Saturday, July 3, 2010
CLEAN-UP IN AISLE 4!
Children born of alien-human unions, including a reptilian Visitor
A boy born of human and Vulcan who died and was reborn again
A litter of kittens whose mother was a human woman and their father was a humanoid cat
A human baby born of a cow
And then there's this miracle of birth:
I always believed that 'Mr. Ed' was a Houyhnhnm, as seen in "Gulliver's Travels". But could this be how he really gained the power of speech? Born of a human woman, looking nothing like a human, but perhaps still having a human mind (as well as human vocal chords)......
It doesn't matter, really. Just wallow in the weirdness of this ad......
BCnU!
Thanks to Ray William Johnson for pointing this out in his weekly "Equals Three" video......
IF RONALD McDONALD HAD A DAUGHTER....
Homina thrice, I'm lovin' it!
BCnU!
RONALD McDRACULA
If I was in Toobworld, I'd probably sleep better at night knowing this clown was over in the alternate TV dimension known as the Evil Mirror Universe.....
BCnU!
MAYBE HE'LL ANSWER TO "CHIP"
Starting with this Japanese commercial......
It's always been a rule in Toobworld that dogs who show intelligence are reincarnated humans. Lassie. Buck. Poochinski.
And then there's this long-haired loony from Japan......
He could also be a hybrid whose father came from Parenthia, like Alpha and Orvis in 'Bewitched'.....
BCnU!
AS SEEN ON TV: EDMOND HALLEY
'Tales From The Darkside'
Fritz Weaver
From Wikipedia:
"Comet Watch" starts as amateur stargazer Englebert Ames (Anthony Heald) is excited by the once in a lifetime opportunity to witness Halley's Comet which only passes the Earth every seventy-five point eight years. However while gazing at it through his old telescope something strange happens, he sees a woman heading towards him & she ends up coming out of the end of his telescope & into his room!
The woman says her name is Lara Burns (Sarah Rush) & that she found a time window in 1910 the last time Halley's Comet passed Earth which allowed her to ride it with its discoverer Edmund Halley (Fritz Weaver) who also drops into Englebert's room through his telescope to reclaim Lara but she doesn't want to go back with him...
Friday, July 2, 2010
THE BUSH AND ALLEN SHOW
BCnU!
MORTONS OF TOOBWORLD
"Television is where Keating really made his mark; he was tabbed by George Burns in 1953 to play the part of the Burns’ next-door neighbor Harry Morton (after Hal March, John Brown and Fred Clark had all taken a whack at it) on 'The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show', and Larry’s playing up of Harry’s oversized ego (with vocabulary to match) was the perfect counterpoint to wife Blanche’s (Bea Benaderet) withering sarcasm. (Keating also played Morton on 'The George Burns Show', a short-lived sitcom that followed Burns and Allen’s departure after eight seasons on CBS.)"
That's an awful lot of people to play that one role, something that's more likely in soap operas. Had it been only one man, maybe plastic surgery could have been the reason; or maybe Blanche married two different men by the same name, as Farmer Ziffel did with his two wives on 'Green Acres'. (At least that's my splainin for the two Mrs. Ziffels.)
According to the IMDb, here's the timeline for the actors who played the role:
Hal March ... Harry Morton (1950-1953)
John Brown ... Harry Morton (1951)
Fred Clark ... Harry Morton (1951-1953)
Larry Keating ... Harry Morton (1953-1958)
We're going to turn to 'Quantum Leap' for the splainin.
At some point in the future, the "Quantum Leap" project developed by Dr. Sam Beckett will finally be considered a success and available for general use. And it wouldn't have to be used only for scientific research. Like the Russians with the shuttle and Eve Thorne's plans for the commercialization of Global Dynamics in the town of 'Eureka', the governing board of the Quantum Leap facility may have decided to sell "trips" into the past via the accelerator. This would maintain the funding on the project without resorting to government handouts.
This enterprise would probably be one of the major reasons for a 'Timecop' policing agency.
I can imagine the first three men in the list of those who played Harry Morton to be multi-millionaires, able to pay the high price for the trip of a lifetime. But why would they have chosen to replace Harry Morton in the timeline?
Simple... it gave them the chance to indulge in their passion: being fans of vaudeville, "Old Time Radio" and the movies, they paid a fortune just for the chance to meet an idol, George Burns. They were able to play card games with George and Gracie, attend weddings held at the Burns home, and even enjoy the domestic life with Harry's wife Blanche (not that the 1950's audience in the Trueniverse would ever see what that fully entailed!)
The rich man played by John Brown only made one appearance on the show however, most likely because his trip was cut short. Those responsible were probably the Timecops or the Time Squad or some other Time Agent (like Captain Jack Harkness). Apparently the innate greed of that Harry Morton doppelganger got the better of him when Harry's wife Blanche mentioned that her life insurance was now increased to $20,000. Temporal protectors don't allow such threats to wreak havoc on the timeline.
Larry Keating would be the true Harry Morton, not seen by the Trueniverse audience until those three millionaires (maybe even billionaires!) had played out their fantasies. There weren't any others willing to make that particular time leap - as great as George and Gracie were, there's only so much interest to be found for them among multi-millionaires.
And so from that point on, once the "true" Harry Morton was returned from the waiting room in the future, it was only Larry Keating's televersion that was seen in Toobworld. This would lead into the sequel (after Gracie retired), as well as into a crossover with 'Love That Bob!' (which also featured George, Gracie, and Harry's wife Blanche.)
That crossover, by the way, puts Harry and Blanche into the running for the TV Crossover Hall of Fame. Perhaps for next June as a Gemini entry (unless the 'Softly, Softly' team finally gets their due.)
BCnU!
Thanks for the inspiration, Ivan!
AS SEEN ON TV: PRINCE WILLS
AS SEEN IN:
"Prince William"
AS PLAYED BY:
Jordan Frieda
Thursday, July 1, 2010
BEING HUMAN IN AMERICA
Of course, U.S. TV network suits took notice and have decided to adapt it for the audience over here. This is a common enough practice in Toobworld, with some of the strongest examples being 'All In The Family', 'Sanford & Son', 'Three's Company' and now 'The Office' which keeps making new copies in other lands. From south of the border came the many clones of 'Betty la fea", including ABC's 'Ugly Betty'. ABC is currently running a summer series called 'Scoundrels' which is based on a New Zealand show, 'Outrageous Fortunes'.
And the trend works in reverse with foreign adaptations of 'Married With Children', 'Charlie's Angels', and all three of the major 'Law & Order' franchises.
What makes these adaptations easier to accept in Toobworld is in the revisions of the major characters. The situation can remain the same, but it helps if the characters' names were at least different. This is what was so hard about trying to find a way in which both the American and the original British versions of 'Life On Mars' in the same TV dimension - just about everybody had the same name in the remake. We had to wait until the American series played out to its conclusion before we could come up with the proper splainin. Even then we pulled a muscle trying to twist our way through the pretzel logic of it all. At least with the new Spanish version, the names have been changed... if not to protect the innocent, at least to protect what's little left of my sanity.
So here we are with news of a remake of 'Being Human'. Remember 'Being Human'? That's what this post started out with as a topic. According to a report posted by Michael Ausiello of Entertainment Weekly, the three main characters in the American adaptation will be named Aidan (the vampire), Josh (the werewolf) and the ghost will be Molly. In the original series, they are Mitchell, George, and Annie, respectively. And the show will take place in the Boston area.
The one thing that may be hard to reconcile is placing the show in a shared Toobworld timeline with 'True Blood', in which vampires are now able to live openly among humans. With the original series, the splainin is that the Tru-Blood drink hasn't been approved for consumption in Great Britain. With 'Moonlight' from a few years ago, series has been placed on the timeline before Tru-Blood was introduced on the market. (I haven't given much thought to 'The Vampire Diaries'.)
The producers of this new version of 'Being Human' could have mixed up the character revisions a little more, though. It seems like vampires as leading characters are always males. Why couldn't the girl be the vampire, or even the werewolf? And if the ghost was the male, then they could have retained the name of George. Why? First off, as a tip of the hat to 'Topper'. But also they could have then hired T.R. Knight to play the role as his character from 'Grey's Anatomy', the late Dr. George O'Malley......
Alas, he's a character from an ABC show and the new 'Being Human' will be on Syfy. Only in the Toobworld dream-state is such an idea possible....
BCnU!
PS:
I never noticed it before but in that 'Being Human' picture, George the werewolf is standing in front of that globe-shaped light. It gives it the impression of a full moon. Nice touch.....
THE HANSON CAD LINE
It's Toobworld Central's way of thinking that Ricky didn't have great relations with his own father - if he even knew the man whom we believe to be dear old dad: Michael Bennett. Back in 1940, Michael Bennett was in charge of a fuel depot outside Hastings. Despite being married - and having his wife right there with him in the office - Bennett leered at the women driving the tankers and would find any excuse to touch them. Before the month of September, 1940, was out, Bennett had reason to be a bit bolder in his attentions on these younger women, and it's possible one of them returned his affections. Eventually, she might have become pregnant by him, although she more than likely ended up raising the child on her own. If this theory of relateeveety plays out, this girl's last name would have been Hanson. Through Ricky Hanson's son Luke, we might also project the family tree into the 27th Century to find Professor Hobbes - chronicled in Toobworld as taking a tour on the planet "Midnight". Heading in the other direction along the Hanson lineage, Michael Bennett may have been an illegitimate son himself. If so, his father may have been Hurry Fenwick, who was connected to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel at the turn of the 20th Century. SHOWS CITED:
'New Tricks'
'Foyle's War'
'Doctor Who'
'Casualty 1909'
BCnU!
AS SEEN ON TV: PRINCE HARRY (AND HIS DAD)
Can't think of a better reason than that to feature him in the "As Seen On TV" gallery....
(Seen here with his father, Prince Charles)
AS SEEN IN:
"Prince William"
AS PLAYED BY:
Eddie Cooper
(Prince Charles was portrayed by Martin Turner)
BCnU!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
MRS. PEEL, WE'RE NOTED
This leads to the supposition that they knew of top professional John Steed and Emma Peel, talented amateur, who are known to us via the classic British spy series 'The Avengers'.
And within the reality of Toobworld, this could happen. Mrs. Peel has been out of the "Circus" life for over over forty years; Steed more than likely still keeps his hand in the game on a limited basis. But their exploits probably became known to the general public and eventually a movie was made about their spy careers. This would be the same badly-reviewed movie to be found in the real world, starring Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman.
A bad movie it may be, but it serves to nullify any Zonks when 'The Avengers' get cited on other TV shows.
BCnU!
AFRICAN ECHOES: WADATA DATA
Wadata is a West African nation currently led by President Simeon Moto and it is rich in oil and diamonds. It was the backdrop for one of the latest Boston-based schemes pulled off by the 'Leverage' team.
Wadata has never been invoked in any other TV series - so far as I know - so we can't make a link... as is. However, President Moto's evil brother seemed to infer it was a relatively new nation, which means it either was carved out of some pre-existing country as it broke free in a bid for independence, or it was originally known by some other name.
There are a few candidates for either of those options:
African East Victoria ("Mission: Impossible")
Western Natumba/Natsumba ("The Man From U.N.C.L.E.")
Two countries that probably shouldn't be considered would be the Sahalese Republic and Equatorial Kundhu, both from 'The West Wing' which takes place in an alternate TV dimension.
Because the reporter who was in danger from Moto's brother worked for the West African News service, Western Natumba is a strong pozz'bility. However, I'm leaning towards one of the satellite states in the Nyamba Protectorate breaking free to be on its own. Mainly because I'm such a McGoohanite.
BCnU!
IT TOOK A CROOK
And who was their con man "partner"?
to James Whittaker Wright after his adventures in the city.
I don’t really know that the truth is,
but I’d like to think that somewhere along the way,
he found his own little piece of grifting heaven."
'Hustle'
And even that might have been an alias......
We just may yet get an unofficial third name for this one Toobworlder, and then a Richard Chamberlain character can get into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame on the Honors List....
BCnU!
AS SEEN ON TV: ADOLPH HITLER
aka
DEATH
AS SEEN IN:
"Prometheus 5 or Between Time And Timbuktu"
AS PLAYED BY:
Page Johnson
Oh, God, am I final!"
Hitler
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
THE VIEW OF SAN CORDOVA
Toobworld Central can then make the claim that some other South American dictatorship seen on TV was the same country where General Castillo ruled. And I think a good choice would be San Cordova from the 'Mission: Impossible' episode "The Elixir". Reva Santel, the widow of the former leader, wanted to take over with her own dictatorship. And she would have succeeded if it hadn't been for those meddling IMF agents. Deputy Premier Tomas Avilla tried to hold free and open elections, and his plan may have worked - once the IMF made sure that Riva Santel's ambitions were thwarted. However, freedom and democracy were probably foreign concepts to the people of San Cordova, and so a man like General Castillo could easily have wrested control of the country for his own gains.
BCnU!
SODDIN' NANCY
It's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble (as Mushrat would say), that Abigail Townsend could be related to rich private investigator Charlie Townsend - if he has a counterpart in the parallel world in which we'd find 'Nancy'. See, that show can't be in Earth Prime-Time because there was no President Smith in Toobworld. Toobworld has to follow the real world with the line of succession.
'Nancy' can't be placed in the 'West Wing' dimension either. Their POTUS collection diverges from ours probably right after Nixon (the last real President to be mentioned) although Ford, Carter, and Reagan might still have served. After that, they had Presidents D. Wire Newman, Owen Lassiter, and Jed Bartlet (with Glenallen Walker serving for a few days under the 25th Amendment.)
However, President Smith could easily fit into the same TV dimension in which we'd find the sitcoms 'Hail To The Chief', with President Julia Mansfield (played by Patty Duke), and 'Mr. President', with George C. Scott as President Samuel Arthur Tresch. Apparently that world wouldn't have had any of the same Presidents as the real world in the late 20th Century. And because 'Nancy' is also a sitcom, I think it would make for a good fit.
Two other shows might also fit into this TV dimension: 'Spin City', with its alternateevee Mayor of New York City, and 'Yes, Prime Minister' with a different leader of the British government than to be found in the real world. And its prequel of 'Yes, Minister' would also be included.
BCnU!
AS SEEN ON TV: VINCENT VAN GOGH
AS SEEN IN:
"Van Gogh: Painted With Words"
AS PLAYED BY:
Benedict Cumberbatch
AS SEEN IN:
'Doctor Who'
AS PLAYED BY:
Tony Curran
Two for Tuesday!
BCnU!
Monday, June 28, 2010
TOOBWORLD REMEMBERS SENATOR BYRD
Back in February, the "As Seen On TV" gallery featured Senator Byrd's likeness in Skitlandia as seen on 'Saturday Night Live".
BCnU......
SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE TELEVISED
KANNER CAMERA*
In the past, I've provided TV-based identities for various characters to be found in 'The Prisoner' (the original version) which linked to other TV series, either from before 'The Prisoner' or after, and in one case, during.
Number Two - as played by Leo McKern in "Chimes Of Big Ben" and the two part finale - was the identical twin brother of Horace Rumpole. While the wife of 'Rumpole Of The Bailey' was She Who Must Be Obeyed, his brother was He Who Must Not Be Named.
Number Six had an identical twin in the Village - Number 12, also played by Patrick McGoohan. This "Schizoid Man" was addressed as Curtis, but his real name was Nelson Brenner. And he was a double agent in the CIA, as exposed by Lt. 'Columbo' in the "Identity Crisis" murder case.
Number Two - as played by Clifford Evans in "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling" - created a cryogenic process to freeze himself until his damaged heart could be repaired in a completely safe operation. Keith Longman was his true name and he tried to test the process on Simon Templar, aka 'The Saint'.
The Butler - played by Angelo Muscat - was the son of Dr. Miguelito Loveless (from 'The Wild, Wild West') and an unknown Italian woman. His father gave him the job in the Village, a place Loveless created, never knowing his son might one day betray his dreams of world domination.
And of course, Number Six himself was NATO/MI-6 agent John Drake of 'Danger Man' & 'Secret Agent'.
And now Toobworld Central has turned the Eye towards another Village resident......
In the final episode of 'The Prisoner', we met Number 48, a prisoner who was on trial as a representative of rebellious youth against the state - that is, the Village. He joined the former Number Two, the Butler, and Sir (the former Number Six) in a coup that brought down that particular Village. (There have always been others, confirmed by last year's "revision" of the series.) It's the only episode in which Number 48 appears, even though there was another in the Village who looked exactly like him. One of Number Two's assistants in the Village, Number 8, entered into a virtual reality simulation of the Old West, calling himself "The Kid," in order to play mind games with Number Six. However, the programming affected his own troubled mind, leading to his murder of a woman involved in the plan and to his own possible suicide. (It's unclear if he died from the fall of the balcony in the bar, but it does look like he broke his neck.) I suppose the argument could be made that The Kid and Number 48 were the same man, based on their similar features. (As you probably figured out, they were played by the same actor, Alexis Kanner.) But that would have required at least one additional episode to show the reformation of The Kid, that he was under the influence of Village brain-washing or whatever. Toobworld Central can accept that a lot of things happen unsaid and offscreen - the first meeting between Ensign Chekov and Khan Noonian Singh, for instance - but this would have been too much to allow without seeing some sort of reform.
There's no problem in accepting that the President of the Assembly in that last episode of 'The Prisoner' is the same man who served as Number Two earlier in "The Girl Who Was Death"; there's a logical progression there. But Number 48 and Number 8 can't be the same man.
As for them looking alike, the Village was known for its skill in plastic surgery. Number 12, who looked just like Number Six, is a good example of that.
So who was Number 48? Of his television roles, I'm going to suggest it was Police Constable Matt Stone, whom Kanner played in nine episodes of 'Softly, Softly'. His character just disappeared, with no good explanation. (The behind the scenes reasons given for Kanner's departure from the show - especially as his character was proving popular - do not influence what happened within the reality of Toobworld.)
It's possible that while he was with that police squad in the Wyvern region, Constable Stone stumbled across sensitive, even top-secret information that he wasn't meant to see. (Or hear - it could be someone, from MI-5 perhaps, whispered their dying secrets to him when Stone found the dying agent.) Because of that, Stone was abducted by those in control of the Village and brought to the Village in order to learn what he knew. Matt Stone would have been there for over a year before Number Six, the former John Drake, found himself in similar straits.
(Could it be that those bar patrons listening in on Matt Stone's conversation would turn out to be the ones to abduct him?)
As to what happened to Matt Stone after their escape from the Village, apparently he went underground so completely he was never seen again in Toobworld - not even under assumed names in one-shot TV roles. Alexis Kanner apparently only appeared on TV one last time, in an episode of 'UFO' in 1970 - although the show took place in 1980. It's unlikely that Matt Stone would risk detection by those who kidnapped him by training to be a SHADO pilot with the alias of Jim Regan. Stone would have stayed as far away as possible from any government agency.
Alexis Kanner died in 2003, but there's no reason to assume that "dem bones" of former constable Matt Stone were interred as well. He may still be out there, living under an assumed name, leading a life that is so unremarkable that there's not even a tangential chance it might be observed in the background of some other TV series.
Anyway, it's more fun to remember him as he was as Number 48 - one of the most colorful characters to come out of Toobworld in the late 1960's........
Hear the word of the Lord.
BCnU!