WISH-CRAFT - BAT CROSSOVERS

I belong to a Facebook group that celebrates the 1966 'Batman' TV show and recently Richard K. Rogers posted this bit o' whimsy:

Richard K. Rogers‎

Imagine if Batman and Robin made guest appearances on other TV shows during the 60's (not counting variety and talk shows). For instance, if the bat-boat got stranded on 'Gilligan's Island' while chasing the Joker, or on 'Star Trek' if they accidentally got beamed up with the Penguin. Anyone else have ideas on this?

And it's proving staggeringly popular at Wayne Manor, Squire!

Drew Caldwell 

'Time Tunnel' calls batman to help retrieve Doug and Tony

Drew Caldwell 

Bruce and Dick show up on 'The Avengers'
(John Steed and Emma Peel)

Len Horvath 

'The F.B.I.' tv series enlist Batman and Robin to help catch America's top criminals.

David Singer 

"The Batman from U.N.C.L.E."

Scott Morales 

Jan Brady has a crush on Robin, but when he breaks a date to stop a nefarious evildoer, she becomes her own villain, Whiny Girl. She uses her whiney voice to cripple Robin and holds him in Tiger's dog house.

Kevin Miller 

And then Danny Trejo and Steve Bucemi bring in Snickers for dinner and all is well

Scott Morales 

"It's always Marsha,Marsha,Marsha...Queen of diamonds!"

Charles Creasey 

They work on a case with Joe Friday and Bill Gannon

Jayson Kriedler 

Yeah I always wanted to see tv show cross-overs. I always wanted to see the Lone Ranger coming to the aid of Matt Dillon!

Sac Riligious 

They were in 'Scooby Doo'....  That was pretty cool

Terry Snyder 

Sam the butcher gets abused from customers one too many timeS and becomes an axe murderer called "Sam the Butcher" He captures Bruce and Dick spying in the shop and locks them in the meat locker. Of course the handle is broken off and Dick has to try to squeeze through the window they break due to his smaller size. In the campy type feel of the show, the window size has to be impossibly small for Dick to fit, yet somehow he does (or else the window size gets larger when Dick goes through and then shrinks back down when he is done.)

Alice gets tired of being the maid and an old maid, so she loses her mind and becomes the Harlequin to Sam's joker. She makes puns like she is going to "clean up the town" of bratty kids. She uses a feather duster with sneezing powder on it to cause the tremendous trio to sneeze and captures them that way.

Greg Brady becomes a version of the Joker after the hair tonic turns his hair orange.

OOH, Vincent Price appears as the guy in the cave in Hawaii with the Tiki, but somehow ends up in the Batcave. Even more funny is if he also appeared as Egghead in these episodes.

Jim Backus appears in the episode in the ghost town, which could include Shame and somehow they end up stealing money from Mr. Howell who is on his way to a three hour tour..

Terry Snyder 

Bruce and Dick travel to California for some sort of rich people function. They meet up with Jed Clampett. They become ill and Granny fixes them tonic for what ails them. The Joker makes his way out there and meets up with Mr. Drysdale and they work up a scheme.

Terry Snyder 

I know this isn't a sixties show, but it would be funny if the Dynamic Duo got caught in Rosco's and Boss Hogg's speed trap in Hazzard County. Batman succumbs to the law until he discovers how crooked it is there.

Terry Snyder 

I'm not quite sure of the plots, but they could be on 'Bewitched' and 'I Dream of Jeannie'.

Terry Snyder 

They could also end up in Mayberry fighting the Joker and his cousin, Ernest T Bass. Catwoman could meet up with the Good Time Gals and Penguin with Otis. The Riddler (Gorshin) could kidnap Barney.

Stefan Odinson 

Batman and Robin appear on 'Hogan's Heroes' and help Hogan and crew defeat the Third Reich.

Joseph McGarry 

Actually, there was sort of a crossover back then. On 'The Green Hornet', Britt Reid was setting up a trap to catch someone. When the villain first saw a certain TV monitor, it showed someone locked in a room in the basement. When the police and others saw the same monitor, it showed Batman and Robin climbing the wall. 'Batman' and 'Green Hornet' were both produced by Greenway Productions, which is why Green Hornet and Kato could appear on 'Batman'.

Ferd Appleby 

Boy, it would've been cool having Batman and Robin cross over to 'The Brady Bunch when i was doing kid duty on it! I could have met them before i started drawing them! Both Eve Plumb (Jan) and i were budding artists and i DID help her work out a 'cat-lady' character that she wanted to do....so a Bat-crossover kinda sorta happened, lol........

Richard K. Rogers

'I Dream Of Jeannie' would have to have King Tut!

Drew Caldwell

The Seaview spots the Penguin submarine and notifies Batman

Drew Caldwell

Dr Loveless has a time machine and gets Joker and Catwoman to aid him against Jim West

Dan Ball

Adam West made a few appearances as a guest star wearing the Batman Costume. Why Burt Ward didn't...who knows....  I would've liked to have seen a 'Hollywood Squares' with all the characters in costume,playing pranks on each other from square to square.

Catherine Ehlers 

Can you imagine this: Batman & Robin on 'Dark Shadows' trying to find Maggie Evans? Or how about helping the IMF on 'Mission: Impossible'?

Scott Morales 

Batman helping Maxwell Smart defeat KAOS, run by False Face

Richard K. Rogers 

I was thinking Maxwell Smart and Batman get trapped by the Riddler, 99 solves the riddles with Robin.

Richard K. Rogers 

Penguin working on a smuggling deal with Mr. Haney in 'Green Acres'. "Outrageous! You expect me, the aristocrat of crime, to peddle these petty pilferings for a mere $100? Wack, wack, wack...!"

Richard K. Rogers 

Egghead builds a time machine, sends Shane to Fort Courage. Batman and Robin follow, work with O'Rourke and Agarn to trap him.

Ron Fowler 

They should have been on 'The Monkees', or 'Where the Action Is' - Adam could do the Batusi with Paul Revere and the Raiders.

Richard K. Rogers 

I was just thinking about the Monkees. Catwoman opens a laundromat, and seduces the Monkees. Batman and Robin rescues them. Then they convince Mickey and Davy to dress up as a faux Batman and Robin to trick Catwoman, unaware that Kitten is going to sing in the Monkees' place.

Of course, I had to share my favorite 'Batman' crossover wish-craft:

Toby O'Brien 

For my Toobworld Dynamic shared universe, the Batman at some point must have teamed up with the Third Incarnation of the Doctor. This would account for later incarnations all wearing question mark clothing and having similarly themed accessories like the Seventh's umbrella. For me, it's obvious the Doctor helped himself to the Riddler's wardrobe during his team-up with the Caped Crusader.

BCnU!

TIDDLYWINKYDINKS - REGARDING DAVID GARRICK

The new version of 'Poldark', which must be relegated to the Land O' Remakes, debuted on American TV this weekend.  Much as I favor original productions over their remakes, I'm enjoying what I've seen so far.  Aidan Turner as Ross Poldark goes a long way toward that as I've liked him since I first saw him in 'Being Human' and in the Cineverse as Kili in the "Hobbit" trilogy.

There's also one of my favorite actors, Phil Davis, as perhaps my favorite character from the original - Jud.  And Warren Clarke, whom I enjoyed in "Clockwork Orange" and "Foxfire", is making the most of what would become his last role ever.  (I saw a handful of 'Dalziel And Pascoe' episodes, but it didn't grab me.)

I don't remember it from the original series, but Demelza has a dog named Garrick.  (I've seen online that Garrick was in the book series by Winston Graham.)  And I found the name choice to be interesting.....

From Wikipedia: 

David Garrick (19 February 1717 – 20 January 1779) was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr. Samuel Johnson. He appeared in a number of amateur theatricals, and with his appearance in the title role of Shakespeare's "Richard III" audiences and managers began to take notice.

Impressed by his portrayals of Richard III and a number of other roles, Charles Fleetwood engaged Garrick for a season at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He remained with the Drury Lane company for the next five years and purchased a share of the theatre with James Lacy. This purchase inaugurated 29 years of Garrick's management of the Drury Lane, during which time it rose to prominence as one of the leading theatres in Europe. At his death, three years after his retirement from Drury Lane and the stage, he was given a lavish public funeral at Westminster Abbey where he was laid in Poets' Corner.

As an actor, Garrick promoted realistic acting that departed from the bombastic style that was entrenched when Garrick first came to prominence. His acting delighted many audiences and his direction of many of the top actors of the English stage influenced their styles as well. Furthermore, during his tenure as manager of Drury Lane, Garrick sought to reform audience behaviour. While this led to some discontent among the theatre-going public, many of his reforms eventually did take hold. In addition to audiences, Garrick sought reform in production matters, bringing an overarching consistency to productions that included set design, costumes and even special effects.

Garrick's influence extended into the literary side of theatre as well. Critics are almost unanimous in saying he was not a good playwright, but his work in bringing Shakespeare to contemporary audiences is notable. In addition, he adapted many older plays in the repertoire that might have been forgotten. These included many plays of the Restoration era. Indeed, while influencing the theatre towards a better standard he also gained a better reputation for theatre folk. This accomplishment led Samuel Johnson to remark that "his profession made him rich and he made his profession respectable."

I'm not sure when exactly Ross Poldark returned to Cornwall after the American Revolution, but I have a feeling that it might be 1780.  And it would have been the death of Garrick in 1779 which brought him to mind for Demelza when it came to naming her dog.  A backwater gypsy girl as she was, I wonder how she came to learn of David Garrick.  

BCnU!

SAM SPADE'S TELEVERSION - ONE STEP CLOSER

"Well, Sonny, I'm no Sam Spade.

I don't work any miracles,

And uh, I don't break down any doors."

Ed Wallaby

'The Name Of The Game'

["Love-In At Ground Zero"]

This quote by private eye Ed Wallaby is all I have (so far) on which to base my claim that Sam Spade, the main character of "The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett, exists in the main Toobworld* as well as in BookWorld, the Radio Universe, and the Cineverse.  

It is standard practice for the Toobworld Dynamic (and, I suspect, for many of my crossover comrades working in the universes of other media) to accept references to characters and events from outside of the home turf as being a part of that particular bailiwick - so long as there is no mention of the source material.  In this case, it means Sam Spade exists in the main Toobworld even though he has never been portrayed in Earth Prime-Time*.

BCnU!

* Sam Spade does show up in a TV dimension - 'The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It' exists in the Doofus Toobworld.

AS SEEN ON TV - ROBERT VESCO

"[He's] the biggest thief since Robert Vesco."

Charlotte Newcastle

'Murder, She Wrote'

From Wikipedia:

Robert Lee Vesco (December 4, 1935 – November 23, 2007) was a fugitive criminal United States financier. After several years of high-stakes investments and seedy credit dealings, Vesco was alleged guilty of securities fraud. He immediately fled the ensuingU.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation by living in a number of Central American and Caribbean countries.

Vesco was notorious throughout his life, attempting to buy a Caribbean island from Antigua in order to create an autonomous country and having a national law in Costa Rica made to protect him from extradition. A 2001 Slate.com article labeled Vesco "the undisputed king of the fugitive financiers." After settling in Cuba in 1982, Vesco was charged with drug smuggling in 1989. In the 1990s he was indicted by the Cuban government for "fraud and illicit economic activity" and "acts prejudicial to the economic plans and contracts of the state" in 1996.

Vesco was sentenced to 13 years in jail by Cuba. Five months after his death in November 2007 the New York Times reported he succumbed to lung cancer at a hospital in Havana, Cuba.

At least according to the IMDb, AKA Old Reliable, Vesco was never portrayed by an actor in the main Toobworld, nor in any of the ancillary dimensions.  But I did find him in Skitlandia, thanks to the 1979 Christmas episode of 'Saturday Night Live', hosted by Ted Knight.  (Vesco is seen here playing the piano for Henry Kissinger and the Shah of Iran.)

But the quote listed above may be the only evidence that there was a televersion of Vesco in Earth Prime-Time.  And it's probably doubtful that he would even be mentioned in another TV show as he's basically unknown nowadays by the general public.  So many other crooks have come along since Vesco's hayday.

And many of those are in politics.....

BCnU!

THEORIES OF RELATEEVEETY - PENN'S MAMA

Jack and Annie Walker
at the Rovers Return Inn

In Accrington, Lancashire, Dr. Amos Walker, a veterinarian, and his wife Joan raised four children - John (otherwise known as Jack), James, Arthur, and Louise.  A decade seperated John, who was born in April of 1900, from his little sister Louise.  And although Jack Walker was visited in Weatherfield (where he ran the Rovers Return Inn with his wife Annie) by both of his brothers, Louise never showed up at the Walkers' pub on Coronation Street.  Louise never attended the wedding of her niece Joan Walker to Gordon Davies, nor did she come back to pay her respects to her departed brother when Jack Walker died in 1970. 

And there was probably good reason for that.  Even though she was never seen on the TV screens of the Trueniverse audience, I believe Louise Walker had immigrated to America to be close to the man she loved and who was the father of her child... even if that American was married to another woman.

This is the basis for the theory of relateeveety I came up with for the mother of Dr. Penn Walker from the 'Murder, She Wrote' episode "The Night Of The Headless Horseman".

At the pub in Archbury

Just as her older brother Jack worked as a publican until he could afford his own bar in Weatherfield, Louise also worked in a bar - a small village pub not far from the airfield in Archbury which would house American airmen by 1942.  Because of that close proximity, Louise would be destined to become one of the 70,000 British war brides.  The only hitch was that the airman Louise had fallen in love with - a B-17 Flight Engineer named Edmonds - was already married.  He had a wife and a three-year old son awaiting his safe return to Cabot Cove, Maine.

Louise Walker knew what she was getting into, falling in love with a married man.  But the saying was true before Woody Allen said it: "The heart wants what it wants."  When she got pregnant, her snooty sister-in-law Annie Walker was scandalized.  Thinking more of her own standing in the Weatherfield community, Annie convinced Louise that she and the coming baby should follow Airman Edmonds back to America where she could convince him to divorce his wife and marry her.

But Edmonds had other ideas. 

He set Louise up in Wenton, a small town in Vermont near to where he would often travel on business anyway in the years before the war.  There in Weston Louise supported herself (as the "widowed" war bride Mrs. Walker) by working as a housemother at the Wenton Academy for Boys.  With financial assistance from Edmonds, she raised her son, whom she gave the name Penn, and sent him off to college to become a dentist.

It is unknown if Louise Walker lived into her seventies (which would have been during the 1980s.)  But had she been alive there must have been a good reason why she wasn't at her son's side during his time of personal crisis in 1987.  If she wasn't already deceased, then she may have been confined to a nursing home for whatever frailty that might have afflicted her at that age.

Dr. Penn Walker with Jessica Fletcher

At any rate, this is my theory of relateeveety connecting "Doc" Walker from one episode of 'Murder, She Wrote' to Louise Walker, technically from 'Coronation Street'.  (She was mentioned on that British prime time soap opera, but never appeared on it over its long history.  So she was a blank canvas upon which any Toobworld storyline might have been applied.....)

As I said, Louise Walker never showed up in 'Coronation Street'.  So her appearance is not affixed to any one actress.  Who could have played her?

Here are four actresses who could have played Louise Walker in that 1987 episode of 'Murder, She Wrote' - the main reason being they were each born in 1910.  For alls I know, each of them could have affected a slight English accent, nearly lost after forty plus years in Vermont.  (Originally I had chosen five, but it turns out that Virginia Bruce died in 1982.)

CLAIRE TREVOR

 JANE WYATT

SIGNE HASSO

PAULETTE GODDARD
[Maybe Louise Walker was the Weston Academy's school nurse]

SHOWS CITED:

• 'Murder, She Wrote' - "The Night Of The Headless Horseman"
• 'Coronation Street'
• '12 O'Clock High'

BCnU!

THEORIES OF RELATEEVEETY - SIEBERT SIBLINGS

'MURDER, SHE WROTE'

"THE SINS OF CASTLE COVE"

"INDIAN GIVER"

"NIGHT OF THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN"

Sybil Reed was a former high school student of Jessica Fletcher's while she was growing up in Cabot Cove.  Now a published author herself, Sybil wrote "The Sins Of Castle Cove" - which she claimed was only based on the geographical features of her former hometown.  But it was filled with characters whose personalities and histories were easily recognized by the citizens of Cabot Cove.

At least in Cabot Cove, the book became a best seller and soon enough one of the townsfolk was murdered in exactly the same manner as her counterpart was in the book. 

Several of the down home scandals were described in the episode, but there's one they never bring up.  It went unspoken but it was obvious to everyone - one of the leading citizens in that Maine town had an unacknowledged half brother in the nearby state of Vermont.

Norman Edmonds was the town banker, who held all of the mortgages in Cabot Cove.  He had a lot invested in getting a resort complex built in town and that was in jeopardy with the 1758 land claim by the supposed descendent of Chief Manitoka.  Meanwhile,the dentist in Wenton, Vermont, Dr. Penn Walker, was Norman Edmonds' identical twin.  

According to the Toobworld Dynamic theory of relateeveety, Edmonds' father had a mistress (with the last name of Walker) who bore him a son whom she named Penn.  The name could have been a nod to the state from which she came.  But then again, maybe she came from somewhere else in Toobworld....  (I'll have more on that in the following post.)

Nobody in Cabot Cove knew of Penn Walker's existence until a grisly murder occurred in connection to the Wenton Academy for Boys.  It was such a sensational crime, Doc Walker's face was splashed across TV screens throughout New England, especially the news channels like ZNN and the Wolf Network, and in national publications like NewsTime and Crime, a magazine from Howard Publications.

The book was released two years after the scandal which involved Doc Walker.  Combining that with his questionable parentage and his resemblance to his half-brother Norman, I would be very much surprised if there wasn't some kind of sub-plot about twins in there......

OTHER SHOWS CITED:

• 'The Name Of The Game'
• 'The Dick Van Dyke Show'
• 'Murphy Brown'
• 'NCIS'

BCnU!

O'BSERVATION: Norman Edmonds and Dr. Penn Walker were both played by Charles Siebert, only months apart.

TV-GPS: BAY CITY, CALIFORNIA

'RUN FOR YOUR LIFE'

"I AM THE LATE DIANA HAYS"

This episode takes place in Bay City, which means it can be linked to the following TV shows:

• 'Another World' - This long-running soap opera crossed over with other soaps and is a major location hub for Toobworld
• 'Starsky And Hutch' - The exteriors were filmed in San Pedro. So San Pedro served as Bay City but also appeared as itself in 'San Pedro Beach Bums'
• 'The Rockford Files' - As with 'Run For Your Life', it is the location for only one episode. In this case, "Exit Prentiss Carr". (It is also mentioned to be "45 minutes from Pasadena by freeway".)
• 'Bay City Blues' - The city had its own minor-league baseball team, which probably played against clubs like the NY Empires and the Pioneers

Bay City, California, will one day enter the TV Crossover Hall of Fame....

BCnU!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, MANCHESTER EDITION

'CORONATION STREET'

'SCOTT & BAILEY' - S1.E2

CHARACTER STUDIES:

JACK WALKER (1900-1970) - FATHER

DSUP. THOMAS WALTERS (1931 -) - SON

In the Weatherfield suburb of Greater Manchester, the center of community interaction is the Rovers' Return Inn which was run by Jack Walker from 1937 until his death in 1970.

Walker and his wife had two children, Billy and Joan.  But as seems to be endemic in most soap opera locales, Jack had at least one illegitimate offspring.  However, it's likely that this child, a boy, was born out of wedlock to another woman before Jack Walker was married to Anne Beaumont.

It's my theory of "relateeveety" that Jack knew this girl from his school days; that they shared the same homeroom because they had similar last names: He was a Walker and she was a Walters.

Jack and Miss Walters met up again when they were about thirty and had a brief fling which resulted in Miss Walters giving birth in 1931 to a boy.  She named him Thomas and despite how it looked during those times, she raised him on her own.

By the time we in the Trueniverse audience met Thomas Walters, he was a retired Detective Superintendent of the Manchester Police, already 80 years of age.  DC Janet Sharp consulted with him about the one murder case he could never solve and which he could not let go - that of a six-year-old girl who had been Janet's childhood friend.

Working with new leads, Janet was able to solve the case, which probably gave D.Sup Walters the closure he sought for a more peaceful retirement.

ToobNotes:

Usually when I do these theories of "relateeveety", it's because the same actor is playing the two roles.  But this was something special: D.Sup Tom Walters was played by Tony Broughton while Jack Walker was portrayed by Arthur Leslie during those first ten years of 'Coronation Street'.  

And in real life, Mr. Leslie was the father of Mr. Broughton.

That both characters were living in the Manchester area, with such similar names, made it too irresistable to pass by as a link.

Happy Father's Day!