Saturday, February 13, 2010

CHARLIE: SCHLEMIEL; BABY: SCHLEMAZEL

I realize that I'm not going to be around forever to be the Caretaker of Toobworld. So I really shouldn't plotz over what radical changes various TV shows have in store for the future timeline of the TV Universe. (I do have to keep an eye on the events of the near future, though, as I've been doing since "the Eugenics Wars" of the late 1990s.....)

Maybe that's why I like to find those little trivial nuggets that don't mean very much as far as present-day Toobworld is concerned, but which can provide shading and background for the Toobworld of Tomorrow, or for its inhabitants on a more personal level.

That's what I thought after seeing this sequence near the end of the latest episode of 'Two And A Half Men' ("Aye, Aye, Captain"):
For someone with a sick sense of humor like me, that was pure comedy gold - although I don't think it probably was that color.

But it got me thinking - someday, maybe twenty years or so down the line on some TV show, there will be a young man - or even woman! - a twenty-something, who'll hail from the Malibu area of California.

Why can't we make the claim that as an infant, a strange man vomited on them in their carriage?

It's not something that ever has to come up within their TV series (which will probably be beamed right into the cortex of the brain thanks to special implants). In fact, I'm sure it's the type of fact you want to keep hidden from your friends.

Whoever's going to pick up the Toobworld torch and run with it after I'm gone, just a note of advice: don't waste this opportunity on just any TV character that comes along that might fit the bill. Make it somebody special so that the theoretical link between that show and 'Two And A Half Men' is worth it.

Just sayin', is all.....
As for the subject heading, this is the definition I was once given by a friend who passed away last year, Harry Edelstein the Matzoh King of Broadway: "A schlemiel is the guy who spills the soup. A schlemazel is the guy he spills the soup on."

Thanks, Harry!

BCnU!

PS:
Unfortunately, CBS.com won't let me embed that scene or the episode, but you can watch it at their site. (Jump ahead to the 19:00 minute mark for the scene......)

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