MERRY CHRISTMAS, TEAM TOOBWORLD!

"SATURDAY'S COMICS" will not be seen this week in order for us to bring you the following Christmas message.....

(This has always been my favorite.)

Have a very Happy Christmas!

MISSING LINKS - THE SCEPTER OF KOROB

Here it is, the last post about 'The Librarians' for the week......

'THE LIBRARIANS'

"AND THE TEARS OF A CLOWN"

Nothing was really jumping out at me about this episode which I felt could be linked to some other TV series.  At best it was reminding me of Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes".  

But then I found this in the IMDb:

There's a scene where Jenkins is listing the historical magical artifacts that can transmute matter, and he mentions the scepter of Korob. This is a reference to the "Catspaw" episode (S2 E7) of 'Star Trek', where aliens Korob and Sylvia use a transmuter in the form of a scepter to capture and hold members of the crew.

Colonel Eve Baird:

An artifact that can turn a run-of-the-mill children's magician 

into someone who can transform matter, control minds? 

Jenkins:

They're here: The Scepter of Korob, the Fontainebleau Diadem. 

They're here, stored in the Library.

That the Library has the Scepter of Korob in its inventory is a pretty neat trick, considering Korob had it in his possession nearly four hundred years later in that "Catspaw" episode of 'Star Trek'.

Without the power of the scepter's transmuter, Korob and Sylvia died in their true forms - as Ornithoids from another galaxy.  (They had been sent by the Old Ones as explorers to this galaxy.)

But it was the destruction of the scepter which caused their deaths, because they lost access to its power as a transmuter.  Just being separated from it would not have hampered them.

I think Korob was the only one of these two Ornithoids who visited Earth, whenever it was in the Past that he lost the scepter.  Had Sylvia come along, she would have been overwhelmed by the exhilaration of sensations from all the humans around her.  (This is why I also think Korob did not bring her along when he finally retrieved the scepter from the Library.)

Why wasn't Korob as affected by sensations and emotions like Sylvia was?  Perhaps he was... in the beginning.  But long exposure to humans eventually built up his immunity.  Perhaps....

Because of Korob's general appearance, I think he may have visited Earth during the Pharaonic Period of ancient Egypt (32nd Century BC to 332 BC).  And it would have been during that time when he lost the scepter to a Librarian, perhaps even to Judson himself.

Korob's retrieval of the scepter will more than likely be an untelevised adventure of 'The Librarians'.  But he will have it back long before his encounter with the crew of the Enterprise.  I think Korob remained on Earth for centuries, until he finally had retrieved the scepter.  So even though it was out of his possession, he could still draw upon its power.  Therefore - as long as they didn't die - any TV character played by Theo Marcuse, no matter the time period, could have been Korob in disguise, amusing himself with diversionary pursuits until he could take back his scepter.

It wouldn't be until after he had the scepter back in his possession that the Old Ones finally assigned Sylvia to work with him.  By that point he had gone to the planet Pyris VII.

I don't think Korob and Sylvia were the only Ornithoids who were in the employ of the Old Ones.  Their entire species could have been subjugated to the will of the Old Ones to serve out various functions.  (Look how many "Shadows" served the Old Ones in 'Babylon 5'.)  

Many of the Ornithoids could have been sent to infiltrate human society on Earth Prime-Time.  In this way, since they were masters of shape-shifting, we can suggest that any actor who appeared more than once in a TV series in a multitude of roles (I'm thinking Vito Scotti in 'Columbo'.) could have been several Ornithoids, all adopting the same guise.  The same could be the splainin for the occasional evil twin in a series.

And then there's this - My brother Crossoverist, Matt Hickman, had an extra idea about the Scepter of Korob.

"Ornithoids answer to the Old ones so it seems very likely the scepter of Korob could be listed in the Necronomicon."

And that provides a nice way to connect 'The Librarians' to 'Limitless' at the very least......

BCnU!

LOW-KEY ABOUT LOKI

Jenkins:

I think I know who these guys are.
 It's the Jötnar. They're frost giants.
When Von Erickson wrote "prime frost," it wasn't a "P".
It was an Elder Futhark rune, "Thurs,"
long associated with the frost giants....
A race of Norse gods, troublemakers,
their most famous ancestor being Loki.
'The Librarians'
"And The Reunion of Evil"

The knee-jerk reaction might be to link the show to the Marvel TV/Movie Universe with the mention of Loki.  But that's one of the Borderlands, at best it's Comix Toobworld.  But that version of the "Thor" mythos is not to be found in the main Toobworld.  There we rely on shows like 'The Incredible Hulk', 'Lost In Space', and 'Hercules: The Incredible Journeys'.  

Loki didn't show up in this episode of 'The Librarians', only name-checked.  But he did show up in 'Hercules':

Even if he had, there would be no problem with a recastaway as all "gods" have the ability to transform themselves.  In fact, Loki proved that in that episode "Norse by Norsevest" when he morphed into a wolf and into a little girl.

As for the Frost Giants, they do get a mention in another series.  'Sabrina the Teenage Witch' had both a school play and a battle against an Ice Giant on the same night.  So the Library is really racking up the connections to other TV series.

BCnU!

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE - A LUXOR-IOUS DIFFERENCE

Jake Stone: 

Where do you hide a massive actual pyramid? 

Cassandra Cillian:

Inside another massive actual pyramid! 

Ezekiel Jones:

The Luxor Casino in Vegas. It's genius!  

I mean, who'd ever think to look for a real Egyptian pyramid 

under a fake American one?

'The Librarians'

From Wikipedia:
Luxor Las Vegas is a hotel and casino situated on the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. The 30-story hotel, owned and operated by MGM Resorts International, has a 120,000-square-foot (11,000 m2) casino with over 2,000 slot machines and 87 table games.

Due to the 2008 to 2009 renovation, it has a new, highly modernized design and contains a total of 4,407 rooms, including 442 suites, lining the interior walls of a pyramid-shaped tower and within more recent twin 22-story ziggurat towers.

The hotel is named after the city of Luxor (ancient Thebes) in Egypt.  Luxor is the fifth-largest hotel in Las Vegas and the ninth-largest in the world  As of 2010, the Luxor has a 4 Key rating from the Green Key Eco-Rating Program, which evaluates "sustainable" hotel operations.

The hotel has also been featured in the television shows 'Fear Factor', 'Criss Angel Mindfreak', 'Great Hotels', and 'CSI'.

A majority of my fellow Crossoverists don't hold with using actual locations as being qualifying crossover markers.  And I agree - there has to be more to a crossover between 'Taxi' and 'Law & Order' than just the fact that both take place in New York City.  Luckily in that care, there is a true crossover - the "Terminal" episode of 'Law & Order' in which a suspect was a driver for the Sunshine Cab Company, the main setting for the 'Taxi' sitcom.

But the Luxor is a good example of what the Wold Newton people would consider "the world just outside your window".  The general public is unaware of the "fact" that an actual Egyptian pyramid can be found beneath the Luxor Hotel & Casino, but it is there in Toobworld and stands as a good example of a difference between Earth Prime-Time and Earth Prime.

(Another good example would be Fenway Stadium and its secret history as told in the "Diamond In The Rough" episode of 'Relic Hunter'.)

So I wouldn't make a big deal out of it, but if I'm watching an old episode of 'CSI' and see the Luxor in the background, I'll know there was an actual pyramid under there that whole time.  But I don't see it as being a true crossover.  It just gives 'CSI' some added flavor.....

BCnU!

TWO FOR TUESDAY II: "THE LIBRARIANS" AND THE "TWILIGHT" MOVIES

Tom McCormick:

What kind of infection would give them the strength to do this?

Flynn Carsen: 

Lycanthropy. 

Tom McCormick:

What the hell is that? 

Ezekial Jones:

Werewolves, mate. 

And not the dorky Taylor Lautner kind.

'The Librarians'

Based on that quote, it's safe to say that the 'Twilight' movie franchise is never going to be absorbed into the greater TV dimension.  Hopefully there will never be a TV series based on those books.  I watched that first movie knowing how a fox feels gnawing its own leg off to escape a trap.  I would have walked out but I wasn't the driver.  

BCnU!

TWO FOR TUESDAY I: WEB-SLINGING A ZONK

My life has been in KAOS since late September, and a big part of that was not having access to my own cable system.  And so I didn't know that 'The Librarians' had returned in November.  So on this snowy weekend before the holidays, I'm catching up on the first three episodes of the third season.  As this show is rife with mythic references as well as pop culture ones, each episode is good for a few lines of dialogue that could use a bit o' splainin.

So expect a few Inner Toob posts about 'The Librarians' filling up the blog over the next week or so.  

Annnnnd....  here's the first!

"I told you my Spidey Sense was tingling, but did you listen?"

Colonel Eve Baird

'The Librarians'

Spiderman AKA Peter Parker is a Multiversal whose existence in Earth Prime-Time was most active in the mid-1970s.  But for his televersion, the origin story is a bit different.  He was bitten by a radioactive spider when he was about thirteen years old.  He was visited in the hospital by his favorite comic book writer, the fictional televersion of TVXOHOF member of the League of Themselves, Stan Lee.  Inspired by his story and in hopes he could rally the boy's spirits as he coped with fighting off the infection of the spider bite, Lee created a comic book about Parker's fictional self becoming "Spiderman".  (We saw that comic book in an episode of 'Naked City'.

Once he completed maturation (in other words, "hit puberty"), Parker's raging hormones triggered the activation of his spider-like powers.  And from there, his televersion pretty much mirrored the life of the original comic book Web-Slinger.  So technically, the life of Peter Parker's televersion inspired the comic book Spiderman which then inspired Parker to become a superhero.

Confused?  You won't be after you've seen this episode of 'So-#'.  I mean, once you click here.

We haven't seen the Earth Prime-Time version of Spiderman since the mid-1970s when the TV show starring Nicholas Hammond went off the air.  I have no clue as to whether Peter Parker is still alive in Toobworld or if he was killed by one of his arch-foes.  Nevertheless, I think it's safe to assume that most of the other TV characters not only know about the comic book but also the actual super-hero.  

So that reference by Colonel Baird quoted above is not a Zonk.  We're covered either way.  If she did get that info about Parker's "Spidey-Sense" from the actual man, perhaps Baird was privy to secret government information. (Culled from the X-Files, perhaps?)  Or maybe she just reads the comic books......

BCnU!

"IT WAS MUCH BETTER THAN 'CATS'"

Although I don't use appearances in televised news reports as qualifications for membership in the Television Crossover Hall of Fame, I would add them for flavor later once the League of Themselves member was inducted.

I don't think this guy has a chance of membership, but I was particularly happy to see him on the Toob and wanted to share it with you, Team Toobworld.

This is from the 11 O'Clock news on WCBS Thursday night.  Unfortunately, he disabled the embedding capability at YouTube, but if you want to see him in action (and he is quite animated), then click here.

I've always thought this guy was a natural for the screen and he always reminded me of Jon Polito characters.  If he ever shows up on the news again, I hope I'll get the chance to share it here as I've done in the past with the TV appearances of other friends.

Oh yeah.  I forgot.  He's a friend of mine.  His name is Stephan DeFazio.

And... did I mention that he's my boss?

BCnU!

THE HAT SQUAD TVXOHOF - ZSA ZSA!

The actress Zsa Zsa Gabor has died, aged 99, according [to] her publicist quoted in US media reports.

Born in Hungary, she emigrated to the United States during World War Two and made her Hollywood debut in 1952.

She appeared in more than 70 films, but was more famous for her celebrity lifestyle.

She was married nine times - taking her first husband at the age of 20 and wedding for the last time when she was nearly 70.

Choking back sobs, her husband Frederic von Anhalt told the AFP news agency that Gabor had passed away at home, surrounded by her friends and family.

"Everybody was there. She didn't die alone," he said.

(BBC News)

In much the same way as Bob Hope, Milton Berle, and Jack Benny, Zsa Zsa Gabor was probably best known in Toobworld for playing herself.  She contributed many other citizens to the Tele-Folks Directory, but a lot of those were just variations on her true self: Sonya Lamor ('The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air'), Babette Croquette ('City'), Countess Calvet ('The Facts Of Life'), Lisa Lazlo ('Make Room For Daddy'), and Zizi ('Matt Houston').  And three of her roles in a trio of TV Westerns will be conflated into one character and will one day find herself in the TVXOHOF.

Personally, my favorite role of hers was Commissar Ilsa Buda in my second favorite episode of 'Burke's Law'.  

One interesting thing about the collection of her appearances as herself in Toobworld is the wide variety of the shows and plot lines she found herself in.  From a biographical to sharing a bed with Kevin Sorbo to dealing with a talking horse (of course, of course!), Zsa Zsa could possibly the most interesting prime-time life since Dick Van Patten was inducted.  

So here are the appearances of the fictional Zsa Zsa which qualified her for entry into the Television Crossover Hall of Fame:

'Climax!'

- The Louella Parsons Story (1956)

O'BSERVATION:

Teresa Wright played the title role, but just about everybody else in the cast was playing themselves, Zsa Zsa included.

'The Bob Cummings Show' 
- Grandpa Meets Zsa Zsa (1956) 

O'BSERVATION: 

Bob Cummings played the role of Grandpa as well.

'Playhouse 90'
The Thundering Wave (1957)
Middle-aged actress Victoria Maxwell comes to terms with her destructive lifestyle as she struggles with the lead role in a Broadway-bound play. Matters are complicated by the fact that she is co-starring opposite her estranged husband, Allen Grant, whom she never stopped loving. As the drama begins, Sydney Lowe, a Broadway director, is eager to hire Victoria Maxwell to star in his production of "Thundering Wave," written by his friend Lew Downs, an accomplished writer. Maxwell agrees to take the part, but insists that Sydney hire Grant to play opposite her. Sydney is thrilled with the suggestion since he was hoping to cast Grant, anyway. Grant, however, is not eager to take the part. He finally accepts it, however, in order to give his daughter Louise, who is practically engaged, some freedom from her overbearing mother. On the train ride to Boston where the show will premiere, Maxwell starts to get cold feet and angers Sydney when she pretends to be ill. Grant goes to her compartment to comfort her, but winds up telling her to grow up and stop depending on him for support. On opening night, things get progressively worse when Sydney's wife, Marcia, arrives in Boston to tell him she wants a divorce. After fifteen years of marriage, she has learned of his frequent indiscretions with other women. Upset by Marcia's request for a divorce, Sydney gets drunk, and then, needing to lash out at someone, tells Maxwell that she is doing a rotten job. Needless to say, opening night does not go well, and the notices in the newspapers reflect the disaster. However, when the show reaches New York, things change dramatically both on-stage and off. (The Paley Center for Media)

'December Bride'
- The Zsa Zsa Gabor Show (1958) 

Zsa Zsa Gabor is the guest speaker on accident prevention.

'Mister Ed'
- Zsa Zsa (1962)

There's a noisy new neighbor in the 'hood, and her name is Zsa Zsa.  (The title refers to actress Zsa Zsa Gabor who is more famous for her many marriages than her extensive acting resume.)

'Fractured Flickers'
- Episode #1.26 (1964) 

Scenes from "Nose for News," with Joe Cook; "Jolly Jilter" (Ben Turpin); "Know Thy Fellow Man"; "The Right Bed," starring Edward Everett Horton; and "Battling Orioles." Zsa Zsa Gabor is interviewed by Hans Conried, the host of the series.

'The Joey Bishop Show'
- Zsa Zsa Redecorates (1964)
Zsa Zsa volunteers to decorate baby Joey's nursery and his parents gratefully accept. But it's done in a masculine jungle theme which Ellie hates but feels it would be rude to say so.

'My Three Sons'
- Ernie and Zsa Zsa (1968) 

Ernie meets Zsa Zsa Gabor after accidentally falling into her swimming pool. She befriends Ernie, who introduces her to the rest of the Douglas clan.

'Bracken's World'
- King David (1969) 
An aging actress, while making a "comeback" at Century Studios, uses the job to get some retribution against the former Studio Head, who is Sylvia's father.

O'BSERVATION:

Many Hollywood stars played themselves in this series about the behind the scenes drama at a movie studio.  it was Zsa Zsa's turn that particular week.

'The Dean Martin Show'
- Celebrity Roast: Zsa Zsa Gabor (1974)

'Knots Landing'
- Svengali (1982)

Karen goes through the KLMotors books and finds checks to West Century Auto, Frank and Roy's company. Karen invests money in Richard's restaurant, because Laura is concerned that Richard is spending too much money. Karen is being followed. Kenny's boss won't let him make a demo with Ciji, so Kenny and Gary decide to make a demo with her on their own. Val's publicist, Bess Riker sends a messenger, Chip Roberts to drop off photos at Val's. He charms Val and Lilimae, and tells him he's a publicist. Back at the office, Bess tells Chip that if he thinks he's so hot he can be Val's publicist. Val appears on The Mike Douglas Show.

O'BSERVATION;

Zsa Zsa probably was seen in the taping of 'The Mike Douglas Show', along with Billy Curtis as another guest - both playing themselves.

'The Dame Edna Experience'
- Episode #1.4 (1987) 

Zsa Zsa was a guest, along with Nana Maskouri and Germaine Greer.

'It's Garry Shandling's Show'
- It's Garry and Angelica's Show: Part 1 (1987)

"California Girls" (TV Movie)
A New Jersey auto mechanic travels to California to find the girl of his dreams and woos a bikini fashion model while the time quarreling with her high-powered manager and avoiding his New Jersey girlfriend who comes looking for him.

'Christmas at Pee Wee's Playhouse' (TV Movie) 
Princess Zsa Zsa

O'BSERVATION:

This is not a Zonk, that she was called "Princess Zsa Zsa".  It's not a new character, but the title she assumed after marrying Prince von Anhalt.

'Empty Nest'
- Mrs. Clinton Comes to Town (1994) 
When Mrs. Hillary Clinton is scheduled to tour the clinic Carol is determined to get a meeting with her. But her trouble only lands her in jail along with Laverne and Charley.

'Cybill'
- The Last Temptation of Cybill (1995) 

Every female around has eyes for Cybill's hunky new costar Rick, but he only has eyes for Cybill. Meanwhile, Jeff discovers Rachel's left her husband.

O'BSERVATION:

Rick ended up doing the scene with Zsa Zsa instead of Cybill.

 LAND O' REMAKES

The Munsters Today
- Threehundredsomething (1989)

O'BSERVATION:

When Lily asked Herman who he thought would give them good advice about their marriage, Herman chose a true expert on being married - Zsa Zsa. And Lily just happened to have her there.

Unless I steal away with a movie to make it part of the TV Universe, I don't bother with the Cineverse.  But Zsa Zsa certainly made her mark as herself there as well.....

• "A Very Brady Sequel"
• "The Beverly Hillbillies" 
• "The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear" 
• "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors" 
• "Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood" 
• "Jack of Diamonds" 
• "Pepe" 
• "Lovely to Look At" 

Right now as it stands, there will be 35 inductions into the Hall of Fame in 2016; that's a record I believe, outside of the weekly inductions to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Hall.  I can only hope Zsa Zsa will be the last memorial induction into the Hall of Fame for this year.  

Good night and may God bless, Dahlingk......

"THE CRITTENDEN MOVIE" (REMEMBERING BERNARD FOX)

I've focused on Bernard Fox's role as Dr. Bombay in three different series, for which I inducted him into the Television Crossover Hall of Fame back in October of 1999.  But there were several other TV characters whom he contributed to the citizenry of Toobworld.  And a fan has made a short movie about one of them, who was cited in quite a few of the obituaries about him.

So for this Video Sunday, I'm sharing it here......

Good night and may God bless.....