THURSDAY THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY - INSPECTOR TEAL 4X ON 4/4

Today’s Theory of Relateeveety doesn’t serve to connect two or more shows together.  Rather, it’s meant to eradicate a Recastaway Zonk.

We got some splainin to do!

From Wikipedia:
Claud Eustace Teal is a fictional character who made many appearances in a series of novels, novellas and short stories by Leslie Charteris featuring The Saint, starting in 1929. A common spelling variation of his first name in reference works and websites is Claude, however in his works Charteris uses the spelling without the 'e'.  

Claud Eustace Teal has appeared in numerous film and TV adaptations of The Saint. Generally (though not always) dramatic depictions of Teal have presented him as a rather less competent policeman than in the novels, with his ponderous approach exaggerated at the expense of his detection abilities. In his most significant adaptation (the 1960s British television series) he is presented as almost incompetent, with his success in solving cases always down to the efforts of Simon Templar. 

O’Bservation – Poor Claud Eustace.  As was the case oftentimes for Dr. Watson, he’s been ill-served in the adaptations.

On television, Ivor Dean played Teal as a recurring character in the 1962–69 British series, ‘The Saint’. Teal appeared in several early episodes played by other actors (Campbell Singer, Norman Pitt and Wensley Pithey respectively). Dean appeared in another role in Teal's second appearance (an episode entitled “Starring the Saint”) before being cast on a permanent basis. In the TV series Templar always greets Teal with mock respect: "Claud Eustace Teal, pride of Scotland Yard". Whilst Teal always gruffly refers to Templar by his surname only, Templar addresses Teal with the much more chummy "my dear Claud".

Here are the four actors who played the Inspector Teals who interacted with Templar in Toobworld:


Campbell Singer
- The Man Who Was Lucky (1962)
Born in 1909


Wensley Pithey
- Starring the Saint (1963)
Born in 1914


Norman Pitt
- The Elusive Ellshaw (1963)
Born in 1911


Ivor Dean
24 episodes between
1963-1969
Born in 1917

I'm not about to split the series into four parts just to relegate those recastaways into alternate Toobworlds!

Here is the Toobworld splainin for these four Recastaways… four brothers from the same family.

Each of the Teal brothers joined the Metropolitan Police in London and each of them rose to the rank of Inspector.

As for all of their names being “Claud Eustace Teal” – they weren’t.  Only the youngest of the brothers was named Claud  Eustace.  It delighted Simon to call the other three by the name of their baby brother.

The older three Teal brothers may have decided that working with Simon Templar was a case of “once is too much,” and as far as the Trueniverse audience knew, they only worked with him on one case each.  (There may have been more instances for one or all of them, but those happened off-screen.)

Claud Eustace Teal on the other hand begrudgingly engaged with Templar on just over two dozen investigations.  And even though “the Saint” did most of the heavy lifting in each instance, it was Claud who always got the credit.  And that served him in good stead back at headquarters - In May of 1967, Claud Eustace was promoted and was thereafter addressed as Chief Inspector Teal. 

But it could be that the “ordeal” of being continuously shown up by Templar proved to be detrimental to his health.  Claud Eustace was the first of the Teal brothers to die, at only fifty years of age.  His oldest brother died two years later at age 67.  The second oldest brother died at the age of 75, and by 1993, there were no more Teals of Scotland Yard….

And that should clear up the recastaway problem of Inspector Teal… times four.

BCnU!