to the TV show 'CHiPs', in which the main characters were California Highway patrolmen named Ponch and Jon. For Shawn, that hold true as well - except that he was referring to the real California Highway Patrol and to the real Jon Baker and Frank Poncharello. It's likely that Shawn knew them through their association in the past with his father, Henry Spencer. In trying to be vague about the clue about poker chips, Shawn threw out the reference as a nod to his father, a retired police officer, who was in the room watching the display.

As for the second Zonk.... that's a little tougher. It's probably best to share the whole dialogue exchange:

Gus: The buzzer upstairs says his [apartment] is 227.

Shawn: "227". Marla Gibbs.

Gus: Regina King.

Shawn: Jackee.

Gus: Hal Williams as Lester Jenkins.

WE know what they were talking about - the sitcom '227' which starred those actors. But it's not a sitcom in their world; it's part of their world.

So let's keep those actors as actors in this scenario; after all, they would exist in Toobworld as well - I'm sure they must have appeared on 'Hollywood Squares' or some other game show over the years.

But what would '227' be? How about a movie that starred all of those actors? Or perhaps it's a game show as well, with a numerical title like 'Twenty-One', and those four actors were major players on it - like Charley Weaver, Paul Lynde, Rose Marie, and Wally Cox on 'Hollywood Squares', or Richard Dawson and the late Bret Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly on 'Match Game'.

It's tenuous, but it's the best I can do. At least it would take away the onus of a Zonk.

Bet you're wondering - if you're even reading this far - if I found a pineapple reference in the episode. Well, no. I didn't. Apparently they don't go overboard and install a pineapple reference in every episode.

However, we can force one upon them with this episode! At the end, after they had nailed the bad guy cheating at cards during a big poker tournament, Gus and Shawn are walking through the casino on the Indian reservation. In the background at one point, we can see a couple of slot machines.

And that's where I say we'd find our pineapples!

Fruits are common symbols used on slot machine bars - cherries, bananas, watermelons and pineapples. So I'm thinking that if we had the chance to see those slot machines up close, we'd see that at least one of them used pineapple symbols. We just weren't beaten over the head with the reference.

How do you like them apples?

BCnU!
Toby OB

ADDENDUM:

Back in November of 2006, I had a post titled "Ace Of Zonks" which dealt with a reference to 'The X-Files' on 'Las Vegas'......

FANNING THE POZZ'BILITIES

Tele-genetics can have strong echoes. An exact likeness can re-occur down through countless generations. And for all of those characters who have exact doubles living in the same time period as they are, a genealogical link can usually be traced back (sometimes only going back one generation to a philandering father).

What's somewhat rare, however, is two sets of carbon copies in the same families and in the same time period. One example of this might be the married couples of Hilton and Ruth Lucas and Dr. Cliff and Claire Huxtable. But that involved making the choice to marry each other, and perhaps they were responding to some primal recognition that they'd make good matches for each other. (We'd like to ignore the fact that Bill Cosby enjoyed working with Phylicia Rashad and wanted the chance to do so again. That just takes us out of Toobworld.)

I'm finding it hard to uncover an example in which both participants share the same blood ties, like siblings or parent and child. I thought I had one when I saw the pilot episode of 'Dirty, Sexy Money' at the Paley Center for Media a few weeks back. The family lawyer for the Darlings, Nick George, and his daughter Kiki look exactly like a former NYPD cop named Joe Miller and his daughter Anna, as seen in last year's fantabulous mini-series, 'The Lost Room'. (Here in the Real World, the splainin is that Peter Krause and Elle Fanning were cast in both productions.)
As with the Cosby examples, I would have preferred to ignore the casting reasons for the similarities in appearance. However, with episode two of 'Dirty, Sexy Money', the role of Kiki George has been recast with Chloe Moretz now assuming the role. Now we have to find a splainin as to why Kiki's a recastaway.

And for that, I think we should return to 'The Lost Room'.

For most of the mini-series, Anna was trapped in some dimensional vortex after she was stuck in the motel room when its door closed. But we don't know exactly what happened to her while in there.

Perhaps a 'Quantum Leap' effect took place and she found herself suddenly living the life of Kiki George for those few days in which her father assumed his late father's position as the Darling Family's personal lawyer. She was only a child of seven years when the traumatic events of that mysterious motel occurred. That alone would have been too much for her young mind to grasp. To suddenly find herself transported into the life of another little girl, to find herself being addressed as Kiki, to find that she suddenly had a mother! (Her own mother may have passed away when Anna was too young to remember what she looked like.)

She probably didn't raise a ruckus because at least her father still looked the same - mistaking Nick George for Joe Miller. And since she didn't say anything about it, Nick - who only could see his own Kiki when he looked at her, just as would happen on 'Quantum Leap' - never suspected that anything was amiss. Besides, he was too preoccupied for those two days by the unceasing demands put upon his time and attention by the Darlings.

Once she was rescued by her real father, Anna leapt back to the motel and the real Kiki resumed her life. She'll probably have no memory that she was in Limbo for a period of two days and no one else would have noticed there had been a transfer either.

There may have been a temporal shift in the replacement, as 'The Lost Room' took place in 2006 and the pilot for 'Dirty, Sexy Money' won't occur in Toobworld until next week (September 26th). But time-shifting is what happens during a 'Quantum Leap', right?

Not saying it did happen; just that it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble.....

SHOWS CITED:
'Dirty, Sexy Money'
"The Lost Room"
'Cosby'
'The Cosby Show'
'Quantum Leap'

BCnU!
Toby OB

A PIKE PEEK

In 1975, a double agent named Nelson Brenner, AKA "Curtis" (when he was impersonating Prisoner Number Six in a mysterious place called "The Village"), met with a spy code-named "Geronimo" at the Pike Amusement Park on the pier in Long Beach. Over fifteen years earlier, it was the scene of a staged accident - a car was dredged up from the waters off the pier containing the badly decomposed body of a man thought to be Peter Baker. (But it turned out to be that of Baker's friend, Harry Diamond.)

SHOWS CITED:
'Columbo' - "Identity Crisis"
'77 Sunset Strip' - "The Pasadena Caper"

'The Prisoner' - "The Schizoid Man"

BCnU!
Toby OB

RICOCHETED RABBI?

Here's an excerpt from "The Ritual Bath" by Faye Kellerman. It's the first in a series of novels about Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus, and which is heavily flavored with Judaism:

"I didn't catch your name, Detective."

"Decker. Peter Decker" He handed the rabbi a card.

"Decker," the rabbi mouthed to himself. "I am Rav Aaron Schulman."

"Honored, Rabbi Schulman."

The old man let out a cough.

"Mrs. Adler is a free agent. Despite what the local residents think, this place isn't a cult and I'm not a guru. People are free to come and go on their own. More important, people are free to think on their own."

It makes me wonder if Jeff Melvoin, who wrote for 'Northern Exposure', was a fan of the book series. With the episode "Fish Story", he introduced the character of Rabbi Schulman into the show's mythos. And maybe he got even more inspiration from the book to suggest Jerry Adler in casting the role.

Rabbi Schulman was basically a spirit guide who showed up to help Dr. Joel Fleischman in two episodes of the show ("Fish Story" & "Shofar, So Good"). He even manifested himself a third time after Joel left Cicely, Alaska, in order to help Michelle ("Tranquility Base").

The book came out around 1986. The "Fish Story" episode was first broadcast in 1994.

Just wonderin', is all......

BCnU!
Toby OB

THE EMMY AWARDS & THE HAT SQUAD

Since I work an overnight shift, whenever I watch an awards show it's always the morning after on tape delay. Obviously I'm not in it for the suspense as to who won, since I've heard the news by then. I just speed through for the highlights that I know to look for - which is great, because I can do a three hour presentation in about an hour.

Aside from certain acceptance speeches, I'm usually in it for just the opening numbers & monologues, the film clips, and the tributes to those in the industry who passed away in the year before.

This year they presented a very nice montage of clips for a variety of people in all aspects of the business, not just actors:

There were producers, writers and directors like Mel Shavelson, Stuart Rosenberg, Stan Daniels, and Ed Friendly.

TV news coverage was represented by Ed Bradley and film critic Joel Siegel.

People better known for their movie work, like Jack Palance, or for other fields of entertainment, like Luciano Pavarotti and Beverly Sills, were honored.

And there were some early TV pioneers like Don Herbert, better known as Mr. Wizard, as well as the unique entries like Calvert deForrest, better known as Larry "Bud" Melman.

But it occurred to me that if the tribute was updated in enough time to include Jane Wyman, who starred in 'Falcon Crest', where was mention of Oscar-winner Miyoshi Umecki, who played Mrs. Livingston on 'The Courtship of Eddie's Father'? And that led me to look into the IMDb.com's list of those who have passed away in the last year.

I can understand why Percy Rodriguez failed to make the list, for even though he died prior to Ms. Wyman, it appears that his death wasn't announced until after the awards were broadcast.

I went back even further than that, since the Emmys did the same by including Mike Evans, Ed Bradley and Jack Palance, who passed away in 2006 (but after the Emmy telecast of that year). And from 2006, I was surprised they didn't include director Robert Altman. Sure, he's better known for his body of work in the movies, but he did some fine work in TV westerns and especially on 'Combat!'. Plus there were the two mini-series he created with Gary Trudeau, 'Tanner '88' and 'Tanner on Tanner'.

Ms. Umecki's omission was the one most noticeable for me, as I had just recently posted a tribute to her here. But those who also weren't considered worthy enough for mention by the writers/producers of the Emmys really surprised me.

I realize that the Emmy Awards, like most of these awards shows, are very USA-centric (and geared to boost the business in America). But visual media is global, and should be recognized for its contributions. Okay, so maybe I can understand the exclusion of Leon Niemczyk of Poland and Phillippe Noiret of France (although Noiret better be remembered at the Oscars), but no Ian Richardson ("House Of Cards")? Ronald Magill ('Emmerdale Farm')? No John Inman of 'Are You Being Served?', for bleep's sake? Everybody in the audience would have known his Mr. Humphries and his cries of "I'm free! I'm free!"

The opera world was represented by Ms. Sills and Pavarotti, and I know Pavarotti won an Emmy award for one of his TV appearances, but where was Gian Carlo Menotti, who created what I think was the first opera for TV, "Amahl And The Night Visitors", which was broadcast annually for years?

No matter what one may have thought of them, Jerry Falwell, Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, and Anna Nicole Smith had established their presence in Television. At the very least, Mrs. Messner and Ms. Smith should have been recognized for their "contributions" to reality programming.

Maybe not all of the character actors who passed away last year deserved this nod, no matter how much work they provided (Mala Powers, Steve Ryan, John P. Ryan), but where was acknowledgement of Charles Lane, best known as Homer Bedloe on 'Petticoat Junction' and as Lucille Carmichael's first boss on 'The Lucy Show'? One of the greatest character actors of all time! And there should have been a clip of Dabbs Greer, perhaps as the minister he played on 'Little House On The Prairie' (although I would have included his work as the minister in the first episode of 'The Brady Bunch' when all hell breaks loose).

Barry Nelson and Don Ho are both better known in other media - Nelson in the movies, Don Ho as a singer in Hawaii. But both of them made significant contributions to Television. Barry Nelson was the FIRST James Bond, playing the spy as an American in 'Casino Royale', an episode of 'Climax!'. And it feels as though no TV show could do a Sweeps Week episode set in Hawaii without an appearance by Don Ho.

Where was mention of comic actor Ron Carey, best known for the height-challenged Officer Levitt on 'Barney Miller'?

And come on already! No memorial to Kitty Carlysle? I realize Television is a world of short attention spans, but that's just not right!

And if the Emmy Awards are supposed to burnish and promote the industry, wouldn't it have made sense to pay tribute to the late Frank Stanton, who worked with William S. Paley in building CBS to be a communications giant?

Finally, I just wanted to point out one problem they had in their tributes. Among the credits listed for Charles Nelson Reilly were 'Car 54, Where Are You?', 'The Patty Duke Show', and 'Love, American Style'. Appropriately enough, 'Match Game' topped the list.

But there was no mention of a show that I think introduced Mr. Reilly to a lot of us from my generation - 'The Ghost And Mrs. Muir', in which he played Claymore Gregg. Nor was there a listing for 'Liddsville', in which he camped it up as Hoodoo the Magician.

I suppose the producers were only thinking to create touchstones to shows they felt the audience would remember and respond to. But that means so many others just as deserving of one last tip o' the hat for their contributions to the wonderful world of Toob were left in Limbo.

Hopefully this makes up for that in a very small way for some of them.....

BCnU.....
Toby OB

DESPERATELY LOST?

When Terry O'Quinn accepted his award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Sunday night at the Emmy Awards, he expressed a wistful longing for another TV series.....

"Sometimes when we're rolling around in the jungle in the mud, hitting each other and stabbing each other, I wonder what it would be like to bake up a sheet of cookies on Wisteria Lane and get one of their checks," he said, referring to 'Desperate Housewives'.

It got me wondering if his character of John Locke ever visited that street in a scene that we shall never see....

Among the many jobs that Locke held before he became paralyzed was that of a house inspector, hired to check out homes as a pre-condition for their sale. We know Locke lived in Tustin, California, when he was working for Hurley's box company, but that doesn't mean he always lived there. Even so, it could be that while he was a house inspector he traveled a bit to do his job, and eventually it brought him to nearby Fairview, California.

Perhaps he was the house inspector who checked out the home purchased by Paul and Mary Alice Young when they moved to Fairview. They moved there in order to raise their child without interference from the crack whore of a birth mother who practically abandoned the baby into Mary Alice's care. (Later, Mary Alice murdered the young woman when she tracked them down to reclaim her baby.)

It would be one of those trivial moments that wouldn't even merit a flashback on either show, but it's that kind of supposition upon which Toobworld thrives......

BCnU!
Toby OB

FINE TOONING

As is often the case with awards shows, Sunday night's presentation of the 59th annual Emmy Awards on FOX had a great opening and it pretty much went downhill from there.

From their TV show 'Family Guy', Brian and Stewie Griffin appeared to sing the praises of what they considered to be trash TV - you know, the usual drek like 'Desperate Housewives', 'Scrubs', 'Two And A Half Men', and 'The Sopranos'. (That last reference was the best of all the jokes, but it was clear that TR Knight didn't appreciate the Isiah Washington reference....)

Although I don't watch it on a regular basis, I enjoy 'Family Guy' so I was already prepped for their appearance. I just wish they had made a more blatant snipe against their home network in order to be "fair and balanced".

Like FOX will ever figure out how to truly do that!

Since this blog deals with the inner reality of Toobworld, we need to look at the musical number within that context. Cartoon characters have slipped through the dimensional veil that separates Toobworld from the Tooniverse many times in the past, so there's no Zonk inherent in the fact that Stewie and Brian were performing in front of real human beings.

Just on my own personal level of enjoyment, I'd rank their appearance as being in the top three cartoon crossovers into Earth Prime-Time. The top two would be:

Daffy Duck with Drew Carey on 'The Drew Carey Show'

Superman with Jerry Seinfeld in an American Express blipvert




If you didn't get the chance to see this musical number Sunday night, have no fear! It showed up on YouTube by the next morning, as all the great 'Family Guy' bits do.
BCnU!
Toby OB

DOCTORS, SAINTS AND ANGELS

Last Friday, the American TV audience finally got the chance to see "Blink", the episode of 'Doctor Who' which I thought was not only the best episode of the show so far, but the best episode of TV I've seen in all of 2007!

And I'm not alone in that assessment. Alan Sepinwall is the TV critic for the Star-Ledger of New Jersey and he blogs about the shows he really likes. Here's what he had to say about "Blink":

Believe the hype.

Usually, when the fanboys go into orgasmic rapture while promising that something is going to be the Best. Episode. Ever., they oversell it so far that it can't help but be a disappointment. Not so with "Blink." Admittedly, my track record with the franchise only goes back a couple of years, but this was the best "Doctor Who" episode I've seen, and just a superb hour of science fiction, the sort of show that could be included in an unrelated anthology series ("Twilight Zone '08" or something) to dazzle unsuspecting TARDIS newbies.

"Blink" featured the introduction of a new species of monster on 'Doctor Who', the Weeping Angels. Here's a short description cobbled together from the TARDIS wiki and from Wikipedia:

The Weeping Angels were winged humanoids with sharp teeth who evolved numerous unique survival mechanisms thoughout their time, including the ability to move creatures back through time with a touch, allowing them to consume the potential energy from the time the victims could have had alive had the Angels not transported the victims back in time. They also had a unique and nearly-perfect defence mechanism, quantum-locking, which caused them to turn into stone when being observed. When not being observed, they could move incredibly fast to catch their victims. However, this meant that they had to cover their eyes when in their stony form, otherwise if they saw each other they would be trapped forever.

The Weeping Angels evolved near the beginning of the universe, and were the kindest of killers and psychopaths since their method of killing was to let their victims "live to death", but also perhaps the loneliest beings in existence, as due to their defence mechanism they could not even look at each other.

Apparently, each of the Angels could only send its victim back to one particular place in Time. The one that touched Cathy Nightingale sent her back to Hull in 1920. The one that touched the Doctor, Martha, and Billy Shipton sent them all back to 1969.

Coincidentally, it was in January of 1969 in which we saw another Weeping Angel in Toobworld.......
Simon Templar flew to Cote d'Azure to take part in a private baccarat game hosted by King Boris, the deposed monarch of Slavonia. After the first round, which went badly for all concerned save for Boris (aka "The Ex-King Of Diamonds"), 'The Saint' stepped outside to confer with Texas oil tycoon Rod Huston about the situation.

After Huston stormed off, Simon turned to look at a nearby statue and when he saw its downcast look with its arm thrown over its eyes, he asked it, "Did you lose too?"

Here's a better picture of that statue. It seems O'Bvious to me that it's a Weeping Angel, just waiting for the chance to pounce on some unsuspecting victim there in the casino.

It was in this episode of 'The Saint' that we had our only encounters with King Boris, Rod Huston, and an expert on mathematical probabilities by the name of Henri Flambeau and his daughter Janine. O'Bviously the Real World splainin is that the author of this episode never scripted them into any other shows, let alone 'The Saint', but where's the sport in that?

I think the reason we never saw them again is because they were all touched by this new Weeping Angel and thrust back to some point in the past where they could "live to death". I suppose I could always check the TV credits for Stuart Damon (Rod), Ronald Radd (Flambeau), Isla Blair (Janine), and Willoughby Goddard (Boris) in order to find a common time period in which they all might have inhabited via various TV shows, but I'll leave that be.

Ah, who am I kidding???
The best bet would be that the Weeping Angel scattered them in the 19th Century where they assumed new identities to live out their lives and not cause any temporal disturbances. Isla Blair played a number of roles in 'The Liars', an anthology series set mostly in the 19th Century; Stuart Damon was Mr. Duncan in 'The Adventures of Black Beauty', Ronald Radd was Dr. Schlessinger in the 1965 version of 'Sherlock Holmes' ("The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax"), and Willoughby Goddard was Mr. Bumble in a 1962 production of 'Oliver Twist'.

But the Weeping Angel didn't have to transport them all back in Time; perhaps Henri Flambeau was spared. If so, I have an even better suggestion - Janine, Rod Huston, and ex-King Boris were shunted back to the early 13th Century, during the Crusades. Goddard portrayed a character named Arnold in 'Richard The Lion-Hearted', while Stuart Damon was Prince Charming in the classic TV musical of 'Cinderella'. (Obviously everybody during that event had been affected by the musical demon Sweet from 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer'!) Rod was the type of go-getter who would have landed on his feet and rebuilt his fortune, and what better alias to assume than the classic "Prince Charming"?

But best of all, Isla Blair played Isabella in "The King's Demons", a 'Doctor Who' story featuring the Fifth Doctor. It took place in March of 1215 during the signing of the Magna Carta and would make an even stronger link between 'Doctor Who' and 'The Saint'.

Whether or not any of that actually happened isn't really important. But I'm sticking to my guns that Simon Templar, aka 'The Saint', met a Weeping Angel in the same year to which the Doctor and Martha were transported by another Angel in 'Doctor Who'.

BCnU!
Toby OB

THE MUNCHKIN: TV WITHOUT BORDERS

As part of Detective John Munch's reign as the King of the Crossovers, he also holds another record - for the number of networks on which he's appeared. The majority of his appearances have been on NBC, thanks to his work on 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit', 'Homicide: Life On The Street', 'Law & Order: Trial By Jury', the original 'Law & Order', and in 'Homicide: The Movie'.

But he's also appeared on FOX with his role in an episode of 'The X-Files', as well as in the series finale for 'Arrested Development'. He was on UPN with a cameo appearance on 'The Beat', and he gave voice to the Muppet version of himself on PBS with 'Sesame Street'.

Coming up soon (allegedly): the Munchkin will be on HBO in an episode of 'The Wire', which takes place in his old stomping grounds of Baltimore. And there are reports that he'll be in an episode of the French version of 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent'!

He's yet to appear on ABC or CBS, but there's always hope. With CBS, the two best options would be in an episode of 'Without A Trace' or 'CSI: NY', because of location and the focus of those shows. As for ABC? I think a good choice might be the upcoming 'Dirty, Sexy, Money'. Sooner or later, Nick will have to deal with a detective like Munch on the Special Victims Unit - especially if anything happens to the tranny mistress of Patrick Darling IV.

(Throwing that suggestion out there in the hopes someone will take me up on it!)

Oddly enough, there's one show on which Munch has yet to appear in the 'L&O' franchise - that of 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent'. He's worked with Detective Mike Logan in the past in at least one crossover between 'Homicide: Life On The Street' and 'Law & Order'; and the personalities of Munch and Detective Goren might make for an interesting combination.

Here's hoping that he'll be appearing on 'Criminal Intent' this season, because the show has been moved over to the USA Network for its first-run episodes. And if Munch should show up there, then he'll have yet another network to add to his conquest.

And after that? Who knows? Maybe we can see Munch as a kid in an episode of AMC's 'Mad Men'. Or how about the same network, but in his current incarnation with an episode of 'Hu$tle'? Too bad 'The Dresden Files' was canceled; it would be great to see him on the Sci-Fi network as he goes to Chicago to pick up a prisoner, and then see some of his conspiracy theories validated by the work of Harry Dresden.

I suppose there's a version of Munch over in the Tooniverse. If so, maybe he'll show up on the Cartoon Network in an episode of 'The Venture Brothers' someday....

BCnU!
Toby OB

BOXER UPDATE

Speaking of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm', California Senator Barbara Boxer, whom I mentioned in a post just a few days ago, added yet another Toobworld appearance by showing up in the latest episode, "Anonymous Donor". Turns out she believes in that unwritten law that if the dry cleaner gives you somebody else's clothes, you get to keep them. And she was wearing the slacks to prove it!

So with her League of Themselves membership, we can now link 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' to 'Gilmore Girls', 'K Street', and 'Murphy Brown'.

BCnU!
Toby OB

CURBING SOME ZONKS

I got some "Iddiot" mail while at work last night....

Tonight's Curb your enthusiasm. While watching tonight's Curb. I noticed in the scene where Larry David was in the dry cleaner. The wall of celebrity photos, kind of obligatory in many NY and LA establishments, was filled with the likes of many HBO series actors, namely 6ft Under, Sopranos and the wire.

Wonder if Mr. Bianculli will pick up on this?

Fellow IDD'er Merrill

I urged Merrill to send it in since he spotted it first. And I may not have noticed it otherwise.

But it's a great in-joke that is not a threat as a Zonk to the TV Universe - unless somebody with HDTV and the ability to zoom in on those pictures is able to see autographs that mention those shows by name.

Otherwise, they were just pictures of actors as far as Toobworld is concerned. I've since seen the episode and I was able to pick out at least Rachel Griffiths, Peter Krause, Michael C. Hall, and Ian McShane - unless that was supposed to be one of those daguerreotype pictures of the actual Al Swearengen who lived in 'Deadwood' back in 1876.

But why would a dry cleaner's store have a picture of such a guy from over one hundred years ago? I'll go with it being Ian McShane but from some Toobworldian Western.....

BCnU!
Toby OB

IN THE NEWS & SWEARIN' BY EVERY WORD

I'm in the NY Daily News today and this time it's NOT for an in-joke!

But it's still about TV.....

BCnU!
Toby OB

JUST SOME JEEPSTERS

My brother Bill reminded me of the current Jeep blipvert called "Heritage". Here's how AdWeek describes it: Jeeps "Forrest Gump" their way through iconic moments in history.

If you haven't seen the commercial, you can check it out here.

Since each of the images broadcast becomes part of Toobworld, some of them may need splainins to justify their existence in the TV Universe.......

Army Base - No splainin necessary

Elvis Presley - In Toobworld, the Jeep just happened to pass by in the background as he performed.

Bikini Girls - Again, it was just passing through, but why it didn't stop is unknown.

Godzilla - There's no Zonk in seeing researchers using a Jeep on Monster Island, because Gojiro already had a tele-version in a 1973 Japanese series called "Ryusei Ningen Zon". He also exists in the Tooniverse, thanks to the 'Godzilla Power Hour'.

Moon Landing - The government already had a secret base on the Moon by the time of the "official" moon landing in 1969 ('Space: 1999'). The first moon landing was in 1962 ('Eureka'), and CONTROL used the Moon to hold top secret meetings ('Get Smart').

Woodstock - Who says there wasn't a Jeep at Woodstock? Who could remember? Maybe it was driven by Frank Reynolds ('It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia') before he got locked in a camper's toilet while high on acid.

Roadrunner & Coyote - People in the Tooniverse need motor vehicles as well.....

Jane Goodall (?) - No reason why a Jeep wouldn't be used during her work with the great apes, even in Toobworld.

Devo - The band must have played "Whip It" in other outdoor venues than just the one we always see in the video. It would be at one of those concerts when the Jeep passed by.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall - This would be an historical deviation from the events which transpired in the Real World. (But for all I know, this footage could be real as well.)

'Tele-Tubbies' - I've always believed that the Tele-Tubbies are from some other world - even in the main Toobworld we don't have a baby living in the Sun. (I wonder if his name is Sol?) So, based on the size of the Jeep in comparison to Laa-Laa and Po, I'd say they either come from 'The Land Of The Giants' or some similar dimension. (But whenever they cross over to our world, they revert to "normal" size.)

Xtreme Skateboarder - We don't get to see this clip to its natural conclusion, when the Jeep would fail to clear the ledge. It probably crashed to the bottom of the half-pipe and hilarity would ensue... unless 'John From Cincinnatti' intervened. (Not that we're seeing Shaunie Yost in action.....)

'Lost' - This is the one of most concern for televisiology, but pretty easy to splain away. John Locke doesn't notice the Jeep passing by him in the background on the island, because it's not really there. What we're probably seeing is "Dave", Hurley's imaginary "friend". It's just a scene from Hurley's P.O.V. that we never got to see here in the Real World until now.

But there was a Real World tie-in to DaimlerChrysler, makers of Jeep, to be found online - if you got involved in the "Lost Experience". The Hanso Organization was allegedly using Jeeps to transport their illegally harvested organs. You can learn more at Lostpedia.

Jeep's "Heritage" blipvert runs just over a minute, but it still held enough information... information... information which needed to be fitted properly into the Toobworld jigsaw puzzle.

Trivial? You bet! That's what we're all about!

BCnU!
Toby OB

DON'T LOOK BACK & DON'T SIT TOO CLOSE

You know what the "Inner Toob" blog needs?

A celebrity endorsement.

I wanted Bob Keeshan, but I'm a little late in signing him up.....

So I got some guy named Bob Dylan instead.

Check out my new celebrity spokesman here!

(I just had to plug his stuff as well........)

The medium is the message.....

BCnU!
Toby OB