Saturday, March 1, 2008

TODAY'S TWD: NERO WOLFE

At one point during his investigation into "Who Killed Cassandra Cass?", Captain Amos Burke of 'Burke's Law' said, "In the immortal words of Nero Wolfe, 'Phooey!'"

Burke was quoting the actual private investigator, not a character from a book. Nero Wolfe lived in New York City back in the 30s and 40s and rarely left his brownstone. All of his legwork was done by gumshoe Archie Goodwin.

Wolfe had an illegitimate son, whose mother also named him Nero Wolfe. He grew up to be a private eye with a fondness for orchids as well, and in one of those amazing coincidences found in the TV Universe, the junior Wolfe's leg man was also named Archie Goodwin. There was no relation to the original however. Nero Wolfe the younger hired the investigator because it amused him that Goodwin shared the name of his father's associate.

Captain Amos Burke may have known this Nero Wolfe personally.

A third Nero Wolfe showed up in 1977, but as he only exists in the pilot movie (star Thayer David died before the series could begin), he has been relegated to the TV dimension for the movies of the week.

SHOWS CITED:
'Burke's Law'
'A Nero Wolfe Mystery'
'Nero Wolfe'
"Nero Wolfe"

BCnU!
Toby OB

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just so you know...the correct spelling is PFUI!Pronounced exactly as spelled (closed-captioning to the contrary).

Toby O'B said...

LOL! Thanks, Anon. I was going for the Beverly Hills dialect.....