#9600 - SCOOBY DOO IN THE RED LODGE.....

PS:

This post is the 9600th entry for the Inner Toob blog.,.....

THE BRIMSTONE PERCEPTION: "THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS"

'Perception'

"Possession"

Dr. Daniel Pierce is a brilliant lecturer at a Chicago university who often helps out the FBI on cases which concern the workings of the mind.  

Pierce also suffers from hallucinations when he's not on his meds, but the people who appear to him invariably provide the sub-conscious clue needed to break the case.

Usually there's one major hallucination per case, which somehow ties into the investigation.  And 'Possession' was supposedly no different with regular visits from the Devil.

I'm sure you noticed I said "supposedly" - because it's the contention of Toobworld Central that the Devil was not an hallucination but in fact, the Devil himself!

Pierce may have seen the Devil as a figment of his imagination, which is why he had no qualms about signing away his soul at the end of the episode.  But I believe the Devil just wanted to make Pierce think that and readily played along with the scenario.  In the end it would just make it easier to lure Pierce into signing away his soul.

The use of trickery is part of the Devil's game plan and he doesn't care about playing by the rules when it comes to garnering souls.  He did the same thing to a man who so believed in UFOs that he gave away his immortal soul for the chance to have an actual encounter.  Too late, that guy discovered he had been tricked and the spaceship full of the Greys about to welcome him was in fact a Hellmouth opening up to bring him into the "embrace" of the demons waiting to torment him for eternity.

There was an actual hallucination in the episode - that of the woman whom Pierce admired and romanticized.  Natalie/Caroline was able to see the Devil as well, but that doesn't make him an hallucination along with her.  She was merely acting out what Dr. Pierce's sub-conscious wanted - in this case, verification from another source that the Devil was real.  

There's a reason why I'm so determined to make this theoretical connection work.  John Glover - who played the Devil in this episode - also played the Devil on a weekly basis back in 1998 on the dark fantasy series 'Brimstone'.

The premise for that show had 113 souls escape from Hell and the Devil had the soul of a formerly corrupt cop seek them out and send them back to their eternal punishment.

What makes it even more important for this televisiologist is that there's also a theoretical link from 'Brimstone' to 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer':

When the vampire Angel/Angelus was dispatched back to Hell and off the show, it took some time before he was able to return on a regular basis.  The reason given was that he had finally been able to escape from Hell.

A fellow Iddiot, known as Listener Mara, suggested that it meant Angel had been one of the 113 souls in that mass escape.  We just never saw it happen in any episode, and with 'Brimstone' lasting only a season (if that!), we never would.

So if I make the claim that Glover was playing the actual Devil and not an hallucination, then I can claim that 'Perception' can be linked to 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' and 'Angel'.

SHOWS CITED:

'Perception'

'Brimstone'

'Buffy The Vampire Slayer'

'Angel'

'The Collector'

Thanks to Tay Mueller for making sure I caught this episode.....

BCnU!

PS:

This episode is now in contention for the Toobits Award as the Best Theoretical Crossover of 2014......

GILLIGAN'S ZONKS

PROFESSOR:

Fortunately, I know a simple cure for this problem. 

I'll prepare an anti Vampire potion. 

SKIPPER:

An Anti Vampire potion!? 

Well Professor, what school did you go to!? 

Batman U!?

'Gilligan's Island'

"Up At Bat"

In a ME-TV interstitial, characters from 'Gilligan's Island' are seen mentioning characters from other TV shows and then a clip would be shown from that aforementioned series with an appropriate quote.

• The Skipper mentions Marshall Dillon of 'Gunsmoke'.
• Mr. Howell compares the Skipper's girth to the Ponderosa ranch seen on 'Bonanza'.
• The Skipper makes that 'Batman' crack shown above.
• And Ginger uses the most famous phrase uttered by Maxwell Smart.  (In that part, his clip is seen first.)
• The promo is book-ended with Gilligan's references to 'Perry Mason'.

They're undiluted Zonks but luckily the promo didn't try to force a mash-up to suggest that they were all on the same island and in the same time zone!

For the most part, these Zonks can be splained away, especially since it has become standard practice to accept the fact that eventually everybody in Toobworld will have a TV show produced about themselves.  And that is what the Toobworld audience sees.  (What the Trueniverse audience sees is the "real life" of that alternate universe.)

Let's take them in order, starting with the two 'Perry Mason' book-ends.

Gilligan:

"That didn't fool Perry Mason!"

As with most of these other references, the first one can be seen as a reference to the "real" defense attorney.  Since at least the 1940s (but not seen by the Trueniverse audience until 1957), Perry Mason had been practicing Law in Los Angeles.  In that time leading up to the S.S. Minnow being shipwrecked in 1964, Mason made quite a name for himself in the news as he kept getting his clients free from the murder charges hanging over their heads - especially when the client or the murder case had the potential to sell papers.  So even a klutz like Gilligan must have heard about Perry Mason. 

Gilligan:

That's how it always is.

Skipper:

What is?

Gilligan:

The last part of 'Perry Mason'.

Now we have to concede that the career of 'Perry Mason' was adapted for a television show.  And as with every TV show mentioned within other TV shows, the producers were lucky enough to find actors who resembled the real people of Toobworld - in this case, Raymond Burr who looked just like Perry Mason.

And now we take a look at the clips that take up the middle of this promo.....

Skipper:

You know how the girls are always crazy about Marshall Dillon.

I know there are TV shows out there who mention Marshall Dillon as a TV character, along with his TV series 'Gunsmoke'.  But in this case, I think we can get away with it being a mention of the historical lawman of the Old West.  

But to have the girls so crazy about an historical figure?  Maybe they did see the TV show after all; it had been around at since 1958 when Sgt. Rizik mentioned it at Fort Baxter (on 'The Phil Silvers Show'.)

Mr. Howell (to the Skipper):

Well, you are built like the Ponderosa.

No mention of the TV show even though 'Bonanza' had a prequel by that very name.  Instead I think it's quite pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that Mr. Howell had visited the Cartwright Ranch at one time in his long life, perhaps with the intent to buy it!

And now we come to that exchange of dialogue concerning Batman......

Skipper:

Well Professor, what school did you go to!? 

Batman U!?

The 'Batman' TV series, the only true representation of the Caped Crusader in the main Toobworld, debuted in 1966.  But the seven stranded castaways had been on that island since the fall of 1964.  And considering what a close relationship the Dynamic Duo had with the Police Commissioner of Gotham City, it's O'Bvious they had worked together for a long time.  I'd say Batman at least had been patrolling the streets of Gotham since the early 1950s, with Commissioner Gordon taking on his job a few years later.  Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne's ward, joined up with him as Robin by 1960. (After his parents were killed in a suspicious circus trapeze mishap - that much at least we are going to retain from the comic book universe even though it plays no part in the TV series.  We'll consider it just there in the background.)

Ginger Grant:

Sorry about that, Chief.

O'Bviously the line was written to cash in on the then-current fad of quoting Secret Agent #86.  But Ginger's use of it has nothing to do with CONTROL; she probably never even heard of Maxwell Smart or the Chief or Agent 99.   

The same goes for Gilligan.  He also used the line in the episode "Take A Dare".  But there's no need for a splainin there - he said to the Skipper, his boss... and therefore his Chief.

As for Ginger's use, it was her dream-figure in Gilligan's dream about "The Invasion": who said it.  And since it is Gilligan's poor excuse of a mind that is supplying all of the dialogue from his memories, we know where he got it from.

Anyway, it's such a generic term that Ginger probably used it in the past while apologizing to one of the studio heads, perhaps the head honcho at Toobworld favorite Monolith Studios.  (It's unknown if any of those studio heads ever admonished her with "Don't call me 'Chief'!")

And why would she apologize to a studio chief?  Maybe she didn't want to meet their "demands" in order to get a good role in a movie.  Nudge nudge wink wink.....

You can see the commercial here.

BCnU!

LA TRIVIATA: THE MATCH GAME

"Matchbooks are always clues, right?"

Dr. Seth Hazlitt

'MURDER, SHE WROTE'

"THE DREAM TEAM"

Seth's question to Sheriff Metzger shows that the good doctor may have been an avid mystery lover, perhaps even Jessica's most dedicated reader.

Two examples from other media in which a matchbook clue played a part (and which wouldn't create any Zonks for Toobworld!) would be:

NOVEL

"Halfway House" by Ellery Queen

Yes, Ellery is a TV character, several times over in fact.  But he was also a mystery writer and so Dr. Hazlitt might easily have found that novel in the Cabot Cove library.

MOVIE

"Frantic"

This Harrison Ford movie premiered in 1988 and this episode of 'Murder, She Wrote' was first broadcast in 1995.  So there's plenty of time for Seth to have seen it... probably once it was on free TV, of course.

There's a "Thin Man" sequel in which a matchbook provided a clue for William Powell as Nick Charles.  But Nick Charles was a TV character who wouldn't be prominent in Toobworld for another decade.....

Can't get more trivial than that!

BCnU!

TUESDAY NEWS DAY - PRESIDENT WOODARD (WE'LL SEE)

Probably the worst pun I've ever come up with for a heading.....

MADAME PRESIDENT

Should NBC pick up 'State Of Affairs' as a series, it will have to be impounded in an alternate TV dimension, away from Earth Prime-Time.

'State Of Affairs' would be about Katherine Heigl as a CIA attaché who advises the President on crises around the world.  In this show, the President will not be Obama as is the case in Toobworld, but instead the Commander-In-Chief will be played by Alfre Woodard.  

I have to give them props that instead of going for a Hillary clone to be President, it looks like they decided to run with a different First Lady as their inspiration.

I'm not sure this will make it to the schedule, so no reason at this time to keep blathering on about it....

BCnU!

O'BSERVATIONS: "THE LEFTOVERS"

"The Pope I get.

But Gary bleeping Busey?"*

Mike the Bartender

'The Leftovers'

Even before seeing the first episode I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep the new HBO series 'The Leftovers' in the dimension of Earth Prime-Time.  

The basic premise: On October 14 (year not given), 2% of the world's population just vanished.  Poof.  The story then picks up three years later, centered around Mapleton, NY, and focuses on those left behind, the "Remnants."  The show will deal mostly with the Garvey family as well as others in the Mapleton area, and how they are coping three years after the "Sudden Departure".  (I bet in the immediate aftermath, a lot of people wanted to call it "The Rapture".)

To suddenly lose so many millions of people in the blink of an eye should have an incredible impact on other TV shows sharing that same TV dimension.  And even if the Sudden Departure won't happen until this coming October 14th and then leaping forward in the storyline to 2017**, I think we all know we're not going to see any mention of these events by TV characters in the programs that will be on the air afterwards.

Near the end of the "Pilot" episode, a TV in the local bar showed various celebrities who vanished on 10/14:

• Condoleeza Rice
• Salman Rushdie
• Shaquille O'Neal
• Jennifer Lopez
• Anthony Bourdain
• Gary Busey
• Bonnie Raitt
• Pope Benedict XVI

With so many millions gone, O'Bviously celebrities would be included.  But their presence or even just a mention on other TV shows still to come will be proof enough that 'The Leftovers' must reside in an alternate dimension.

But which one?

It can't be one of the generic TV dimensions like Evil Toobworld, the foreign language Toobworlds, or even Doofus Toobworld.  Sooner or later a show set in those worlds might mention one of those people listed above.  And again, the Sudden Departure should eventually be referenced in some way on those programs.

It would have to be a more specific Toobworld and preferably one that is already closed off due to its primary show being cancelled.  The TV dimension which houses 'The West Wing', 'Mr. Sterling', and 'Smallville', for example.  In fact, most of those TV dimensions which have other occupants in the Oval Office, like 'Prison Break', 'The District'/'The Agency', 'The Unit', and 'Commander-In-Chief' would be viable candidates.  

I might have no O'Bjections to 'The Leftovers' being set in the years leading up to the creation of Zombie Toobworld.  At least with the Zombie Apocalypse being the focus of their current lives, it would provide a splainin as to why nobody bothers to mention the Sudden Departure.  (And then we could say that the video of Hillary Clinton on the bar's TV screen was from back when she was still the Secretary of State.)

But as for the main Toobworld?  Not likely.

See you in another life, Bruthah......

* Hey, I run a clean blog here.  For the most part....

* I think the producers of this series are hopeful that Hillary Clinton will be the next President of the United States.  However the election turns out, that alone might have affected the placement of 'The Leftovers' in the greater TV Universe.

UPDATE! 

I finally realized in which TV dimension 'The Leftovers' belongs - the world of 'Flash Forward'.  I think their similarities and differences complement each other.  And the events of 'Flash Forward' could have taken place between October 14th and the resumption of the story three years later.  As such, the big blank-out would have pushed the Sudden Departure to the side for a time in people's obsessions, but then was pushed aside itself when there were no new events while the lives of those left behnd dragged on.  (I'm good with 'Flash Forward' takng place before October 14th as well.  Might even be better as a splainin for why nobody talks about it anymore - worse stuff has happened.....)

PUGSHOTS: "GAME OF THRONES"

Still jonesing for 'Thrones'?  Man, you people are insatiable!

If you keep this up, you'll be going to the dogs!

Oops.  Too late.....