VIDEO SATURDAY - "EVERYTHING WRONG WITH 'BRIGHT'"

I'm sharing this episode in the "Everything Wrong With" series of YouTube videos because it is from television - okay, Netflix, but still.  Most of the entries are about various theatrically released movies.  So many of them are great, very funny, and you should check them out.  

But in the meantime, watch how they eviscerate the dystopian urban fantasy "Bright" starring Will Smith:

BCnU!

LOCATION SHOTS - THE BRADBURY BUILDING & PALS

Today we're going on location to a building found all over the United States of Telemerica......

From Wikipedia:
The Bradbury Building is an architectural landmark located at 304 South Broadway at West 3rd Street in downtown Los Angeles, California. Built in 1893, the five-story office building is best known for its extraordinary sky-lit atrium of access walkways, stairs and elevators, and their ornate ironwork. The building was commissioned by Los Angeles gold-mining millionaire Lewis L. Bradbury and constructed by draftsman George Wyman from the original design by Sumner Hunt. It appears in many works of fiction and has been the site of many movie and television shoots and music videos.

The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977, one of only four office buildings in Los Angeles to be so honored. It was also designated a landmark by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission and is the city's oldest land-marked building.

The Bradbury Building is featured prominently as a setting in films, television, and literature – particularly in the science fiction genre. Most notably, the building is the setting in the 1982 science fiction film Blade Runner, for the character J. F. Sebastian's apartment, and the climactic rooftop scene.

Television series that featured the building include the 1964 'The Outer Limits' episode "Demon with a Glass Hand". During the season six episodes (1963–64) of the series '77 Sunset Strip', the Stuart "Stu" Bailey character had his office in the Bradbury. In 'Quantum Leap' the building is seen carrying the name "Gotham Towers" in "Play It Again, Seymour", the last episode of the first season (1989). The building appeared in at least one episode of the television series 'Banyon' (1972–73), where it was used as Robert Forster's office, 'City of Angels' (1976) and 'Mission: Impossible' (1966–73), as well as Ned and Chuck's Apartment in 'Pushing Daisies', which debuted in 2007. The building was also the setting for a scene from the series 'FlashForward' in the episode "Let No Man Put Asunder". In 2010 the building was transplanted to New York City for a two-part episode of 'CSI NY'. The Bradbury Building and a fake New York City subway entrance across the street were also used to represent the exterior of New York's High School for the Performing Arts in the opening credits of the television series 'Fame'.

The Bradbury appeared in a 1979 music video by Cher called "Take Me Home" in addition to music videos from the 1980s by Heart, Janet Jackson, Earth Wind and Fire, and Genesis, and [appeared in] a Pontiac Pursuit commercial.
The go-to will always be "Blade Runner" but for Toobworld, it's "Demon With A Glass Hand", the episode of 'The Outer Limits' featuring Robert Culp as Humanity's Guardian Trent.

It would have been great if all of the Bradbury Building's appearances definitely took place in Los Angeles.  But we've seen that it could be found in Seattle ("The Night Strangler"), New York City ('CSI:NY', and 'Fame' as the High School for Performing Arts, plus 'Quantum Leap') and somewhere in Papen County, which I think was in Oregon ('Pushing Daisies'.)  

For its actual location in Los Angeles, besides the aforementioned episode of 'The Outer Limits', it was seen in 'Perry Mason', 'Banyon', 'Blunt Talk', 'City of Angels', '77 Sunset Strip' (as Stu Bailey's office building once he went solo), 'The Six Million Dollar Man', and 'Pasadena', where it served as the headquarters for TV Crossover Hall of Fame member the Los Angeles Sun. 

I'm not sure how the Bradbury Building was utilized in the "The Dreamer Of Oz" but the TV bio-pic about L. Frank Baum takes place in the TV movie dimension known as Motwa Toobworld.  

It could also be found in the televersion of San Francisco, which is what sparked this edition of Location Shots:

'IRONSIDE'

"LICENSE TO KILL"

By whatever name the Bradbury Building was known as in the City by the Bay, that's where Buster Logan worked as a maintenance engineer.

The Bradbury Building as itself in Los Angeles could be a future inductee into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.  And its other incarnations could serve as the induction qualifications for some fictional architect in Toobworld (before the turn of the century) who ripped off the designs for the Bradbury Building in order to build imitations of it in all of those other cities.

Might be tough trying to find a fictional architect from the 1890s in some TV show, however.  Might have to look through the episode descriptions of shows like "Life With Father" among others.

BCnU!

THURSDAY'S THEORIES OF RELATEEVEETY - ANOTHER TOUCH OF BASIL

"Identical cousin" is one of those terms which has currency in Toobworld, but is not as readily acceptable in other fictional universes (nor in the Trueniverse.)  I've written about the term in the past and use it often to justify theories of relateeveety in which two otherwise unconnected roles could be connected if only because they were played by the same actor.

The term was established by 'The Patty Duke Show' to splain away why first cousins Patty and Cathy Lane looked exactly the same.  But Toobworld Central has expanded the definition of "Identical Cousin" to be a euphemistic slang term for an illegitimate half brother or sister.  Usually these siblings don't even know of the existence of each other.  They were the accidental results of pregnancies during affairs, bigamy cases, and sometimes even rape.  (Soap Operas have been around since the dawn of the television age and eventually spread to prime-time, with medical dramas, cop shows, and even sitcoms.  So they've had a lot of influence on plot-lines.)

This is not the case with our original identical cousins, however.  The fathers of Patty and Cathy - Martin and Kenneth Lane - were identical twins, the real deal.  (However, it could be they were the result of an affair between their mother and their father's brother, Uncle Jed Lane.)

Last week's theory of relateeveety was about Judge Drew Mayfield ('Dynasty') who was the first cousin of Dr. Barry Mayfield ('Columbo').  Definitely NOT identical cousins.  

And as it turns out, Drew Mayfield had an identical cousin in another 'Columbo' episode who was actually his illegitimate half-brother.  At some time back in the late 1930s, Drew Mayfield's father traveled to Los Angeles from Colorado on business  While there, he met and fell in love with his client's wife, with whom he had a son.  The boy was given his mother's last name (as she was already married to another) and he was passed off as her husband's heir.

The family name was Danziger.  And his "father" gave him the first name of Jason.  

Jason Danziger grew up a genius, with an IQ that qualified him for membership in the Sigma Society chapter of Los Angeles.  He was tangentially involved in the Bertie Hastings murder investigation at the Sigmans' club, but his theories about the gun used in the murder were (gently) discredited by the investigating detective, Lieutenant Frank Columbo.

As smart as he was, Jason Danziger never knew that he had an "identical cousin" in Colorado.  But he did have an actual cousin who also met Lt. Columbo... at sea.  Not that he knew of him either.

'COLUMBO'
"TROUBLED WATERS"

Lt. Columbo takes a trip to Acapulco, but finds himself on a new case when a used car dealer named Hayden Danziger commits murder on the cruise ship.

As was the case with Drew and Barry Mayfield, the fathers of Hayden and Jason Danziger were brothers in Los Angeles.  And Drew Mayfield never knew he had an "identical cousin" and through him another cousin who was a murderer brought down by Lt. Columbo of the LAPD.

SHOWS CITED:

• 'Columbo' - "Troubled Waters"
• 'Columbo' - "The Bye Bye Sky-High IQ Murder Case"
• 'Dynasty' - "The Trial" & "The Verdict"
• 'The Patty Duke Show' - "A Visit From Uncle Jed"

BCnU!

DATELINE TOOBWORLD - REMEMBERING THE DREAM

TWILIGHT ZONE TWO FOR TUESDAY

One show I enjoy finding theoretical crossovers for is 'The Twilight Zone'.  Its anthology nature suggesting access to many different TV dimension means that each episode could be linked to another show without worry of causing Zonks to the other episodes.

Every so often I come across a possibility for a "Crossing Zone" which links one episode of the show to another.  For instance - the two giant astronauts in "The Little People" could be from the same planet where we would find the Mountain Woman in "The Invaders."  (And which I already claim to be Brobdingnag of "Gulliver's Travels" fame.) 

Both of those shows have previous theoretical crossovers.  "The Invaders" is definitely (to me) linked to 'The Land of Giants'.  As for "The Little People", originally I had that linked to 'The Adentures of Superman' because of its dependence on the Superman mythos as its basis.  I claim that the tiny inhabitants of that planet are the transplanted Kryptonians from the bottle city of Kandor.

I still claim that, but now I have a theoretical link that is better grounded.  With the new Syfy show 'Krypton', we are getting Brainiac and Kandor officially into Earth Prime-Time.  And so that's the new "Crossing Zone" - "The Little People" and "The Adventures of Earth Prime-Time".

I now have a new inner "Crossing Zone" theory, spurred on by this excellent meme created by Mark French, a fellow member of a very good 'Twilight Zone' Facebook page:

"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"

 Episode aired 11 October 1963 

"Odyssey of Flight 33"
 Episode aired 24 February 1961

The great thing about 'The Twilight Zone' is that as an anthology series, the episodes are not locked into the Toobworld timeline based on their broadcast order.

Why is this important?  We don't know what happened to the people on board Flight 33.  Did they finally make it back to their temporal point of departure?  Did they end up stuck in the past, either in the prehistoric age or 1939?  Or maybe even in some other time line?

But even though that episode was broadcast before "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", I'd like to think that it happened on the Toobworld timeline afterward.  That's because there's a possibility that some of the flight crew on Flight 33 could have been working on that flight with the gremlin on the wing.

It doesn't have to have been all of them.  We saw a flight engineer trying to deal with Bob Wilson and his "delusion".  He wasn't on Flight 33, but there's nothing that says that whole crew always flew together.  Somebody may have been on that flight with the gremlin.

Nothing set in stone, but there's nothing so outlandish about the theory that it couldn't have happened.....

BCnU!

TVXOHOF 04/2018 - CARL REINER

Last year we inducted Alan Brady into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.  This year's April ceremony celebrates the man without whom Alan Brady never would have come to be....

CARL REINER

From Wikipedia:
Carl Reiner (born March 20, 1922) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, director, and writer whose career spans nearly seven decades.

During the early years of television comedy from 1950 to 1957, he co-wrote and acted on 'Caesar's Hour' and 'Your Show of Shows', starring Sid Caesar. In the 1960s, Reiner was best known as the creator, producer, writer, and actor on 'The Dick Van Dyke Show'.  He also had great success as a film director and writer and partnered with Steve Martin in the 1970s when Reiner co-wrote and / or directed some of Martin's most successful films, including the 1979 film "The Jerk".

Reiner formed a comedy duo with Mel Brooks in "2000 Year Old Man" and acted in films such as "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming" (1966) and the "Ocean"'s Trilogy (2001–2007). Reiner has won nine Emmy Awards and one Grammy Award during his career. He is the father of actor and director Rob Reiner, author Annie Reiner, and grandfather to Tracy Reiner.

One thing Ye Olde Curator of the Television Crossover Hall of Fame is not is perfect. I should have inducted Carl Reiner as himself last year in celebration of his 95th birthday.  Instead I inducted his most famous character, Alan Brady of 'The Dick Van Dyke Show'.  So I'm making amends for that now which is much better than waiting for the sad inevitability.

Here are the times he portrayed himself on TV:

'Good Morning, World' 
- "Don't Call Us and We Won't Call You" (1967) 

'That Girl' 
- "She Never Had the Vegas Notion" (1969) 

'The New Dick Van Dyke Show' 
- "The Replacement" (1971)

'It's Garry Shandling's Show'
- "Killer Routine" (1988) 
- "Save Mr. Peck's: Part 1" (1989) 

'The Larry Sanders Show' 
- "The Roast" (1997)

'The Bernie Mac Show'

- "Lock Down" (2002) ... Neighbor
- "Mac-Inations" (2004) ... Carl Reiner
- "Stone Nuts" (2005) ... Carl Reiner
O'BSERVATION - I think they were being a bit coy in identifying a big star like Carl Reiner would be living next door to Bernie.  But two years later they embraced the idea.

Not that it counts towards his membership in the Hall, but Reiner also played himself in the Cineverse:

"The Jerk"
(as Carl Reiner The Celebrity)

So happy 96th birthday, Mr. Reiner and welcome to the Hall!  If it's any consolation for not being inducted on the milestone of your 95th birthday, you are one of the few members who have multiple incarnations in the Hall (with Alan Brady inducted last year.)

BCnU!

THE PLAY'S THE THING: WAITING FOR GODOT

Staged performances of Samuel Beckett's classic "Waiting For Godot" have been presented on television since at least 1961.

I've seen the New York production which starred Robin Williams and Steve Martin with F. Murray Abraham and Bill Irwin at Lincoln Center.  And I've seen a poor copy of the production with Burgess Meredith and Zero Mostel.  In Toobworld, an all-female version of the play was mounted back in the Swingin' Seventies, as seen in an episode of 'Swingtown'.  

But I think my favorite version had to be a pretty shoddy video made by an acting company back in 1966.  The company was located in a suburb of Los Angeles.  Many of the actors were well-known for their character work in movies and TV and were probably doing these plays for shits and giggles.

In this case, Estragon was played by Stubby Kaye and Vladimir by Arthur Hunnicutt.

I cobbled together this picture of the close-ups of both actors since shots containing them both were so washed out.  

I should have bought that copy of the play when I had the chance back in the early 1980s.  I was a fool to think a better copy might come up some day....

BCnU!