VIDEO WEEKEND - "SHERIFF OF COCHISE"

'SHERIFF OF COCHISE'
"LYNCHING PARTY"

Yesterday I wrote about James Best characters who could have been descended from a saloon girl impregnated by the character he played in 'The Guns Of Will Sonnett', Harley Bass.

Mike Norris was a ranch hand wanted for the murder of his girl friend's father.  It was up to the Sheriff of Cochise to protect him from a lynch mob.....

Happy trails to you!

SALOON GIRL SHOWCASE - BEST OF THE WEST... THEN SOUTH

"Too much has happened to me.

I know what they have turned me into."

Abby Garcia

'The Guns Of Will Sonnet'

When Will and Jeff Sonnet rode into a small Mexican settlement in search of James Sonnet, they were brought before the outlaw who had taken over the town.  Harley Bass, with his shirt not tucked in, came out of a back room, angry at being interrupted.  And it's no wonder.  He was soon followed by Abby Garcia, a local woman he had taken for himself.

Her degradation soon ended with the death of Bass, but her contribution to Toobworld continued.  Frontier whores, politely referred to in TV shows as "saloon girls", jump-started many a family tree by getting pregnant, thanks to a lot of recognizable cowboys whose likenesses were passed down through the decades to be "born to rerun" as TV characters in other TV shows.

So most of the characters who were descended from the union of Bass and Abby would look like the actor James Best, thanks to strong telegenetics.  Abby Garcia probably crossed the border and traveled east to settle in one of the southern states before the child was born.  And from that child would come the great grandchildren - Jim Lindsay, Fred Morgan, Dan Murray, Dr. Joe Sullivan, Sheriff John Early, Dr. Peter Kellwin, and of course, Roscoe P. Coltrane.  (Characters like Jeff Myrtlebank and Billy Ben Turner would probably be of the grandchildren generation.  I don't think they were in stories set in the present day.)

O'Bviously, all of the characters played by James Best in TV Westerns, including yet another episode of 'The Twilight Zone', would have no direct lineage from Harley Bass.  However, all of them could have been identical cousins to Bass; and some of those could have been the same characters using aliases.  The wild, wild West was full of characters using multiple identities.  In telegenetics, this is known as agarnosis.

SHOWS CITED (IN ORDER)

• 'The Andy Griffith Show'
• 'The Millionaire'
• 'The Fugitive'
• 'Ben Casey' (and maybe 'I Spy')
• 'Hawkins'
• 'Flipper'
• 'The Dukes Of Hazzard' & 'Enos'
• 'The Twilight Zone'

BCnU!

TOOBWORLD TIMELINE - ON THIS DATE.....

Okay, here's how to play:

Run both videos at the same time.  But with that first video, with the visuals from the original music video, turn off the volume.  Gads, what a horrible song to synch with that storyline!

It's not going to match up exactly, but think of it as a badly dubbed foreign movie.

I tried to use a version that had the original video intact; in fact, I had it set up months ago for today.  But I looked in and saw that the video had been yanked for copyright reasons.

Mr. Sweet the musical demon was surely involved.....

And in case you can't be bothered, here's the opening image (which was why I wanted to share it today).....

TVXOHOF, AUGUST BIRTHDAY SALUTE - TONY BENNETT AT 90

We've already inducted our August TV Western member into the Television Crossover Hall of Fame, and in keeping with the year's theme he is also a member of the League of Themselves - John Hart, who played the Lone Ranger in Toobworld's TV.  But we have another member of the League of Themselves we want to recognize today - the legendary singer Tony Bennett who is marking his 90th birthday.

I don't think he really needs any introduction even to the "Millennials", especially since he's performed with Lady Gaga (and can be seen doing so in TV commercials to boot - and those are part of his membership tally.)  But just in case....

From Wikipedia:

Anthony Dominick Benedetto (born August 3, 1926), known professionally by his stage name Tony Bennett, is an American singer of traditional pop standards, big band, show tunes, and jazz. He is also a painter, having created works under the name Anthony Benedetto that are on permanent public display in several institutions. He is the founder of the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens, New York.

Born and raised in Astoria to an Italian-American family, Bennett began singing at an early age. He fought in the final stages of World War II as a U.S. Army infantryman in the European Theater. Afterward, he developed his singing technique, signed with Columbia Records and had his first number-one popular song with "Because of You" in 1951. Several top hits such as "Rags to Riches" followed in the early 1950s. He then refined his approach to encompass jazz singing. He reached an artistic peak in the late 1950s with albums such as The Beat of My Heart and Basie Swings, Bennett Sings. In 1962, Bennett recorded his signature song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco". His career and his personal life experienced an extended downturn during the height of the rock music era.

Bennett staged a comeback in the late 1980s and 1990s, putting out gold record albums again and expanding his reach to the MTV Generation while keeping his musical style intact. He has won 19 Grammy Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award, presented in 2001) and two Emmy Awards, and was named an NEA Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honoree. He has sold over 50 million records worldwide.

Over the last forty years, Tony Bennett has firmly established his televersion by appearing in the following TV series:

'30 ROCK'

"Mazel Tov, Dummies!"Tony sang at Liz Lemon's wedding:

'ENTOURAGE'

"Unlike A Virgin"

'COSBY'
"The First Gentleman"

While Ruth's away, Hilton frets she'll play---and not just in the casinos at a convention she's attending in Atlantic City. Tony Bennett has a cameo.

The picture is from an interview about the Newport Jazz Festival.  Mr. Bennett probably would like to remove this credit from his resume now.....

'CYBILL'
"Zing!"

'THE DORIS DAY SHOW'
"Tony Bennett Is Eating Here"

Doris admits that she is star-struck by the prospect of interviewing Tony Bennett. When she arrives for the interview, he places her so much at ease that she even literally forgets that she is supposed to be conducting an interview. But what Doris is feeling is nothing compared to Angie when she learns that Bennett, who is lamenting not being able to find a good simple home cooked Italian meal in San Francisco without going to busy restaurants where he has been mobbed by autograph hounds, is coming to the restaurant tonight on Doris' recommendation and with Doris as his guest. Doris makes Angie and Louie swear that they will not tell anyone about Bennett's visit to ensure that his dinner is as quiet and relaxed as he is hoping. But Angie's promise to Doris goes out the window, and with it perhaps Bennett's much wanted quiet dinner and the goodwill that Doris has built with him. 

'SESAME STREET'
Episode #29.64 (1998)
Slimey is on his way to the moon in the WASA spacecraft Wiggleprise. Although Oscar is very proud of his little worm, and keeps a scrapbook of his day to day achievements, he misses Slimey terribly. Still, he won't admit his feelings to Gina or Elmo. But when Slimey's sister Sloppy comes to visit, she and Oscar bond. 

I would not be surprised to find out that Mr. Bennett sang "Fly Me To The Moon" for the occasion.  But he did sing "Little Things"...

'SUDDENLY SUSAN'

"A Kiss Before Dying - On Stage"

'MUPPETS TONITE!'

"Tony Bennett"

'REMINGTON STEELE'

"Steele Trying"
Remington invents a case as a ruse to whisk Laura off to romantic San Francisco, but the trip turns treacherous when they witness a murder. 

A romantic trip to San Francisco?  How much do you want to bet he sang his signature song near the end of the episode?

'SCTV NETWORK'

"The Great White North Palace"

Guy Caballero hires Tony Bennett to appear in Bob and Doug MacKenzie's TV special.

'KING'

This mini-series could be part of Earth Prime-Time or instead be found in one of the thousands of alternate TV dimensions, due to the recasting of several major historical figures.

'MR. ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD'

Episode #1446

In the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, Tony Bennett sings on MGR-TV and does a sketch of Lady Elaine. 

Other dimensions:

THE WEST WING DIMENSION

'BLUE BLOODS'
"Mercy"

From the CBS promo:
Tony Bennett and Carrie Underwood, pictured with Bridget Moynahan and Tom Selleck, will guest star on the Season Two Premiere of 'Blue Bloods'.

THE TOONIVERSE

'THE SIMPSONS'
"Dancin' Homer"

"Bart vs. Lisa vs. The Third Grade"
"Whiskey Business"

And in connecting to that dimension.....

'SPACE GHOST: COAST TO COAST'

"Joshua"

SKITLANDIA

On 'Saturday Night Live', Alec Baldwin has portrayed him several times.  He's seen here with Vice President Dick Cheney.

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/tony-bennett/n12079

Meanwhile... in a whole 'nother universe....

THE CINEVERSE

"BRUCE ALMIGHTY"

"THE SCOUT"

And here are a few more pictures of Tony Bennett's life in Toobworld:

Both Kermit and Elmo are also members of the TVXOHOF.......

(Except for the 'Cosby' summary which is from TV Guide, all plot descriptions are from the IMDb.)

Happy birthday, Tony Bennett.  All the best to you on your 90th from all of me at Toobworld Central....

TELE-FOLKS DIRECTORY: A SALUTE TO THE SALOON GIRLS

Toobworld Central would like to salute a group of TV characters from the wild, wild West who are a major link between TV cowboys and the modern TV characters who resemble them.

"I'll take 'Whore Ads' for 100, Alex."

Sean Connery

'Saturday Night Live'

That's right - the Frontier Whores.

Of course, polite society and the antiquated system known as Standards And Practices under which most of our great TV Westerns flourished would have demanded that I should call them saloon girls.  But we know what they really were......

Mutliple roles played by the same actor account for many of the theories of relateeveety.  Some are identical cousins which is the classic norm.  There are the twin sons of different mothers, which isn't just a title for a rock 'n' roll album.  That accounts for most of the identical characters who share the same timeline.  But when it comes to mult-generational look-a-likes, especially when one of those involved is a cowboy, having a "saloon girl' in the family tree is a godsend for a televisiologist like me.  

Many of those early cowboy roles were played by actors who later went on to private eye action shows or sitcoms or just the frequent guest star circuit (James Garner, Will Hutchins, Pernell Roberts) so why not connect them in this way?  (It happened in reverse as well, but there could be other reasons for that.  A certain Weeping Angel, for example.)

The thing is, we might never have seen the character from the earlier timeline get married.  But there were always saloon girls in frontier towns who may have eventually become pregnant by some over-sexed sagebrush stud.

A lot of these saloon girls passed through the swinging doors of the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City.  Miss Kitty Russell ran the Long Branch until she sold it to Miss Hannah (one of those characters from the 1970s who were transported back in Time by that Weeping Angel.)

But there were saloon girls in plenty of other TV Westerns and every so often this month we'll showcase one of them who might have had a hand in expanding the roster of TV characters......

Happy trails to you!

TVXOHOF, AUGUST 2016 - WHO WAS THAT OTHER MASKED MAN?

As this is the year in which the Television Crossover Hall of Fame is focused on the League of Themselves, then the month of August - our longest-lasting tradition of theme showcases - should do the same with regards to the TV Western.  We've inducted John Wayne in the past, and he would have been perfect for this year, had we only saved him.  But I have another choice that should work just as well, if not on such an epic scale.....

JOHN HART

Sadly, too many of today's generation - maybe even one or two previous generations - won't know who John Hart was.  But he was an actor who was the Toobworld personification of James Fenimore Cooper's Natty "Hawkeye" Bumppo from the TV series adaptation of 'The Last of the Mohicans'.  He was also known as the second actor to play the Lone Ranger in that long-ago classic TV Western, 'The Lone Ranger'.

From Wikipedia:
Hart... was eventually offered the opportunity to replace Clayton Moore on 'The Lone Ranger' television series. Based on the assumption that the masked character, rather than the actor, was the true star of 'The Lone Ranger', the program's producers fired Moore (presumably over salary differences) and replaced him with Hart, who was of a similar build and had a comparable background in Westerns. However, the public never truly accepted Hart as the Lone Ranger, and by 1954 the producers returned Moore to the role. According to Clayton Moore's autobiography "I Was That Masked Man", Moore never knew why he was replaced with John Hart, and also stated that he had not sought a pay increase. Interestingly, he acted in minor roles in two episodes of 'The Lone Ranger' before being asked to replace Clayton Moore for the entire third season. The episodes were "Rifles and Renegades" (#34) and "Sheriff at Gunstock" (#46).

So Clayton Moore was the first actor to portray Reid (first name never known), but as far as Toobworld is concerned, when we saw him on screen as the Lone Ranger, that WAS the Lone Ranger.  We were seeing the television timeline play out as is the case with most of the TV shows we watch.

But when we saw those 50-odd episodes in which John Hart was playing the Lone Ranger, what we were seeing was the TV show within the TV Universe which was about the Western hero and his Indian sidekick Tonto starring John Hart.

So that would be the first notch in his belt as a member of the League of Themselves.

An inductee into the TV Crossover Hall Of Fame would need three different shows to qualify for membership, and talk shows, game shows, and news reports shouldn't count.  But luckily for John Hart we have two more entries which are also tied into the legend of the Lone Ranger.

Back in the 1950s, while he was still appearing in the TV series, John Hart made a personal appearance in Milwaukee at Fonzie's birthday party dressed as the Lone Ranger:

'HAPPY DAYS'

Howard and Chachi go above and beyond to try to win a dinner with the Lone Ranger for Fonzie's birthday, while the Fonz begins to wonder if he should start thinking about settling down with just one girl. -- IMDb Plot: "Hi Yo, Fonzie Away"

(Although this took place in the 1950s, it was not seen by the Trueniverse audience until February of 1982.)

Mr. Hart was then called upon again, about thirty years later, to inspire another young man......

 
GREATEST AMERICAN HERO

Ralph retires the suit after his super-heroics result in a near-tragedy. Bill desperately needs Ralph to help him crack a corrupt cop caper masterminded by a war buddy. Can the Lone Ranger remind Ralph of a hero's great responsibility? -- IMDb Plot: My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys

So even though the two episodes were only about a year apart, within the realm of Toobworld there was a thirty year span between them. 

Knowing that all of John Hart's episodes for 'The Lone Ranger' were TV shows with the dimension of Earth Prime-Time, that means the actors appearing in them in co-starring roles, especially Jay Silverheels, were actually appearing as themselves playing the characters.  One that comes to mind is DeForest Kelley, who would go on to immortality as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy.  He also played himself in a 1980s phone commercial so those two disparate productions could be considered as being linked according to this theory of mine.  (Which is to say, what is mine, is mine.)

Hiyo Sylvania, away!

TELE-QUOTES: I'VE SEEN YOUR TYPE BEFORE....

This quote from the 'Bonanza' episode "The Bloodline" made me think of the many TV Western actors who made so many guest role appearances in the oaters of the day.  Some of them, like Jack Elam, Morgan Woodward, and John Milford, appeared several times over in the same series!  (That's Milford below, in ten roles alone from 'The Rifleman'!)

"I've seen you in every mining camp, every tank town and honky tonk between here and Mexico.  Maybe not the same face or the same fancy duds, but the same cold eyes, the same way of walking and the same stink of killing on you."

- Dianne Johnson

She was saying it to a character played by Lee Van Cleef, who was also quite a familiar face in the early days of TV Westerns before he hit it big in the overseas movie market.  

And so we kick off our traditional month-long salute to the TV Western.  You may notice there's something of a theme that will show up periodically.  And we were still able to honor the year-long theme for the Television Crossover Hall of Fame - the League Of Themselves - with this month's inductee.

I hope you enjoy.

Happy trails to you!

"STRANGER THINGS" & "THE X-FILES"

For someone who loves TV as much as I do, I'm the worst when it comes to bingeing.  I just can't do it; I get antsy.  (I think computers ruined me for the more passive activity of just watching the Toob.)

So I still have three episodes to go for 'Stranger Things' and the main reason I haven't watched them this weekend, my days off, is because I still have an incredible queue of shows to watch on my DVR.  

My FB friend and fellow explorer of the minutiae of the TV Universe, Caeric ArcLight, sent me the following link, knowing it was right up my alley.  But I only got one paragraph in before I had to bail, because it was written for those who have seen the whole season.  

"Spoilers, Sweeties!"

But if you've finished it off, feel free to check out how these two genre programs can share the same TV dimension.....

'STRANGER THINGS' & 'THE X-FILES' - SHARING THE SAME UNIVERSE

Thanks, Caeric!

BCnU!