SATURDAY MORNING SUPERHEROES

I don't know if I've given this blog a tip of the hat in the past, but I'd like to introduce all of you in Team Toobworld to "Super Team Family", which celebrates the front covers of comic book team-ups that never were.... BUT SHOULD BE!

Recently, Super Team Family had a cover that teamed up the TV versions (for us, the "televersions") of Spiderman and Batman. In Earth Prime-Time, Spiderman was played by Nicholas Hammond in a CBS series in the mid-1970s. And the one, the only true Caped Crusader was played by Adam West in the 1960s for three seasons and a theatrical release.  

For Toobworld, this is entirely feasible. Although the TV series went off the air in 1969, 'Batman' and his sidekick Robin the Boy Wonder were active in Gotham City through the 1970s and probably into the 1980s as well. So it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble that Batman may have made the trip to New York City, or Spiderman trekked to Gotham City. (Personally, I think this is a picture of Batman and Spiderman in New York City. It would be easy to accept that Bruce Wayne had to go to the Big Apple on business. But as to why Peter Parker needed to go to Gotham City......?)

This is just another example of Toobworld, "As Unseen on TV". It's what we call the Khan-Chekov Principle, inspired by Khan Noonian Singh's claim in the movie "The Wrath Of Khan" that he had encountered Pavel Chekov in the past. And yet we never saw that happen in the episode "Space Seed". We can be fairly certain that it happened, but unfortunately the audience in the Trueniverse never had the privilege to see it.....

And it's not such a ridiculous idea for Batman to encounter Spiderman in Toobworld. After all, this happened over in the Tooniverse.....

Excelsior!

LITTLE BIG SCREEN - (EVIL) DEAD AIR

'THE LIBRARIANS'
"AND THE LOOM OF FATE"

In the season finale for the series, Colonel Baird and alt dimension Finn Carsen [who had never become a Librarian] jumped from one alternate reality to the next to meet those incarnations of the Librarian.  Each one of them was a counterpart to one of the three apprentice Librarians from Earth Prime-Time:

1) Jake Stone, a derring-do adventurer in an anarchic world of wild magic and constant war
2) Ezekiel Jones, a techno-mage for a world in which the world's population had been possessed by the spirits of the dead
3) Cassandra Cillian, a sorceress whose world had reverted to the Old Ways and the dragons had awakened to rule the skies

Techno-mage Ezekiel's laboratory/stronghold was that world's last bastion against the hordes of the undead who had the place surrounded.  As he gazed out at them, moaning their desire to possess them, Ezekiel muttered:

"Sod off, Deadites."

"Deadites" is a term coined for the "Evil Dead" franchise.  Here's the description from the Evil Dead Wiki:

A "Deadite" is a life-force, person, animal or plant possessed by a Kandarian Demon. They are described as evil demonic zombies and are the main antagonists of the Evil Dead Franchise. Their disembodied forms are rarely shown, notable examples being when the evil was put in the "world of the flesh".

Many times I will take a tossed-off comment in a TV show about some fictional character from a different medium to mean that what was being referenced actually did exist in the TV dimension.  With many references this is easy to enough to make convincing because they are references to characters who existed already in TV anyway - Superman, Batman, Indiana Jones, Methuseleh. 

But in this case, I don't think Ezekiel's epithet is proof that the characters of "The Evil Dead" existed in Toobworld.  For Earth Prime-Time, Bruce Campbell is Sam Axe, not Ash Williams.

I've looked through the other TV shows which have mentioned "The Evil Dead" and none of them treated the movie as if it was part of their world. 

• 'Stargate SG1'
• 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'
• 'Angel'
• 'Torchwood'
• 'Ghost Whisperer'
• 'The Goldbergs'

In that last one, a video store clerk was wearing an "Evil Dead" T-shirt.  With the others, characters cited the movie title as a short-hand description for the bad guys they were facing.

So this is just a case of Ezekiel being familiar with the movie and basically quoting from it. He was using "Deadite" as a comparison, not actually claiming that these ghouls were possessed by Kandarian demons. 

BCnU!

BOOK 'EM, TOBIO - I AM A CUNNING SERLINGUIST

Near the end of my loooong-gestating novel about the adventures of twin brothers in the TV Universe, I created a race of elves in the Tolkien mode.  (But they would be more at home in a magical sitcom similar to those from the 1960s - 'I Dream Of Jeannie', 'Bewitched', 'My Favorite Martian', 'Mr. Ed', etc.)

And for these elves, the Telvish, I created a language.  Hey, if I was going to mimic J.R.R., I might as well go whole hog!

The Telvish language will be rooted in the last names of actual people connected to the television industry.  Sometimes a person's full name will be used and that would be an archaic term left over from the classic Old High Telvish.

(An example of Old High Telvish would be the word for a huge beast native to Africa and India that has a prehensile trunk and ivory tusks - an allenfunt.)

Almost all of the Telvish words sound like their counterparts in the English language, which will make it easier for the reader to comprehend without time-consuming translations.  (Within the reality of the story, the Telvish and their language were created by one of those twin brothers back in the real world on public access television, using the same reasoning.)

Some of the words in Telvish are exactly the same as in English:

Long   Black  White Garner  Light   Hole  Burns   Day   Butters

The words are not altered in any way to indicate past or future tense if they are used as verbs.  My splainin for that - the Telvish live in the Now.....

Those words could be connected to form another term but there might already be a Telvish term that would better serve the situation.

For instance: a soft white light would be called a glau.  And the scientific phenomenon known as a black hole would instead be known as a sharpton.  (All jokes aside, perhaps degrasse-tyson might have been better for a cosmic singularity, but that's the Telvish word for really good weed, man.....  And except for sharpton, I don't want people to assume the translations reflect on the person supplying the name.)

Only a few Telvish words are actually used in the novel:

• mirren - twin, lookalike
• wendt - to go
• zmed - let's just say you don't want to step in it....

But that doesn't stop me from creating more.  Every time I see an off-beat last name in the credits of a TV show, I write it down.  I may not come up with a translation right away, but eventually inspiration strikes.

The latest addition to the lexicon is duplass, from Jay Duplass of 'Transparent'.  It joins the last name of his co-star Jeffrey Tambor which has been garner a long time ago.  Duplass translates to "deceitful".  (A tambor is a hand-held percussive instrument.)

Here is a list of some of the Telvish words I've documented so far.  I'm not going to supply all of them - the list would go on for a long time and I don't want to lose any followers who got bored!

• arndt - contraction for "is not"
• asner - a real jerk
• beery - a drunk
• burr - cold
• de la tour - a vacation excursion
• duhamel - hoofed desert beast with two humps
• feige - unclear, indefinite
• farwell - goodbye
• fazekas - flippant
• froggatt - amphibious creature
• hamel - hoofed desert beast with one hump
• hartnell - a coronary episode
• ihnat - either "is that not true" (like the British slang "Innit?") or slang for "Are you tapping that?"
• kinsolving - genealogy research
• kwatins - a large amount
• monaster - a holy man
• offerman - assassin
• pertwee - a small child
• rhimes - poetry
• richelmy - the wealthy elite
• snoad - blizzard
• tennant - century
• troughton - to go fishing
• truex - facts

As the book stands right now, the Telvish only make a small cameo at the very end of the book.  But I do have plans to jettison two of the main stories in it and use those as the bases for two additional novels, making a trilogy called "The Toobworld Chronicles".  The Telvish would be a major part of that third book.  (I'd tell you the title, but of the three that's the one I don't want stolen!)

As to when the first novel might see the light of day?  The events of 2014, my annus horribilis as Her Majesty might say, have convinced me I have to get cracking on it.  And my blogmate Robert Wronski, Jr. is a great inspiration....

BCnU!

A THOR SUBJECT FOR "VERA"

'VERA'
"THE DEER HUNTER"

The most likely suspect in the murder of author Shane Thurgood was asked for his whereabouts on the night of the murder, and it didn't do much in the way of giving him an iron-clad alibi.....

LINUS CAMPION:

"I was watching 'Thor' on Netflix.

Have you seen it?"

Campion was referring to the movie based on the Marvel Comics character.  Thor actually exists in Comic Book Toobworld as personified by Chris Hemsworth.  But over in Earth Prime-Time, it is just a movie.

However, the Norse demi-god of thunder really does exist in the main Toobworld and his exploits as depicted in the comic books may be based on actual events in the modern day Thor's life.  

We wrote about Thor last year here at the Inner Toob blog and there are still a few shows to work into the Big Picture.  (It's looking likely that I will have to jettison a fabulous New Zealand series, 'The Almighty Johnsons', from the world of Earth Prime-Time.  There are just too many contradictions to deal with there.)

In all likelihood, the general populace on that fictional representation of the Earth in the Trueniverse considers Thor to just be a mythological character and not someone who actually exists.  And that would be just the way the covert organization I have dubbed "UNREEL" wants it.  Instead of the usual fare of movies and TV shows to provide plausible deniability for the activities of certain Toobworldlings, like James Bond, the UNCLE organization and the Time Lord known as the Doctor, UNREEL went in a different direction and created comic books to cover up the existence of the demi-gods in the world of mortal men.  (Which means the televersions of TVXOHOF member Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were schills for UNREEL.)  Only recently have they since branched out to make the movies as well.

So there's no Zonk! in the fact that Toobworld has a movie about "Thor" when the son of Odin actually exists in that world as well.

Whether it looks exactly like the movie we know in our world?  Well, that all depends on whether or not we actually see any footage from the film within the context of another TV show - playing in the background on the TV or what have you.

Of course my splainin doesn't do any good for DCI Vera Stanhope's suspect.....

BCnU!

TUESDAY NEWS DAY - A WINDY CITY SPIN-OFF?

Dick Wolf's latest franchise is set in Chicago, with 'Chicago Fire' as the mothership and its first spin-off being 'Chicago PD'. It has tied into Wolf's other, legendary, franchise, the world of 'Law & Order', with several crossovers involving 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'. In fact, a three-way crossover between all three shows was the Toobits Award winner for Crossover of the Year in 2014.

And now it looks as though Wolf is getting a third entry into the 'Chicago' franchise - that is, if his back-door pilot for 'Chicago Med' sells.

According to Dick Wolf, speaking at the TCA press tour, that decision lies with the Robert Greenblatt, the headsuit on the Peacock Throne. But I'm certain that the ratings will practically guarantee 'Chicago Med' a slot in the network line-up, especially with them jettisoning any sitcoms left on the air and scuttling plans for any future ones. With 'Parks & Recreation' shabbily being shown the door in their final season and 'Bad Jude' and 'A To Z' playing out the clock with their episodes, there should be plenty of options for giving 'Chicago Med' a night on the schedule.

There are already three fictional hospitals in Chicago at least, courtesy of 'Chicago Hope', 'E/R', and 'ER'. (No, that's not a typo nor is it an extreme case of a short attention span.) Will they be creating a new one or using a real hospital as their base? No problem with a new one - Chicago's a big city; probably needs as many as it can get.....

'Chicago Fire' and 'Chicago PD' will stage another crossover event on February 3rd, which will probably be the first official crossover of 2015. ('The Librarians' has made several interesting albeit theoretical connections to other shows and even one to a movie!) So keep an eye out for that......

BCnU!

 

 

DRAC PACKED - LAZLO DRACULA

'The Librarians'
"And The Crown Of King Arthur"

First off, I want to thank the producers and writers of the pilot episode for giving this an actual title rather than just "Pilot".

In this episode, Flynn Carsen claimed to have killed Dracula.  We saw this happen in the third "Librarian" movie, "The Curse Of The Judas Chalice".



Apparently, Drac feasted on a cholera victim hundreds of years ago, which left no more than a crippled human.  Like Flynn, he had been searching for the Judas Chalice which would not only cure him but also re-energize his vampiric powers.
 

"Vlad" was portrayed by Bruce Davison, a really good actor whom I've been following since "Willard".  However, he's just not THE Dracula for Toobworld.  That "honor" goes to Rudolf Martin, who played Dracula in a TV movie about the real life Vlad Tepes and then as the legendary vampire Count Dracula from Bram Stoker's novel in an episode of 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer'.   So he covered all the bases.

Fellow Crossoverists subscribe to the "soul clone" theory first proposed by Chuck Loridans to justify so many different incarnations of Dracula in various media.

However, I only wanted to focus on the Dracula televersions - of which there are plenty! - and so I started thinking inside the box for a splainin.

I turned to the one season vampire series 'Kindred: The Embraced' for inspiration.  In that show, there were about five different vampire species, at least one of which fit the specifics of the Dracula type. Those "embraced" by a vampire into the Life became their Sire's kindred.  As such, they usually took the name of their Sire's clan.

So it was with all the Draculas to be found on television. Rudolf Martin is THE Dracula and all of the others were turned by him.  This includes Michael Nouri's bloodsucker in a 1970's cliffhanger series, the Dracula family led by Dick Shawn in a 1980's sitcom and from the 1960's, even Grandpa of the Munsters family!

(Sam Dracula was actually an inventor from Brooklyn named Carrari who utilized a time machine to go back to the early years of Vlad the Impaler as vampire to become a vampire himself.)



And this is how Professor Lazlo (treated as an alias in "Curse of the Judas Chalice" but which was in fact his real name back in the Middle Ages) could be considered as Dracula. Like so many of the Dracul kindred, he came to consider himself The Dracula and passed himself off as such to Flynn Carsen.

And as far as Flynn was concerned , Lazlo Dracula was the real deal.

BCnU!

ONE MORE FOR VIDEO SUNDAY

VIDEO SUNDAY II - "THE SIMPSONS" BOLDLY GOING.....

ZONKS - MAKING A COMEBACK (OR 'THE COMEBACK' MAKING ZONKS)

Just a little Zonky fun for Video Sunday (in other words - my day of "rest").......