TALE OF THE MUMY

'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' introduced us to several Toobworld children who all looked alike, because they were played by Billy Mumy. (Sorry, it just doesn't sound right to say "Bill Mumy" when talking about him at that age!)

But Mumy's most famous role on that series was Jackie Chester in "Bang, You're Dead" in which he wandered around town with a loaded gun, thinking it was a toy.

Mumy also played a young boy fixated on guns in several commercials for Mattel, in which he had Dick Tracy-styled handguns and rifles. The rifle could shoot water as well as caps.

It would have been nice to claim that both boys were Jackie Chester, but there are several discrepancies which can't be overcome. Mainly, he's called Tommy by the kid who lives next door in one of the blipverts. And in the other, the father is not played by Biff Elliott, who played Fred Chester in "Bang, You're Dead".

But of course, Toobworld Central has a splainin!

Fred Chester was a ramblin' man!

It's our contention that the Mattel advertisement and "Bang, You're Dead" both take place in the same town. Or perhaps even the next town over from each other. Fred Chester was carrying on an affair with another man's wife and got her pregnant. She gave birth to Tommy, while Fred's own wife bore him a son, whom they nicknamed Jackie.

(While we're at it, there's nothing in the episode of "Bang, You're Dead" to refute the suggestion that the town Jackie lived in was Mayfield, the town best known as the setting for 'Leave It To Beaver'.)

This doesn't take into account the other youngsters of the era, like Anthony Fremont and Billy Bayles of 'The Twilight Zone', Googie Miller of 'The Munsters' and Custer on 'I Dream Of Jeannie', but it could be that Fred Chester was a traveling salesman who just couldn't keep it in his pants.

(Characters like Will Robinson of 'Lost In Space', Pip from 'The Twilight Zone', and of course all of his characters from TV Westerns were born outside the time period in which Fred Chester was sowing his oats and fathering these look-alike boys of the same age.)

Just sayin', is all. But that's because I'm a bad man. I'm a very bad man.....

BCnU!
Toby OB