RAISING CAINE

'The Mentalist'
When Patrick Jane harangued Foley, the beleaguered forensics technician, down in his cramped basement "lab" for quick results on a fingerprint check, the nervous schlub griped: "I'm not David Caruso!"

This was, in a Toobworldly way, pretty ballsy on the part of the production team for 'The Mentalist'. After all, the day may come when the Eye Suits will ask for a crossover between 'The Mentalist' and 'CSI'; and 'CSI: Miami', on which David Caruso stars, is a spin-off from the original 'CSI'. So how does it look if 'The Mentalist' is referring to 'CSI: Miami' as a fictional program and yet might be one day interacting with the show that spawned it?
Now THAT is what I call a Zonk!

Granted, Foley only mentioned Caruso, not the show or even his character of Horatio Caine. In any other circumstance, I'd just fudge it and say it could have been a reference to some other project in which the televersion of David Caruso is involved.

But what stymies that suggestion is that this isn't the first time for a mention of David Caruso on a TV series to Zonk 'CSI: Miami'. Recently on 'Hot In Cleveland', both Valerie Bertinelli and Betty White did their impersonations of Caruso as Caine. AND specifically mentioned the show.

And that was a good example why 'CSI: Miami', out of all three 'CSI' shows, is singled out for mention by other TV shows - it's that schtick Caruso has with his sunglasses and a quip......

(Other shows to have Zonked it: 'House', 'Psych', 'Castle', 'Reba', 'Californication', 'Gilmore Girls', 'Burn Notice', 'Cougar Town' and 'How I Met Your Mother'. 'Reno 911' even had one of its characters wearing the show's logo on a T-shirt!) So we'll just have to claim that a TV show was made about the forensics team down in Miami, and that David Caruso was hired to play Horatio Caine. (How many pasty red-headed actors could there be in Toobworld? Does Damian Lewis even have a televersion?)

And with all the attention and interference being brought to Horatio Caine's team at the "actual" crime lab while this show is being filmed, it's no wonder they haven't yet caught on to the fact that a serial killer is right there in their midst, working alongside them! BCnU!