RECASTAWAYS - A LITTLE SELZER

While working on a blog post that won't see the light of day until next year (I know, right?), I found this item of interest about the private eye TV show 'Mannix'.....

From Wikipedia:

In the 1969 season, [Mannix] also employs the services of a competitive private investigator, Albie Loos (performed by Joe Mantell), as a sort of investigative gofer. In the 1972 season, Albie returns, played by a different actor (Milton Selzer).

JOE MANTELL & MILTON SELZER

CIRCA 1967

How do you splain away that recastaway?  Well, I don't know about you, but here's what I'm going with:

Plastic surgery.  

I really wanted to call on aliens in disguise - after all, there was an alien who wore a mask that looked like the second Albie Loos.  But he still didn't look like the original Albie.  (Here's what that alien REALLY looked like....)

Albie must have been involved in some kind of accident or even an attack which prompted the need for plastic surgery.  He may have even been involved in some top secret investigation which necessitated the need for Albie to drop out of sight and establish a new identity - at least for a little while.  And that's why he underwent plastic surgery.  

The surgeon chosen to perform the surgery used as his guide the picture of a man named Wilfred Harper, whose own visage had been altered by black magic.  Since Harper no longer looked as he once did, there wouldn't be any confusion with Albie Loos and his new look. (Little did he know how many other men in "Telemerica" had the same facial features.  People throughout History had that same face, including the first Secretary of War for the new-born United States.)

Eventually Albie Loos was able to come out of the early version of Witness Protection and was able to live Life again under his real name.  At some point before Mannix's investigation into Adam Langer, he learned the truth behind Albie's new look because he wasn't surprised to see him again but now looking totally different.

All part of the Khan-Chekov Principle in which we aren't supposed to see everything that happens in Toobworld.

SHOWS CITED:

• 'Mannix' - "Search For A Whisper"
• 'The Twilight Zone' - "Hocus Pocus and Frisby"
• 'The Twilight Zone' - "The Masks"
• 'You Are There'

BCnU!