NUMBERS RUNNING: SWEET SIXTEEN

While watching "Death Is A Seven Point Favorite" earlier this week, one of the Numbers from 'Lost' popped up.

Near the very end of the episode, Sandy King signed off from his telecast on KXRZ, which was Channel 16. That was also the same channel for KXPN in Phoenix, Arizona, as seen on 'Medium' this past week. So "16" not only got two similar work-outs off the Island, but its influence was seen more than thirty years ago as well.

TV columnist and critic David Bianculli pointed out in his online site "TV Worth Watching" (link to the left) that a mistake had been made with the graphic seen on a news broadcast within that episode of 'Medium'. As you can see here, "renowned" was mis-spelled as "renown". Somewhere along the line of production, that mistake was not caught.

Looking at it from within the "reality" of Toobworld, it's acceptable - but as a mistake. When CNN had those crawls along the bottom of the screen (until about a month or so ago), they would often be filled with spelling errors. Look how many times our President's name would show up onscreen as "Osama" rather than "Obama" in the earlier part of his campaign. Toobworld Central would take the position that such a technical error happened here at KXPN while putting together this news report on the death of Nathan Cafferty.

But at the same time, it should have then been mentioned within the script so that the viewers at home would know it was supposed to be a mistake as seen on TV. So since that didn't happen, we can't give the production team on this episode a pass. Even though it exists as a mistake that happened in Toobworld, it never should have been seen by the audience.

Oh..... We're also going to make the claim that based on the call letters for both stations, some Toobworld media mogul like Rupert Murdoch or Sumner Redstone owns both KXRZ and KXPN. Nothing to make a big deal out of, crossover-wise, but it's always nice to fill in the blanks....

BCnU!
Toby O'B

DOUBLE DOWN: PAY-OFF ON A BAD BRET

The classic TV cliche of unrelated twins came up twice this week with the "Generalissimo" episode of '30 Rock' and "Mr. Monk And The Bully" on 'Monk'. Eventually every TV character has a twin, usually evil, but in the grand scheme of Toobworld, these twins don't always show up in the same series as their lookalike.

In "The War Party", James Garner guest-starred as the bad guy, Willis Peake. We know 'Bret Maverick' shares the same timeline as 'Cheyenne' Bodie, thanks to Bret's brother Bart, who met - or tried to meet! - Cheyenne in the 'Maverick' episode "Hadley's Hunters".
Although I wouldn't put it past Pappy Maverick to have "sown his oats" around the Old West, I don't like to think Willis Peake was one of Pappy's illegitimate kids; he was just a regular bastard....

BCnU!
Toby O'B

PS:
That's not a picture of James Garner as Willis Peake on the right. It's not even a real mustache! But 'twill serve......

AS SEEN ON TV: ETHAN ALLEN

We're winding down our salute to the historical figures as seen in the cartoon series 'Liberty's Kids' this weekend. And today we feature Ethan Allen: Nowadays, he's probably better known for his name's association with a furniture company, but he fought for the independence of Vermont as the leader of the Green Mountain Boys. He was captured while trying to take over Montreal in 1777 and was shipped to England to stand trial as a traitor to King George III. However, he was released in exchange for a British officer.

BCnU!
Toby O'B

DEJA VIEW: "ALIAS JESSE JAMES"

I think it was my long-time Toobworld ally Hugh who first alerted me to the movie and TV blending to be found in the big finale of "Alias Jesse James". (Like Dr. Sam Beckett, I have a swiss-cheese memory, forgive me.) As the characters played by Bob Hope and Rhonda Fleming are pinned down in a shoot-out with the James Gang, a lot of TV Western stars of that time come to their aid.

(Hope's character thinks that it's his shots bringing down the bad guys, but it's these Western heroes - hidden away and firing at the same moment as Hope - who are notching up the kills.)

It's a visual joke that serves as the big payoff to the movie and as such achieves its purpose - giving the audience a laugh as these stars poke fun at their own images. Someone far less lazy than I would have to work out the timeline for this movie to determine the date when Jesse and Frank James could have crossed paths with historical figures like Annie Oakley and Wyatt Earp. Then you'd have to squeeze in the fictional characters like Tonto, Matt Dillon, and Major Seth Adams.

Forget about Davy Crockett and Roy Rogers - O'Bviously they are traveling through Time, as Roy was from the future of the 1950's, and Davy died at the Alamo in 1836.

Roy wouldn't be the only singing cowboy of the 1950s to travel in Time. Gene Autry and his sidekick Pat Buttram spent some in the Old West of the 1880's - unless those characters on 'The Gene Autry Show' were the ancestors of the later Gene and Pat; who not only bore the same names but had the same genetic make-up.

In Toobworld genealogy, this is quite common.....

As for Davy Crockett finding himself in the latter half of the 19th Century, there's a splainin as to how he traveled through Time. In an episode of 'Amazing Stories', a young boy at the battle named "Alamo Jobe" finds himself transported to the San Antonio of the 1980's. So it's possible that Davy Crockett also stepped through a similar temporal wormhole to find himself in the late 1880's. (Rogue temporal wormholes were common in the Old West, probably due to "leakage" from Project TickTock in Arizona, where 'The Time Tunnel' was located, and from the 'Quantum Leap' facility in New Mexico.)

Technically, Tonto is a time traveler as well, although he was in his own time period for this movie. But as we saw in a Jeno's Pizza Rolls blipvert, he and the Lone Ranger somehow ended up in the late 1960's at a very swank party. There were two other cowboys who rode to the aid of Milford Farnsworth (Bob Hope) in "Alias Jesse James", but they didn't come from TV shows. The first was played by Gary Cooper, who might have crossed over from the movie "High Noon". (Not that we can get any clues from his dialogue - all he says is "Yup". And the other was played by Bing Crosby, who showed that he was a serlinguist by talking directly to the audience. Finally, here's an interesting note from behind the scenes of this movie. Many sources online, including Turner Classic Movies - who ought to know better! - claim that James Garner appears in this sequence as Bret Maverick. I don't know if he filmed a quick cameo like the others but then was edited out of the final version; but as it stands, he isn't in the movie.

Does this movie count as being absorbed into the TV Universe because of this scene, to join other movies thus adopted like the 'McHale's Navy' movies, the 1966 'Batman', and the 'Star Trek' franchise (and even Mel Gibson's version of 'Maverick')? It's a tough call with so many obstacles that argue against it. But at the same time, it's hard to resist....

You can see the shoot-out sequence here.

BCnU!
Toby O'B

PS:
And this marks my 3500th post to Inner Toob......

AS SEEN ON TV: BENEDICT ARNOLD

Perhaps I should have saved today's historical figure for next Friday - the 13th! - but I have someone else in mind who would be even more appropriate......

Continuing our showcase of historical figures from the American Revolution, as seen in the Tooniverse, we have the traitor Benedict Arnold. He was considered the best general in the Continental Army, and who knows? Had he remained loyal to the cause, he might have come out of the campaign more honored than Washington.

But because he was put out of sorts by the Army's charge that he was using the cause for personal gain, he switched sides and became a British loyalist. And today his name is a synonym for treason.

I'm sorry to say that he's originally from my home state of Connecticut.....

BCnU!
Toby O'B

LOST ON THE PAPER TRAIL

Spoilers for 'Lost' - "The Little Prince" ahead..... I'm fully embracing the sci-fi geekiness of 'Lost' now that they're in full time travel mode. (Actually, this show owned me right from Hurley's fainting spell while helping Jack after the crash!) But I would like to see a little realism creep in every now and then.

Here's an example of what I'd like to see.......

After all that traveling through the Island's jungle during several time jumps, the Island 6 (Locke, Sawyer, Juliet, Daniel, Miles, and Charlotte) reached the remains of their beach camp. I'm thinking it was over three years in the future - based on a theory about the "other Others".

What I would have liked to have seen was somebody grabbing a role of DHARMA toilet paper and heading off quickly into the wood. (With the assumption everybody would eventually go, we just wouldn't have had the time to see it.) But at least somebody should have gone to take a dump. The way the scene was edited, they remained on the beach for less than five minutes before taking off in one of the canoes belonging to the other Others. (Okay, I'm agreeing with the idea that they are the Oceanic 6.)

The Island 6 didn't even take the time to gather a few supplies, like fresh water bottles!

Just a niggling point, true, but the lack of such simple bits of business (literally!) in TV shows and movies really bug me. ('The Lord Of The Rings' films might qualify as an example too, although they did take rest breaks.)

BCnU!
Toby O'B

GUS AGAIN

Burton "Gus" Guster of 'Psych' is two-thirds of the way home for inclusion in the TV Crossover Hall of Fame. If we just want to make it an honorary induction, then he's all set with those Tooniverse commercials for the phone service, in which Shawn and Gus are little kids back in 1987.

But if we just want to deal with live-action appearances, Dule Hill as Gus has fulfilled two of the qualifications for membership, thanks to a new DirecTV blipvert. Gus is trapped in a bank during a hold-up - at least we're assuming Hill is appearing as Gus. (He's certainly acting more like Gus than as Charlie from 'The West Wing'!) This had all the feel of a 'Psych' episode which we'll never see, complete with a guest appearance by Alan Tudyk.
Here's the trivial nit-pick that intrigued me: Usually in these DirecTV ads, a specific movie is always invoked; the previous blipvert featured Ron Perlman as "Hellboy", for example. In that ad, some previously unknown character uses his computer at work to program his DirecTV at home when his imagination conjures up Hellboy. This time, it's the guy with DirecTV whom we know - Gus - and the show he's programming which is unknown and possibly fictional.

And it is a show, not a movie; Gus specifically says that the impending hostage crisis will prevent him from getting home to see his favorite show. And we see at least part of its title on the screen of his cell phone: "The Cri-".

We could make up some sort of title that could only be found in Toobworld: "The Criminalist", "The Crime Of The Century", that sort of thing. But I think we're going to go with an established series here in the real world that doesn't cause a Zonk: 'The Critic'. It was an animated series starring Jon Lovitz as movie critic Jay Sherman.

Even though many animated characters from the Tooniverse have crossed over to interact with live-action humans - Daffy Duck, Superman, Brian & Stewie Griffin, Bart and Lisa Simpson - most Toobworld citizens consider animated shows to be just cartoons. So there's no problem with Gus thinking of 'The Critic' as just a show as well.

That it would be his favorite show? Well, I have no problem with that, I liked the show! (And it's in the Toobworld Central DVD library.)

But it just doesn't sound right. Shouldn't it be some action series from the 80s, like 'Airwolf'?

Just sayin', is all.......

BCnU!
Toby O'B

AS SEEN ON TV: ALEXANDER HAMILTON

Serendipiteevee strikes again!

I was going to present a portrait of Alexander Hamilton today as part of the week-long salute to the animated series 'Liberty's Kids'. So it was "medium cool" that he played a small part in Wednesday night's episode of 'Law & Order'.

An auction house was offering up the penis of Hamilton for bidding..... So when I said he played a small part, it was not meant as a pun.

At any rate, here's how Alexander Hamilton as he looked in the Tooniverse: He had no way of knowing at this point of the dire events in his future - his death in a duel with Aaron Burr, and even worse, the acquisition of his newspaper the Post by Rupert Murdoch!

BCnU!
Toby O'B

ME DAZED BY THE CONDORS

Which only shows to go that I am not hesitant in stooping for a pun.......

Today, in my Ahab-like quest to find another reference to a professional football team called the Condors (besides in the latest episode of 'Monk'), I went to Netflix and watched "Death Is A Seven Point Favorite", an episode of 'McMillan & Wife'. (Great episode title, by the way!)

Came up empty there, but I did formulate a theoretical link.......

The two teams mentioned in the episode were the hometown Hawks and the visiting Drillers. As for the Drillers, their name is reminiscent of the real world Oilers and Steelers, in that it suggests the main industry of the area in which they're based. So I'm thinking that the Drillers team, like the Cowboys and the Texans and the former Oilers, is from Texas, or maybe - even better, just to spread the wealth around - from Oklahoma. (Although I might have gone with the Panhandlers, but that's just me.)
But as for the Hawks, that's where we go all theoretical with the what-iffery. The Hawks were the hometown team of San Francisco, where Stuart McMillan is the Police Commissioner. But in "Mr. Monk Makes The Playoffs", the latest episode of 'Monk' (which is also set in Frisco), the home team is the Condors.

If my quest to find some other show with the Condors as a pro football team eventually comes to a dead end, I'm thinking we still have to account for the amount of football teams in the City by the Bay. Besides the Hawks and the Condors, there's also the 49ers. They're the real world team, but there would be shows that cite them as being part of Toobworld as well.

So I'm thinking that in Toobworld history, the Hawks became the Condors. Why the name change? Let's say the team moved away - like the aforementioned Oilers from Houston. They went to Tennessee and became the Titans. Eventually Houston got another team, which were named the Texans.
So with the case of the Hawks, having them move away in Toobworld's un-broadcast past and then gaining a new name would give a reason for them to be called the Condors when they came back to San Francisco: just to mark the new era. And should I eventually find the elusive Condors in some other TV show, I could say that, like the Titans, the new name signified the Hawks' new home and new identity.

That's my splainin, and I'm sticking to it.... until something better comes along.

BCnU!
Toby O'B

SUPER BOWL 43: BLIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES

The Hulu.com ad starring Alec Baldwin's televersion (revealed to be an alien) was my personal favorite of the Super Bowl blipverts, but several others still proved themselves worthy to be part of Toobworld.

BUDWEISER
The narrator, still with a Scottish burr himself, told of how his grandfather came to America in 1933 (although it looked like turn of the century America) and finally found his calling as a Clydesdale working for Budweiser.

The Toobworld Take: Apparently Mr. Ed wasn't the only Houyhnhm to have escaped from their island homeland. One of Jake the Clydesdale's ancestors must have gone the long way around, perhaps in company with Lemuel Gulliver, to arrive back in the British Isles. Eventually the family made its way to Scotland before emigrating to America.

BUD LIGHT I
After suggesting that the company could save money by not offering Bud Light at the meetings, a young executive is tossed out of the office window.
The Toobworld Take: This was the best example of "quantoon physics", which usually only appears in TV commercials anyway. Quantoon physics is the ability of live-action humans to carry out feats normally only possible in the Tooniverse.

BUD LIGHT II
A guy at a ski resort shows that he has the capability to draw pictures right onto reality and thus affect real life situations.
The Toobworld Take: There have always been such characters in Toobworld who could create things out of whole cloth, either with art or word-play (like Keenan Wynn's character of Gregory West on 'The Twilight Zone'). All of these characters are descended from Zeus's illegitimate son Evander, as seen on one of the last - if not the actual finale - of 'Hercules: The Legendary Journeys'. Evander had the same power, which would culminate at its deadliest with Anthony Fremont in 'The Twilight Zone'.

COCA-COLA
Everybody is literally turning into their texting avatars, but shared Cokes can bring your humanity back when you actually converse face to face.
The Toobworld Take: Everything about computers is coming alive in TV commercials from Netflix movies to password phishers. This could be part of the plot by the Jon Lumic of the main Toobworld. (from 'Doctor Who')

MONSTER.COM
While the boss has the huge, ornate office with the moose-head over his head, on the other side of the wall, some poor office space grunt has the rest of the moose - with the butt hanging over his head.
The Toobworld Take: That wall ornament is an antique. It's been around since the 1950s, and was seen by a fellow named Eugene, played by Ernie Kovacs - the greatest tele-visionary ever.

BRIDGESTONE
Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head go for a drive in the mountains, and thanks to the grip-stop action of the tires, they avoid hitting a herd of sheep. However, they stopped so fast that the lips of the nagging shrew of a virago pop off and tumble down the mountainside.

The Toobworld Take: Whatever odd little TV dimension there is for 'Robot Chicken', that's where you'll find these spuds.

PEDIGREE
Instead of owning dogs, some people have crazy pets - like ostriches, razorback boars, and as we see here, Rusty the Rhino.
The Toobworld Take: Just the type of thing that could actually happen on Earth Prime-Time. Elly Mae Clampett would feel right at home among these people. I wouldn't be surprised if they old lady with the ostrich lived just around the corner from the 'Desperate Housewives' on Wisteria Lane in Fairview.

'HEROES'
The super-powered mutants of the NBC show get to play football against some of the legends of the NFL, like a super-powered John Elway.
The Toobworld Take: The show is off in another TV dimension, ever since they created a new timeline with Future Hiro's visit to the Past. So they are of no real concern anymore here at Toobworld Central. But I would say this might be a "Longest Yard" type of micro-story which could be taking place after all of the "heroes" have been rounded up by "The Hunter"....

CAREERBUILDER.COM
This had to be the most bizarre spot of the bunch: a continuing, repetitive escalation of signs that you need to change jobs.
The Toobworld Take: Since it was only an imaginary depiction, we don't have to worry too much about the talking koala bear. But since somebody was imagining it, it's possible that either all koala bears can speak English, or the Qantas spokesbear's abilities are more than just serlinguistic; all of Toobworld must know that he can talk.

Also, I think the woman screaming in the car could be working at the same company where the corporate tool got tossed out of the window in the Bud Light ad.

BCnU!
Toby O'B

THE LEOPARD SPOT

My quest to find another fictional professional football team called the Condors continues. They were the home team in the latest episode of 'Monk' ("Mr. Monk Makes The Playoffs"), and I know they've been used before.

Tuesday I eliminated one possibility - the "Sudden Death" episode of 'Murder, She Wrote' from the first season (March of 1985). I already knew that the main team involved was the Leopards, but I was hoping we'd hear the name of at least one other team they played against. The culmination of the episode took place at a game, but the announcers never once mentioned the name of the opposing team.

Later today I plan to watch the football-themed episode from the first season of 'McMillan & Wife' (like the 'MSW' episode, via Netflix Online); maybe I'll find what I'm seeking there. And that would be really great, since Stuart McMillan had been the Police Commissioner in San Francisco, where 'Monk' takes place.

Once I realized there wasn't much chance that any other football team was going to be mentioned during the episode, I was able to concentrate more on finding any other points of Toobworldian interest.

The book about 'Murder, She Wrote' confirmed this - the location for this episode was never stated. We don't know what city or what state is home for the Leopards, even though their future location was a major point of contention between some of the characters.

Because of the logistics of filming, everything about the surroundings suggested California, but I'd like to avoid that if possible; so many professional football teams are already located there on the Left Coast. 'Monk' had the Condors, my current Ahab-like O'Bsession; '1st & 10' had the California Bulls, and the most recent episode of 'Psych' had the Thunderbirds, which apparently called Santa Barbara home.

We were given a clue as to where it could be situated during their on-field practice. The team wore two types of helmets, each with a different logo. One team had the leopard-head logo, as seen here on Coach Pitillo's team wind-breaker; the other side's helmets were adorned with the letter "S".

I suppose this could stand for "scrimmage"? But I'm thinking it's an alternate design for when they play either home or away. And the "S" stands for the city with which they're affiliated.

Wherever the city was located, it had to be close enough for Mavis Krueger to take a last-minute flight from Las Vegas in the afternoon and arrive in the early evening that same day. So I'm thinking Sedona, Arizona, or Savannah, Georgia.

It definitely has to be somewhere the team can play without the fans having to wear winter clothing. (Although it aired in March of 1985, the football season is long over by then. This game and the murder that led up to it, probably happened in the early fall of the previous year, 1984.)

I'm leaning toward Savannah, Georgia, if only so that at some point (off-screen, of course), somebody on the team would end up needing the services of Ben Matlock, attorney from Atlanta!

BCnU!

Toby O'B

AS SEEN ON TV: JOHN PAUL JONES

JOHN PAUL JONES

There may be those who think today's "As Seen On TV" character portrait is supposed to be John Paul Jones the rocker. (I guess I don't have much faith in my readership.) But no, it's the naval hero from the American Revolution, as we continue our week-long tribute to the historical figures to be found in 'Liberty's Kids'.

BCnU!

Toby O'B

THE HAT SQUAD: CLINT RITCHIE

Actor Clint Ritchie has passed away at the age of 70 after an operation to implant a pacemaker.

He was best known for two decades in Llanview, Pennsylvania, as Clint Buchanan on 'One Life To Live'. He was part of the powerful Texan family of Buchanans (with father Asa and brother Bo) who moved into Llanview and made their mark in controlling various strata in town. (Clint became the newspaper editor/publisher, Bo became the chief of police, and Asa had his fingers in most of the financial activities.)

This is one case where we can't claim that the character died with the actor, as Clint Buchanan continued on 'OLTL' with two other actors assaying the role after his departure. However, as Clint Ritchie was the original Clint Buchanan, we could always claim that he had been abducted and replaced - like many soap opera characters - by quantum leapers from the future. And it could be that the original Clint Buchanan did pass away in the future.

For me, I also remember him as Messmore Garrett in a few episodes of 'Centennial'. Recently I purchased this 1970s mini-series and will be watching it again when I go on vacation up at the Lake.

As Red Skelton would say, "Good night and may God bless....."

BCnU....
Toby O'B

TVXOHOF, 02/2009-A: WHO LET THE DOGG IN?

Here it is, the first week of February, 2009, Black History Month, the second month in our year-long celebration of the 10th anniversary of the TV Crossover Hall of Fame. Week One each month is dedicated to the induction of a member of the League of Themselves, those celebrities who appear as the fictional televersions of themselves.

And for this year, this month, we've chosen Snoop Dogg! With appearances as a puppet, a stop-motion action figure, and a puppet - as well as the expected live-action televersion we've seen in many TV shows and commercials - Snoop Dogg has amassed more than the required appearances in at least three TV shows.

Here's a rundown of those appearances in which he was caught in the act of being himself:

Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder (2009) (V)

"One Life to Live"
- Uncle-cest Is Best (2008)
- Dogg Day Afternoon (2008)

"Robot Chicken"
- Squaw Bury Shortcake (2007)

"Entourage"
- The Dream Team (2007)

"Weeds"
- MILF Money (2006)

"Las Vegas"
- Two of a Kind (2004)

"Player$"
- Impin' with a Pippin! (2004)

"The Tracy Morgan Show"
- Miracle Street (2004)

"Crank Yankers"
- Episode #2.19 (2003)
- Episode #2.3 (2003)

"Cops"
- Mardi Gras '02 (2002)
(With a connection to 'The X-Files', it always did have a fictional feel to it.)

"Just Shoot Me!"
- Finch in the Dogg House (2001)

"The Steve Harvey Show"
- I Do, I Don't (1997)

"Martin"
- No Love Lost (1994)

TV commercials:
XM Satellite Radio, 2002
AOL 9.0, 2003
T-Mobile, 2004
BelCompany (Dutch cellphone retailer), 2005
Chrysler Corp., with Lee Iacocca, 2005
WWE Raw Nation and WrestleMania XXIV, 2008

There was also a TV blipvert for Orbit teeth-whitening gum. And who better to show off a dirty mouth than Snoop Dogg?
BCnU!
Toby O'B

AS SEEN ON TV BONUS: BUDDY HOLLY

On this date fifty years ago, at least as Don McLean's song "American Pie" would have it, the Music died. O'Bviously it didn't - not when you had the Beatles, Stones, The Who, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, and Bruce still to come. But on this day in 1959, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the "Big Bopper" died in a plane crash.

Or did they?

According to an episode from the anthology series 'Nightmares and Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King' ("You Know They Got a Hell of a Band"), Buddy Holly is still alive and practically immortal.

Here's what he looks like in the TV Universe:
BCnU!
Toby O'B

RED DWARF CORRIE

A new episode of 'Red Dwarf' was filmed on the set for the venerable prime-time British soap opera 'Coronation Street'. According to reports, Kryten tracks down ex-boss Lister to Weatherfield — where Lister's look-alike, Lloyd, lives.

I don't know as of yet whether or not 'Red Dwarf' will make an actual link to 'Coronation Street', but it should be a fun bit anyway.

BCnU!
Toby O'B

[Thanks to Rob Buckley for pointing the way to the news story.]

AS SEEN ON TV: TOM PAINE

All this week we're showcasing the cartoon series 'Liberty's Kids', in which the young heroes interacted with the historical figures of the American Revolution, all in the Tooniverse.

Today we're featuring Tom Paine, the incendiary pamphleteer.
Here's what Wikipedia says of him:

Thomas Paine (January 29, 1737 – June 8, 1809) was a British pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical, inventor, and intellectual. He lived and worked in Britain until age 37, when he emigrated to the British American colonies, in time to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contribution was the powerful, widely-read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), advocating colonial America's independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and of The American Crisis (1776–1783), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series.

BCnU!
Toby O'B

SPLAININ TO DO: CHATTY CHATTY BIG BANG

I'm working on the essays that will make up my book of splainins about the TV Universe. This would be the first one, about the creation of the TV Universe itself. I was going to add in a lot of pictures, but I think I'd rather have you focus on the article. What I'm hoping is that you'll read it and offer me some constructive criticism, maybe even point out a few shows I should have included. In its final form, it'll be full of all that technical gobbledy-gook, like footnotes. For now, I'm just settling on putting the info into parentheses.

Thanks. I hope you'll find it of interest.....

"IN THE BEGINNING"
"The first age of the gods was born from non-existence."
- Rig-Veda, 10.72.3
(used in 'Odyssey 5')

A lot of the TV Universe mirrors the Trueniverse, upon which it is based. But if that's so, on which side does Toobworld Central come down when it comes to the beginnings of the TV Universe? The Big Bang Theory, or a belief in Creationism?

Well, luckily for ye olde Toobmeister, the TV shows upon which we have to base the decision have used both arguments. Since certain TV characters were on hand to witness both versions of the origins of the universe, we have a compromise that personally is one that I subscribe to myself: God got the ball rolling with the Big Bang and then let cosmic events transpire as they would.

"THE BIG BANG THEORY"
And at least I won't be bleeping off the Catholic Church by espousing that belief. In 1951, Pope Pius XII declared his approval of the "Big Bang" theory. As he saw it, what with his papal infallibility and all, the premise that the universe had a beginning in which Time and Space were born out of nothingness jibed with the first few sentences from the Book of Genesis.

But I'm not sure how creationistas would feel about the idea that God used the material from the destruction of a previous universe for the building blocks of the Big Bang, but that's what happened - at least in the TV Universe. And we apparently know a little about the life in that former universe. (Those who support only one theory or the other should remember that I'm never talking about the true universe; you can argue over that to your heart's content. I'm talking about the universe as it was seen on TV.)

Denizens of that previous universe, which sounds like it was full of monsters, escaped their version of Ragnarok into the new universe, the TV universe based on the real universe. They would become known as the Old Ones, those creatures of the Dark first envisioned by HP Lovecraft (a fellow overnight hotel worker) whose stories and characters were eagerly adopted by many horror and sci-fi writers and TV producers since then.

One of these Old Ones came into this universe as a prisoner. He was known as "The Beast", and the Gallifreyan Time Lord known as the Doctor confronted him in the bowels of Krop Tor. He had been imprisoned there by the disciples of Light since "before Time" and before the matter of the universe had been spewed by the Big Bang. As a whole, the planet of Krop Tor must have survived the destruction of the Old Ones' universe, to be set up in the new universe in orbit around a black hole with an artificial gravity field. (I'd say that in order to pull that off, the disciples of Light must have had help - perhaps from God, who would be the Light.)

"When the universe was forged in the crucible of the Big Bang our mighty race was already 17 years old." (from 'Futurama')

We're basically going to be focusing on the beginning of the TV universe in live-action terms. Certain events differ over in the Tooniverse - for instance, 17 years before the universe was formed, the Nibblonians of Eternium were already in existence. Now, unless somebody uses state of the art CGI to create realistic Nibblonians as perhaps an in-joke on some sci-fi show, we have to assume Nibbler and his kin exist only in the Tooniverse. (I would LOVE to see a Nibblonian appear on a show like 'Doctor Who' or this new 'Stargate' spin-off that's coming!)

But otherwise, 13-15 billion years ago God created the Universe, using a neat little parlor trick that would be known as 'The Big Bang'.

"Approximately 13.7 billion years ago, the entirety of our universe was compressed into the confines of an atomic nucleus. Known as a singularity, this is the moment before creation when space and time did not exist. According to the prevailing cosmological models that explain our universe, an ineffable explosion, trillions of degrees in temperature on any measurement scale, that was infinitely dense, created not only fundamental subatomic particles and thus matter and energy but space and time itself. Cosmology theorists combined with the observations of their astronomy colleagues have been able to reconstruct the primordial chronology of events known as the Big Bang." (from Wikipedia, but I'll be replacing this with something similar by that Portugese scientist who did a special on the Big Bang for the Discovery Channel)

"Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait..."
(The Bare Naked Ladies, from 'The Big Bang Theory' theme song)

I think the only ones who could pinpoint exactly when the Big Bang took place would be those who actually traveled back in Time to witness it for themselves. The component of the Q Continuum who called himself "Quinn" transported the starship Voyager to the origin site of the Big Bang in order to escape Q. So that means he would know when it exactly took place. ('Star Trek: Voyager')

Sarah Jane Smith (of 'The Sarah Jane Adventures') says it took place 13 billion years ago, and characters in 'Babylon 5' say it took place 15 billion years ago; as you can see from that 'Big Bang Theory' lyric by the Bare-Naked Ladies, others think it happened 14 billion years ago. They're all just guessing. But I think Sarah Jane comes closest to the mark, especially as she probably had inside information. (Her former traveling Companion, the Gallifreyan Time Lord known as the Doctor, most likely was at the beginning of everything to observe, as was hinted in stories about the Fourth, Fifth and Seventh Doctors.)

As it is often said, God works in mysterious ways, and sometimes He uses others to do the work for Him. For instance, through the alien pilot of a massive time machine known as "Terminus", God had the ship's fuel jettisoned when it became unstable. And the resulting explosion of the Terminus engines triggered the effect that we now know to be the Big Bang or Event One. (from 'Doctor Who')

"MONSTERS"
Within a millisecond after this cosmic explosion, the Leptonic Era began. This was when elements such as Helium 2 came into temporary existence (mentioned in 'Doctor Who'). And the new universe was populated by those survivors of the old universe, the Old Ones like Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, Fenric, Shub-Niggurath, Azathoth, Gog and Magog, the Shadow (who may be the sire of the 'Babylon 5' race of the Shadows), those who would be known as the White Guardian and the Black Guardian, Abaddon, and the imprisoned Beast. (The names of those Old Ones are from H.P. Lovecraft, the Bible, 'Doctor Who', 'Babylon 5', and 'Torchwood')

The Beast didn't waste any time once he was trapped for Eternity at Krop Tor. Even though he was imprisoned, he was still able to exert his influence in the race memories of sentient races across the new-born universe, to create the image of horned demons and devils (just like the way we picture Lucifer).

The possible children of the Shadow, also known as the Shadows, are the first sentient race to evolve. It is said that they were old when even the Ancients were young. ('Doctor Who' & 'Bablyon 5') Other races evolved, who would "walk among the stars like giants". (from 'Babylon 5')

10 billion years ago, galaxies begin forming. During the next few billion years, stars and their solar systems formed, including the Milky Way. Planets coalesced out of cosmic dust, and primitive molecules formed complicated chains which would eventually become life. During this chaotic time, various members of the Q Continuum followed Quinn's lead and hid from the Continuum. (from 'Star Trek: Voyager')

The Carrionites are another of the eldest races to achieve sentience in the early days of the universe. Although they would eventually be banished into a limbo state by the Eternals (the Ancient Ones), they did pose a threat to the Earth during the Elizabethan Age. (from 'Doctor Who')

"COSMOS"
9,000,000,000 B.C.
Collapsing protostars form the Black Cluster.

7 billion years ago
Lorien, the misnamed "First One", comes into being. (from 'Babylon 5')

4,560,000,000 B.C.
The Guardian of Forever portal in time is created. The creators of the Guardian eventually stopped using it. (from 'Star Trek') It's the contention of Toobworld Central that it was created by the Time Lords of Gallifrey. ('Doctor Who') It's also our belief that the Time Lords were the ones who seeded the planets across the universe for which they would be known as the Preservers. ('Star Trek') For some reason, their active participation in the growth of the universe would wane; instead they would simply observe, rather than get involved.

The star to become known as Sol ignites in a interstellar cloud that also includes several other nearby forming stars.

And from here, we would move on to the creation of "our" solar system (but in the TV Universe, remember). And this is where the clash between Science and Creationism will get tricky.... I don't think either side will like the Toobworld splainin.....

BCnU!
Toby O'B

ALEC AS A.L.F.

Once I got home from work this morning, I went online to check out the various Super Bowl commercials from last night's game. After an hour, my brain was quite mushy, so that may explain why I've chosen the Hulu.com blipvert "Alec of Huluwood" to be the best commercial of the bunch.

It's a great example of what makes Toobworld different from the real world. ALEC BALDWIN IS AN ALIEN! And the difference? He and his alien cohorts plan to gobble up our brains.

I don't think they have an established plan in the real world......

Another alien celebrity is Dennis Rodman, as established in an episode of '3rd Rock From The Sun'. And Kevin Sorbo is really the demi-god (actually a pan-dimensional being) known as Hercules (as revealed in a behind-the-scenes episode of 'Hercules: The Legendary Journeys').

BCnU!
Toby O'B

MUSICAL TOOB: SONGS TO LEAD A LIFE OF DANGER BY

In the 'Secret Agent' episode of "The Not So Jolly Roger", John Drake took a job at a pirate radio station over three miles out at sea in order to find out who killed another agent who was investigating the transmission of military secrets.

A lot of songs were played during the episode, most of them written specifically for the episode and performed by fictitious bands. (Not all of them, however.) Most of these songs were apparently composed by Rick Minas, who also got mentioned during the episode for performing one of those songs, "Don't Try To Change Me".

I tried to keep track of the playlist as best I could and here are the numbers which, for the most part, you can only hear on Toobworld radio:

Ted Astley - "The Scorpion"

The Copperfields - "John Hardy"

The Stormsville Shakers - "It's Alive"

The Zephyrs - "No Word From You"

The Intuitions - "Though I Know"

The New Generation - "The Key To My Heart"

The Skylarks - "Change Your Ways"

These are the artists who were named, but I didn't know what the names of their songs were: The Master Minstrels & The Surf Boys.

"Look Before You Leap" and "It's Love I Should Have Tried" were two songs that were played but I don't know who the artists were.

As I said, most of the groups were fictitious. Apparently there was a group called The Stormsville Shakers, and Rick Minas did get credit for one of his songs on air. Another performer named during the show was Patsy Ann Noble, once a teen singing sensation from Australia and still working today as an actress under the name Trisha Noble. (I know her best from 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' as a woman who came on to Ted. But she also played Padme Amidala's mother in two of the later 'Star Wars' movies.)

In the climactic final scenes, one of the DJs at the station, Suzy Wade, put on Patsy Ann Noble's record "He Who Rides The Tiger" and announced that it was so quiet you could hear a drum solo. Mrs. Jansen, who was holding a gun on her, realized that Suzy must have sent out a coded message for help and that led to a nice little cat-fight between the two women... all to the music of Patsy Ann Noble.

There's an in-joke in that - Suzy Wade was played by Patsy Ann Noble! So while she was singing over the radio via record, she was also beating the crap out of her former boss.

As it turns out, I didn't need to worry about keeping exact records of the songs Drake played. (Don't tell my IDD pals!) There's a great website dedicated to 'Danger Man' and 'Secret Agent' in which the webmaster has all of the information about the songs, including the versions of them that he's been able to track down. (And "The Not So Jolly Roger" is his favorite episode, so he's given it a lot of scrutiny.)

BCnU!
Toby O'B

MINDING THE ZONKS

A few days ago I posted a list of crossovers I'd like to see, one of them being a match-up between 'Psych' and 'The Mentalist'.

At least twice so far, 'The Mentalist' has teased that it's similar to 'Psych' by having pineapple references - an air freshener in a killer's truck, a pineapple pizza delivered to the CBI offices.

But those were merely in-jokes that needed no splainin; 'Psych' has now upped the ante with a full-out Zonk.

In this past weekend's episode, Shawn told Gus that he would smooth over his latest altercation with his Dad by hanging out with him and watch a couple of episodes of 'The Mentalist'.

Not a big problem in overcoming that. It's certainly easier than trying to fix that 'Gossip Girl'/'Gilmore Girls' Zonk from the other day.

All that Shawn said was that the show's name was 'The Mentalist'. He never said anything about Patrick Jane or the CBI or even Red John. So 'The Mentalist' could refer to any type of TV show. More than likely, it's a magic show on the order of those Criss Angel specials, something with a Uri-Geller type of performer. Or the Amazing Kreskin.

To keep it totally Toobworld, maybe 'The Mentalist' stars the Amazing Yappi from 'The X-Files'.

Of course, the life story of Patrick Jane would make for interesting television, at least for a TV movie......

BCnU!
Toby O'B

FANFICCER'S FRIEND: LUIS MONTOYO

Although Fanficcer's Friend is no longer a regular feature here at Inner Toob, that doesn't mean I won't post one every now and again....

Putting away some pictures in my hard drive, I found this of Ricardo Montalban from one of his early movies in which he played a bull-fighter. Fanficcers could always use this if they were to write about the earlier life of his character of Luis Montoyo in the 'Columbo' episode "A Matter Of Honor".

Just sayin', is all......

BCnU!
Toby O'B

AS SEEN ON TV: LAFAYETTE

As I mentioned in Sunday's edition of "As Seen On TV", all week we'll be showcasing historical figures from the American Revolution, but as seen in the Tooniverse. The website for 'Liberty's Kids' has plenty of such portraits for those historical figures who interacted with their regular characters. And it's from there we'll be drawing our inspiration.
First up is Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, also known as the Marquis de Lafayette or de La Fayette. He was a French military expert who came over to the colonies to help the Americans in their fight against the British. Ten years before he died, Lafayette returned to America and visited the 26 states that made up the union. And many of those states named cities after him in honor of his service to the country.

BCnU!
Toby O'B

SPIKE.COM & THE SUPER BOWL BLIPVERTS

Got this notice during my evening nap before work:

Spike.com will have all of the Super Bowl commercials up as they air at spike.com/superbowl, as well as all the ads of Super Bowls past. They're helpfully listed by ad, and are easily embeddable and sharable.

Spike editors also threw together a couple “top 10’s” that I think you and your readers will get a kick out of, like Top 10 Funniest, Top 10 Sexiest, and Top 10 of all time.

* The Top 10 Funniest Super Bowl Commercials of All Time:
http://www.spike.com/blog/10-funniest-super/73124

* The Top 10 Sexiest Super Bowl Commercials of All Time:
http://www.spike.com/blog/top-10-sexiest-super/72988

Enjoy the blipverts, True Believers!

BCnU!
Toby O'B

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME "LOST"-BALL?

Timed for the Super Bowl, both 'Monk' and 'Psych' had football themed episodes this past Friday. Adrian Monk had to solve a murder in the parking lot outside Summmit Stadium during a playoff game between the Condors and the Wildcats; while Shawn and Gus looked into the death of a place-kicker from the Los Angeles Thunderbirds.

And both of them featured major characters wearing the Numbers from 'Lost'! On 'Monk', Captain Leland Stottlemeyer wore a #8 Condors jersey, which was the number for a player named Blaylock. Here he's seen with Monk and special guest star Bob Costas (TV Crossover Hall of Fame, 2002) who added a goofy dimension to the life of his tele-version: he seriously believed a calico kitten was trying to kill him. And here's young Shawn Spencer, circa 1987, wearing #15 on 'Psych'.

Number 15 belonged to Shawn's football hero, Sammy Winslow, who would be coaching the T-Birds when Shawn grew up. (It's a theory of relateeveety that Sammy Winslow may have been related to Carl Winslow and family on 'Family Matters'. But we're not going to push it.....)

Thanks to young Shawn's insights, Winslow was able to change his "tells" and eliminate the number of pick-offs he threw the rest of that season.

And in thanks, he gave Shawn the game ball from that day.
BCnU!
Toby O'B

TOOBWORLD 411

Okay, I'm putting this out to my readers. Maybe it will jog their memories.

I just got around to watching the football-themed episodes of 'Monk' and 'Psych' from Friday night. On 'Monk', the local pro football team was the Condors.

Now I KNOW I've heard that name used before by a fictional pro football team in Toobworld. But I can't find any notation of it in my record books. (Yes, I'm a train-spotter for TV trivia!)

Does it sound familiar to anybody else?

BCnU!
Toby O'B

FROM ONE "GG" TO ANOTHER "GG"

On a recent episode of 'Gossip Girl', Blair evaluated how good a match she would be with Yale as her college: "I am so better fit for Yale than that Rory."

That was an in-joke, making a reference to Rory Gilmore of 'Gilmore Girls', who went to Yale during the course of her series.

But there was no mention in Blair's comment that 'Gilmore Girls' was a TV show. So it could be that she was referring to Rory as a real person.

The easiest splainin would be to say that she was referring to some other Rory, maybe even a guy named Rory. But I like the challenge of accepting it to be about Rory Gilmore.

I'm thinking that during an orientation visit to the Ivy League school in New Haven, Ct., Blair was introduced to Rory, who was acting as some kind of upper class mentor. And it looks as though despite Rory's best efforts, Blair did not cotton to her at all. And that, once having heard about what Rory accomplished while there, Blair probably saw her snooty self as being able to do so much better at Yale than Rory did.

So that Zonk should go directly to Yale and not collect 200 dollars!

BCnU!
Toby O'B

GERRY STANDING VS. THE STANDING OF TREES

Channel 21, the public TV station on Long Island, has now caught up to the BBC with their broadcast of 'New Tricks'. Hopefully there won't be much lag time before they can start showing the next season - whenever that is.

In the season finale, "Mad Dogs", Gerry Standing's fear of trees resurfaced. I'm not really sure when we saw it crop up last, but I'm thinking it might have been when they found the "sunken treasure" in the quarry lake off the M25 while investigating a 1979 kidnapping in that area.

This is a great example of TV as a teaching tool. Instead of just accepting that Gerry's afraid of trees (as is a man in a recent Traveler's Insurance commercial), I decided to look it up and see if it is a real phobia.

And you know what?

Dendrophobia is the fear of trees or the fear of the forest. It is a real phobia and far more common than most people may think. Unfortunately, it is not talked about often because those who suffer with it also fear ridicule from others.

BCnU!
Toby O'B