NUMBERS RUNNING - "TRUE DETECTIVE"

The first season of 'True Detective' had a running example of "The Numbers" as seen in 'Lost'.  Louisiana State Police detectives Marty Hart and Rust Cohle had "I-23" as their radio call identification.

See you in another Life, Bruthah!

WISH-CRAFT: THE MANY LOVES OF BATGIRL

It's a Toobworld Dynamic rule that publicity pictures and screen captures from other TV shows cannot be used to illustrate "What If?" scenarios for other TV characters.

That's probably confusing, isn't it?  Here's my usual example which will hopefully make it clearer:

This is from the first 'Columbo' pilot, "Prescription: Murder".  Peter Falk as Lt. Columbo and Gene Barry as Dr. Ray Flemming.  That's a moment frozen in Time and can only be considered as being a picture of Columbo and Flemming.  I couldn't later claim that it's a bit o' wish-craft showing a crossover between lawyer Daniel J. O'Brien and Captain Amos Burke.  ('Trials Of O'Brien' and 'Burke's Law' respectively.)

But the temptation is always there.  Two days before I started writing this blog post, I had an idea about the love life of Barbara Gordon (AKA Batgirl) and the many TV characters with whom she may have had relationships.

Why?  Because it amused me.  Shut up!  (Actually, I saw the picture after learning about the death of Efrem Zimbalist Jr. earlier this month.)

Yvonne Craig, who had many TV guest appearances before making her mark as the distaff damsel of derring-do in Gotham City, has plenty of those publicity shots and frame grabs from her career which could have illustrated such an article:

 

She could have carried on with both Stuart Bailey and Gerald Lloyd "Kookie" Kookson III at the same time.

('77 Sunset Strip')

Two-timing may have come easy to her.  When she was a freshman in college, she could have had a fling with Dobie Gillis while at the same time putting the moves on his buddy Maynard G. Krebs.  

('The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis')

And maybe lawyer Sam Benedict was a sugar daddy.  (Nothing says Barbara Gordon had to be all virgin sweetness.)

('Sam Benedict')

While moonlighting as a meter maid in Los Angeles, Barbara may have ticketed Steve Douglas which led to her dating his son Robbie.

('My Three Sons')

As for her liaison with Captain Lee Crane, that would have happened after her time seen on the screen as Batgirl since the adventures of the Seaview were set ten years into the future of original broadcast.  (She still could have been carrying on that crime-fighting career however.)

('Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea')

And it wouldn't all have to be about her love life.  This frame grab from 'Perry Mason' with Neil Hamilton could have been of her home life with her Dad, Commissioner Gordon.....

But there is one picture I might consider to be eligible as fodder for fanfic:

This is from a Don Knotts movie "How To Frame A Figg".  But as that takes place in the Cineverse, it's fair game to use it for Earth Prime-Time as a scene where Barbara Gordon would be in a Raleigh restaurant with Barney Fife and Professor Hubert St. John (from the "Aunt Bee And The Lecturer" episode of 'The Andy Griffith Show').

But as for the other pictures?  No, we couldn't use them.  Still....  I got to put the idea out there anyway.  

I'm a baaaaad boy......

BCnU!

THEORIES OF RELATEEVEETY - THE TERRANOVA FAMILY

'KOJAK' 

"IN FULL COMMAND"

'WISEGUY'

"HOW WILL THEY REMEMBER ME?"

"Gomez and D'Agostino got reached by Terranova."

Gino

'Kojak'

"'Terranova' has always been a respected name in this parish."

Monsignor

'Wiseguy'

Terranova was Greensteen's rival mob leader in New York City back in the early 1970s.  He may have been related to undercover agent Vinnie Terranova and his brother Father Pete Terranova.

From John Terranova's diary

It's not their father, John Terranova, even though he got caught in the middle of a mob war with Sam Roselli and Fatty Bracata.  "Johnny Boy" (as everybody called him even though he hated it) drove a bread delivery truck for Calabria Bakery, but he wanted something more in his life to provide for his family.  (He never did find it as a club fighter with 73 bouts under his belt.)

His friends Angie and Nicky got him caught in the middle of Roselli and Bracata's rivalry.  But it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that there was somebody else in his family, perhaps a cousin, who already was in the mob.  But that cousin would have been "connected up" with some other organized crime family.  That cousin finally rose through the ranks until he was running the family himself.

BCnU!

TVXOHOF, 05/2014 - REMEMBERING MAYA ANGELOU

I would have thought the odds were against it, but sadly the Television Crossover Hall Of Fame is inducting one last Queen of May for this year.  Poet and performer Maya Angelou passed away in North Carolinayesterday at the age of 86.

Besides being an author of great influence, Ms. Angelou also acted - perhaps most notably in the seminal mini-series 'Roots'. She also appeared in an episode of 'Touched By An Angel' as another citizen of Toobworld; and for Skitlandia she was a guest star in "The Richard Pryor Special?".

 

But she also was a member of the League of Themselves in Earth Prime-Time and that is why we are inducting her today.

'Moesha'

"Fired Up"

'The Gregory Hines Show'

"Eight And A Half Months"

'Sesame Street'

(Four episodes)

Unfortunately I have no pictures or video of her appearance in 'The Gregory Hines Show'.  However, please enjoy these videos of her other appearances as herself.....

MAYA ANGELOU IN 'MOESHA' ("FIRED UP")

MAYA ANGELOU AND ELMO

MAYA ANGELOU AND NATASHA

MAYA ANGELOU AND HARRY

MAYA ANGELOU IN 'SESAME STREET' ("MY NAME")

Good night and may God bless......

THE NAME OF THE GAME'S AFOOT!

Lincoln Bridges:  

Isn't there a way we can trace it, 

Through the typeset or the paper?
Andy Hill:  

Sorry.  That went out with Sherlock Holmes.

'Name Of The Game'

Toobworld Central always (almost always) accepts references to fictional characters which have no qualifying attachments (like the name of their show, book, or movie source material) to mean that they actually do exist on Earth Prime-Time.  And Sherlock Holmes, a resident in all three fictional universes, is no exception.  

And just in case you didn't know, this is a reference to the classic version of Sherlock Holmes - the consulting detective from the Victorian era.  And as portrayed by Jeremy Brett, not Peter Cushing, Douglas Wilmer, or Ronald Howard... as entertaining at their incarnations are.

Most definitely it couldn't be a reference to either of the two modern day incarnations as seen in 'Sherlock' and 'Elementary'.  The latter is a CBS production set on an alternate Toobworld which never had a Sherlock Holmes (or an Ichabod Crane, for that matter) existing in their proper timeline.  As for the former, Benedict Cumberbatch is playing the soul of the soul of the original 'Sherlock', now residing in Limbo.

At least that's the current theory for the TwD.  It may yet change.....

BCnU!

TUESDAY NEWS DAY - "SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED"

With the success of Betty White in 'Hot In Cleveland', it appears that the Suits have realized there's an audience out there for the stars of Yesteryear in a weekly series (although not necessarily in the starring role.)

But it must worry them - what if that Classic TV star dies during production?

Hallmark Channel has a new drama/comedy coming out soon called 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered', which will deal with the mail detectives who track down the rightful owners of the lost and/or "dead" letter that's collecting at the Post Office.  It looks to be one of those uplifting series like 'Touched By An Angel'.  In this show, the recipients of these letters will be finally getting them just when it matters most in their lives.

But the gimmick here is that the supervisor of this department will be played by a different TV legend every two episodes.  Valerie Harper has the role for the pilot and the sophomore episode, while Dick Van Dyke takes charge in Episodes Three and Four.  (I haven't seen any casting news for future supervisors, but there's always Carl Reiner, Rose Marie, Bob Newhart, Jerry Van Dyke, Robert Wagner, Ed Asner, Katherine Helmond, and Abe Vigoda.)

With Van Dyke being 88 years old and Ms. Harper diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer, long-term commitments would not be prudent on the part of the producers.  This arrangement seems like an ideal situation for TV lovers to get their fix of old favorites.

BCnU!

MEMORIAL DAY, 2014 - REMEMBERING LT. GIL HANLEY

LIEUTENANT GIL HANLEY

SERIAL NUMBER:

012177705

AS SEEN IN:

'COMBAT!'

PORTRAYED BY:

RICK JASON

Lt. Gil Hanley ("Gil" was probably short for Gilbert.) was a second lieutenant during World War II.  Although it was never stated during the series, his family may have come from the New York area.  (Perhaps they were descended from a Matthew Hanley who arrived in New York in 1812.)

The Hanley family motto is "Valiant Archer Forever".  It could be that Ed Norton's twin brother, a costumed criminal known as The Archer, got his inspiration from the family motto.  (The mother of the Norton boys could have been a Hanley.)

Hanley was probably born in 1905, being almost forty years old in 1944.  He was a college graduate (perhaps Hudson University in New York City?) and I think he had a degree in art history, considering his knowledge of sculpture and fine art.

Gil Hanley must have graduated from college around 1928, and perhaps sought employment with a museum in connection to that degree.  Perhaps he even applied to work for the mysterious Metropolitan Museum.

But during the Great Depression, such employment was hard to come by and so Hanley decided to enlist in the United States Army.  There he eventually rose to the rank of Technical Sergeant.  It wouldn't be until D-Day (June 6, 1944) that Hanley finally saw active combat.

After the landing at Omaha Beach, Hanley received a battlefield commission and was elevated to the rank of Second Lieutenant.  As such, he was put in command of King Company's second platoon with Chip Saunders as his sergeant.  Among his other troops were William G. Kirby, Caje LeMay, "Littlejohn", Braddock, and the two medics, both known as "Doc".

At one point during the remainder of the war, the OSS enlisted Hanley to undertake an espionage mission behind enemy lines.  During this mission, he was was reunited with the family of his college roommate Raymond Barole, a French exchange student.  Raymond was now dead, but Hanley managed to help his family escape to Switzerland.

It could be that after the war, Gil Hanley went to work for one of the myriad secret spy organizations that proliferated during the Cold War.  Because of his military background, I think it pozz'ble, just pozz'ble that he was enlisted into the international service of UNIT.  (Although never seen onscreen, I like the notion that at one point he traveled with the Time Lord known as the Doctor, perhaps to stem a global crisis at its roots in History.)

It could be that during that trip in the TARDIS, Gil Hanley acquired the pinky ring he wore on his right hand.  On his left hand was another pinky ring, a family heirloom which was handed down to him by his father.  Because of some traumatic experience during the war, I'd like to think that the ring was imbued with energies associated with the artifacts collected by the agents of Warehouse 13.  (The ring was probably snagged, bagged, and tagged for the Warehouse after Hanley's death.)

There would be plenty of traumatic experiences from which such an artifact could have been created.  Lt. Hanley's left arm was a mess of scars from battle, probably on a par with the scars on Jim Rockford's leg and the back of Joe Mannix's head:

• Left upper arm, Luger [Entombed]
• Left shoulder [A Sudden Terror]
• Left shoulder [Finest Hour], the bullet is cut out
• Left shoulder, on the back [A Distant Drum], bullet passes through
• Left shoulder, rifleshot [Rescue]
• Left wrist/hand, rifleshot [Pillbox]
• Left thigh, outside, pistol shot [The Convict]
• Right arm, just below shoulder [Anniversary]

Plus:

• Knocked unconscious in church during airraid [Any Second Now]
• Shrapnel passes through upper left arm [The Volunteer]
• Bumps head falling down hill [The Volunteer]
• Possible concussion, or just shell-shock [Rescue]
• Concussion [Escape to Nowhere]
• Possible left leg broken [Any Second Now]
• Sprained wrist [A Walk with an Eagle]

Considering his track record, that sprained wrist was probably his left one.

Known for his way with the women, I would not be surprised if Hanley eventually married and had children.  Reporter Stuart Hanley, who covered the police beat around the Hill Street precinct, may have been his son.  

STUART HANLEY TODAY

If so, he could have been named after an old friend of Gil's, Stuart Bailey.  Bailey was a private eye in Los Angeles who used to be a secret agent during the war, which is where he probably met Hanley.

So this Memorial Day we salute Lt. Gil Hanley.  Had he lived through the war, I think he would have made it to the age of 77 (just as his portrayer, Rick Jason, did.)  This would mean that he died in 1982.  (Jason died in 2000.)

This tribute would not have been possible had it not been for the in-depth research done by Jo David Meyer at his "Combat!" website.  My thanks to him.

Of course, any theories about connections to other TV shows are my own and not to be construed as being official.

SHOWS CITED:

• 'Combat!'
• 'Doctor Who'
• 'Warehouse 13'
• 'The Honeymooners'
• 'Batman'
• 'Hill Street Blues'
• '77 Sunset Strip'
• The 'Law & Order' franchise

For a remembrance of Rick Jason as Lt. Hanley, click here.

And for a video tribute to Hanley, click here.  (Sorry, it can't be embedded.)

On this Memorial Day, we salute the memory of Gilbert Hanley and say:

"Good night and may God bless....."

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND VIDEO: A SALUTE TO "COMBAT!"

Remembering those who gave their all.  Good night and may God bless.....