TV-GPS: A TALE OF TWO CITIES

Back when Eli Wallach passed away, I presented my new TwD theory about the three televersions of Mr. Freeze in the classic 1966 'Batman' - each of them were from alternate TV dimensions.  Batman and Robin and the other regulars from that show still looked the same, but for Mr. Freeze?  Each of them were genetically different from each other, yet their origin story remained the same.

It was the same situation for the three main Miss Jane Marples.  And so we have three TV dimensions in which a Mr. Freeze and a Miss Marple share the same Toobworld.

Basically it boiled* down to this:

MISS MARPLE - Dame Joan Hickson
MR. FREEZE - George Sanders
(This is the main Toobworld, Earth Prime-Time)

MISS MARPLE - Geraldine McEwen
MR. FREEZE - Otto Preminger

MISS MARPLE - Julia McKenzie
MR. FREEZE - Eli Wallach

This theory doesn't have to be used for other recastaways in Batman's rogues gallery.  I have splainins that can be used for the other Catwomen and for John Astin's Riddler.  (Gomez!)

There were only three televersions of Mr. Freeze, but I think the TV series offered up a fourth Batman, still played by Adam West as in the other three dimensions.  

Recastaways weren't the only reason why the View Continuum forced us to watch an alternate 'Batman': the Dynamic Duo visited the city of Londinium instead of London as it was known in the Real World and in Earth Prime-Time.  And there were plenty of differences between these two English locations.

• Chuckingham Palace — The spectacular home of their beloved Queen. 
• Ireland Yard — Always referred to as Venerable Ireland Yard by those who respect the law, this is the headquarters of Londinium's police force.
• Tower of Londinium — A place where the famous Crown Jewels are kept behind bars and under the guard of two beefeaters.
• Barnaby Street — A famous area for shopping in Londinium's downtown. Unfortunately for some old duffers, it is now mostly overrun by the mod set.
• The Tower Bridge — One end is anchored in the Tower of Londinium, which houses the world's largest winch, needed to lift the bridge for naval traffic.

Toobworld follows the Trueniverse in this, using the original locations of Buckingham Palace, Scotland Yard, the Tower of London, Carnaby Street, and London Bridge.  (For more about Londinium in 'Batman', click here.)

There were three 'Batman' episodes which took place in Londinium:

• "The Londinium Larcenies"
• "The Foggiest Notion"
• "The Bloody Tower"

The main villains of this adventure were Lord Marmaduke Fogg and his sister Lady Penelope Peasoup.  (That must have been her married name and she was probably now a widow.)  And as was the case with many of the third-season episodes, the severe budget cuts were noticeable.  (Just look at the backgrounds in so many of the scenes - nothing realistic, mostly cheap high-school theatre backdrops in quality.)

For that alone I have no qualms about dispatching these episodes to the other dimension.  (Most likely it would be the alt-Toobworld which already had Geraldine McEwen's and Otto Preminger's contributions.  But I could entertain the theory that it would be a FOURTH version of 'Batman'.....)

I don't want to add this trilogy of episodes to any of the previous two alternate Toobworlds, mainly because of the inclusion of their own Miss Marple mysteries.  I'm sure that at some point London had to be mentioned in at least one of their episodes and I think a TV Earth has to have a London or a Londinium but not both.

Another TV show made mention of Londinium, but in this instance I believe it was just a poetic connotation to that long ago Roman post in ancient Brittania.

The current version of G.K. Chesterton's 'Father Brown' is in another TV dimension and I'm willing to place it in the same dimension as Geraldine McEwen's Miss Marple and Otto Preminger's Mr. Freeze.  In "The Upcott Fraternity", an episode from this season, the rector of the seminary said of Sid Carter, working undercover for Father Brown:  

"I see you've all met our newcomer Mr Cartwright, here upon my personal recommendation, free from the flesh pots of Londinium."

Just thought you'd like to know, Old Chum.....

BCnU!

* Sorry for the use of "boiled", Mr. Freeze.....

TELE-FOLKS DIRECTORY - ANDY GORMAN

'RUN FOR YOUR LIFE'
"WHO'S WATCHING THE FLESHPOT?"

When Paul Bryan visited Port D'Or on the Riviera, he dropped in on his old friend Mark Shepherd at this tourists' agency.  He was hoping Shepherd would be able to find him a place to stay since the hotels in town were fully booked.  

According to the placards outside the office, Shepherd had an associate partner named Andy Gorman.  But Shepherd said that Gorman had gone home to the United States in order to get married.

We never saw Andy Gorman, so it's easy enough to claim any other Gorman character to be him - so long as the name is Andy or Andrew or just Gorman.  And we found him!

"Dallas"
Gorman
    - Fall of the House of Ewing (1987) TV episode, Played by Macon McCalman
    - Two-Fifty (1987) TV episode, Played by Macon McCalman

At the time he spent in Port D'or, this Gorman would have been the right age - in his thirties.  And whatever he was up to in 'Dallas' (something to do with the imminent collapse of Ewing Oil), it wouldn't conflict with his past life working with Mark Shepherd in Port D'Or.  He was already a blank slate to work with, and in twenty years anything could have happened.

By the way, his younger sister was Vera Louise Gorman who worked as a waitress in a diner just outside of Phoenix, Arizona.....

BCnU!

THEORIES OF RELATEEVEETY - PHYSICIAN SIKKING

'RUN FOR YOUR LIFE'

"A GAME OF VIOLENCE"

After boxer Duke Smith collapsed in the ring in his quest to win the world's championship, he was taken to the hospital where it was discovered he had diabetes.  The doctor in charge of Duke's treatment wasn't identified in the credits as anything but "Doctor", but I think it was O'Bvious as to who he was, don't you think so?

He was Dr. David Howser, father of Dr. "Doogie" Howser......

This episode took place in November of 1966, seven years before Doogie was born.

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV - THE MAD KING GEORGE

'JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL'

"ALL THE MIRRORS IN THE WORLD"

AS SEEN ON TV:

King George III

AS PORTRAYED BY:

Edward Petherbridge

LOCATION:

A BookWorld/Toobworld Borderland

From Wikipedia:

George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 1738[a] – 29 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death. He was concurrently Duke and prince-elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg ("Hanover") in the Holy Roman Empireuntil his promotion to King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. He was the third British monarch of the House of Hanover, but unlike his two predecessors he was born in Britain, spoke English as his first language, and never visited Hanover.

His life and reign, which were longer than any other British monarch before him, were marked by a series of military conflicts involving his kingdoms, much of the rest of Europe, and places farther afield in Africa, the Americas and Asia. Early in his reign, Great Britain defeated France in the Seven Years' War, becoming the dominant European power in North America and India. However, many of Britain's American colonies were soon lost in the American Revolutionary War. Further wars against revolutionaryand Napoleonic France from 1793 concluded in the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

In the later part of his life, George III suffered from recurrent, and eventually permanent, mental illness. Although it has since been suggested that he suffered from the blood disease porphyria, the cause of his illness remains unknown. After a final relapse in 1810, a regency was established, and George III's eldest son, George, Prince of Wales, ruled as Prince Regent. On George III's death, the Prince Regent succeeded his father as George IV.

On television, George has been portrayed by:

TV MOVIES
Albert Lieven in the British drama "Rake's Progress" (1939) - As this was a TV movie, it can be relegated to any one of the many TV dimensions created for housing so many historical recastaways (like JFK, Lincoln, and Princess Di.)

EARTH PRIME-TIME
Eric Pohlmann in the drama 'The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh' (1963), part of the 'Disneyland' series, based on the novel by Russell Thorndike - This mini-series can stand on its own, and Pohlmann's King George III is the preception of the Mad King by other characters in the drama.  As such, it doesn't have to be relegated to a Borderland overlapping with BookWorld.  

Mark Hadlow in the comedy/action series 'Jack of All Trades', in the episode "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Opera" (2000) - This never actually took place.  The series was a dramatization of the ravings of a syphilitic old Jack Styles.

FRENCH TOOBWORLD
Jean Muselli in the French children's drama 'Le matelot de nulle part', based on the novel Israel Potter by Herman Melville - This takes place in an alternate Toobworld, one of the French Toobworlds.

SKITLANDIA
Graham Chapman in the BBC comedy series 'Monty Python's Flying Circus', in the episode "The Golden Age of Ballooning" (1974) - This is definitely set in Skitlandia.

Simon Farnaby in the British children's sketch show 'Horrible Histories' (2009 - 2015) - This is also located in Skitlandia, which has no alternate dimensions.  Everything in Skitlandia changes with every new comedy sketch broadcast.

MINI-SERIES

Many mini-series can be situated in the main Toobworld.  But when they are focused on the recastaways of historical figures without interaction with established TV characters, then they should be sent off to other TV dimensions which they can share with other such mini-series......

John Tillinger in the American drama series 'The Adams Chronicles' (1976) 

Nigel Davenport in the BBC drama series 'Prince Regent' (1979) 

Rhys McConnochie in the ABC miniseries 'Captain James Cook' (1987)

Nicholas Rowe in the miniseries 'Longitude' (2000)

Anthony Cochrane in the miniseries 'Benjamin Franklin' (2002)

Tom Hollander in the HBO miniseries 'John Adams' (2008)

DOOFUS TOOBWORLD
Gertan Klauber as a complete madman with a German accent in the final episode of the BBC comedy series 'Blackadder the Third' (1987) - This series takes place in the Doofus Toobworld, where historical figures suffer from a diminished intelligence.  Other series in ths dimension are 'The Secret Files Of Desmond Pfeiffer' and 'That's My Bush!'.

DOCU-TOOB
David Warner in the drama documentary 'The American Revolution' (1994) - As with Skitlandia, documentaries share the same dimension with the unseen characters voices ever changing.

THE TOONIVERSE

Charles Shaughnessy (voice) in the animated series Liberty's Kids: Est. 1776 (2002) - O'Bviously located in the Tooniverse.

THE BORDERLANDS
Edward Petherbridge in 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell', a TV adaptation of the novel of the same name (2015) - as mentioned above, this is a Borderland in which denizens of BookWorld appear in an alternate dimension of the TV Universe.

BCnU!

TUESDAY NEWS DAY TWO - PLUTO FLYBY

From BBC News:

Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft has begun the most intense period of its encounter with Pluto.

The probe is set to hurtle past the dwarf world on Tuesday, grabbing a mass of pictures and other science data.

Controllers got a last health status report, before the robotic craft turned its antenna away from the Earth to concentrate on its target.

Only when New Horizons has its trove of images safely in its onboard memory will it call home again.

This is not expected to happen until just after midnight (GMT) into Wednesday.

It means there will be a long, anxious wait for everyone connected with the mission, as they hold out for a signal that will be coming from almost five billion km away.

New Horizons has been returning a steady stream of information on approach to the dwarf word in recent days, but this will be as nothing compared to the huge number of observations it plans to acquire when passing just 12,500km from the surface.

This is timed to occur at 11:50 GMT (12:50 BST).

The probe will investigate not only Pluto but also its five moons: Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra.

Okay, I admit it.  This was basically just an excuse to share a memory of a show I enjoyed for all of its eight years on the air......

BCnU!

TUESDAY NEWS DAY - A SUPER BLURRY RUMOR

It's a bird!

It's a plane!

It's a Superman rumor!

Rumors are indeed flying that not only will the Man of Steel be making an appearance on 'The Flash' next season, but that Tom Welling will be once again playing Kal El / Clark Kent, about five years after 'Smallville' went off the air.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's only a cameo appearance, but it would be enough to confirm that the Last Son of Krypton does exist in the alternate dimension of this Flash. (And that would be the Comic Book Toobworld.)

A newcomer to Inner Toob might think that was a given, but if Welling does show up, he won't be the same superhero who ran for ten seasons on the WB and then the CW. That Clark Kent can be found in the Toobworld which is also home to 'The West Wing' and 'Mr. Sterling'.

The main reason that there has to be two mild-mannered reporters for a large metropolitan newspaper is due to the Green Arrow.  In 'Smallville', the Green Arrow was played by Justin Hartley in over 70 episodes.  That's too hefty a presence to be dismissed off-handedly.  And the Oliver Queen played by Stephen Amell established an origin story and detailed personal life never hinted at in Tom Welling's show.

So because of the two Green Arrows, there must also be two Supermen.  (When it comes to the CW, that is.  We know there are plenty more in the greater Toobworld Dynamic!)  But unlike the recastaways of Hartley and Amell, Tom Welling is both Supermen in 'Smallville' and in 'The Flash'.

Maybe.  That's only if this rumor is true.....

BCnU!

MINUTIAE MONDAYS - EARTHQUAKE DAY IN COSTA RICA

'CHARLIE'S ANGELS'

"BULLSEYE"

Posing as a nurse at the Fort Jameson Army training camp, Sabrina Duncan shared a drink with Doctor Conlan at the officer's club in order to get information.  Hoping to make him open up and feel relaxed, she commended him on the recognition and awards he got for his work during the earthquakes in Costa Rica.

This took place in December of 1976, so I think it's most likely that she was referring to that day in 1974 when Costa Rica was struck by at least three large earthquakes:

EARTHQUAKES IN COSTA RICA

• M 6.2 - Feb 28, 1974 
• M 5.2 - Feb 28, 1974 
• M 4.7 - Feb 28, 1974

So this real-world catastrophe also happened in Toobworld......

BCnU!

VIDEO SUNDAY - HITLER IN HELL DISCUSSES "GAME OF THRONES"

I'd like to think that the soul of Adolph Hitler's televersion, unfortunately a member of the Television Crossover Hall Of Fame, is forever damned in Hell to repeat these exact same gestures and dialogue for Eternity.  Hopefully it drives him mad with frustration that no matter what it is he's trying to talk about, he always ends up saying and doing the same thing......

Even when he's discussing various facets of 'Game Of Thrones'.......

But sometimes Lucifer mixes it up a little, just to drive the Fuhrer crazy.....

BCnU!