STATE STEREOTYPES

God Bless America!

MOVIE/COMIC BOOK/TV CROSSOVER!

What isn't explained is how Beast was brought forward in Time from the Cuban Missile Crisis to be at the University of Farmer's. And conversely, how that Farmer's agent was sent back in time to the X-Men school in 1962.....

BCnU!

AND HERE NOW, THE NEWS......

FAIR WARNING:

“What’s the news across the nation

We have got the information

In a way we hope will amuse you

We just love to give you our views

Ladies and gents, ‘Laugh-In’ looks at the news.”

 

SKED ALERT! "DOCTOR WHO" MID-SEASON FINALE!

Tonight is the mid-season finale of 'Doctor Who' - "A Good Man Goes To War".

At least here in the "Magnited States Of America". The Brits have already seen it. (And yes, so have I.....)

So, my fellow Yanks, here's a little something to whet your appetites:

I will say this and no more - a good case could be made for a new spin-off, just from this episode alone......

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: POE, FREUD, AND CALIGULA

SIGMUND FREUD, CALIGULA& EDGAR ALLEN POE

 AS SEEN IN:
'The Venture Brothers'

AS VOICED BY:
Christopher McCulloch (Poe)

TV DIMENSION:
The Tooniverse

From TV Rage and TV.com:



Brock and the Venture Boys get out of the dungeon, and are now somewhere in the past with Brock choking Edgar Allan Poe. Brock asks Edgar where he put the “Hand of Osiris”. Edgar gives in and tells Brock he hid it under the floor boards of his house. Hank starts to worry about the timeline and wonders if they are messing with it; Dean says to Hank not to worry about it.

Brock prepares to take his team in to go up against the Egyptian worshippers. Dean has mounted his head on the friendly mummy and is riding the Perfect Man. Through the wonders of time travel, Brock has produced a second Brock Samson to help him.

Brock, still at the pyramid, tells Hank to team up with Caligula for the attack pattern, but changes his mind when he sees Caligula dry humping Hank, and sends Hank to team up with Sigmund Freud, and for Caligula to be at the last wave alone. They are to attack right after the 2 Brocks and Edgar Allan Poe charge in.

After the role credits at the end of the show, the imaginary announcer says “Next week on the Venture Bros.” and we see the 2 Brocks with Hank in the middle of a snow storm. Brock is holding Hank in his arms while Hank is saying to him he feels cold and being pessimistic that he is going to die. Brock asks the other Brock to open the carcass remains of Edgar Allan Poe to stuff Hank inside him to keep him warm. The other Brock can’t bare the stench of the insides of the poet. Just then, Brock curses Dr. Venture's name when he sees they're all forsaken.

BCnU!

MISSING LINKS: THE MIRROR OF PORTUGAL

Horace Dorrington was considered one of 'The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes' in Toobworld, whose exploits were first chronicled in a series of stories by Arthur Morrison. As a private investigator, he was corrupt, amoral, and on at least one occasion, a murderer. He could be relied upon to solve his cases, if only that, but always as a means to lining his pockets with more than his established fee with the client.

Wold Newton scholar Rick Lai considers Dorrington to have been the third most dangerous man in London, after Professor Moriarty and Colonel Moran from the Sherlock Holmes canon.

In one of his cases (set in 1895 as per the TV series, if not the original stories), Dorrington was hired to retrieve the fabled Mirror of Portugal, a diamond thought lost since the French Revolution. Until recently it was passed down through the generations of his client but it was stolen from around his neck. Dorrington tracked down the thief to be a Mr. Hamer, who shared an office with the client.

Dorrington forced Hamer and his wife to take him to where the diamond was kept, but it turned out Mrs. Hamer had it on her all the time. And when they reached the Thames, she threw the legendary stone into the river - if she couldn't have it, then no one would. After first insuring that he had collected his fee from his client, he then told the man and his brother where it could be found... which is all that he had been contracted to do.

And so the Mirror of Portugal lay at the bottom of the Thames, slowly sinking into the mire of the sediment, for over one hundred years. But then in 2006, a strange occurrence happened - the Thames River suddenly drained off, near to where the diamond lay in the muck.

In order to save the Earth from the resurgence of the Racnoss spider empire, the Gallifreyan Time Lord known as the Doctor opened a floodgate that caused the surging waters to cascade down into the center of the Earth where the clutch of spider eggs were just hatching after being dormant since the formation of the planet.

It wasn't just water that flowed down into that shaftway, but the muck and the mire and all the detritus to be found in the Thames. And that included the Mirror of Portugal.....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: DOCTOR BOB

On this date in 1935, Dr. Robert Smith takes his last drink, and Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, Ohio, United States, by him and Bill Wilson.

DR. ROBERT SMITH

AS SEEN IN:
"My Name Is Bill W"

AS PLAYED BY:
James Garner

From Wikipedia:
Robert Holbrook Smith (August 8, 1879 – November 16, 1950) was an American physician and surgeon who co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous with Bill Wilson, more commonly known as Bill W. He was also known as Dr. Bob. He was born in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, where he was raised, to Susan A. Holbrook and Walter Perrin Smith. After graduation from Dartmouth College in 1902, he completed medical school at Rush Medical College. Smith was married to Anne Ripley Smith, who played a vital role in the development of the 12 steps of AA. Smith co-founded the recovery movement Alcoholics Anonymous with Bill Wilson, in 1935 in Akron, Ohio.

Smith was called the "Prince of Twelfth Steppers" by Wilson because he voluntarily helped more than 5000 alcoholics. In addition, it was in his home that the basic ideas of AA were developed. Many AA ideas developed initially in an offshoot of the then-popular Oxford Group, which was a Christian movement. Smith said that AA's basic ideas came from their study of the Bible; the Steps, in essence meant "love and service." Although Bill Wilson had helped other alcoholics with little or no success, AA is said to have begun June 10, 1935. This was the day "Dr. Bob" took his last bottle of beer, under the watch of Bill Wilson, to steady his hands for surgery. By applying the spiritual solution of the 12 Steps and working with other alcoholics, Smith was able to stay sober from June 10, 1935, until his death in 1950 from colon cancer.

I'm sending this out to my cousins Peter and Maggie - only for the reasons that today is their birthday (They're twins), and because their family name is Smith.....

BCnU!

TELE-QUICKIES: FREEZE-FRAME FUN

Like words and phrases, frame grabs can be taken out of context.....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: DON CARLOS

DON CARLOS

PRINCE OF ASTURIAS

AS SEEN IN:
'The Adventures Of Sir Francis Drake'

AS PLAYED BY:
Joseph Cuby

From Wikipedia:
Carlos, Prince of Asturias, also known as Don Carlos (8 July 1545 – 24 July 1568), was the eldest son and heir of King Philip II of Spain. His mother was Maria Manuela of Portugal, daughter of John III of Portugal. Carlos was mentally unstable and was imprisoned by his father in early 1568, dying after half a year of solitary confinement. His fate was a theme in Spain's "Black Legend", and inspired a play by Friedrich Schiller and an opera by Giuseppe Verdi.

BCnU!

MUTANTS!

Mutants aren't just found in the comic books and movies; they're also in Toobworld. Earth Prime-Time had at least one TV series about Homo Superior - 'Mutant X'. ('Heroes' may have been about mutants, but they could also have been about mutates. Mutants are born that way; mutates are genetically altered later. Beast of "The X-Men" - now a resident of Toobworld thanks to a Farmer's Insurance blipvert - is both. Anyhoo, after Future Hiro met Peter Perrelli on the subway, the timeline was changed and the rest of the series ended up in a parallel dimension.  So if there was anything to that stuff about their powers being triggered by an eclipse later in the series - I dropped out partway through Season Two - then it wasn't really relevant to Earth Prime-Time.)

'The Twilight Zone' had at least one mutant - Jimbo Cobb, a simple man with the power of telekinesis. And even Claudette Colbert played a mutant, in an episode of 'Suspicion'.

"The Last Town Car" told the story of Edith Miller, who thought she was being haunted by an old-fashioned taxi. Whenever she rode in it, she was transported back to a crime connected to the cab some decades before.

It turns out she had psychic abilities and was actually tapping into the memories of the cabby. Many years before, he was the personal driver for a spiteful old man who ruined the lives of his own two children. The driver couldn't stand to see him hurt anyone else and so he pushed his boss into the oncoming traffic. As he thought back on his crime, the scenario was replayed for Mrs. Miller as though she was actually there to observe it.

I don't know if either Jimbo Cobb or Edith Miller can blame an eclipse for their abilities; I think they were born with those "talents". But based on the ages of both characters, mutant abilities pre-date the dawn of the atomic age....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: THE BRITISH HOME SECRETARY, 1913

REGINALD McKENNA

AS SEEN IN:
"The Masks Of Death"

AS PLAYED BY:
Ray Milland

In this TV movie in which Peter Cushing once more assayed the role of Sherlock Holmes (albeit now with Sir John Mills as his Dr. Watson), Holmes was called away from his investigation into the strange deaths of several men by a special request to investigate the disappearance of a German prince which might have international repercussions in that volatile year leading up to World War I.

That request came from no less than Great Britain's Home Secretary, personally.

The Home Secretary was never named, but since we know the affair took place in 1913, it was a simple combination of Google and Wikipedia which led to the information... information... information........

From Wikipedia:
Reginald McKenna (6 July 1863 – 6 September 1943) was a British banker and Liberal politician. He notably served as Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer during the premiership of H. H. Asquith.

Home Secretary
In office
24 October 1911 – 27 May 1915

Monarch: George V

Prime Minister: H. H. Asquith

Preceded by Winston Churchill

Succeeded by Sir John Simon

McKenna was elected at the 1895 general election as Member of Parliament (MP) for North Monmouthshire. He served in the Liberal governments of Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Herbert Henry Asquith as President of the Board of Education, First Lord of the Admiralty and Home Secretary.

As Chancellor of the Exchequer in Asquith's coalition government, he opposed the introduction of conscription, and retired into opposition upon the fall of Asquith at the end of 1916.

Even though Cushing's Holmes preceded that of Jeremy Brett with a TV series back in the 1960's (of which only five episodes remain), it is Brett's interpretation that is considered the official version for Earth Prime-Time. Therefore, the alternate dimension in which Peter Cushing portrayed Holmes may have had a different man in the office of Home Secretary.

However, I don't think we have to consider Cushing's Holmes to be living in either the dimension of '24', 'Commander-In-Chief', or 'The West Wing'. (Or - closer to home - the alternate dimension of the 'Human Target' remake, which had an entirely different Royal Family in England.)

Perhaps he could be found in the Land of Remakes, or in the "Evil Mirror Universe" - the two major alternate TV dimensions, where the historical figures should still remain the same as those found in Earth Prime-Time as well as in Earth Prime. And whichever one was not chosen, that could be the home for Ronald Howard's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.

BCnU!

McBAIN!!!! (A THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY)

Pinky Pinkston was the heir to her father's fortunes via the Pink Chip Stamps Factory. But she wasn't the only daughter of Pincus (Pinchas?) Pinkston - as a result of an affair he had with another woman, the elder Pinkston was the father of a young woman named Lisa who was Pinky's identical half-sister. (A closer genetic possibility than an identical cousin, you have to admit!)

Lisa may have been disowned by her father, rebuffed by her half-sister, and so in retaliation she turned to a life of crime. In alliance with Jervis Tetch, AKA the Mad Hatter, Lisa helped kidnap the various members of the jury who put Tetch away in Gotham State Prison......

(Diane McBain played both roles.)

BCnU - same Toob-time, same Toob-channel!

MUG SHOT REVEALED!

Friday's "Mug Shot", as Andy figured out, was Peter Vaughan. He was pictured as Horace Dorrington, a scalawag of a private detective in a 1971 episode from the anthology series 'The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes'.

Forty years on, and he's on TV again as Maester Aemon in 'The Game Of Thrones', a life-long resident of the Knight's Watch stationed at The Wall.....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: WARREN BUFFETT

Of all the famous names in the 2008 financial crisis to be portrayed in the HBO movie "Too Big To Fail", only one proved problematic for Toobworld:

WARREN BUFFETT

 AS SEEN IN:

"Too Big To Fail"

AS PLAYED BY:

Ed Asner

STATUS:

Recastaway

Unlike all of the other televersions in this historical replay, Warren Buffett had already been portrayed in the main Toobworld. (Timothy Geithner had been portrayed previously, but that was over in Skitlandia on several editions of 'Saturday Night Live'.) Added to that quandary is the fact that it was Warren Buffett as a member of the League of Themselves in an episode of 'All My Children'.

The billionaire may have even been playing himself in the season finale of 'The Office'. Who knows why a man of his status would want to take the position of manager for a paper company branch in Scranton, Pa.? (Perhaps there's even more trouble with the Berkshire Group than previously known.....) Although we don't give credence to credits, Buffett was only listed as "Interviewee". So he could have been playing himself, or he could have been an identical cousin, or some other Doppelganger.)

Leaving his appearance on 'The Office' out of the equation, we still have the recastaway problem between 'All My Children' and "Too Big To Fail".

The HBO TV movie was a re-creation of true events, based on a book chronicling the collapse of the financial markets in 2008. Using documented evidence like scheduled meetings as a guide, certain characters would have met with each other, as seen on TV. There might have been transcripts of those meetings from which dialogue could be drawn. But not all of that interplay could be public record. A lot of dialogue which occurred behind closed doors must have been from the imagination of the screenwriter only.

So at least one aspect of the story had to be fictionalized. Why not then take a quantum leap into supposition and suggest other aspects may have only happened in Earth Prime-Time but not on Earth Prime?

How about this - Warren Buffett was replaced by a time traveler from the Future? (Speaking of 'Quantum Leap'.....)

To the audience viewing at home, if you're familiar with 'Quantum Leap', the Leaper would be visible as himself. But to those within the Toobworld reality, the Leaper would look like the "Leapee".

So, as realistic as "Too Big To Fail" strove to be, it was still the Toobworld version of events, and that is never exactly the same as what happens in the Trueniverse.

We've seen History change all the time in Toobworld - historical figures having their lives changed by the Doctor (Van Gogh, Dickens, Queen Victoria, for example), the Enterprise crew (Mark Twain, for one), and time travelers coming into contact with Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy (as seen on the old and new versions of 'The Twilight Zone'.)

So why can't it happen in recent history as well?

Therefore, the Warren Buffett of "Too Big To Fail" was from the Future (farther along in the timeline than Dr. Sam Beckett), sent back to that critical time in History "to make right what once went wrong." And having accomplished the task, the Leaper returned to the Future and Buffett rejoined his life, already in progress.....

BCnU!

MY BIRTHDAY RANT

BBC-America made a big mistake in bumping 'Doctor Who' on Memorial Day Weekend. The core fan base would have watched no matter where they were or what plans they had. DVR recordings are factored in nowadays.

So now I'm sure their ratings for the last two episodes of this first half of the season will probably dip because eager fans sought other outlets to catch those episodes as quickly as possible.

This was probably true with the mid-season cliffhanger finale, when many such fans were probably watching "A Good Man Goes To War" hours before "The Almost People" aired on BBC-America!

Not that I know of such things......

Birthday rant over.

TVXOHOF: 2011 BIRTHDAY HONORS LIST II

For my birthday, I decided there should be two new inductees into the TV Crossover Hall Of Fame for the Birthday Honors List. This is usually reserved for those TV characters that normally would not technically qualify for the honor.

The two "honorees" today fall into the category that was begun with Dr. Miguelito Loveless - that is, they played at least three characters who had enough in common to be considered the same person. (As long as the argument held up.)

With the three characters played by Irene Gilbert all rolled into "Nurse Griffin", each of them was a nurse in Los Angeles, but only one who had a name.

I wrote about this next entry previously in the Inner Toob blog, so I'm taking that post and revamping it slightly to make the case for her inclusion into the Hall......

Until I bought the DVD collection for myself, I used to watch the opening minutes of the 'Burke's Law' repeat which American Life Network used to show, in order to see who the guest stars were going to be. Then I would watch the full episode when I got home in the morning from work.

One night, I had to look up who the actress was playing Lucy Brewer, the woman who discovered the murder victim. (Like Marlyn Mason who was also in "Who Killed Jason Shaw?", she didn't merit a major credit at the beginning of the episode.)

Joyce Jameson played the slightly addled woman who did "favors" as her profession, and according to the IMDb.com, she played several women named Lucille over the course of her career. Even better, none of those other roles had last names attached to them and all of them were to be found in Los Angeles!

'The Fall Guy'
- "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harold" (1982) .... Lucille

'Baretta'
- "They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To" (1976) .... Lucille

"Promise Him Anything" (1975) (TV movie) .... Lucille

'Emergency!'
- "Kidding" (1975) .... Woman Stuck in Door

(I threw that last one in as a gimmee. After all, why shouldn't we assume that her name may have been Lucille, and Lucy Brewer at that?)

So, it could be that Joyce Jameson as Lucy Brewer was the same woman in all those TV shows and that one TV movie. And therefore, Lucille "Lucy" Brewer can be added to the TV Crossover Hall of Fame as part of my birthday honors list.

Sadly, Ms. Jameson won't ever know about it. She took her own life back in the 1980s.

BCnU....

TVXOHOF: 2011 BIRTHDAY HONORS LIST I

Irene Gilbert convinced her mentor Stella Adler to open a chapter of her acting academy in Los Angeles and became one of its directors. She also appeared in about a dozen TV shows, mostly in single episode small roles.

Sadly, I never would have heard of her had she not just recently passed away.

But looking through her TV credits, the case could be made that she deserves entry into the TV Crossover Hall Of Fame as a special Birthday Honors List inductee, thanks to three of those small roles back in the 1970's.

Here are those roles, in the order in which she played them:

'Medical Center' - "The Adversaries" (1969)
O.R. Nurse

'The Bold Ones: The New Doctors' - "One Lonely Step" (1971)
Desk Nurse

'Barnaby Jones' - "The Deadly Conspiracy: Part Two" (1975)
Nurse Griffin

So the argument could be made that each of those nurses were the same woman and her last name either was Griffin the whole time, or she eventually got married and Griffin was her husband's surname. But for ease in writing about her, we'll just call her Ms. Griffin, and leave her marital status undetermined. (Unless of course there's a good candidate named Griffin we can draft as her husband?)

Up to 1969 at least, Ms. Griffin worked in the operating rooms at the university-connected medical center in Los Angeles. But it is a stressful occupation - not as stressful as being an ER nurse! - and Nurse Griffin may have been keeping an eye open for new opportunities. So when the chance came to work as one of the nurses at the reception desk of the Craig Institute, she applied for the job and got it.

I can't say where Nurse Griffin was working by the time she got involved in the "Deadly Conspiracy" which was being investigated by Frank 'Cannon' and 'Barnaby Jones', because I haven't seen that two-part crossover since it first aired on CBS back in the mid-70's. And I have no idea if she survived the episode. But I'd like to think she went on to enjoy a long career in one of the most noble professions.

Perhaps, working outside the box, one could take this picture of Ms. Gilbert with Lindsay Wagner at the Stella Adler Awards of 2002 and make a suggestion to any 'Bionic Woman' fanficcers out there - perhaps this is Nurse Griffin with Jaime Sommers. Just as a suggestion of course, but maybe due to problems with the aging equipment installed in the 'Bionic Woman', Jaime needed a full-time nurse/companion.....

That's the way I'd run with it, but you fanficcers may have other ideas.

Good night and may God bless, Ms. Gilbert. And welcome to the TV Crossover Hall Of Fame!

My thanks to Lydia Doyle in the preparation of this piece.

BCnU!

This is the first of two new members via the Birthday Honors List.  I have so many of these "By Any Other Name" hypothetical connections that I thought I should take advantage of my birthday being in June, for which the Zodiac sign is Gemini (the Twins), that my birthday is a double number (6/6), I was born in a double number year (never mind), and that my first name officially is Thomas, which means "twin".......

NEW 2 VIEW @ TOOB HQ: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Sure, it's my birthday now, but I get myself presents all the time.

At any rate, here are the latest acquisitions for the Toobworld Central DVD Library:

1) BENNY HILL: THE LOST YEARS

2) THE BENNY HILL SHOW MEGA-SET

3) MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS - THE COMPLETE SERIES MEGA-SET

4) SHERLOCK HOLMES (with Peter Cushing & Nigel Stock)

5) JOHN ADAMS

6) TERRY PRATCHETT'S THE COLOUR OF MAGIC

7)  FLYING BLIND

8) STEPHEN SONDHEIM'S PUTTING IT TOGETHER

With that last item, there's a personal connection - my sister and I were at the recording of that show, so we got to see Carol Burnett's fashioin faux pas.  And with 'Flying Blind', I can get the screen grabs to illustrate a new theory of relateeveety that will connect the show to 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea'......

ONE O'BRIEN LINE

Since it's my birthday today, I thought it was a good time to put the spotlight on one of the four main branches of the televersion of my family. Although I don't think my televersion is descended from this particular branch......

May O'Brien was an Irish prostitute working in one of the seedier districts in London during the late 1800's. She was accused of the murder of one of her sister doxies; but luckily for her, Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke was able to discover the true murderer.

It's possible that in the course of her sordid profession, May O'Brien got pregnant - not just once, but perhaps at least twice. Rather than visit some back-alley butcher to terminate the pregnancies, she may have given birth to a boy who would carry on the family name. Ultimately, down through the generations in Toobworld, May O'Brien's branch of the family tree (certainly not mine!) would lead to Miles Edward O'Brien, Chief Engineer of the Deep Space Nine space station.

If May O'Brien had another child, it could have been a girl... and born before she got into trouble with the Law. If so, this daughter could have grown up to become the personal maid to Lady Grantham of Downton Abbey.


SHOWS CITED:
'The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes' - "A Message From The Deep Sea"

'Star Trek - Deep Space Nine'

'Star Trek - The Next Generation'

'Star Trek' - "The Trouble With Tribbles"

'Downton Abbey'

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: ROBERT F. KENNEDY

Although this should be a happy occasion, I'm using the ASOTV showcase to highlight the saddest event I can remember happening on my birthday, involving one of my heroes......

 ROBERT F. KENNEDY

AS SEEN IN:
'The Kennedys'

AS PLAYED BY:
Barry Pepper

From Wikipedia:
The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, a United States Senator and brother of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, took place shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, in Los Angeles, California. After winning the California primary election for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, Kennedy was shot as he walked through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel and died in the Good Samaritan Hospital twenty-six hours later. Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian immigrant, was convicted of Kennedy's murder and is serving a life sentence for the crime. The shooting was recorded on audio tape by a freelance newspaper reporter, and the aftermath was captured on film.

Kennedy died at 1:44 a.m. PDT on June 6, nearly 26 hours after the shooting.

Kennedy's body lay in repose at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York for two days before a funeral mass was held on June 8. His body was interred near his brother John at Arlington National Cemetery. His death prompted the protection of presidential candidates by the United States Secret Service. Hubert Humphrey went on to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency, but ultimately narrowly lost the election to Richard Nixon.

As with his brother's death, Robert Kennedy's assassination and the circumstances surrounding it have spawned a variety of conspiracy theories. As of 2011 Kennedy remains one of only two sitting United States Senators to be assassinated.

Inner Toob featured a different televersion of RFK as a Tiddlywinkydink back in 2008 on the occasion of his birthday.

For more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Robert_F._Kennedy

BCnU.......

THIS CONCLUDES OUR BROADCAST DAY......

"THE MASKS OF DEATH"

Video-wise, I'm in a Sherlock Holmes frame of mind lately. I watched the first disk of the 1971 series 'The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes' and an episode from the 1965 series starring Peter Cushing and Nigel Stock. Only five episodes remain of that series and based on "The Hound Of The Baskervilles", it looks pretty good.

Here's a later TV movie from the mid-1980's, also starring Cushing as Holmes, but this time with Sir John Mills as Dr. Watson. If I ever find a worthy splainin for the recasting of David Burke with Edward Hardwicked in the Jeremy Brett series, I think it would also apply to the TV dimension in which we find Cushing's consulting detective.

I hope you enjoy!

BCnU!

"GAME OF THRONES" - PREVIEW FOR EPISODE 8

I think the sign of a successful series could be the number of clips sent out for preview - if it's doing well in the ratings, there aren't that many clips available for the next episode.

If that's true, 'Game Of Thrones' must be doing great! We've only been getting one clip each week for the last several episodes.

Here's the preview for tonight's episode of 'Game Of Thrones', the 8th for this season:

'Game Of Thrones' is on HBO Sunday nights at 9 PM, ET.......

BCnU!

"GAME OF THRONES" PARODY

As my little buddy Sean (the "GoT" Boy) commented, this is rather weak, but I'm still in that stage where I can't get enough of anything connected to 'Game of Thrones'.....

BCnU!

RAISE YOUR GLASS!

With 'Community' and 'Cougar Town' completed for the season, and 'Psych' coming up quite quickly, this is the perfect video to bridge the gap between them.....

Being rather mired in my own personal cultural tastes, I never heard anything by Pink before. (If she's been on 'Saturday Night Live', I have to confess I fast-forward nowadays through the musical numbers, even for those artists I like.)

But I admit I really like this song!

BCnU!

HOLY EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES!

Time for our weekly PSA......

I believe that infernal incendiary device would indicate the infamous involvement of the Clock King......

This counts towards the TV Crossover Hall of Fame requirements for Batman & Robin and Batgirl.......

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: SPALDING GRAY

Spalding Gray, American actor, writer, and monologist, was born on this day in 1941......

SPALDING GRAY

AS SEEN ON:
'Saturday Night Live'

AS PLAYED BY:
Michael McKean

From Wikipedia:
Spalding Rockwell Gray (June 5, 1941 – ca. January 10, 2004) was an American actor, playwright, screenwriter, performance artist, and monologuist. He was primarily known for his "trenchant, personal narratives delivered on sparse, unadorned sets with a dry, WASP, quiet mania." Gray achieved celebrity for writing and acting in the play Swimming to Cambodia, adapted into a film in 1987.

He began his career in regional theatre, moved to New York in 1967 and three years later joined Richard Schechner's experimental troupe, the Performance Group. He co-founded the Wooster Group ensemble in 1975. He died in New York City of an apparent suicide. A documentary film about his life, entitled And Everything is Going Fine, was released in 2010 and is directed by Steven Soderbergh.

Gray was born in Providence, Rhode Island, to Rockwell Gray, Sr., the treasurer of Brown & Sharpe, and Margaret Elizabeth "Betty" Horton, a homemaker. He also had two younger brothers – Channing Michael and Rockwell, Jr. He was raised in the Christian Scientist faith and grew up in Barrington, Rhode Island, spending summers at his grandmother's house in Newport.

After graduating from Barrington High School, he enrolled at Emerson College as a poetry major, where he earned his B.A. in 1963.

In 1965, Gray moved to San Francisco and became a speaker and teacher of poetry at the Esalen Institute. In 1967, while Gray was vacationing in Mexico City, his mother committed suicide at the age of 52. After his mother's death, Gray moved away from the west coast and permanently settled in New York City.

Gray's books "Impossible Vacation" and "Sex and Death to the Age 14" are largely based on his childhood and early adulthood.

He would have been 70 years old today.....

BCnU!