AND NOW A WORD FROM SOMEBODY'S SPONSOR.....

Maybe it’s true what my loving family says about me.  It’s not that I watch too much TV; it’s that I read too much into what I watch,

This is especially true with the commercials.

Take for example that holiday blipvert up top for the 2019 Chrysler Pacifica…..

For me, this is the story behind the scenes:

Kathryn Hahn is playing a scorned ex-wife whose husband left her and their two teen-aged children for another woman who was already well-to-do.

The ex-wife struggled for awhile in trying to do her best for her son and her daughter and eventually, she did succeed in finding her path to a better life.  And the first thing she purchased to celebrate her good fortune was a 2019 Chrysler Pacifica.

But it was her eldest child, the daughter, who came up with the idea to stick it to the father who betrayed the family.  (Did you see how eager she was to pull off the stunt?  “Let’s do this!”)

They drove to his new home and put on that “caroling” display as a seasonal in-your-face to their Dad.  As they performed, showing him that they were going to be just fine without him, he was getting into the scene.  Perhaps he was remembering what he once had and started to realize that – like Dorothy Gale – if he wanted to be truly happy, he didn’t need to look any further than his own back yard.

Meanwhile, the new Missus is O’Bviously pissed by their joyous dance on her property.  And the fact her husband is enjoying it has certainly turned down her thermostat.  Hubby ain’t getting any tonight…

Ho Ho Ho!

FRIDAY HALL OF FAMERS - HOWARD BORDEN

From Variety:
Bill Daily, the affable TV actor who starred as Major Roger Healey in “I Dream of Jeannie” as well as on “The Bob Newhart Show,” died Sept. 4 in Santa Fe, N.M., his son J. Patrick Daily confirmed. He was 91.

“He loved every sunset, he loved every meal — he just decided to be happy about everything,” said his son.

The longtime New Mexico resident was a staple on series of the 1960s through 1980s, notably as Bob Newhart’s daffy neighbor, airline pilot Howard Borden, on CBS’ “The Bob Newhart Show” sitcom from 1972 to 1978.

Last week we celebrated the late Bill Daily’s television career by inducting Major Roger Healey into the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.  This week it’s Howard Borden’s turn.

HOWARD BORDEN
In 1972, two years after Jeannie was canceled, Daily was back on television in another aviator's uniform, as Howard Borden in ‘The Bob Newhart Show’. Borden, a commercial airline navigator who later became a co-pilot, lived across the hall from Bob Newhart's Bob Hartley character, and would frequently pop into the Hartleys' apartment to borrow things, mooch a meal, or have the Hartleys take care of his son when he had custody of him.

In 1990, he reunited with Bob Newhart as a new, overbearing neighbor in the ‘Newhart’ episode "Good Neighbor Sam". Also in 1991, he reprised the role of Howard Borden in “The Bob Newhart Show: The 19th Anniversary Special”, which aired in November of that year.

On that Bob Newhart show reunion he told of his dream of being Dick Loudon, Vermont Innkeeper. Then neighbor Howard Borden (Bill Daily) told about dreaming of being astronaut Roger Healy and the Jeannie in the bottle.[From various sources]

So those are the three qualifications for Howard Borden’s entry into the Hall. 

‘The Bob Newhart Show’ – 140 episodes

O'Bservations - I would not be surprised if there's somebody out there who writes fanfic about 'The Bob Newhart Show'.  (The best I ever came up with is the theory that Dr. Hartley is the reincarnation of Emperor Claudius Nero.)

But Howard would provide plenty of fodder for such stories.  That's because his personal life was more developed than most of the other regular characters (excluding Carol Kester).  He has a brother (Game Warden Gordon Borden), a son (Howie Borden, who would be 54 today), and Howard hopefully ended up marrying Bob Hartley's sister Ellen.

‘Newhart’ – “Good Neighbor Sam”

O'Bservation - 'Newhart' was a series long dream of Dr. Hartley's, caused by eating Japanese food just before going to bed.  Many of the characters in that dream were based on people from Bob's waking life.  However, some of the major people in his life - like Howard Borden - only play small parts in that dream.  His college roommate, Cliff "The Peeper" Murdoch, does play a major role in the dream however as George Utley.

By the way, the structure of the dream is apparently influenced by the "true life" story of a New York lawyer named Oliver Wendell Douglas, who gave up his career to run a farm.  In the case of "Dick", however, he gave up his career to run an inn.  But he was surrounded by eccentric townsfolk like Douglas had in Hooterville. 

“The Bob Newhart Show: The 19th Anniversary Special”

O'Bservation - To this we can add a theory of relateeveety.  Howard mentions that he had a dream in which he was Roger Healey and he knew about Jeannie. 

‘I Dream Of Jeannie’ does have a version seen in Toobworld; some episodes mentioned the same episodes which we’ve been able to see in the Trueniverse.  But there are probably other references to things we never got to see.  (The TV show was created by the shadow ops group known as UNReel to provide plausible deniability should the secret of Jeannie be revealed to the general public.)

But there could be another reason why Howard dreamed about being Roger.  It could be that he had only just learned that the two of them were “identical cousins” (a term which could mean that they were half-brothers who shared half a set of genetics from a common father – either Healey Senior or Borden Senior was the cheatin’ Lothario.)  Having found that out would be enough to influence his REM sleep dreams.

Welcome to the Hall, Howard Borden!

MISSING LINKS - "COLUMBO" & "DIE HARD"

I've been writing posts for Inner Toob since August 2004.  This is the 11,354th one.  Every so often one of my posts resurface in my Google searches and I don't even recognize them; it's been that long and there have been that many!

One of my FB friends (and one who shares my birthday), Steve Skayman, is also a big fan of 'Columbo'; we're members of an English-based 'Columbo' page on Facebook.  And for Christmas he shared a couple of frame grabs from the episode "Uneasy Lies The Crown" in which a building could be seen in the background.  It's the same building that was identified as Nakatomi Plaza in the movie "Die Hard";

Turns out I wrote about this high-propane action film movie twice over the years, in connection to the TV series 'The Middleman', and 'Chuck'.

For more on those posts, click here and here.
 
In Toobworld, "Die Hard" is a movie, but it was based on an actual event which took place in Toobworld before 1987.  (The movie, as it did in the Real World, came out in 1988, thirty years ago.)

For most of the points I made in those two articles, I still stand by them.  Al Powell of the actual event was the cousin of Big Mike of BuyMore.  In the movie he was played by an incredible lookAlike named Reginald VelJohnson, whose televersion was established in the 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' episode "Bachelorette Party" when Detective Jake Peralta got to meet the actor and discuss the movie with him.

One thing I would change would be that scene in 'The Middleman" which provides the caption "Vandelay Industries" to a shot of Nakotomi Plaza. 

That caption has no bearing on any Toobworldling unless they are tele-cognizant.  That is still Nakatomi Plaze, but Vandelay Industries are to be found within the tower.

Thanks again, Steve for the 'Columbo' connection to "Die Hard"!

Mah jong......

SANTA CLAUSE IN "THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN"

At first glance, one might think these were Terrans who were miniaturized and held captive by Santa.  (Or maybe it was Cosmo Scam, impersonating his twin brother.)  But here's the actual story:

For Toobworld, they had come under the guardianship of Santa after the death of his "next door neighbor" Superman. (Superman had been exposed to vaporized Kryptonite radiation when saving two gangsters at a Nevada test bomb site.  He died within months back at his North Pole Fortress of Solitude.)

These residents of all the snow globes were Kryptonians, originally from the bottle city of Kandor.  They had been kidnapped before the destruction of Krypton by Brainiac.  They were miniaturized and kept in a large glass bottle under the artificial rays simulating a red sun, which kept them from utilizing the super strength they would have had under the rays of a yellow sun.

Eventually, the population of Kandor had overgrown their enclosed city and so Santa Claus built these snow globe "colonies" to house the more adventurous. Eventually, Santa enlisted the help of the Gallireyan Time Lord known as the Doctor to transport them all to their own uninhabited planet under a red sun where there were no native predators.

There they flourished until Earth finally had the technology to travel the stars. An astronaut discovered "The Little People" and tried to set himself up as their dictator, only to be dispatched by a race of beings who were even larger than Terrans.  (I believe they were from that alternate dimension which was a land of giants.  They would be the Brobdingnagians.

A lot of these connections are theoretical but I feel they are valid.  Not everything has to be actually seen on our TV screens.  It's like Macy's tells us during their televised Thanksgiving Day parade.....

Merry Christmas!

SHOWS CITED:

Coca Cola commercial
'The Adventures of Superman'
'Crime Story'
'Doctor Who'
"The Great Santa Claus Switch"
'The Twilight Zone' - "The Little People"
'Land Of The Giants'
"Gulliver's Travels"

DASHING THROUGH THE FOURTH WALL

It’s Christmas Eve!  I hope it’s a joyous holiday season for all of Team Toobworld and for all of our readers and that you all have a great 2019!

In keeping with our usual Minutiae Mondays, we’re going low-key today with a simple Super Six List.

Last week, I had some splainin to do about serlinguism.  And every so often, ordinary citizens of Toobworld gain this ability to converse directly with the audience watching them back in the Trueniverse.  It’s not always a permanent condition and it appears to “afflict” TV characters only during the Christmas season.  Perhaps it’s similar to the myth that the animals can talk at midnight on Christmas Eve.

At this point, I’d like to give a big thanks to my fellow members of the Classic TV Lovers’ Haven on Facebook.  I had four examples of the main TV characters in TV shows turning to the cameras and wishing the home audience a Merry Christmas, but I needed two more for my Super Six List.  And the CTVLH members came through with more examples than I needed. 

Here are the examples I’ve chosen for my Super Six List:

1]  ‘Doctor Who’
The First Incarnation of the Doctor turned to the camera and wished the home audience a very happy Christmas.

2]  ‘The Honeymooners’
As Ralph and Alice Kramden experienced their own version of O. Henry’s “Gift of the Magi”, a stage curtain started sliding across the screen, but Ralph pulled it back to wave to the audience.  And then Jackie Gleason and his co-stars broke character and gathered on stage to address the audience. (But that first moment was definitely Ralph, being both a serlinguist and a tele-cognizant.)

3]  ‘The Doris Day Show’
Having her family come down from the farm to her apartment in San Francisco to celebrate the holiday with her co-workers at the magazine.  At one point as the episode ended, she turned to peer through the fourth wall and graced the Trueniverse audience with a smile full of holiday cheer.

4]  ‘The Patty Duke Show’
The episode ended on a cliff-hanger as Martin Lane’s twin brother Kenneth, Cathy’s father, was fired as a globe-trotting journalist at the same newspaper where Martin was employed as the city editor.  Patty turned to the audience and expressed concern over her uncle’s fate, but she also remembered to wish a Merry Christmas to everybody on Earth Prime.

5]  ‘Make Room For Daddy’
Sitting with his family and their friend Alfie Wingate around their Christmas tree, Danny Williams, holding his step-daughter Linda close to his side, wished the home audience a very Merry Christmas.  (I’m not really sure Linda could sense that there was another dimension beyond the fourth wall.)

6]  ‘I Love Lucy’
The Ricardos and the Mertzes were all dressed as Santa Claus (probably depleting the supply of Santa suits in the City’s costume shops) in order to please Little Ricky.  It turns out that all four of them were in the kitchen with the real St. Nick, who promptly vanished from sight.  That’s why they look so scared here as they say “Merry Christmas, Everybody” in unison.

And they did a variation of that scene as well:

Other suggestions that were offered up were from ‘The Partridge Family’, ‘Moonlighting’, ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’, and the various variety show hosts in their Christmas specials.

Once again, my thanks to fellow members of the Classic TV Lovers’ Haven page – John, David, Dan, Brad, Linda, William, Jane, Michael, Sally, Tina, Cheryl, Donald, and Mark.

BCnU!

VIDEO WEEKEND - CHRISTMAS CLASSICS 3

BCnU!