Thursday, July 12, 2018

THURSDAY THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY - THE BROTHERS BLAKE



1950s matinee idol Tab Hunter died earlier this week at the age of 86.  Toobworld Central has already marked his passing with a Hat Squad tribute on Tuesday, but his contributions to Earth Prime-Time have more to offer.....

Such as a theory of relateeveety....


BARNEY BLAKE
'BURKE'S LAW'
"WHO KILLED ANDY ZYGMUNT?"

From the IMDb:
Pop artist Andy Zygmunt is fatally impaled on the spikes of one of his creations. The discovery that he blackmailed people into buying his works provides a motive and five suspects: his last four customers and the possessor of a missing fifth work.


ARNOLD BLAKE
'THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN'
"CROSS COUNTRY KIDNAP"


From the IMDb:
OSI computer programmer Liza Leitman who also competes in Olympic horse racing, is under threat of being kidnapped. Though she refuses to have any of Oscar's 'dwarfs' shadowing her, Oscar sends Steve Austin to tail her anyway.


Barney (nickname of Barnard, perhaps?) and Arnold Blake were twin brothers.  Barney was a jet-setter and thrill-seeker implicated in the murder of Andy Zygmunt, while his brother Arnold was a mercenary.  Both of them were the sons of Barbara Blake, the soap heiress.


Barney filled his days with adventure - scuba diving at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean one day, continuous sky-diving the next.  He was in love with a young artist and mechanic named Gwenny Trent.  But she was in love with Andy Zygmunt who only had eyes for Diedre DeMara.  She in turn was in love with Barney Blake.

It was a story that would seem to have come out of a Shakespearean musical.


As for his twin brother, according to the file compiled by Oscar Goldman, Arnold Blake had been an ex-Green Beret who had "gone sour".  He worked as a mercenary in Asia for several years as a hit man, enforcer....

He was hired by an OSI traitor to help in the kidnapping of Liza Leitner, a genius computer programmer who also wanted to compete in the Olympics as an equestrian.


But Arnold Blake didn't realize he had been set up as a show pony - a ruse to keep attention away from Ross Borden and his plot to steal the OSI computer codes with the help of Ms. Leitner (who thought the OSI had been under attack.)

And so in January of 1975, Arnold Blake engineered Ms. Leitner's kidnapping but then was gunned down in front of her by his former conspirators to make the plot look convincing.


I suppose Barney Blake went to the funeral for Arnold, if only to assure himself that his twin was dead.  (As he never mentioned Arnold when he met Detective Tillson, and Arnold's name never came up in connection to Barbara Blake, he probably was already on the outs with the family.  

Barney may have been married to Gwenny Trent by that time.  But if she had married him, more than likely she had already divorced him.  More than likely, Barbara Blake predeceased her son.


Barbara Blake's fortunes were inherited from her mother's side, the Ashby Family.  The family company was finally incorporated as Ashby Industries which counted Alarm! soap among their products.

Mrs. Blake's husband was a man of common means with whom she fell in love during college.  He had a younger brother named Henry, who would be the uncle to Barnard and Arnold.  Henry became a surgeon and died over the Sea of Japan during the Korean Conflict.  He had been near the front lines working in a mobile Army surgical hospital when he got his orders to head home.  But he never made it.


So that's my theory of relateeveety that connects 'Burke's Law' to 'The Six Million Dollar Man'.  Hey, the two guys looked exactly alike and had the same last names - personally I think that validates this as more than a theory!

SHOWS CITED:
  • 'BURKE'S LAW'
  • 'THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN'
  • 'M*A*S*H'
  • ENERGIZER COMMERCIAL
BCnU!

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