TODAY'S TWD: GOVERN MEN

While working up that Deep Six list of TV governors a few weeks ago (in connection to the Spitzer scandal in NY), I found a few other televersions of governors that sparked my interest for Toobworld connections.

DOUGLAS DUMBRILLE
First up is Douglas Dumbrille, who played Governor William Claiborne in a 1951 production of the 'Hallmark Hall Of Fame' - "The Pirate And The Lawyer". It's a role he also played in the movie universe back in 1938 in the original version of "The Buccaneer".

Claiborne was the territorial governor of Louisiana who had dealings with privateer Jean LaFitte.

MILTON FROME
Milton Frome played the Kansas governor (but left unnamed) in "The Pied Piper Of Dodge City", an episode of 'Bat Masterson'. That episode definitely takes place in June of 1883, as it was about the famous Peace Commission photograph of Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Luke Short and other peace-keepers.

"They call Dodge City the Queen of the Cow Towns.
It would be nice to know the lady wears an honest crown."
Governor
'Bat Masterson'

Frome also played Governor DeWitt in "That Taylor Affair", an episode of 'Riverboat'. But they can't be the same man since 'Riverboat' took place on the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri Rivers during the 1840s. Forty years earlier and too far away, but I suppose an argument could be made that they might be related... at least in Toobworld.

(The plot of that episode sounds like a doozy - Holden Grey, captain of the Enterprise, got the "bright" idea to boost fame for the riverboat by kidnapping President Zachary Taylor.)

J. EDWARD McKINLEY
This would be a "Born To Rerun" case with the governors played by J. Edward McKinley. Of the two he played in Televsion, his portrayal of Governor George C. Handley is perhaps better known. That's mostly due to the fervent following for 'The Andy Griffith Show' in which Governor Handley was seen in the episode "The Cannon".

Almost 100 years earlier in the Toobworld timeline, he played the governor in "The Immovable Object", an episode of 'Bronco'. It's a convention in TV for actors to play similar roles in the past and the future. Sure, usually it happens in the same TV series, but Toobworld absorbs them all into one universe.

McKinley also played an Old West governor in the movie "There Was A Crooked Man", but that's a different universe of course.

BCnU!
Toby OB

BELLY UP, JACK!

It was a dark and stormy night in Cardiff, and on a rain-drenched street Captain Jack Harkness could taste the estrogen in the rain.(He pronounced "estrogen" with a long e.) "At least I won't get pregnant," he said. "I'll never do that again."

That happened in the first episode of 'Torchwood' ("Everything Changes").

For the TV series, it was probably a throw-away line; we may never see onscreen how that could have happened. But it may show up someday in a tie-in novel, perhaps even in a future episode. Before the premiere night was over, there were probably fanwanks pounding away at their keyboards to come up with their own fanfic to splain how it came to be that a man got pregnant.

I'm more curious as to what happened afterwards.....

In "Something Borrowed" from the second season, we got to meet an old buddy of Rhys Williams by the name of "Banana Boat". Something of a dork, but then what would you expect from somebody still going around with a nickname like "Banana Boat"? (Kind of like "Boner" Stabone from 'Family Ties', and let's face it, much as we love him, "Beaver" Cleaver.)

When I saw Jonathan Lewis Owen, the actor playing Banana Boat, the first thing I thought was - "They cast this guy in the wrong 'Torchwood' role."

This season we learned that in the 52nd Century, Jack had a younger brother named Grey, whom he thought was lost forever. But then in the second season premiere, his old partner John Hart told him that he had seen Grey. So it's possible that in some future time-line, Grey is still alive.

But we don't know at what age he is/was/will be when John saw him.

Take a look at this picture of Jonathan Lewis Owen, the guy who played Banana Boat, compared to John Barrowman who plays Captain Jack Harkness.

Given the variables of the genetic mix 'n' match, don't you think it's possible that he could have played the adult version of Grey, Jack's brother? Or am I the only one who sees the similarities?

Of course, as it was established in "Kiss, Kiss, Bang Bang" that John Hart saw Grey, we're O'Bviously destined to revisit that storyline. So there's no use in speculating what might have been as far as that casting goes. Like I said, we don't even know what age Grey will be when Jack is reunited with him.

But there's still another route we can take, and Jonathan Lewis Owen's portrayal of Banana Boat doesn't have to negate it... just yet.

Here's the theory: Banana Boat is descended from Captain Jack. And it could be as close a genetic link as Jack being his Mommy!

Again, that would all depend on if the storyline about Jack'spregnancy is ever revealed. For all we know, what with this show's penchant for downer endings, Jack's pregnancy never came to term. And it also depends on when in Jack's personal timeline this pregnancy happened. If it happened while he was serving as a Time Agent, it could be at any point in the Toobworld timeline, and anywhere in the galaxy.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he got knocked up during those missing two years of his memory, and he still doesn't know how it happened; just that he gave birth once he remembered who he was.

Otherwise, it could have happened at any point after his transformation into The Man Who Couldn't Die, once he returned to Earth in 1869. (? - Check this date.) And if so, the farther back the better for making a claim that Jack was the founder of Banana Boat's family tree. Without either one of them realizing it, Banana Boat may have met his "great-grandmother" Jack; and neither of them would ever have to realize it.

And even if it turns out that Jack's pregnancy was a dead end, and he lost the baby, he still did a lot of what the Doctor would have called "dancing" over the next hundred years and more. Eventually he could have fathered instead of mothered someone in Banana Boat's family tree.

One last point: it looks like Jack Harkness will sometime in the future transform into the Face of Boe. And in 'The Long Game', it was reported that the Face of Boe was pregnant.

So much for Jack's boast that he would never get pregnant again.

BCnu!

Toby OB

TODAY'S TWD: GENERAL REFERENCES

My fellow Iddiot Brian-El [aka Uncle Brian] sent me this snippet from Wikipedia yesterday:

Easter eggs found in some Unix operating systems caused them to respond to the command "make love" with "not war?" and "why" with "why not" (a reference to _The Prisoner_ in Berkeley Unix 1977). The TOPS-10 operatingsystem (for the DEC PDP-10 computer) had the "make love" hack before 1971; it included a short, thoughtful pause before the response. This same behavior occurred on the RSTS/E operating system where the command "make" was used to invoke the TECO editor, and TECO would also provide this response.

The episode from 'The Prisoner' which was referenced was "The General", in which a computer was able to imprint whatever information it wanted onto the cortex of the human brain. It began as a learning tool, but it could be used to control the minds of an entire population or to turn the people into an army of zombies.

BCnU!

Toby OB

THE HAT SQUAD: THE (WID)MARK OF A MAN

Some family members used to joke that if a famous person in Connecticut passed away while I was home on a visit, then they probably died to avoid any possible chance encounter with me.

If that's to be believed, Richard Widmark probably thought I was heading for Roxbury.....

The legendary movie tough guy passed away this week at the age of 93.

People know him for his movies, especially "Kiss Of Death"; but also for "Judgement At Nuremberg", "Murder On The Orient Express", "Cheyenne Autumn", "Pickup On South Street", "How The West Was Won", and "Coma".

But he had several television credits of interest for Toobworld, even though he waited until 1971 to take in an interest in any TV roles offered to him (unlike many of his contemporaries).

It's my opinion, of course, but there are five TV roles taken by Widmark that call for remarks.

1] "Vanished"
This was the role that broke the embargo against working in Television. Widmark plays US President Paul Roudebush, caught in an ever-growing scandal after the disappearance of one of his closest advisors. "Vanished" was one of the first TV mini-series (actually a two-part TV movie) with an all-star cast; it was based on the novel by Fletcher Knebel.

Roudebush's term in the Oval Office took place around the early 1970s, late 1960s, in the alternate TV dimension I've dubbed Earth Prime-Time MOTW in which the line of succession for the Presidents come mostly from TV movies of the week.

2] "Benjamin Franklin"
Franklin is the most colorful character in American history, so it's little wonder that he has been played so often in TV. (In fact, currently he's being portrayed by Tom Wilkinson in the HBO mini-series 'John Adams'.) And with so many different portrayals, there's a different Franklin for quite a few alternate TV dimensions.

For "Benjamin Franklin", a mini-series portrait of the statesman, four films featured six different actors playing the role at various stages in the life of Franklin. Widmark played him in the early days of the American Revolution. (The other actors playing Franklin were Melvyn Douglas, Eddie Albert, Beau Bridges, Lloyd Bridges, and Willie Aames.)

The four main actors (Widmark, Douglas, Albert, and pere Bridges) would thus be relegated to different TV dimensions.

3] "Once Upon A Texas Train"
This is part of the "Over The Hill Gang" trilogy, with the other films being "The Over The Hill Gang" and "The Over The Hill Gang Rides Again". But even though it was the last film in the series, "Once Upon A Texas Train" (also known as "Texas Guns") is the first in the Toobworld timeline. Richard Widmark plays former Texas Ranger Oren Hayes, who was played by Pat O'Brien in the first film. (The IMDb.com lists the role as "Owen Hayes", but his first name was "Oren".)

As he was playing the role at a (slightly) younger age, Widmark's interpretation of Oren Hayes doesn't have to be relegated to an alternate TV dimension. The argument could be made that with the passage of two decades, his version of Hayes could have aged into that of O'Brien's portrayal. (The other members of the gang played at an earlier stage in their lives: Chuck Connors for Walter Brennan as Nash Crawford, Stuart Whitman for Chill Wills as Gentleman George Agnew, and Jack Elam for Edgar Buchanan as Jason Fitch.)

4] 'Madigan'
Lt. Daniel Madigan is one of those characters who exist in more than one creative universe. (A great example is the Pigeon Sisters of "The Odd Couple. They were played by Monica Evans and Carole Shelley in theatre, the movies, and on TV.)

Widmark played Madigan in a gritty 1968 movie which co-starred Henry Fonda and Inger Stevens and a host of great character actors like Harry Guardino, James Whitmore, and Michael Dunn.
About five years later, NBC asked Widmark to star in a TV adaptation of his character from the movie (after another pilot - "Brock's Last Case" - didn't do so well in the ratings.

But unlike movies connected to other TV shows, like the 'Star Trek' films, "Maverick", and the 1966 'Batman', we can't make the assertion that the movie "Madigan" should be absorbed into the TV Universe. That's because Dan Madigan died at the end of the film.

I could perhaps go for the pretzel logic splainin that the movie takes place after the six episodes of the series, but I think it's better for everybody to keep the two Madigan Men in their separate universes, just as we do for Radar O'Reilly even though Gary Burghoff played them both.

And finally.....

5] 'I Love Lucy' - "The Tour"
In the season finale of the show's fourth season, Lucy and Ethel took a bus tour of the Hollywood homes to relieve their boredom. With her usual sense of entitlement which always turned me off to her character, Lucy decided to climb over the wall onto Richard Widmark's property to steal one of his grapefruits. But then she fell and was stuck in his yard.

According to tv.com, Widmark didn't want his property used for the scene, so the house recently bought by Desi and Lucy stood in for Widmark's home. As it turned out, this was a smart decision by the actor, since fans would come around for years after to recreate the stunt.

Here's a list of the other TV roles of Richard Widmark:

Lincoln (1992) (TV) (voice) .... Ward Hill Lamon
Cold Sassy Tree (1989) (TV) .... Enid Rucker Blakeslee
A Gathering of Old Men (1987) (TV) .... Sheriff Mapes
Blackout (1985) (TV) .... Joe Steiner
A Whale for the Killing (1981) (TV) .... Tom Goodenough
All God's Children (1980) (TV) .... Judge Parke Denison
The Last Day (1975) (TV) .... Will Spence
Brock's Last Case (1973) (TV) .... Lieutenant Max Brock

As Red Skelton would have said, May God Bless.....

BCnU....

Toby OB

TODAY'S TWD: STRIKE OUT (-30-)

With the writers' strike over and '30 Rock' about to come back on air, the show's creator Tina Fey (who also plays Liz Lemon) talked about whether the strike would be integrated in the TV-themed sitcom.

"I think that hopefully the public just wants to see their favorite shows back on the air. In terms of '30 Rock', everybody’s just happy to be back working. We are deciding that the strike did not happen in our world [because] for people viewing at home. the real strike was a big enough pain, and they probably don't want to hear anymore about it...

"Before there was a strike we did have a strike story and we may save that for later down the road."

Of course, Tina Fey's "our world" is Toobworld for us. And as such, without actually being confirmed, it's connected to every other TV show, past and present and from countries.

So as long as nobody else does a story about the WGA strike against the AMPTP, that attitude is fine. After all, Toobworld is not the real world and not every historical event isn't going to be portrayed as it really happened. (For instance, the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans in the late 1990s was part of the Eugenics Wars in Toobworld.)

I'm not sure any other TV show will bring up the strike once they return to the air; first off, mostly because they don't really deal with the business of TV, (Although it might be mentioned because life does center around TV viewing for many TV characters as reflected in their pop culture references.)

But if somebody does bring it up, it doesn't negate Fey's decision not to address it. Just because '30 Rock' doesn't bring it up, that won't mean it didn't happen in Toobworld. It's just that the 100 day (plus?) strike must have happened between episodes of the show.

BCnU!

Toby OB

THE NEW HIDE & SEEK

This just in from the "family" in Taiwan....

Sean:
"Last night I overheard Rhiannon playing with Eli and she says to him, "Want to play a game?"

And he says "Sure, how do you play it?"

So she says, "You have three choices: Run, Hide, or Die."

So there you have it - my five year old god-daughter is a budding Rousseau from 'Lost'.

BCnU!

Toby OB

TODAY'S TWD: KELLER PIC

A long-forgotten photograph of Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan has surfaced. Although there are many pictures of the advocate for the deaf and blind (since she lived into her eighties, dying in 1968), this 120 year old photo is rare because it shows the eight-year-old with not only Sullivan but perhaps with the doll for which she asked for with her first spoken word.

The picture was taken on Cape Cod back in 1888.

The story of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan has been told several times in Toobworld, and in several different countries.

Here's a list of actresses who played Helen Keller:

Rhondee Beriault (Helen Keller)

. . . Sound and the Silence, The (1992) (TV)

Cinzia De Carolis (Helen Keller)

. . . "Anna dei miracoli" (1968) (mini) TV Series

Hallie Kate Eisenberg (Helen Keller)

. . . Miracle Worker, The (2000) (TV)

Nuria Gallardo (Helen Keller)

. . . "Estudio 1" (1965) {El milagro de Ana Sullivan} TV Series

Melissa Gilbert (I) (Helen Keller)

. . . Miracle Worker, The (1979) (TV)

Moira Kelly (I) (Helen Keller)

. . . Monday After the Miracle (1998) (TV)

Patty McCormack (Helen Keller)

. . . "Playhouse 90" (1956) {The Miracle Worker (#1.19)} TV Series

Emily Nash (Helen Keller)

. . . "Mentors" (1998) {Breakthrough (#4.6)} TV Series

Edna Ross (Young Helen Keller)

. . . "Biography" (1961) {Helen Keller} TV Series

Mare Winningham (Helen Keller)

. . . Helen Keller: The Miracle Continues (1984) (TV)

At least to my eye (the right... the left is off wandering), this Trueniverse picture of Helen Keller shows that the casting of Hallie Kate Eisenberg in the role was spot on.

BCnU!

Toby OB

"BUT I PLAYED ONE ON TV"

'Ben Casey' was a medical drama from the early 1960s, one with an earnest and dedicated young doctor who often found himself at odds with the system or even with the patient. ('Dr. Kildare' starring Richard Chamberlain was comparable.)

And the same holds true for the TV Universe. Several TV series of the time, who were sharing the same dimension as 'Ben Casey', made mention of the TV series AS a TV series. This came to mind on Easter Sunday as I watched my recording of 'Burke's Law' from the night before on the American Life Network. (With my poor note-taking, I can't remember exactly why Captain Amos Burke cited the series in the episode "Who Killed Cornelius Gilbert?", but hopefully it'll come to me.)

Some other shows who made mention of 'Ben Casey' were 'The Monkees' (in which Peter once invoked the famous opening phrase of "Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity"), 'The Nanny' (a character was compared to Dr. Casey), and the aforementioned 'Burke's Law'.

I would have liked to posit the theory that the televersion of the 'Ben Casey' TV show was a reality show in which Dr. Ben Casey actually appeared as himself. However, it was an episode of 'Nurses' from 1993 that puts the kibosh to that idea. In "No, But I Played One On TV", Vince Edwards (who played Casey in the original show) appeared as himself, along with Larry Linville (Dr. Frank Burns on 'M*A*S*H') and Chad Everett (Dr. Gannon on 'Medical Center'). And during that episode, there were several mentions of Edwards as having played Casey.

So not only was there a Toobworld TV show called 'Ben Casey', but the televersion of Vince Edwards played the role. And that means that Ben Casey and Vince Edwards shared the same dimension - much like Peter Falk ('The Larry Sanders Show') and Lt. 'Columbo' and Daniel J. O'Brien ('The Trials Of O'Brien').

The "real" Ben Casey must have done something extraordinary as a young medico to warrant the attention to create a show around him. Perhaps in some unseen (by us) episode of his life, Casey saved the life of somebody famous. Perhaps even the President! That would certainly have garnered him the type of national attention that would have brought network suits sniffing around to create a show about him.
(And it would be typical of Toobworld to insert a fictional character into an historical event. In this case, if Casey had been involved with the medical needs of the President, it probably happened while Dwight Eisenhower was the POTUS. He ended up in the hospital while he was in office at least three times: with a heart attack in 1955, an abdominal operation to remove 16 gall bladder stones in 1956, and for a 1957 stroke.)

It doesn't have to be involvement in the medical history of President Eisenhower, of course. Any headline-grabbing medical emergency would do......

Meanwhile, no matter what was happening to the TV-TV version of Ben Casey, the "real" Dr. Casey (as seen in the real world TV show) continued his medical practice, ignoring the national attention he was getting. This is O'Bvious since it's never mentioned within the real TV series, which is "real life" for Toobworld, that his life had been fictionalized for TV.

Confusing, ain't it?

'Ben Casey' was also a TV series in a new alternate dimension I'm exploring - that in which our TV shows are TV shows as well, but when we see the behind-the-scenes work that went into creating these shows, the actors look different. This is a TV dimension in which we find these fictionalized docu-dramas about how certain TV shows were made. (I'm doing this because of a British TV movie called "The Curse of Steptoe" with Jason Isaacs.)

In this case, 'Ben Casey' was mentioned in the TV movie "Surviving Gilligan's Island: The Incredibly True Story Of The Longest Three Hour Tour In History".

Dr. Casey himself came back to cement his place in the TV Universe with a TV movie in 1988, "The Return Of Ben Casey". A few years later, Captain Amos Burke did the same with a new series of 'Burke's Law'.....

BCnU!
Toby OB

TODAY'S TWD: THE URSULINE ORDER

While investigating the site of a vicious rape attack (from which the victim eventually died), NYPD Detective John Amsterdam noted that there had been an order of Ursuline nuns from Ireland cloistered nearby about one hundred years before. (The victim turned out to be a member of that order.)

Here's what Wikipedia had in regards to the Ursulines:

"The Ursulines are a Roman Catholic religious order founded at Brescia, Italy by St. Angela of Merici in November 1535, primarily for the education of girls and the care of the sick and needy. Their patron saint is St. Ursula.

In 1771, the Irish Ursulines were established at Cork by Nano Nagle.

Towards the beginning of the 18th century, the period of its greatest prosperity, the Ursuline order embraced some 20 congregations, with 350 convents and from 15,000 to 20,000 nuns.

The members wore a black dress bound by a leathern girdle, a black sleeveless cloak, and a close-fitting headdress with a white veil and a longer black veil.

Today, while some convents in Europe, Canada, and Cuba continue to observe strict enclosure, most convents have adopted less restrictive forms."

SHOW CITED:
'New Amsterdam' - "Honor"

[Pictured: "The Castle" at the New Rochelle Campus originally an Ursuline School for Girls founded in 1904.]

BCnU!
Toby OB

NEWS VIEW: THE CROSSOVER WHISPERER

CBS is working with Glenn Gordon Caron again, eight years after 'Now & Again'. This time the project is entitled 'Meant To Be's', about a wealthy young gallery owner in New York named Janine. One night she elopes and as she's about to embark on her honeymoon, she gets thrown from her 40th-floor hotel balcony.

Death doesn't become her, however. Instead she becomes a "Meant To Be", some spiritual force who helps other people back on Earth (Prime-Time) to head in the direction they were meant to take.

Since this will be a CBS project - if the pilot flies into a series - I'm wondering if CBS will give it a boost by crossing it over with 'The Ghost Whisperer'? Or is the character of Janine tied to New York City?

And why New York City... again? Why not Detroit or Chicago or Atlanta or Philadelphia? The City of Angels would be too obvious, of course.

(I'm assuming the scenario would work better with a big city.)

Hartford! (Gotta put a plug in for my home state.....)

BCnU!
Toby OB

THE NUMBERS HOOP-DE-DOO

"The world is full of numbers. Everywhere you look -
On buses, speed limit signs, inside shoes...
Even in the phone book.
But are the numbers on the side of Good... or Evil?"
Robert Webb
'That Mitchell And Webb Look'

I wonder if this player for Texas A&M now believes Hurley's assertion that "The Numbers" are bad......

BCnU!
Toby OB

TODAY'S TWD: IT'S MAMMOTH!

I watched an episode of 'The Lucy Show' ("Lucy Meets Robert Goulet") at LikeTV, and Mammoth Studios was holding a Robert Goulet look-a-like contest to promote a movie he was in. Lucy found a look-alike and tried to help him win.

That was a couple of months ago, and I went searching for more TV references to Mammoth Studios becaue I thought for sure I remembered it from somewhere else. And that's how I discovered "A Shroud Of Thoughts", a pop culture blog by Mercurie (who's become something of a regular here).

Hopefully he won't mind that I lifted this segment of his very extensive research into Mammoth Studios in several media outlets (including movies, novels, and I think even comic books) from one of his posts back in 2006.

Speaking of Mammoth Studios:

In fact, its most famous appearance may well be in a television show. On 'The Beverly Hillbillies', during the 1964-1965 season, banker Milton Drysdale obtained controlling insterest in Mammoth Studios for hillbilly multi-millionaire Jed Clampett. For the next few seasons Mammoth Studios head Lawrence Chapman's life would never be the same. Drysdale tried tearing down the studio to make way for a new development. The Clampetts tried opening a general store on the studio lot. They even made a silent movie featuring legendary star Gloria Swanson. Regardless, Lawrence Chapman had to be thankful for the Clampetts. His studio on the decline and Milburn Drysdale wanting it torn down, it was only the Clampetts which kept the studio running!

Although it received most of its exposure on 'The Beverly Hillbillies', Mammoth Studios was also referenced on another sitcom, 'The Monkees'. Curiously, on 'The Monkees' Mammoth Studios seems to have been in worse straits than it was on 'The Beverly Hillbillies'. It appears in the first season episode "I've Got a Little Song Here" as a thriving studio where the latest movie featuring starlet Joanie Janz is being made. It is only nine episodes later, however, in The Monkees at the Movies, that a comment is made that Mammoth went out of business years ago! Indeed, in the second season episode The Picture Frame, Mammoth Studios appears as being totally abandoned. The final reference to Mammoth Studios is in the final episode of 'The Monkees', "Mijacogeo" (AKA "The Frodus Caper"). Although they are at TV station KXIW, Peter tells the police on the phone that they are being held captive behind Mammoth Studios! I can only guess that maybe the studio was back in business and had bought KXIW-TV. Or maybe KXIW-TV had bought Mammoth Studios....

My link to Mercurie's blog is over there to the left, but if you wanted to see the full copy of "The Most Successful Studio Never To Exist", click there.

Check Merc out; there's always something of thoughtful interest over there. (As opposed to here, where very little thought is put into anything!)

So... 'The Lucy Show', 'The Monkees', and 'The Beverly Hillbillies'.....

I'd say we've got a candidate for the TV Crossover Hall of Fame!

BCnU!
Toby OB

A KINCH IN TIME

This website had a lot of great trivia information about Sergeant Kinchloe from 'Hogan's Heroes'. (Actually it has pages for all of the characters on the show.)

So in honor of the late Ivan Dixon who played Kinch, here's that thumbnail portrait of the man......

Sergeant Kinchloe trivia
• Sergeant Kinchloe was the radio operator and electronics expert at Stalag 13.

• In episode #32, "Request Permission to Escape" (1966), Kinch's first name was stated as being James. In episode #73, "Is General Hammerschlag Burning?" (1967), Kinch's first name was Ivan.

[Toobworld Splainin: His full name was Ivan James Kinchloe. But times being what they were, he didn't want to be known as "Ivan", so he used "James".]

• Kinch was born in Detroit, Michigan and worked for the phone company before the war.

• Kinch was a plumber's helper one summer when he went to school in Detroit. (from episode #70, "Nights in Shining Armor" 1967)

• In episode #5, "The Flight of the Valkyrie" (1965), it was stated that "Sgt. Kinch was in charge of operations."

• Kinch fought in the Golden Gloves boxing tournament. (episode #136, "The Softer They Fall" 1970)

• In episode #136, "The Softer They Fall" (1970), it was stated that Sgt. Kinchloe weighed 195 pounds.

• Kinch stated in episode #92, "Drums Along the Dusseldorf" (1968), that he once threw a football 60 yards.

• Kinch played the upright-bass in episode #51, "Praise the Führer and Pass the Ammunition" (1967).

• Sergeant Kinchloe attended High School in Detroit. (episode #73, "Is General Hammerschlag Burning?" (1967)

[Ivan Dixon did not appear in episode #62, "The Reluctant Target" (1967).]

[Ivan Dixon's final appearance on Hogan's Heroes came in episode #144, "Klink's Escape", which aired on March 27, 1970.]

That's a pretty extensive list. One might think everything about Kinchloe could be found in that last.

But one would be wrong, Buffalo Breath! There's always the conjecture of a Toobworld Theory of Relateeveety!

I may be wrong on this, but the one thing that kept Colonel Wilhelm Klink from getting sent to the Russian Front was the claim that there never was any escape from Stalag 13. To his superiors, who didn't know any better, it meant that as stupid as they may have thought of him, Klink was obviously doing something right.

Because of the Kinchloe situation, I think the correct claim to fame would be that there never was a successful escape from the camp.

It saddens me to think so, but it seems to me that Kinchloe may have been killed while on a mission for the Allies outside of Stalag 13. The SS never figured out the true reason he was outside the fence (or else Hogan's operation would have been shut down), so they assumed that he was trying to escape when he was gunned down.

Seeing the dedication put into this 'Hogan's Heroes' website, I'm certain that everything we may have known about Kinch can be found above and that it is 100% factual. So Ivan James Kinchloe was a Detroit native, born and bred.

However, from that point on in his personal life, we can play with a bit of speculation.

It's possible that Kinch had a family started before he was sent overseas to fight in World War II. And what if he had a daughter who grew up, got married, and moved away from Detroit with her husband to New York City?

It's possible that his daughter married a man named Dawson, and if so, in 1963 she gave birth to a son named Michael.
All supposition, of course, but I don't think 'Lost' is ever going to delve that deeply into Michael's background to find out if he had a grandfather who died trying to escape a prisoner of war camp in World War II. It will be the Toobworld premise that Michael never got to know his grandfather, and Kinchloe never got to meet his great-grandson, Waaaaaaaaaalt!

BCnU!
Toby OB

ZONKS IN THE KEY OF "R"

Originally I was just going to use a standard picture of a Baldwin piano to illustrate this post. But instead I decided to go with the actual Toobworld screengrab I have in my files. However, the picture does contain something of a graphic display of male sexuality. Personally, I think it's somewhat mild, no more than an an old "R" rating, or in TV terms today: "TV-14 DSL". (But you should have seen what I could have used from one minute later!)

So I'm going to slap this blog-post with a "TV-M" rating. If you're offended by such depictions, you might as well go surf the web and come back later. You know how it is at Inner Toob..... I have no life, so there'll be a new blog-post before you know it!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm watching the gay gothic soap opera 'Dante's Cove' via Netflix. (It airs on the here! channel.) So far, there's one sub-plot about the magic known as Tresum which may prove useful for Toobworld. (Van uses one of the spells of that witchcraft to make her girl-friend forget about Van's use of Tresum. Instead, she overdoes it and Michelle forgets about Van entirely.)

This could come in handy when dealing with the Chuck Cunningham question from 'Happy Days'. I still like the idea that crazy-eyed Joanie killed her older brother because his incessant basketball dribbling pushed her over the edge and then she disposed of the body. But now I can add that she used her novice skills in Tresum to make the rest of her family forget that Chuck ever existed in the first place. (This would splain why Howard Cunningham once mentioned that he only had two children while saying grace at the dinner table: Joanie caused him to forget about Chuck.)

Like all TV shows, there are mistakes made during production which go unnoticed by the continuity watchdogs. In this particular case from 'Dante's Cove', the production team didn't do their historical homework about their props:

"There's a nice close-up of the Baldwin piano and its clearly printed name during the 1840 scenes at the beginning of the first episode. However, the company didn't exist at that time. The Baldwin Company didn't make its first pianos for another 50 years."
(from the IMDb.com)

This one has an easy splainin. We just have to keep it in mind that Toobworld is NOT the real world. Different countries, cities, fictional characters.... And those things which do exist in the real world may be different from what they are in the TV Universe.

The late Lloyd Bridges was a cross-dressing kleptomaniac neo-Nazi ('Ned & Stacey'). Wilton Parmenter's sneeze ended the Battle of Five Forks during the Civil War ('F Troop'). The 'Torchwood' Institute is located under the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff. There are three Rome, Wisconsins ('Picket Fences'). And Tim Russert of 'Meet The Press' has a cousin who worked as a cop in Baltimore ('Homicide: Life On The Street').

So in this case, it just happens that the televersion of the Baldwin company began producing that style of piano fifty years or more before they did here in the real world.

No biggie.

BCnU!
Toby OB

PS:

I'm probably going to Robot Hell for posting this on Easter Sunday.......

TODAY'S TWD: DICK AND ROBIN

No..., it's not a 'Batman' post about the Boy Wonder....

Last night in the UK, Stephen Waddington appeared in 'Richard The Lionheart' on BBC2. This docu-drama follows King Richard through the explosive battles during his third Crusade to the Holy Land.

Waddington played the same role near the end of last season's revamp of 'Robin Hood', so his portrayal links that series to this history special. However, since this version of 'Robin Hood' is not the official version of Earth Prime-Time, (and there were so many other versions besides), both the new 'Robin Hood' and 'Richard The Lionheart' must be relegated to an alternate dimension.

Although many believe that Robin Hood was a man out of Legend, still there are an equal number who believe he actually lived. So could all of those closing scenes in the various Robin Hood movies have actually happened; did Robin of Locksley meet King Richard I?

The BBC lays down the requirements for such a meeting:

For Robin Hood to have been able to meet Richard I, their meeting must have fallen within a period when:

1. Richard was in England (preferably within Sherwood Forest )

2. Under circumstances that Richard would not order Robin's immediate arrest or death
3. At a time using records that Robin Hood was supposed to be alive and surviving as an outlaw
4. Could there be a reason why the two men might want to meet each other …

(In regard to that first requirement, Robin met King Richard in the Holy Land in the last episode of Season Two.)

The answer can be found in an excellent essay on the subject with the histories of both Richard and Robin, which can be found here.

BCnU!

Toby OB