THURSDAY'S THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY - TONG & LING

I was going to post this next year for Chinese New Year, but I’m stuck for a Thursday Theory of Relateeveety for tomorrow.  And since this will have a tangential connection to Friday’s new member in the Television Crossover Hall of Fame…..

Sammee Tong was best known for playing two roles in Toobworld…..

Bachelor Father 
Peter Tong
157 episodes

From the IMDb:
The misadventures of a single adopted father raising a teenage niece with the help of his manservant.

Never-married attorney Bentley Gregg took on the task (with help from his "houseboy", Peter) of raising his young niece Kelly, after her parents died in an accident. The job was easier when Kelly was a little girl, but now she's in her teens, and beginning to date and venture into the adult world, while Bentley continues to juggle his career, looking after Kelly, and his own romantic life. 

Mickey
Sammy Ling
4 episodes

From the IMDb:
Mickey Grady leaves the Coast Guard to manage a ritzy beach hotel with his wife Nora plus boys Timmy and Buddy. But former supervisor Sammy has left problems that creates crazy situations for the by the book Mickey.

I’ve done plenty of theories of relateeveety for Toobworld which were based on nothing more than the fact that both roles were played by the same actor.  I even argued the case for triplets with three characters played by Honor Blackman!

But this is a case in which we have further proof that Peter Tong and Sammy Ling are identical cousins than just the fact that they resemble each other:

'BACHELOR FATHER'
"BENTLEY AND GRANDPA LING"

From the IMDb:
Peter introduces Kelly and Uncle Bentley to the inimitable Grandpa Ling. If he sees something he likes, he takes it and leaves an item that he thinks is of equal value in its place.

So Grandpa Ling must have had two children, a boy and a girl.  And when they married, they had children as well.  The son was the father of Sammy Ling, while Grandpa Ling’s daughter married a man named Tong and she gave birth to Peter.

‘Mickey’ only had Sammee Tong for four episodes before his untimely death.  But Ye Old Curator of Toobworld Televisiology found one more role for him as Sammy Ling.  Since he was no longer the supervisor of that resort, Sammy needed a new job.  

And so he went back to a job he had over twenty years earlier, where he met Jack Benny and Dennis Day….

The Jack Benny Program
- How Jack Found Dennis (1964) 
... Maitre d' of Lotus Blosom Inn

No name was listed for the character so I see no reason why this Game of the Name shouldn’t make the claim that Sammy went to work at the Lotus Blossom Inn back in the thirties.

Another three pieces joined together in the Great Mosaic of Toobworld!

BCnU!