DAFFY DALEKS

That should last you until I get back from vacation.....

SUPER GOLDEN FRIENDS

I want to thank all of you out there for being my super-friends....

FARE IS FAIR

This crazy lady actually provided a service - by making this on-air news report go viral, she has exposed WPIX's lackadaisical spelling error ("fair" for "fare") for all the world to see......

OUT-TAKES FROM "THE FORSYTE SAGA"

Doesn't seem proper to call them "bloopers".....

A TRIBUTE TO ERIC PORTER

"THE FORSYTE SAGA" - SOAMES VISITS IRENE

AS SEEN ON TV: SOAMES FORSYTE

SOAMES FORSYTE

CREATED BY:

John Galsworthy

PORTRAYED BY:

Eric Porter

AS SEEN IN:

'The Forsyte Saga'

TV STATUS:

Recastaway (Original)

TV DIMENSION:

Earth Prime-Time

From Wikipedia:

"The Forsyte Saga" is a series of three novels and two interludes (intervening episodes) published between 1906 and 1921 by John Galsworthy. They chronicle the vicissitudes of the leading members of an upper-middle-class British family, similar to Galsworthy's own. Only a few generations removed from their farmer ancestors, the family members are keenly aware of their status as "new money". The main character, Soames Forsyte, sees himself as a "man of property" by virtue of his ability to accumulate material possessions—but this does not succeed in bringing him pleasure.

Separate sections of the saga, as well as the lengthy story in its entirety, have been adapted for cinema and television. The BBC produced a popular 26-part serial in 1967, that also dramatised a subsequent trilogy concerning the Forsytes, 'A Modern Comedy'. The 1967 version inspired the popular 'Masterpiece Theatre' television program.

[The] television adaptation by the BBC of 'The Forsyte Saga', and its sequel trilogy 'A Modern Comedy', starred Eric Porter as Soames, Kenneth More as Young Jolyon and Nyree Dawn Porter as Irene. It was adapted for television and produced by Donald Wilson and was originally shown in twenty-six episodes on Saturday evenings between 7 January and 1 July 1967 on BBC2. It was the repeat on Sunday evenings on BBC1 starting on 8 September 1968 that secured the programme's success, with 18 million tuning in for the final episode in 1969. It was shown in the United States on public television and broadcast all over the world, and became the first British television programme to be sold to the Soviet Union.

The series was adapted from the three novels and two interludes of John Galsworthy's "Forsyte Saga": "The Man of Property" (1906), "Indian Summer of a Forsyte" (1918), "In Chancery" (1920), "Awakening" (1920) and "To Let" (1921); and Galsworthy's later trilogy "A Modern Comedy".

Soames, James and Emily's son, [is] an intense, unimaginative and possessive solicitor, married to the unhappy Irene, who later marries Young Jolyon.

A MAN OF PROPERTY
In this first novel of the "Forsyte Saga", after introducing us to the impressive array of Forsytes headed by the formidable Aunt Ann, Galsworthy moves into the main action of the saga by detailing Soames Forsyte's desire to own things, including his beautiful wife, Irene Forsyte (née Heron). He is jealous of her friendships and wants her to be his alone. He concocts a plan to move her to the country, to Robin Hill and a house he had built, away from everyone she knows and cares about. She resists his grasping intentions and falls in love with the architect Philip Bosinney who has been engaged by Soames to build the house. However, Bosinney is the fiancé of her friend June Forsyte, the daughter of Soames's cousin Jolyon. There is no happy ending: Irene leaves Soames after he rapes her, and Bosinney dies under the wheels of a cab after being driven frantic by the news of Irene's rape by Soames.

IN CHANCERY
The marital discord of both Soames and his sister Winifred is the subject of the second novel, the title being a reference to the Court of Chancery, which deals with domestic issues. They take steps to divorce their spouses, Irene, and Montague Dartie respectively. However, while Soames tells his sister to brave the consequences of going to court, he is not willing to go through a divorce himself. Instead he stalks and hounds Irene, following her abroad, and asking her to have his child, which is his father's wish. Ultimately, Soames remarries, wedding Annette, the young daughter of a French Soho restaurant owner. With his new wife, he has his only child, Fleur Forsyte.

TO LET
This novel concludes the "Forsyte Saga". The title derives from Soames' reflections as he breaks up the house in which his Uncle Timothy, recently deceased in 1920 at age 101 and the last of the older generation of Forsytes, had lived a recluse, hoarding his life like property.

In Toobworld, Eric Porter may be better known today for having played Professor Moriarty opposite Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes. As both characters were transfers from BookWorld to Toobworld, with Porter playing them both in Earth Prime-Time, I feel confident in calling on the "Identical Cousins" rule for them. (Moriarty would be the elder by at least a decade, perhaps even two.)

"The Forsyte Saga" was remade again in the early part of the 21st Century, with Damian Lewis playing Soames Forsyte. Even though it was in color and had higher quality production values, it still will be placed in an alternate TV dimension, most likely that of the remakes.

BCnU!

THEORIES OF RELATEEVEETY: PERCEPTION TO PIERCE

In the new TNT series, 'Perception', Eric McCormack plays a neuro-science professor at a Chicago University; his character's name is Dr. Daniel Pierce.

On 'M*A*S*H', Dr. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce would often write home to his father back in Crabapple Cove, Maine (just up the rocky coastline from Cabot Cove.)

The father's name? Dr. Daniel Pierce.

It would be so easy to invoke Occam's Razor and take the simplest splainin - that Hawkeye was the father of this new character and named him after his own father.

Toobworld note: We are only dealing with the televersion of Hawkeye Pierce. The characters from BookWorld and the Cineverse are not taken into account for this.

The timing would work. The Korean Conflict was from 1950 to 1953. Hawkeye could have gone home to Maine, eventually married, and fathered Daniel in 1964. (Unless otherwise stated, Toobworld Central always assumes that a TV character is the same age as the actor who plays the role.) My Dad served during that time and my sister was born in 1968.

And with 'M*A*S*H' LONG out of production, that cuts off any chance for there to be a contradiction to this theory from that source.

However, 'Perception' has only just begun. Based on the ratings figures from the debut episode and the popularity of Eric McCormack, I expect it will run for quite some time.

And so I also expect that it will eventually call upon the TV trope of the visiting parents, who will bring complications into the life of the main character during a case. We've seen that happen on other TNT shows like 'The Closer', 'Rizzoli & Isles', 'Franklin & Bash'... not to mention all the other shows on other networks!

I don't think the producers of 'Perception' could resist the opportunity to do an episode which introduces the parents of Dr. Pierce. And all the other characters would be curious as to who could have raised this eccentric genius.

So eventually we might see Daniel Pierce's parents. And once we do, there goes the Hawkeye Pierce theory. Unless of course they have Alan Alda to play dear old Dad.... Even if his first name was different we could come up with at least two different splainins to disable that Zonk.

(And as for the age difference between Alda and Hawkeye, we'll say the war aged him but since then he's gone for youth regneration measures like plastic surgery.)

But let's go with the theory that it won't be Alan Alda as Daniel's father. We can still pin our hopes for a link to 'M*A*S*H' on the mother. And we could even disable a 'M*A*S*H' Zonk in the process!

The sitcom was about the mobile military unit in Korea had several running themes during the series. One of these was the framing device of the letter home by one of the series regulars. Sometimes it was Hawkeye, sometimes Radar.... I think Klinger wrote one as well.

These could have been a great excuse to save money and do clip shows, but I think the writers created fresh material for the flashbacks in these letters.

In one of his earliest letters home to his Dad, Hawkeye mentioned having a sister.

So there we go! Hawkeye's sister was never seen on the show. If I'm not mistaken, she was never named or described, and her age was never mentioned. Whoever they might cast as Daniel's mother on 'Perception', she could just as easily be Hawkeye's sister.

Now here's where we can disable a Zonk......

I'm often surprised by the discrepancies that pop up in shows since the advent of syndication, followed by home video and now DVD collections. In the early days they had no clue that there was an audience out there who would one day be memorizing every detail, which is why the Ricardos apartment number kept changing and even worse - why so many Patrick Troughton episodes of 'Doctor Who' were lost to "wiping".

But I would have thought that after a few decades, the producers and show runners would have better continuity departments to make sure the show's "bible" was followed. (I suppose after a very long run, like the one enjoyed by 'M*A*S*H', there comes a time when there are too many details to keep track of.

Hawkeye's sister would fall into this category.

According to a very good 'M*A*S*H' wiki online, a few years after Hawkeye mentioned his sister, it was then revealed that he was an only child.

It could have been that his sister had since died. That's one way to splain it away. And if it wasn't for my desire to make this link, I'd go with that splainin to disable the Zonk.

But there could be a darker reason as to whey Hawkeye was considered an only child when he had a sister.....

Perhaps Hawkeye and his father had disowned her, treated her as if she didn't exist at all.

This is a splainin I've used before, when Chuck Cunningham was erased from the 'Happy Days' history. (After the character was written out of the show, Howard Cunningham gave thanks at dinner one night for having two wonderful children, not three.) Originally I claimed that Chuck was murdered by his little sister Joanie who then disposed of the body. Later, she made it look as though Chuck had run off - after he stole from his father, which is why Mr. C disowned him.

My new theory is that a crack in Time erased Chuck from all memory. But then again, just ask Barney Stinson - Joanie Cunningham had crazy eyes. How could I resist the idea that she used a claw hammer from her father's hardware store to bash in her brother's head. (Why would she do that? Probably his constant dribbling of the basketball sent her over the edge.)

"MOM!  Chuck gave me a basketball for Christmas!"

"I swear to God I'll kill you for that, brother or no brother!"

As for the Pierce family, it was also during the 1950's. Perhaps "Sis" Pierce abandoned her staid family life for the more bohemian lifestyle of the Beatniks - the dawn of sex. drugs, and rock - er, jazz.

I can see Dr. Daniel Pierce condemning his daughter for this public lack of morals, but Hawkeye?

I like my characters to have shades of grey, not be clear-cut examples of black or white. So what was good for the gander over in Korea, cutting a swath through the nurses' ranks, would not be permissible for the gosling sister. Besides, Hawkeye was getting far too sanctimonious on the show and those wordplay rants he had got repetitious. The speech about not carrying a gun - "I will carry a tune, cash and carry, Cary Grant! But I will not carry a gun!" - was fine. (I'm pretty sure that was the first one. But then it was "been there done that".)

I think he needed something to show he wasn't the perfect man, and the shunning of his sister would be a good option.

It couldn't be the birth of Daniel Pierce to have caused the rift in the family. The disowning of the sister would have happened before 1953, while McCormack's character would have been born in 1964. But it could be that he wasn't her first-born. She may have had a child earlier, perhaps even before she was of legal age, and then she gave it up for adoption. Maybe more than one child, by different fathers. (At least then this promiscuous lifestyle would give Toobworld Central plenty of splainins for other Eric McCormack characters in Toobworld.)

One of these half-siblings could be a year older than Daniel Pierce and who now lives in Chicago as well - advertising executive Mason McGuire from the short-lived series 'Trust Me.' (I think Will Truman's family background on 'Will & Grce' was too well-established to go messing around with adding him into the mix.)

Meanwhile, what if Daniel's father shows up on 'Perception'? His last name will probably be Pierce as well. Then I think we can add fuel to the fire concerning the sister's banishment from family consideration - she ran off and married a first cousin, bringing shame to Clan Pierce. It's definitely something that would never be brought up nowadays, for Daniel's sake (which would be convenient when the script doesn't go that way), plus it might serve as a splainin for his condition.....

Marrying a cousin with the same last name would certainly save on the cost of monogrammed towels....

I think I covered all the points that might have blocked this theory of relateeveety. Let me know what you think.

I've been imagining whom they might cast as Eric McCormack's mother on 'Perception', and I keep coming back to Blythe Danner. After all, she did a good job of it already on 'Will & Grace'. And she appeared in an episode of 'M*A*S*H' ("The More I See You") as Carlye Breslin Walton, the woman with whom Hawkeye lived when he was doing his residency in Boston (probably at St. Eligius?)

It's tempting to think she did get back together with Hawkeye in 1963, that once again she didn't "altogether leave", but there are just too many things to deal with - the difference in her names, the difference in husbands...... Not worth the hassle.

So that's my theory of relateeveety. It's just a waiting game now to see if Daniel's mother does show up on 'Perception' and then smoothing out the rough edges.....

BCnU!

REMEMBERING "McHALE'S NAVY" - TARATUPA OOM-MOW-MOW

"Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow" is a 1962 novelty nonsensical doo-wop song by The Rivingtons. The song peaked at #48 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #35 on the Cashbox charts. The band released two similar follow-up songs over the next several months, "Mama-Oom-Mow-Mow (The Bird)" and "The Bird's the Word".

(from Wikipedia)

Anachronistic songs in Toobworld are nothing new. Dr. Miguelito Loveless and Antoinette sang "The Sloop John B" (or "The John B Sails") in "The Night Of The Raven" - that took place in the 1870's, but the folk song first appeared in a 1917 American novel, "Pieces of Eight", written by Richard Le Gallienne. (So it may trace even further back to the time of 'The Wild, Wild West'.)

Within the "reality" of Toobworld, perhaps the "Papa Oom Mow Mow" song started out as a native folk song from the island of Taratupa, and the crew brought it home after the war. There one of their neighborhood kids heard it and then used it when he grew up to become one of the Rivingtons......

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: THE LITTLE MERMAID

I may not be the best of Catholics, but I still sometimes have fish on Friday......

THE LITTLE MERMAID

CREATED BY:

Hans Christian Anderson

PORTRAYED BY:

Shirley Temple

AS SEEN IN:

'Shirley Temple's Storybook Theater'

["The Little Mermaid"]

TV STATUS:

Multiversal Recastaway

(Toobworld's Original)

TV DIMENSION:

Earth Prime-Time

From Wikipedia:

"The Little Mermaid" (Danish: "Den lille havfrue", literally: the little seawoman) is a popular fairy tale by the Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen about a young mermaid willing to give up her life in the sea and her identity as a mermaid to gain a human soul and the love of a human prince.

Written originally as a ballet, the tale was first published in 1837 and has been adapted to various media including musical theatre and animated film.

The Little Mermaid lives in an underwater kingdom with her father, the sea king; her grandmother and her five elder sisters, each born one year apart. When a mermaid turns 15, she is allowed to swim to the surface to watch the world above, and as the sisters become old enough, one of them visits the surface every year. As each of them returns, the Little Mermaid listens longingly to their various descriptions of the surface and of human beings.

When the Little Mermaid's turn comes, she ventures to the surface, sees a ship with a handsome prince, and falls in love with him from a distance. A great storm hits and the Little Mermaid saves the prince from nearly drowning. She delivers him unconscious to the shore near a temple. Here she waits until a young girl from the temple finds him. The prince never sees the Little Mermaid.

The Little Mermaid asks her grandmother whether humans can live forever if they do not drown. The grandmother explains that humans have a much shorter lifespan than merfolks' 300 years, but that when mermaids die they turn to sea foam and cease to exist, while humans have an eternal soul that lives on in Heaven. The Little Mermaid, longing for the prince and an eternal soul, eventually visits the Sea Witch, who sells her a potion that gives her legs in exchange for her tongue (as the Little Mermaid has the most intoxicating voice in the world). The Sea Witch warns, however, that once she becomes a human, she will never be able to return to the sea. Drinking the potion will make her feel as if a sword is being passed through her, yet when she recovers she will have two beautiful legs, and will be able to dance like no human has ever danced before. However, it will constantly feel like she is walking on sharp swords hard enough to make her bleed. In addition, she will only get a soul if she finds true love's kiss and if the prince loves her and marries her, for then a part of his soul will flow into her. Otherwise, at dawn on the first day after he marries another woman, the Little Mermaid will die brokenhearted and disintegrate into sea foam.

The Little Mermaid drinks the potion and meets the prince, who is attracted to her beauty and grace even though she is mute. Most of all he likes to see her dance and she dances for him despite her excruciating pain. When the prince's father orders his son to marry the neighboring king's daughter, the prince tells the Little Mermaid he will not because he does not love the princess. He goes on to say he can only love the young woman from the temple, who he believes rescued him. It turns out that the princess is the temple girl, who had been sent to the temple to be educated. The prince loves her and the wedding is announced.

The prince and princess marry, and the Little Mermaid's heart breaks. She thinks of all that she has given up and of all the pain she has suffered. She despairs, thinking of the death that awaits her, but before dawn, her sisters bring her a knife that the Sea Witch has given them in exchange for their long hair. If the Little Mermaid slays the prince with the knife and lets his blood drip on her feet, she will become a mermaid again, all her suffering will end and she will live out her full life.

The Little Mermaid cannot bring herself to kill the sleeping prince lying with his bride and as dawn breaks she throws herself into the sea. Her body dissolves into foam, but instead of ceasing to exist, she feels the warmth of the sun; she has turned into a spirit, a daughter of the air. The other daughters of the air tell her she has become like them because she strove with all her heart to gain an eternal soul. She will earn her own soul by doing good deeds for 300 years; for each good child she finds, one year would be taken from her sentence while for each bad child, she would cry and each tear would mean one day more and she will eventually rise up into the kingdom of God.

What a downer!

In 1961, 'Shirley Temple Theatre' broadcast a television version of "The Little Mermaid", starring Shirley Temple as the Mermaid.  This is the true Little Mermaid for Toobworld.

In the late 1990s, the HBO series 'Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child' did an episode based on "The Little Mermaid".  This took place in an alternate TV dimension.

A live-action version of Ariel from the Disney movie "The Little Mermaid" will be seen in the ABC drama 'Once Upon A Time'.  This will be Earth Prime-Time, but Ariel will have been transformed from a sub-pocket dimension of BookWorld.  (As far too many TV characters say nowadays: "It's complicated......")

For much more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Mermaid

BCnU!

MARBER AS MARPLE

'INSPECTOR LEWIS'

"THE SOUL OF GENIUS"

Mrs. Michelle Marber lived in the Oxford environs whose only son, Stevie, was something of a genius, apparently. But he died of a drug overdose and his mother refused to believe he could have been mixed up in the use of drugs. She became a nuisance to the police and interfered in several of their investigations, even in London and Edinburgh.

Because the latest murder in Oxford hit so close to home for her, Mrs. Marber redoubled her efforts, which proved to be a thorn in the side for D.I. Lewis and D.S. Hathaway (even if they did empathize with her.)

When he saw Mrs. Marber approaching with her bags of "evidence", Inspector Lewis grumbled that she was "bloody Miss Marple".

She must have heard him, because later she related how it brought her some form of comfort to be involved in the investigation.

"At least as Miss Marple," she said to Lewis, "I get a little bit closer."

With both references to the spinster sleuth, there was no mention of the novels and short stories by Dame Agatha Christie; nothing was said about the TV series starring Joan Hickson, nor the one with Geraldine McEwan, nor the one with Julia McKenzie; certainly the movies starring Margaret Rutherford were not brought up!

As such, Toobworld Central invokes the right to claim that Miss Jane Marple was mentioned because she was a real amateur detective whose exploits were chronicled by the televersion of Dame Agatha.

Therefore, Miss Marple, Dame Agatha Christie, and Inspector Lewis (and by extension, Inspector Morse) all share the same TV dimension of Earth Prime-Time. (And the official Miss Marple is Joan Hickson. All the rest are to be found in other TV dimensions.)

BCnU!

REMEMBERING "McHALE'S NAVY" - A LITTLE RUSTY ABOUT THE RUSKIES

One episode entitled "The Comrades of 73" portrayed the United States and the Soviet Union as being allies in the Pacific Theater of World War II. However, during the 1943–1944 time period during which the series is supposed to be set, this would be incorrect. The Soviet Union did not actually declare war against Japan until August 8, 1945 — two days after the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Despite this, the series was known for being more historically accurate than its contemporary series, 'F Troop'.

(From Wikipedia)

Toobworld has never been considered historically accurate in comparison to the Trueniverse. Just look at all the fictional characters who have perished in the collapse of the World Trade Center, added in over the last decade. It was the actions of the Time Lord known as the Doctor and his friends and enemies which sparked the Great London Fire, caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, and even triggered the very beginnings of Life on that artificial construct that would become Earth Prime-Time.

Having the Soviets entered into the war against Japan at least a year earlier than the bomb blast in Hiroshima doesn't seem to have altered the general Toobworld timeline.

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: IVAN DENISOVICH

IVAN DENISOVICH

CREATED BY:

Aleksander Solzhenitsyn

PORTRAYED BY:

Jason Robards, Jr.

AS SEEN IN:

'The Bob Hope Chrysler Theater'

["One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich")

TV DIMENSION:

Earth Prime-Time

From Wikipedia:

Ivan Denisovich Shukhov has been sentenced to a camp in the Soviet gulag system, accused of becoming a spy after being captured by the Germans as a prisoner of war during World War II. He is innocent but is nonetheless punished by the government for being a spy. The final paragraph suggests that Shukhov serves ten years.

The day begins with Shukhov waking up sick. For waking late, he is sent to the guardhouse and forced to clean it—a minor punishment compared to others mentioned in the book. When Shukhov is finally able to leave the guardhouse, he goes to the dispensary to report his illness. Since it is late in the morning by now, the orderly is unable to exempt any more workers, and Shukhov must work regardless.

The rest of the day mainly speaks of Shukhov's squad (the 104th, which has 24 members), their allegiance to the squad leader, and the work that the prisoners (zeks) do—for example, at a brutal construction site where the cold freezes the mortar used for bricklaying if not applied quickly enough. Solzhenitsyn also details the methods used by the prisoners for survival; the whole camp lives by the rule of survival of the fittest. Tiurin, the foreman of gang 104 is strict but kind, and the squad grows to like him more as the book goes on. Though a "morose" man, Tiurin is liked because he understands the prisoners, he talks to them, and he helps them. 

Shukhov is one of the hardest workers in the squad and is generally well respected. Rations at the camp are scant, but for Shukhov, they are one of the few things to live for. He conserves the food that he receives and is always watchful for any item that he can hide and trade for food at a later date.

At the end of the day, Shukhov is able to provide a few special services for Tsezar (Caesar), an intellectual who is able to get out of manual labor and do office work instead. Tsezar is most notable, however, for receiving packages of food from his family. Shukhov is able to get a small share of Tsezar's packages by standing in lines for him. Shukhov's day ends up being productive, even "almost happy": 

"Shukhov went to sleep fully content. He'd had many strokes of luck that day." (p.139).

A one-hour dramatization for television, made for NBC in 1963, starred Jason Robards Jr. in the title role and was broadcast on November 8, 1963.

BCnU!

JANIE ROSS & PATRICK JANE - DE-ZONKED!

On 'Franklin & Bash', Janie Ross was the lost love in the life of attorney Peter Bash. As an assistant district attorney, she was often his opponent in court. He finally told her that he knew whenever she was lying to him - Janie had a a certain way of turning her head each time she lied.

"Oh, so now you're the Mentalist?" she sniped.

This is not a Zonk reference to the CBS procedural 'The Mentalist' starring Simon Baker as Patrick Jane.

As an officer of the court, Janie Ross would have known about the former "mentalist" Patrick Jane being a consultant to the California Bureau of Investigation. She may even have prosecuted at least one of the murder cases solved by Jane.

BCnU!

REMEMBERING "McHALE'S NAVY": OLD LEADBOTTOM THE SERLINGUIST

Captain Wallace Burton Binghamton, "Old Leadbottom", has to be one of the greatest foils in TV History. And it was through his exasperation with Commander McHale and his "pirates" that we learned that Binghamton was a serlinguist - that is, he broke the fourth wall to address the audience in the Trueniverse.

Among the things he would often say across the dimensional vortex:

• "I could just scream!"
• "Why me? Why is it always me?"
• "Somebody up there hates me!"

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: CAPTAIN BUINOVSKY

CAPTAIN BUINOVSKY

CREATED BY:

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

PORTRAYED BY:

Torin Thatcher

AS SEEN IN:

'Bob Hope Chrysler Theater'

["One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"]

TV STATUS:

Multiversal

TV DIMENSION:

Earth Prime-Time

From Wikipedia:

"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is a novel written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, first published in November 1962 in the Soviet literary magazine Novy Mir (New World). The story is set in a Soviet labor camp in the 1950s, and describes a single day of an ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. Its publication was an extraordinary event in Soviet literary history—never before had an account of Stalinist repression been openly distributed. The editor of Novy Mir, Aleksandr Tvardovsky, wrote a short introduction for the issue, titled "Instead of a Foreword," to prepare the journal's readers for what they were about to experience.

A one-hour dramatization for television, made for NBC in 1963, starred Jason Robards Jr. in the title role and was broadcast on November 8, 1963.

Buinovsky (Buynovsky, "The Captain") [is] a former Soviet Naval captain. A relative newcomer to the camp, Buynovsky was imprisoned when an admiral on a British cruiser on which he had served as a naval liaison sent him a gift. In the camp, Buynovsky has not yet learned to be submissive before the warders.

Since prisoners were each assigned a grade it was considered good etiquette to obey. This is outlined through the character of Fetiukov, a ministry worker who let himself into prison and scarcely follows prison etiquette. Another such incident involves Buinovsky, a former naval captain, who is punished for defending himself and others during an early morning frisking.

BCnU!

ECHOES: THE ROUND-HEADED BUFFOON IN EGYPT

KARL PILKINGTON

As seen in:

'An Idiot Abroad'

& 

'The Ricky Gervais Show'

BCnU!

(This is dedicated to my cousin-in-law Ed Furstein, a big fan of Karl's.....)

REMEMBERING "McHALE'S NAVY" - FUJI FILMED

Each day this week, I thought I'd take a look at another Toobworldly aspect of 'McHale's Navy', in memory of Ernie Borgnine, who passed away at the age of 95.

I'm not as up-to-date on the WWII-era sitcom as I was with 'The Andy Griffith Show', which I not only have as a complete boxed set, but due to it being on TV several times a day for quite a few years now - most times with TV Land, used to be with TBS. On the other hand, I've only just started getting Antenna TV last year which carries it; and before that, it was hard to find 'McHale's Navy' anywhere. But when I was growing up, it was a staple of my afternoon viewing.

For today, I'd like to disable a Zonk concerning the unofficial member of McHale's crew - Fuji Kobiaji (played by Yoshio Yoda).

Fuji was a Japanese prisoner of war, but he served more as a mascot to the crew.  He worked for them as their "houseboy" as thanks for keeping him out of the war and out of a POW camp. They just had to make sure Fuji stayed hidden from Captain Binghamton.

In at least one episode of the four season series, but also in the feature movie "McHale's Navy Joins The Air Force", Fuji's name is given as Takeo Fujiwara rather than as Fuji Kobiaji.

But this doesn't have to be a Zonk. "Takeo Fujiwara" was his birth name, from which the nickname "Fuji" comes from. Commander McHale and his men decided it could only help his situation if that didn't become public knowledge. So they got rid of his dog tags (or whatever Japanese soldiers had for identification), and gave "Fuji" a new last name - Kobiaji.

I was tempted to make up a splainin as to it being their attempt to spell Kobayashi, and that leading to Fuji somehow being responsible for the family tree that led to the naming of the Kobayashi Maru of 'Star Trek' fame. But it's too damn hot for such pretzel logic maneuvers.

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: MORSE

INSPECTOR ENDEAVOUR MORSE

CREATED BY:

Colin Dexter

PORTRAYED BY:

John Thaw

&

Shaun Evans

AS SEEN IN:

'Morse'

&

'Endeavour'

(respectively)

TV STATUS:

Recastaway

(Due to aging - acceptable)

TV DIMENSION:

Earth Prime-Time

From Wikipedia:

'Inspector Morse' is a British detective drama television series based on a series of novels by Colin Dexter. It starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis. The series comprises 33 two-hour episodes (100 minutes excluding commercials) — 20 more episodes than there are novels — produced between 1987 and 2000. Dexter made uncredited cameo appearances in all but three of the episodes.

The series was first shown on Britain's ITV network, was made by Zenith Productions for Central Independent Television. Later, it was produced by Carlton UK Productions between 1995 and 1996. Towards the series end, it was made by Carlton and WGBH.

Every episode involved a new murder investigation featuring several guest stars, and showed a complete story. Writer Anthony Minghella scripted three including the first, "The Dead of Jericho", which was filmed in the summer of 1986, and aired on January 6, 1987 featuring Gemma Jones, Patrick Troughton and James Laurenson. 

Morse's first name is not revealed except for the one occasion when he explains to a lady friend that his father was obsessed with Captain James Cook and for this reason his first name is Endeavour. On the other occasions, he usually answers "Morse. Everyone just calls me Morse" or dryly replies "Inspector", when asked what his first name is.

In the series it is noted that his reticence about his Christian name led to a public school (Stamford School, where Colin Dexter and his brother were both pupils) nickname of "Pagan". The origin of his name is the vessel HMS Endeavour, as Morse's mother was a Quaker (Quakers have a tradition of "virtue names") and his father was a fan of Captain James Cook. Morse's father was, by trade, a taxi driver and Morse likes to explain the origin of his additional private income by saying that he "used to drive the Aga Khan". The author of the Morse novels, Colin Dexter, is a fan of cryptic crosswords, and Morse is named after champion setter Jeremy Morse, one of Dexter's arch-rivals as a clue-writer in the crossword world.

With a Jaguar car (originally a Lancia in the novels), a thirst for English real ale and a penchant for music (especially opera and Wagner), poetry, art, classics, classic cars, and cryptic crossword puzzles, Morse presents a likeable persona, despite his sullen temperament.

Thaw had a special appreciation of the fact that Morse was different from classic characters such as James Bond and Sherlock Holmes. Morse was brilliant but he was not always right. He often arrested the wrong person or came to the wrong conclusion. As a result, unlike many classic sleuths, Morse does not always simply arrest his culprit; ironic circumstances have the case end and the crime brought to him. Also, Morse was a romantic—frequently mildly and gently flirting with or asking out colleagues, witnesses or suspects—occasionally bordering on the unprofessional, but had little success in love.

Morse is a character whose talents and intelligence are being wasted in positions that fail to match his abilities. Several references are made to the fact that Morse would have been promoted above and beyond Chief Inspector at Thames Valley CID, but his cynicism and lack of ambition, coupled also to veiled hints that he may have made enemies in high places, frustrate his progression despite his Oxford connections.

Morse's relationships with authority—the establishment, bastions of power, and the status quo—are markedly ambiguous, as sometimes are his relations with women. Morse is frequently portrayed in the act of patronising women characters, to the extent that some critics have argued that Morse is a misogynist.

Morse's appearance of being patronising might have been misleading; he habitually showed empathy towards women, once opining that the female sex is not naturally prone to crime, being caring and non-violent. He was also never shy of showing his liking for attractive women, and often had dates with those involved in cases.
Morse is extremely intelligent. He dislikes spelling and grammatical errors, demonstrated by the fact that, in every personal or private document he receives, he manages to point out at least one mistake. 

He claims his approach to crime-solving is deductive, and one of his key tenets is that "there is a 50 per cent chance that the last person to see the victim alive was the murderer". In reality, it is the pathologists who deduce; Morse uses immense intuition and his fantastic memory to get to the killer.

Morse is a highly credible detective and plausible human being. His penchant for drinking, his life filled with difficult personal relationships, and his negligence toward his health, however, make him a more tragic character than previous classic sleuths.

Morse's eventual death in the final episode "The Remorseful Day" is caused by heart problems exacerbated by heavy drinking, differing from the literary character's diabetes-related demise.

In May 2011 ITV announced that it was to make a prequel—a two-hour special "Endeavour", with author Colin Dexter's participation, portraying a young Morse. Set in 1965, Shaun Evans plays the young detective constable Morse who is preparing to hand in his resignation when he becomes embroiled in an investigation involving a missing school girl. It was broadcast on 2 January 2012.

FROM "ENDEAVOUR"
Who knew a rear-view mirror could cause a lump in the throat?

FOR MORE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Inspector_Morse

Two for Tuesday!

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: ALEXANDER DREW

ALEXANDER DREW

CREATED BY:

Charlaine Harris (?)

PORTRAYED BY:

Jacob Hopkins

AS SEEN IN:

'True Blood'

TV DIMENSION:

Earth Prime-Time

(Previous Timeline)

From Wikipedia:

Alexander Drew was an angelic looking, yet impetuous vampire. He was turned at the tender age of 9, and served the Vampire Authority as a Chancellor. He enjoyed smoking cigarettes and taunting everyone around him, including his fellow Chancellors.

Alexander was the Chancellor presiding over Europe, and bragged of having vampire rights bills passed in Scandinavia. A feat which Rosalyn Harris found unimpressive, given the Scandinavians inclination towards liberalism.

In reality Alexander was a Sanguinista, and recorded videos of himself feeding on and killing humans, which he kept as trophies, and sent to other anti-mainstreaming groups.

Roman learns from Nora of the existence of a second traitor on the council. After ordering a search of all the Chancellors' quarters, he discovers video footage of Alexander feeding on, and killing a human woman, which Alexander himself had then sent to various Sanguinista groups around the globe, along with the encrypted message "sympathy and solidarity". 

Alexander attempts in vain to defend himself, by claiming to have been trying to infiltrate the extremists. Roman, however, sees through Alexander's lies, and pulls him from his chair by the hair, and stakes him in mid-air, in front of the assembled Chancellors.

Getting rid of Alexander that quickly in the show certainly solved the problem of what to do once Hopkins' growth spurts began (a la Walt in 'Lost'). Aging has always been a problem with characters who should be ageless - 'Angel', Commander Data ('Star Trek: The Next Generation'), Jeannie Nelson ('I Dream Of Jeannie'), Samantha Stevens ('Bewitched'), but it would especially be so with a child character who should be frozen in Time.

According to one site I visited, Alexander Drew should have been around 4,000 - 5,000 years old.

Although the Vampire Authority apparently exists in the "Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire" novels, I'm not certain if Charlaine Harris actually created Alexander Drew. Perhaps there is a child vampire similar to him in BookWorld, but by a different name.

BCnU!