MIDDLE EARTH PRIME-TIME?

Here's another non-Super Bowl blipvert, but one that could be tied into recent news. It appears that the JRR Tolkien estate is suing New Line Cinema for their practice of "accounting chicanery".

Accounting Chicanery - Wasn't that the name of some Celtic Rock band?

So with all this clouding the picture regarding progress on movies based on "The Hobbit", I thought it a good time to point out that the world of Middle Earth may exist in Earth Prime-Time - and some of its inhabitants are still around today!
We already know the fantasy world created by Tolkien already exists in the TV Universe. Over in the alternate dimension of the Tooniverse, there have been animated adaptations of "The Hobbit" and "The Return Of The King". (Combined with the Ralph Bakshi film version of "The Fellowship Of The Ring" and half of "The Two Towers", it makes for a nearly complete version of the story about Bilbo and Frodo and friends.)

And characters from the story have shown up in "Skitlandia", that alternate TV dimension which houses comedy sketches from variety programs, late night talk shows, etc. For instance, when Elijah Wood hosted 'Saturday Night Live', Gollum joined him during the monologue to promote their new sitcom, 'A Hard Hobbit To Break', complete with 80s-styled theme song.)
As for the main Toobworld, however, "The Lord Of The Rings" hasn't yet been absorbed.

But mayhaps we can make the claim it has, thanks to a new commercial for the Bank of Ireland.......

Meet Matt Kelly.

He's a dragon.

Matt could be descended from Smaug, the dragon from "The Hobbit", but he's certainly no monster like his grandsire was. Sure, he's sitting atop a hoard of gold, breathing fire and battling knights, but he's quite civilized about it. When the knight approaches to do battle, they settle their quarrel with a game of "rock paper scissors".

During this commercial, we're not seeing Matt Kelly back during the Third Age or the Fourth Age - unless that's still in effect, being the Age of Men. It's O'Bvious that Matt is a modern-day dragon (with a knack for serlinguism) because the knight arrived at his stronghold via motorcycle.
Heh heh. He's a Knight Rider!

So it is quite tentatively that we're suggesting this blipvert could be a sign that the world of Middle Earth did indeed once exist in the universe of Toobworld. And if so, some of its denizens might still be around, just waiting to appear on some sci-fi/fantasy program.

Or on C-Span if we include Dennis Kucinich.....

You can see the Bank of Ireland ad here.

BCnU!
Toby OB

"Bilbo just popped in with a bunch of Hobbits for a fish supper."
Tyler
'My Hero'

SKED ALERT! THE LAURIE BERKNER BAND ON "THE VIEW"

Adam Bernstein is one of the Iddiot Brethren. That is, he's a member of the Idiot's Delight Digest group, which is nominally centered around legendary free-form deejay Vin Scelsa and his radio show "Idiot's Delight" (heard on WFUV.org and Sirius satellite radio). But the IDD also celebrates all things tangential.

Adam is a musician who's been a member of the David Driver Quartet (upright bass) and is currently performing with the Laurie Berkner Band.

(The picture above is of the Driver Quartet with Vin sitting at the keyboard, back in 1999.)

Adam sent out this notice of an upcoming Toobworld appearance for the band:

"The Laurie Berkner Band with Adam Bernstein and Susie Lampert will be appearing on The View, next Mon Feb 18th at 11AM. [EST]

Check it out. ABC, channel 7. Mainstream, baby!"

Set your DVRs and TiVos accordingly......

BCnU!
Toby OB

Click to join iddiots

BORG AND PONY SHOW

Okay, I still have a few Super Bowl blipverts to address, but just as it is with the Island on 'Lost', Time moves at a different pace in Toobworld than it does in the Real World.

In the meantime, here's a commercial from Sweden for the ATG Vinnare V75, which I guess is a televised horse race. (The caption at the end translates to: “Winners 75 - live horsepowers on TV4 Saturdays at 6.05 PM”.)

But as we usually ignore the captions in Toobworld, the concept of this commercial greatly suggests 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles'. We've already seen in the series that a Terminator can rebuild itself from its dismantled parts left behind in a junkyard. So the same principle must be applied here, only with a cyborg horse, of course, of course.

Hey, maybe Skynet needed to send back a "T-Biscuit" to deal with the talking horses of the Houyhnhm race, found in the mini-series adaptation of 'Gulliver's Travels'. (And in case you didn't know, 'Mr. Ed' was also a Houyhnhm.)

Whenever this one was sent back, it was after the most recent Terminator arrival, Cromartie (now known as "George Laszlo"). It's had an upgrade in that it can replenish its own synthetic skin tissue, so that it can pass for an ordinary horse.

Will we ever see this "Flicka-bot" show up on the 'Terminator' series?

I've got a sneaking suspicion that the answer is "Neigh"......

Sorry about that, Chief.

BCnU!
Toby OB

TIDDLYWINKYDINKS: EDIFICE SPECS

Amy Amatangelo, who writes the TVGal blog at Zap2It.com, was asked by a reader:

I noticed that the set for WPK Law Firm in 'Eli Stone' looks a lot [like] the set used for Wolfram and Hart on 'Angel'. Are they the same?

Greg

Her response:

I actually had quite a few people asking me this question so I looked into it and found out that the set on Eli Stone was built for the show. So, although they look similar, they are officially not the same set.

Within the reality of Toobworld, this holds true. After all, Wolfram & Hart was in Los Angeles, while WPK is in San Francisco. So we could never make the claim that they're the same building.

However, it could be that the same architect who designed the Wolfram and Hart building in Los Angeles also designed the office building used by WPK Law Firm. Or it could be someone from the same architecture firm if there is a huge time gap between the erection of both buildings. (The design of the WPK Law Firm building could have been an homage to the earlier structure.)

BCnU!

Toby OB

Heh heh. He said "erection".....

TIDDLYWINKYDINKS: "LOST" BOOK CLUB

In "The Economist", the latest episode of 'Lost', Sayid was checking out the bedroom of Ben Linus in the barracks village of the Others. On the bookshelf there was a copy of the Holy Qu'ran, and a volume called "Kings of Love".

If I'm not mistaken, the full title would be:

"Kings Of Love
The History and Poetry of the Ni'imatullahi Sufi Order of Iran"
by
Nasrollah Pourjavdy and Peter Lamborn Wilson

(Okay, I googled "Kings of Love".)

The Island being as crazy as it is, would there have been different books on that shelf if someone else have searched the room?

BCnU!
Toby

FAMILY TREES ON THE HIGH SEAS

We've seen in 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' that sea-faring men were already in the family tree of Admiral Harriman Nelson. One of his ancestors was Captain Seamus O'Hara Nelson (also played by Richard Basehart in the episode "The Haunted Submarine").

And here at "Inner Toob", I've posited the theory that Aron Sligo, another former sea captain (seen in his eponymous episode of 'Gunsmoke'), was another of his forebears.

I'm now making the claim there is yet another sailor in the Nelson family tree, who served in His Majesty's fleet back in the 1720s.

Stationed in the Bahamas, Lt. Edward Beamish wasn't exactly in the same mold as Admiral Nelson or Captains Sligo and O'Hara Nelson. Without much experience, Beamish was put in charge of the garrison at New Providence after Governor Woodes Rogers was summoned back to England. Headstrong, impetuous, but woefully outclassed by such foes as Blackbeard, Beamish struck up an alliance with Captain Dan Tempest who helmed the Sultana and who was a reformed pirate pardoned by Rogers.

Lt. Beamish was played by Peter Hammond, not Richard Basehart, but I think there is still a strong case to be made that the powerful genetics of the Nelson lineage can be found in him.
But when it comes to his soul, he's more of a Major Frank Burns from 'M*A*S*H' or a Brother Jerome of 'Cadfael'. So it's not likely he could have reincarnated to be Harriman Nelson, not without a lot of other incarnations along the way to improve his karma.

I'll just stick with the claim that Edward Beamish was a member of the Nelson family tree, thanks.

BCnU!
Toby OB

TIDDLYWINKYDINKS: MICHAEL FARADAY

Michael Faraday, who was the father of electric motor technology, has been cited several times in Toobworld over the last few months, most recently in a blipvert for the Dyson vacuum cleaner. (James Dyson mentions Faraday's creation of his motor in 1831.)

Here's the handy-dandy biography for Faraday from Wikipedia:

Michael Faraday, FRS (September 22, 1791 – August 25, 1867) was an English chemist and physicist (or natural philosopher, in the terminology of that time) who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry.

Faraday studied the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a DC electric current, and established the basis for the magnetic field concept in physics. He discovered electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. He established that magnetism could affect rays of light and that there was an underlying relationship between the two phenomena. His inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor technology, and it was largely due to his efforts that electricity became viable for use in technology.

In the 'Nova' section of PBS.org, there are pages dedicated to a special episode about "Einstein's Big Idea", that being the equation "E=MC2".

Here's some of what they had to say about Faraday:

Faraday went on to make other important discoveries, including the principle behind the electric transformer and generator, innovations that fueled the Industrial Revolution.

In his day, Faraday was celebrated as a great experimenter, but many elite scientists spurned Faraday's more theoretical notions, particularly his vision that the area around an electromagnetic event is filled with a mysterious "field," and his idea that light itself might be an electromagnetic phenomenon.

You can find more about him at his page for "Einstein's Big Idea".

Faraday was portrayed in that episode by Steven Robertson, and it looks like he'll be the official televersion of Faraday in Toobworld. In that same year of 2005, Robertson played the physicist again in "E=MC2" on Britain's Channel 4.

Faraday could be an honorary inductee into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame, as he was also portrayed in a 2004 mini-series ("100 Greatest Discoveries") by James Thompson. And his life in Toobworld can be augmented by two TV series in which his contributions are off-screen, and both of those series are related to each other.

In the episode of 'Doctor Who' entitled "The Mark Of The Rani" the Sixth Doctor and Peri were in Killingworth, England at the height of a Luddite rebellion in the year 1822. (The date was established by author Lance Parkin in his "AHistory".) The Doctor's arch-nemesis, the Master, was plotting to abduct several of the leaders of the Industrial Revolution, including George Stephenson and Faraday. We get to meet Stephenson, but Faraday never does arrive on the scene while the Doctor is in Killingworth.
Nearly ten years later, in that same year mentioned in the commercial for the Dyson vacuum, 1831, Faraday demonstrated the principle of electromagnetic induction. He never realized it would have a practical application in the future, producing electric transformers. But Clan Slitheen of Raxicoricofallapatorius did - in "Revenge Of The Slitheen", one of 'The Sarah Jane Adventures', the aliens tried to destroy the Earth using technology based on his principles.

There's another reason why Michael Faraday has come under notice due to Television, not that he's been explicitly mentioned. A new character on 'Lost', Daniel Faraday, is meant to invoke comparison to Faraday as Daniel is also a physicist. (Although as he told Sayid, ''I guess you could call me a physicist.... I don't like to be pigeon-holed.'') As Doc Jensen of EW.com noted, when Daniel observed how the sunlight on the Island "doesn't scatter quite right", it was the kind of anomalous phenomenon that Michael Faraday might have noticed.

So there's the background necessary for the televersion of this historical figure.

BCnU!
Toby OB

IN DA CLUB FOOTNOTE

Here's a better shot of The Honorary Title performing at the club Tric on this week's episode of 'One Tree Hill'.

In order to add more Toobworld appearances to their League of Themselves resume, here are a few suggestions where The Honorary Title should play next while promoting their album:

The Rack - 'Kyle XY'

Mode Magazine promotional party - 'Ugly Betty'

The Montecito Casino - 'Las Vegas'

Club Duque - 'Cane'

Any other suggestions?

BCnU!
Toby OB

I, CLAUDIA (AND CARLY TOO)

Last week, Caroline "Carly" Benson Corinthos Alcazar Jacks came face to face with female mobster Claudia Zacchara on "General Hospital," and it was an inside joke for longtime fans.
Sarah Brown, playing Claudia, actually created the role of Carly in 1996. She played her until 2001, winning three Daytime Emmys before leaving the show.

Laura Wright took over the role in 2005 to become Carly No. 4) and has played her ever since.

Now comes Splainin Time!

Port Charles, New York, is one of those towns in Toobworld which serve as experimental sites by researchers from the Future. They use 'Quantum Leap' technology to take the place of residents in these towns without anyone around them being the wiser. Sometimes the original residents are returned; sometimes they are replaced several times over by other researchers.

Carly Benson was one of those abducted and taken into the Future. Several times over she was replaced by Time Travelers who used specially designed auras so that they continued to look like her.

As for Claudia looking like the original Carly, I could have gone the safe and practical "identical twin separated at birth" route. It would have been accepted in the soap opera milieu. But that would create continuity problems with their birth mother's history. There was also the tradition of "identical cousins" begun with 'The Patty Duke Show'. But again, eventually that would have to be addressed within the show.

This isn't the town of Harmony, as seen in 'Passions'; it's Port Charles. So magical transformations should not be considered. And I don't think the concept of cloning was really that believable on 'Guiding Light', so I don't think it should be attempted here.

But this splainin should do the trick - plastic surgery. We never met Claudia Zacchara before she arrived in Port Charles, so it's possible she did not always look the way that she does now. It was done far enough in the past that it's no longer even mentioned by members of her own family, like mob boss dad Anthony Zacchara.

Coincidence plays a major part in Toobworld, and it could be a coincidence that she chose a look that was well-known in her new hometown. But I don't think that's the case. I think she deliberately chose it in order to better insure her "chance encounter" with Sonny Corinthos.

When they "accidentally" met in the bar and spent the night together without even knowing each other's name, she didn't need the information. She already knew; she arranged the meeting. And she chose her new look in order to maximize his attraction to her. There must be enough differences in her look so that she doesn't look exactly like Carly, but we just can't notice them from our vantage point in the Trueniverse.

However, she still looked enough like Carly so that subconsciously, Sonny was drawn to her. Later, at the mob meeting she organized where they met "officially", she acted surprised to find out that the guy she slept with was from a rival mob family.

This splainin about her plastic surgery being just slightly different from the look of the original Carly would then be the reason why the new Carly didn't realize that it was like looking in a mirror when she finally met Claudia.

Whew! That was more complicated than I thought! But I'm sticking with it......

BCnU!

Toby OB

RECASTAWAY OF ST. MARY'S MEAD

And so a new Miss Jane Marple has been chosen to continue in the role recently vacated by Geraldine McEwan. (However, she will find her village of St. Mary's Mead to be located in yet another alternate Toobworld.)

Julia McKenzie has been selected to play Agatha Christie's spinster sleuth. I'm not familiar with her work, having never seen 'Fresh Fields' in which she starred with the late Anton Rodgers, nor any of her other works.

I have seen some reservations about her choice to be Miss Marple. Mark Wright of The Stage wrote in the TV Today blog: "Certainly it isn’t obvious casting, and that’s all to the good. It doesn’t feel quite right, but then Geraldine McEwan always felt too right, if that makes any sense."

Not really, but like him, I'll reserve judgement until I've seen how she plays out. Not that it really matters in the long run for Toobworld.....

BCnU!
Toby OB

TIDDLYWINKYDINKS: PERELANDRA LOST

When Ben stated Charlotte's full name as "Charlotte Staples Lewis" on last week's episode of 'Lost', just about every blogger out there picked up on the allusion to sci-fi/fantasy author CS Lewis, a fellow Inkling and friend of Tolkien's. Many wondered if there was some connection to the "Narnia" books, and Doc Jensen of Entertainment Weekly thought there was a specific connection to "Prince Caspian" (soon to be a major motion picture).

However, I think the connection lies in the second book of the "Space Trilogy", "Perelandra". (The other two are "Out Of The Silent Planet" and "That Hideous Strength".)

Here are some selections of the 'Perelandra' synopsis from Wikipedia that sums up what I'm referring to:

1] Ransom arrives in Venus and finds it to be an oceanic paradise. One day is about 23 Earth hours, in contrast to Earth and Mars with their (roughly) 24 and 25 hour days, respectively. The sky is golden and very bright but opaque - the sun cannot be seen, hence the night is pitch black with no stars visible.

Ransom will be the stand-in for several 'Lost' characters. Here, it is Ben Linus and Daniel Faraday. For Ben, the Island is a paradise which is why he teams up with the Others. (Perelandra's native inhabitants are about as "other" as you can get.) Upon arrival on the Island, Faraday notices that the light doesn't scatter the way that it should. The Island is unseen by the outside world and apparently Time does not pass at the same rate as it does in the outside world.

Also, I just like their use of the word "oceanic".

2] Strange, mythical creatures roam the planetary sweet-water ocean, which is dotted with floating rafts of vegetation. These rafts look like small islands, and actually have plant life growing on them and animals living on them; however, due to the ocean underneath, they are in a constant state of motion like in an earthquake.

Smoke monster, anyone? And there has always been debate as to where the Island actually is. Still on Earth at all? If so, is it really 1600 miles off course but still in the Pacific, or up in the Arctic, or down near Antarctica?

3] The desperate Ransom hears in the night what he gradually realises is a Divine voice, commanding him to physically destroy the Tempter.

This could be John Locke and even Ben Linus again. Jacob could be the Divine voice. Or the manifestation of Giant Walt urging Locke to kill Naomi to keep the Freighter folk from arriving.

4] Returning to the planet's surface, Ransom recuperates from his injuries, all of which heal fully except for a bite on his heel which he sustained at some point in the battle, which continues bleeding for the rest of his life.

Most of the survivors have shown miraculous healing powers, right from the disappearance of Jack's back wound and Locke's ability to walk again. The one never-healing wound reminds me of the Fisher King in the Arthurian legend. As to its significance in 'Lost', that wound may be spiritual and in all of them. It could be specific again to Locke and his missing kidney and the bullet holes he now carries.

5] His mission accomplished, he returns, rather reluctantly, to Earth to continue the fight against the forces of evil on their own territory.

This could refer to Jack and the other members of the "Oceanic Six", who eventually realize their error in returning to civilization and try to get back. (At least Jack and Hurley so far.) Hurley has to face that force of evil in the person of Matthew Abaddon, whose name is that of a powerful demon (seen in the first season finale of 'Torchwood').

It's all speculation of course, and there's no way I even really want to know where Lindelof and Cuse are going with the show. (It's a common mantra among fans of the show: "I'm going along for the ride.")

Even if it turns out to be a ride that's also inspired by "A Voyage To Arcturus", as "Perelandra" was......

BCnU!

Toby OB

PS:
If only Perpigullian Brown's first name was Perelandra instead! But that's a whole different fixation of mine.....

THE HAT SQUAD: KIRK BROWNING

Kirk Browning has passed away at the age of 86. Over the years he directed productions for 'Live From Lincoln Center', and was working on a production of "Madama Butterfly" when he died. In the past he also directed the premiere of "Amahl And The Night Visitors", productions for 'Hallmark Hall Of Fame', 'Great Performances', 'Live From The Met', and the first television program to have Frank Sinatra as its host.

Producer John Groberman said, "Kirk contained the entire history of cultural television in our country." He won two Emmys, one for "Turandot" and the other for "Goya with Placido Domingo", and he also directed the television productions of many Broadway shows including "Death Of A Salesman", "Our Town", "House Of Blue Leaves", "You Can't Take It With You", and "Fifth Of July".

What I found interesting in his obituary from the New York Times (by Dennis Hevesi) was this revelation about how his career began:

"Mr. Browning owned a chicken farm in Ridgefield, Conn., in 1947 when he happened into television. He befriended a customer on his egg route, Samuel Chotzinoff, the director of NBC's music division. Mr. Chotzinoff got him a job filing scores in NBC's music library. Later, after working as a stage manager, Mr. Browning was chosen to direct telecasts of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, led by Arturo Toscanini."

That would never happen today! Too much dependence on school training, unions, networking.....

I may pop my copy of "June Moon", which he directed in 1974, or the DVD of the original "Amahl And The Night Visitors" into the computer over the weekend in tribute to Mr. Browning....

BCnU.....

Toby OB

DEEP SIX: ALL LIT UP

I thought I might try my hand at lists, like a Top Ten for Toobworld. But just to be different, and since I'm such a fan of 'The Prisoner', I'm opting to go with a Deep Six list.......

With the WGA strike winding down, I thought I'd bring attention to those characters who began life in another universe, that of the written word.

These are my choices for those characters who were served well by the translation to Television, and in one case even transcended the original source material.

I limited my list to six choices because A) I didn't want to mimic Dave's Top Ten List and B) there would be no stopping once I got started.

I gave serious thought to a lot of books which were adapted for Television. (And during the Seventies there were plenty!) Authors like Stephen King, Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Robert Ludlum, Mark Twain, Taylor Caldwell, Jules Verne, Jonathan Swift, Tom Tryon, and Danielle Steele all enjoyed excellent adaptations of their works. (There were some who were not so fortunate - Philip Jose Farmer and Ursula K. LeGuin among them.)

And the characters I had to leave behind! Horace Rumpole, Father Brown, Jeeves and Wooster, Ebenezer Scrooge, Brother Cadfael, Miss Marple, Phileas Fogg, Potato Brumbaugh, and the Walking Dude....

But these are the six whom I think exemplified the category of crossover characters.....

SHERLOCK HOLMES
Probably the most recognizable fictional character in the world, mostly due to the illustrations by Sidney Paget that appeared with the Conan Doyle stories in the Strand. Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson may have the most televersions of any fictional character as well, especially with the retellings of "The Hound Of The Baskervilles". But it's Jeremy Brett as the Great Detective who best exemplifies the role.

EMPEROR CLAUDIUS
Bit of a cheat here - Claudius is the only character on this list who is also historically real. But as seen through the vision of Robert Graves, Claudius breathed once again in the novel "I, Claudius". Sir Derek Jacobi completed the process in bringing the stuttering Roman emperor out of the lifeless, dusty Past.

HERCULE POIROT
I've got a serious addiction to these adaptations starring David Suchet, and I don't know what I'll do once I run out of the episodes already out on DVD! The brilliant Belgie with his little gray cells has been played in the past on TV (as well as in the movies), but this version gets the blessing of Toobworld Central to represent Earth Prime-Time.

CARRIE BRADSHAW
I will freely admit I wasn't a big fan of this show, but if it hadn't been for the HBO series, the novel by Candace Bushnell might be in the remainder pile by now. And here it is, so many years later and now a theatrical film with the same actors from the show is about to hit the Cineplex! And a lot of that has to be credited to Sarah Jessica Parker in the role of Carrie.

AUGUSTUS "GUS" McCRAE AND WOODROW F. CALL
I had a fear that too many adaptations of other Larry McMurtry books about these two old cowboys might dilute the power of the originals in "Lonesome Dove". But after the latest mini-series, based on "Comanche Moon", I don't think that's possible. It keeps coming back to the legends played by Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones whom we met near the end of the trail.....

BENJAMIN "HAWKEYE" PIERCE
Personally, I prefer Donald Sutherland in the movie version, but Alan Alda did a great job of taking over the role and expanding it. He became a voice of insane reason from the fifties as seen throughout the seventies and into the eighties.

Well, that's my first Deep Six list. It's a category that will crop up whenever the mood strikes.

Let me know who you'd nominate for the best of literary characters on TV.

BCnU!
Toby OB

TIDDLYWINKYDINKS - CONTINGENCY PLANS

The strike may be over today, once the writers vote on the proposal in New York and Los Angeles, and they may even get back to work as early as tomorrow. However, it will still be a month before new episodes of your favorite shows will be trotted out. And even then, some shows are already consigned to having their seasons cut short with an eye towards re-launching in the fall. (Among these are some of my favorites - like 'Chuck' and 'Pushing Daisies'.)

So that's why I'm continuing with my strike contingency viewing - old series on DVD which I'm finding in the Netflix stock, borrowed from friends, or tucked away in the library here at Toobworld Central.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you probably already know what series I've been watching already. Among them are:

'Odyssey 5'
'Poirot'
select episodes from 'Combat!'
'The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard' (again)

Right now I'm watching The Buccaneers' with Robert Shaw, from back in 1956.

But I've glot plenty of other series waiting for me in my Netflix queue to get me through the scripted drought:

'Rosemary and Thyme'
'Damages' (I'll give it another go)
'Rome'
'The Wire'
more of 'Poirot'
'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea'
and
'Foyle's War'

The old shows will probably be back before I get through that lot, but I'm saving these for during my break at work. (And I'm not giving away anymore than that here in print!)

BCnU!
Toby OB

THE HONORARY TITLE ON "ONE TREE HILL"

Tonight on 'One Tree Hill', another band gets its moment in the Toobworld spotlight when The Honorary Title (from Brooklyn) performs at the bar club Tric.

This folk/pop/punk band debuted on Warner Music last summer with "Scream And Light Up The Sky" and music from that album will figure in tonight's episode. While The Honorary Title is playing up on the Tric stage, the travails of the show's main characters will play out throughout the club. For instance, Carrie will use the night out as a way to get closer to Nathan; Mouth gets forced by Brooke to go on a blind date; and Lindsey gets all up in Lucas' face about sneaking off to see Peyton.

Apt name - it's a regular 'Peyton Place' in 'One Tree Hill'!

After tonight, The Honorary Title will have televersions of themselves. Maybe not as cool as having your own action figures, but it's the best we can supply at Toobworld Central. (Pictured here is a fan-snap of the band as they performed before the crowd at Tric.)

'One Tree Hill' airs on the CW at 9 pm EST, 8 pm Central.

BCnU!
Toby OB

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TINA LOUISE

HOMINA THRICE!

We'll be celebrating the life of Ginger Grant in Toobworld here in June.....

BCnU!
Toby OB

WARREN PIECE

In "Who Killed The Surf Broad?" (an episode of 'Burke's Law'), one of the suspects was novelist Franklin Warren. Although he was in Los Angeles at the time of Tina Romaine's murder, he was only living there while he completed a book he was writing about the Borgias. When he wasn't working on a novel, he lived in Santa Barbara with his wife and son.

They showed a picture of his family at one point during the episode, and his son looks to be about 12 to 15 years of age. (The episode took place in the early 60s.) I ran a search of characters from episodes of 'Psych', 'The Bad News Bears', 'Owen Marshall, Counsellor At Law' and of course, 'Santa Barbara', but could find no characters from those series set in Santa Barbara by the last name of Warren.

However, I did find a major character on the soap opera 'Santa Barbara' by the name of Warren Lockridge, who was born in 1962. I see no reason why we can't make the claim that his parents Lionel and Augusta Lockridge named him after their good friend and neighbor, Franklin Warren. (As it turned out, Warren Lockridge's biological father was CC Capwell, but that's par for the course in most soap operas.)

And if the novelist had any influence in the boy's development, it may be reflected in the fact that young Lockridge grew up to be a journalist at the Santa Barbara Sentinel and then at the Santa Barbara Conscience before becoming a professor of journalism at the local college.

As usual, it can't be proven, nor disproved.....

BCnU!
Toby OB

PS:
As for the recastaway issue so common in soap operas, since Warren Lockridge was first played by John Allen Nelson, he is the official face of the character. His first recastaway looked like an actor named Scott Jenkins, whom I believe to have been one of those quantum leapers from the future. They often plague soap opera communities by replacing the residents so that they can do first-hand research into the life of the era (or just to get laid from all the available soap opera quim).
But with the second recastaway, who resembled actor Jack Wagner, I think the original Warren Lockridge was returned, but now with his features altered due to plastic surgery. The reason for this never came up and happened off-screen, which is where the other characters dealt with it and became accustomed to the fact that his features had changed.

Trying to keep it as simple as possible......

TOB3

TIDDLYWINKYDINKS: ROS AND FALL

When 'The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard' ended its run in both the UK and in the USA, there was a cliffhanger in which we saw Ian Pritchard enter his wife's office as the scene faded to black. We were left to wonder if Prime Minister Ros Pritchard would divorce Ian in order to hold onto her position, convince him to turn himself in for laundering mob money fifteen years before, or resign as Prime Minister to keep the secret.A second series/season was hoped for, but the ratings were supposedly abysmal in the UK and those plans were dashed. And so we were left to wonder whatever happened in that alternate dimension of Toobworld.

However, when the series was broadcast in Canada on the Knowledge Network, title cards were added after the fade-out which brought the viewers up to date as to what happened to Ros and her family.

Announcing that she felt as if she had served a purpose in her year and a half as Prime Minister, Ros Pritchard resigned the post and moved back with her family to Eatanswill. (What a great, disgusting name! Sorry, you lot who live there.)

Catherine Walker, who had defected from the Conservative Party to work with Ros as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, took over the leadership of the Purple Alliance and became Prime Minister in her own right. (We also learned that she never married.)

Now, this was not in the original broadcast of the series, and the usual Toobworld rule is that any events shown in the original broadcast are the official entry into the Toobworld timeline.

However, these title cards can be seen as sort of a sequel to the series; and since they don't alter anything that has come before, then I see no problem in accepting them as part of the canon.

At least this way, it gives us closure and besides - it was all in an alternate dimension anyway with no real impact on the main Toobworld. For alls I know, as Stuart Best would say, Ros Pritchard is still a supermarket manager in Eatanswill.

BCnU!

Toby OB

THE HAT SQUAD: ROY SCHEIDER

When I got to work this evening, my co-worker and I found the TV in the lunch room already on. It was tuned in to the Discovery Channel and a special on great white sharks in Hawaii. So we watched about twenty minutes before reporting for our shift.

Twenty minutes later, I checked my email and saw that Roy Scheider passed away at the age of 75.

It's a somber form of my "serendipiteevee", but it was in play once again.

When it comees to his TV characters, Scheider's work as Captain Nathan Bridger will probably have to be relegated to an alternate TV dimension. I never watched the full series, but during those few I did see, I kept thinking that it would never fly in the main Toobworld, that there were too many discrepancies in its depiction of the future that would need reconciling.

Later today, once I get home, I'll check over the timeline of 'SeaQuest DSV' to make sure that assessment is correct.

In the meantime, there are several of his characters that can claim residency in the main Toobworld:

Jonas Falk on 'Love Of Life'

Kenny on 'The Edge Of Night'

Bob Hill (the original) on 'The Secret Storm'

Grant Schiller of 'The Seventh Scroll'

and

Fyodor Chevchenko on 'Third Watch'

plus several other guest star roles.

Scheider is also the face of the televersion for Jacobo Timerman in "Prisoner Without A Name, Cell Without A Number".

Of course, everybody will always immediately associate him with "Jaws". Beyond that, his other movie work will also come to mind: "All That Jazz", "The French Connection", and "The 7-Ups" especially.

But we're remembering him here at Toobworld Central today, as well.....

BCnU....

Toby OB

THE HUMAN STAIN

Former FBI Agents Mulder and Scully are still alive and kicking in Toobworld, but we'll have to go into the borderlands with the movie universe in order to see them again. Another movie based on 'The X-Files' is being produced right now which will reunite David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, and Chris Carter, the power behind the original series.

The movie supposedly will have a stand-alone plot and will not tie into the show's too-confusing and ultimately disappointing mythology. (The image shown here was one of the first released from the film.)

They may no longer be seen in Earth Prime-Time, but there are plenty of cases out there which might pique their interest. After all, the Winchester boys of 'Supernatural' and Team 'Torchwood' can't do everything!

The Tide Ad
Sure, this was a funny commercial in which a guy was interviewing for a new job, but his potential employer couldn't take his eyes off the stain on the guy's shirt. To illustrate how noticeable it was, the stain actually talked!

Cute... until you realize this stain must be some kind of sentient, sycophantic organism come to Earth to conquer the human race. Perhaps it looks like creosote or some extract used in industrial varnishing, but so far as I know, that stuff doesn't talk! (I don't get out much, so I really wouldn't know.)
Yes, I believe this stain is descended from that small patch of brown liquid which put forth the case against the government in a debate on 'Face The Press' (as seen on 'Monty Python's Flying Circus'). This invasion may have started with just this one stain, but who knows where it may lead? If not stopped with some kind of high-tech quicker picker-upper, they probably intend to build their own theme parks with blackjack and hookers! (In fact, forget the theme park and the blackjack.....)

Keep watching the stains!

I better go have a lie-down.....

BCnU!
Toby OB

BLIPTOONS

The Tooniverse was represented by cartoon commercials from SalesGenie.com and by the CGI lizards who danced to "Thriller" in that LifeWater ad from SoBe.

The SoBe LifeWater ad
CGI is nothing more than state of the art animation, and so the lizards are denizens of the Tooniverse. But those pen-and-ink reptiles were dancing with a flesh-and-blood woman, so it's another example of "Tooners" crossing over into Earth Prime-Time.

Previous examples were Superman (American Express), DJ Cat (Paula Abdul video), Daffy Duck ('The Drew Carey Show') and Stewie and Brian Griffin (the 2007 Emmy Awards).

The SalesGenie.com ad
Like George Lucas with that 'Star Wars Holiday Special', SalesGenie.com has come to regret ever letting one of their two blipverts get broadcast. In the one that dealt with Ling Ling and Ching Ching's bamboo furniture company, the pandas were given stereotypical Chinese accents the likes of which haven't been heard on TV since Dana Carvey played Ching Chang on 'Saturday Night Live'.

Still, it was broadcast and thus it is a part of Toobworld forever. And it could be that Ching Ching and Ling Ling are descended from the pandas who lived with 'The Brady Bunch Kids' of the Tooniverse.

As for their other ad, it also had a stereotypical character in the Indian employee who just might be Apu's cousin from 'The Simpsons'. But best of all, the company he worked for was ACME, and we all know what a leading corporation that is in the Tooniverse!

BCnU!
Toby OB