Since the mid-1980's, a particular newspaper keeps popping up in Toobworld,
in sitcoms as well as dramas (and even in at least one blipvert!)
It doesn't matter what publication it is, or where the show takes place. We never see its masthead, just the same pages with the same layout and stories.
It doesn't matter what publication it is, or where the show takes place. We never see its masthead, just the same pages with the same layout and stories.
As I said, it's been happening since the mid-1980's. Here are two examples
- one of the earliest* and one of the more recent sightings:
I think you can see why I chose those two examples. (If not, may I suggest
corrective eyewear?)
Some sharp-eyed viewer has collected plenty of frame grabs of these
newspaper pages as they appeared in Toobworld (as well as in a couple of
movies.) Here's the link to see the collection.
When other props are purchased from places like Independent Studio Services, there's no need to look for further splainin. A box of Nuts & More cereal shows up in an episode of 'Chuck' or 'Grey's Anatomy' or 'In Plain
Sight', we don't go thinking it's the exact same box.
But newspaper layouts change daily all across the country. Since all of
these shows take place in plenty of different locations over a long span of
time, there's no way that they're copies of the same paper.
I think it has to be just the one copy. And only of those two pages at
that. Somehow it keeps reappearing, perhaps as an omen, throughout Time and
Space.
I would say magic has to be involved. Not necessarily as an omen of doom,
maybe not even as a milder warning. Nothing particularly dire seems to happen
after the pages make their appearance. Perhaps some spectral force is using the
paper as a cry for help. But so far, nobody seems to have noticed.
I used to run a monthly category called "Fanficcer's Friend" which provided
suggestions for those interested in writing fanfic. And to illustrate possible
team-ups of TV characters who were not previously connected, I would share frame
grabs and other pictures of the proposed actors involved - from any other source
except television. I figured those pictures had to be considered set in stone
within the realm of Toobworld.
For example, a picture of Peter Falk with Gene Barry had to be from the
first 'Columbo' pilot, "Prescription Murder". We couldn't use it again to claim
that it was actually a picture of lawyer Daniel J. O'Brien ('The Trials Of
O'Brien') with Chief of Detectives Captain Amos Burke ('Burke's Law').
But the rules don't apply to pictures from movies. They come from the
Cineverse, not Toobworld. And although there are some overlaps along the
"Borderlands" and some movies totally absorbed into the TV Universe (the 'Star Trek' franchise, for
example), they are two distinct realms of fictional existence.
So here's a frame grab from the 2003 remake of "A Texas Chainsaw
Massacre":
And we can see that the newspaper was used to cover up this poor girl's
body. And it's absorbed some of her blood......
The artifacts found in 'Warehouse 13' are imbued with some sort of energy
from either their previous owner or from some event with which they were
connected. The objects sold out of Vendredi's Antiques, as seen in 'Friday The
13th: The Series', were cursed by the Devil. Either one of these two sources
could be the splainin for why this newspaper page keeps maifesting itself all
over the country.
Maybe the spirit of that murdered girl has become tied to that newspaper
page and as such it has the power to reappear anywhere. And "any-when". (Since
we're not taking that frame grab as being literally from that movie, we don't
have to be tied down to the murder as having taken place in 2003 when the movie
was released.)
Property directors on all of these TV shows seem to enjoy making sure those
two pages show up in their productions - in much the same way as sound engineers
squirrel away the "Wilhelm Scream" into the movies and TV shows they work on.
So those newspaper pages will continue to appear in the TV universe, probably
long after I'm done as a custodian of the Toobworld Dynamic. And that means we
won't see 'Warehouse 13' agents Myka and Pete snag, bag, and tag the phantom
newspaper any time soon......
BCnU!
* Although 'Married... With Children' appeared first in 1985, 'Everybody
Hates Chris' - which wasn't broadcast until decades later - takes place earlier
in the Toobworld timeline. So the appearance of the newspaper in one of its
episodes (Click the link above to see it!) may be the earliest sighting within
the "reality" of Toobworld.
If it helps, the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Masssacre remake takes place in the 1970s, not 2003.
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