TOOBWORLD'S TRIBUTE FOR PRESIDENTS' DAY

Today marks Presidents’ Day and there’s no better member of that very exclusive club – at least this current TV season – than the Father of His Country….

My personal connection to the Father of Our Country is very tangential – my paternal grandfather was born on February 22 and so he was given the middle name of “George”.  And that was passed down for the next two generations, making me the third to carry the full true name.  (And that’s why I prefer the nickname I was given.)

In the Television Crossover Hall of Fame, George Washington is a multidimensional who was inducted as part of the Class of the Proto-Hall.  The Proto-Hall consists of all those members who were celebrated for their crossover contributions before the Hall actually existed.  (He is considered the member in the November in those years before the Hall, from circa 1990 - 1998.)

Let’s take a look at the February 22nd birthday boy….

From Wikipedia:
George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) was an American political leader, military general, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States (1789–1797). He commanded Patriot forces in the new nation's vital American Revolutionary War and led them to victory over the British. Washington also presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which established the new federal government. For his manifold leadership during the American Revolution, he has been called the "Father of His Country".

Washington succeeded a prosperous family of slaveholding planters in colonial Virginia. He had educational opportunities and launched a favourable career as a land surveyor. He then became a leader of the Virginia militia in the French and Indian War. During the Revolutionary War he was a delegate to the Continental Congress, was unanimously appointed commander-in-chief of the Army, and led an allied campaign to victory at the Siege of Yorktown ending the conflict. Once victory was in hand in 1783, he resigned as commander-in-chief.

Washington was unanimously elected President by the Electoral College in the first two national elections. He promoted and oversaw implementation of a strong, well-financed national government, but remained impartial in the fierce rivalry between subordinates Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. In the French Revolution, Washington proclaimed a policy of neutrality while sanctioning the Jay Treaty. He set enduring precedents for the office of president, including the title "President of the United States". Washington's Farewell Address was widely regarded as one of the most influential statements on republicanism.

Washington customarily owned and traded African slaves, but became troubled with the institution, and freed them in his will. He was a member of the Anglican Church and the Freemasons, and urged tolerance for all religions in his roles as general and President. Upon his death, he was eulogized as "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."  Washington has been memorialized by monuments, art, places, stamps, and currency, and he has been ranked by scholars among the four greatest American presidents.

For more on the man in the Trueniverse, click here.

There have been plenty of “televersions” for George Washington in the greater TV Universe, perhaps especially in the Tooniverse.  With so many, I feel charitable in sharing the wealth – any of the mini-series and TV movies in which he was depicted could be relegated to other TV dimensions since they have nothing to actually tie them to the main Toobworld of Earth Prime-Time.

But for every time Washington showed up in a regular TV series and interacted with their fictional characters, there is a splainin to do in order to disable the Zonks caused by recastaways.  Each of these incarnations of the First President are how they appeared to the relevant TV character’s perspective.

One time where that doesn’t apply was in the ‘Bewitched’ episode “George Washington Zapped Here.”  In that case, as with the Halloween figures summoned by Tabitha, George and Martha were brought to life out of a book in the Stephens’ home.

We gained a new portrayal of George Washington in Earth Prime-Time this season.

‘OUTLANDER’
“WILMINGTON”

Simon Harrison played Washington at the age of 36 in 1768 when he was a member of the landed gentry in Virginia and held the title of Colonel after his exploits during the French & Indian War.  Washington and his wife Martha apparently were in Wilmington, North Carolina for some reason – perhaps on business? – and was attending the opening night production of a play.  There he met the Frasers, Jamie and Clare, as well as several other tele-historical figures like Royal Governor William Tryon and Edmund Fanning, a colonial administrator in North Carolina.

Washington even got pulled into Jamie’s scheme to warn off a gang of “Regulators” who were about to walk into a trap while robbing a coach that was supposed to be carrying the excessive train revenue.  It is because of how Clare Fraser viewed him upon first espying him across the theatre lobby that locked in how Washington appeared to us in the Real World.  So even when Jamie Fraser encounters the Washingtons outside the theater on his own, we are still seeing Washington as he was first perceived by Clare.

Just another cosmic mystery of Toobworld…