THE 2009 TOOBITS AWARDS (PART SIX)

With the presentation of the 2009 Toobits Awards, we're getting down to the big guns now. Today we're focusing on the best crossovers of the past year....

BEST CROSSOVER
Children In Need music video Peter Kay spent two years putting this together for the Children in Need charity - it features characters from children's TV shows of today and yesterday, going back to the 1950's, and not only from the UK but from the USA as well. And all of the original vocal actors were brought together to record the medley, including Bernard Cribbins, Jane Horrocks, Ringo Starr, and Casey Kasem - but shhh! Don't tell anybody he was there! (Since Don Messick passed away, Frank Welker did the honors as Scooby-Doo.)

Enjoy!



BEST CROSSOVER PLOTLINE
'NCIS: Los Angeles' - "Random On Purpose" Abby Sciuto wasn't brought in from the 'NCIS' mothership just as window dressing for the crossover, she became an integral part of the case.

MOST TRIVIAL CROSSOVER
'Greek' & 'Party Down' When the frat boys went to work for a catering company, they wore the same pink ties as the employees did in 'Party Down'. Thus, they were all working for the same company!

MOST HYPED CROSSOVER
The week-long 'CSI" event

In the course of the week, Dr. Raymond Langston travelled to 'CSI: Miami', 'CSI: NY', and finally back to home base at 'CSI' in order to solve a case.
You can expect to see Dr. Langston in this blog again next month because of this......

FIRST CROSSOVER OF THE YEAR 2009
'Grey's Anatomy' & 'Private Practice' (02/05)

And they did at least one more before the year was out. They were late out of the gate with the first of their 2010 crossovers though, so they've already lost their shot at retaining the title.

BEST COMMERCIAL CROSSOVER WITH A DIFFERENT MEDIUM
AFLAC & "Up"



BEST COMMERCIAL CROSSOVER IN A DIFFERENT FORMAT
Comic Relief's gathering of UK advert icons Like the 'Children In Need' music video, this comedy sketch brought together many of the major advertising icons in Britain's television history with the hope of finding a way they could contribute to Comic Relief.

BEST THEORETICAL COMMERCIAL CROSSOVER
From AdRants: Here's an intriguing bit of information provided to us by Adrants reader Don Russell. Russell notes the use of Amazon's paperless Kindle in a Verizon FiOS commercial which humorously compares a Verizon repairman's installations with a cable guy's cancellations. They're all the same, of course.

That's not the intriguing part though. It's the Kindle, which is powered by Sprint's EVDO network that raises the eyebrow. It's not often you see a competitor's product displayed so prominently in an ad. Of course, as self-professed geek Russell notes, it does take a geek to notice these things and most other people - including the props people on the set - simply don't. Still."

BEST COMMERCIAL RETURN
Mr. Six, 'Six Flags Great Adventure' He's still creepy though.....

WORST COMMERCIAL CROSSOVER
Another guest commentary: "So Verizon is slamming the iPhone by saying it belongs on The Island Of Misfit Toys? Yeah, well guess what, idiots: the toys on The Island Of Misfit Toys are the coolest toys ever. Seriously, who didn't love the Charlie In The Box? Or the polka dotted elephant? And you think by associating the iPhone with them will make people NOT like it? Good thinking, Braniacs." - by Thom Holbrook

BEST ONLINE CROSSOVER
As usual, it's from 'How I Met Your Mother':

It features a variety of colorfully named sex acts from the Great White North. But be careful when you click on those links!

BEST ADAPTATION FROM ANOTHER UNIVERSE (aka MEDIUM)
BOOK to TV
'Little Dorrit' - from the Charles Dickens novel
COMIC BOOK to TV
'Smallville' - "Legion" from "The Legion Of Superheroes"
TV to MOVIE
'Star Trek'


BEST RECASTAWAY
'The Murdoch Mysteries' I only just came to this in 2009; the show started in 2008, but there were three earlier TV movies in 2004. Peter Outerbridge played 1890's Toronto detective William Murdoch in those first productions, but when it went to series a few years later, Yannick Bisson assumed the role.

And it works because it's O'Bvious they both are from different TV dimensions. Due to actors dropping out of the TV movies before they ended, the plotlines veered from the original source material so that Detective Murdoch basically was on the path to gaining a family. As I'm one who's usually resistant to shows being recast, I surprised myself by how much I was taken by the series when those disks arrived from Netflix. There were even some improvements from the original cast with regard to the main characters. I even made the "executive decision" that the series should be considered part of the main Toobworld, while the TV movies could be relegated to an alternate TV dimension.

That's it for today. Hopefully by tomorrow, we can wrap up this awards ceremony for another year....

BCnU!