THE LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES IN FIVE PART DIS-HARMONY

Famous people appear as themselves in TV shows all the time; there's nothing new there - it's been done since before 'I Love Lucy', I imagine.

But every so often, someone from this League of Themselves (as I call it) will be portrayed as nothing like they are in real life.

A few examples:

Emma Thompson is not British in Toobworld. She's an American masquerading as being from the UK. She's actually from Akron, Ohio. ('Ellen')

Jean Claude Van Damme fell fifty stories to his death from the Montecito in 'Las Vegas'.

Lloyd Bridges was revealed to be a cross-dressing neo-Nazi kleptomaniac. ('Ned & Stacey')

Dennis Rodman is an alien from another planet. ('3rd Rock From The Sun')

(I have come up for a splainin for the death of Van Damme, and hopefully I'll post it some day soon.)

Monday night, five new members of the League of Themselves showed up in Toobworld and proved that their tele-versions should NOT be confused with their real -life counterparts.

The boy band Varsity Fanclub showed up as themselves in 'The Middleman' episode "The Boyband Superfan Interrogation". But they weren't exactly who they said they were.....

It turns out they were really five dictators from another galaxy who were finally overthrown and banished to Earth. But instead of their exile being a punishment, doing "Hard Time On Planet Earth", this quintet of evil turned it to their advantage. Taking on the appearance of a boy band, they were using their fame and fortune toward their ultimate goal of returning home to wreak havoc.

And if they weren't stopped, the High Aldwin of the Clotharian Rebel Fleet would easily have destroyed the Earth to stop them.

So it was up to the Middleman and "Dubbie" to bring an end to the plans of Varsity Fanclub. And in so doing, it looks as though the Middleman destroyed all five dictators.

I'd never heard of Varsity Fanclub before this episode. Until a promotional spot aired just before the show ended, I thought they were specifically created for this episode as a spoof on n'Sync. But if they are real, then they only exist in the Trueniverse now, and not in Toobworld. And that would mean we'd have the same kind of Zonk headache brought up by the death of Van Damme in 'Las Vegas' should they ever appear on another show.

Unless.......

Those five alien despots stole the identities of the Varsity Fanclub members and were performing in their place. As for the real Varsity Fanclub, maybe they were being held captive by the aliens and so they wouldn't have been found until after the crisis ended (and after the episode ended).

Works for me!

BCnU!
Toby O'B