CROSSING ZONE - "MR. BEVIS" & "BRONCO"

Let's start off the week with a touch of de-Zonking.....

'THE TWILIGHT ZONE'
"MR. BEVIS"

From the IMDb:

While Mr. Hempstead is trying to impress Mr. Bevis, one of the things he mentions is that he helped Ben-Hur win his famous chariot race. This would have been impossible since Ben-Hur is a fictional character (created by General Lew Wallace in the mid 1800s) and not an actual person from history.  Hempstead reveals to Bevis that he helped Ben Hur win the famous chariot race. At the end of the episode, a movie theater marquee advertises that "Ben Hur" is playing.

I don't see this as being a Zonk.  We've already seen that the televersion of Governor/General Lew Wallace actually writing the novel in an episode of 'Bronco'. 

'BRONCO'
'DEATH OF AN OUTLAW" 

But as is the case with other writers like Mark Twain and Dame Agatha Christie, in Toobworld their most famous novels were based on actual events and people, and not created out of whole cloth.  

So Judah Ben-Hur may have been a fictional character in the Real World, but he's an historical figure in Toobworld.  Therefore, Mr. Hempstead could have helped him in that chariot race against Messala... to Messala's chagrin.

And that's the "Crossing Zone" connection between 'Mr. Bevis' and 'Bronco' - General Lew Wallace & "Ben Hur".  It could have been any other portrayal of the Governor in a TV series - like Frank Ferguson's in an episode of 'The Tall Man'.  But we actually see Wallace writing the novel in this episode, so it gets preference.

BCnU!