O'Bservation - I can’t guarantee anything, but here’s hoping I can get the July 2023 induction into the Television Crossover Hall of Fame posted on time….
AND ONCE AGAIN, I FAILED!
Lately, the July berth has been given over to detectives. And it’s hard to think of one who has so hefty a jacket as this year’s candidate.
From Wikipedia:
Leroy Jethro Gibbs (born November 21, 1954) is a fictional character and the original protagonist of the CBS TV series 'NCIS', portrayed by Mark Harmon. He is a former U.S. Marine Corps Scout Sniper turned special agent who commands a team for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Gibbs is the most accomplished marksman on the team and the most skilled at handling violent standoffs; he depends on his other agents heavily for technical forensics and background checks.
He is patient but firm with his team and has little patience for bureaucracy; he commands most other main characters—including his current staff Timothy McGee and Nick Torres and previous staff Caitlin Todd (killed in the line of duty), Anthony DiNozzo (left to look after his newly found daughter), Ziva David (presumed as killed after leaving NCIS; later revealed to have gone into hiding), Alexandra Quinn (left to look after her sick mother), Clayton Reeves (killed while defending Abby Sciuto), Ellie Bishop (left presumably for a mission with Odette) and Jacqueline Sloane (left to pursue humanitarian work in Afghanistan).
Having found peace in Alaska for the first time since his family's death, Gibbs leaves NCIS in the episode "Great Wide Open" in search of adventure.
(Mark Harmon's oldest son Sean has appeared on NCIS portraying a younger version of Gibbs in flashbacks.)
In the backstory, Gibbs was born on November 21, 1954, and was shown in the episode "Heartland" to have grown up in Stillwater, Pennsylvania. The town is real, and the scenes in the episode were modeled after Bellisario's hometown of Cokeburg. His father, Jackson Gibbs (played by Ralph Waite), owned and ran the Stillwater General Store.
He is named after his father's close friend and partner in the store, Leroy Jethro "LJ" Moore, after they worked together in the coal mines (Winslow Mining Company). In "The Namesake", it is revealed that LJ, a World War II veteran and Montford Point Marine, had influenced the teenaged Gibbs to join the Marines. Gibbs left Stillwater in 1976 to join the Marine Corps and had little contact with the place for the next thirty years.
In a flashback scene in the episode, as a teenager, Gibbs often provoked violence with defiance to his father, who constantly comes to his unwanted aid with a Winchester rifle. He was also known around the area as a delinquent, as said by the new sheriff, one of the other delinquents during his teenage years, stating, "Funny, never expected to find you on the same side of the law."
He met his first wife Shannon in Stillwater, who worked at the local women's clothing store, Ellen’s Dress Shop, speaking to each other for the first time while both waiting for a train. Gibbs was leaving for Marine Combat Training having just graduated from boot camp. At that first meeting, Shannon mentioned she had thought about creating a set of life rules for herself; Gibbs later incorporated this idea into his own series of around fifty rules that he now lives by (with the rules in the forties and above supposedly used for emergency situations).
Gibbs is known by his first name, Leroy, to family and people in his hometown (as well as his ex-wife Diane), whereas at work he is known as Gibbs, Jethro, or simply "Boss". Shannon called him both Gibbs and Jethro.
[I did not make those typos.]
Gibbs' mother, Ann, is introduced in "Life Before His Eyes", the 200th episode. She was a redhead, like all of Gibbs' wives. While she was dying of cancer, she took her own life by overdose so her family would not have to watch her suffer ("The Namesake").
Gibbs enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1976 and was a military police non-commissioned officer at Camp Lejeune before becoming a Scout Sniper. After graduating from boot camp, Gibbs shipped out to Camp LeJeune for further training. There he befriended fellow Marine Private First Class Joan Matteson, but she was one of several marines killed in a helicopter crash on 3 April 1977 after she was deployed to Okinawa, Japan.
He served on tours of duty in Panama (Operation Just Cause) and with the 1st Battalion 1st Marines in the Persian Gulf (Operation Desert Storm). In the season 6 episode "Deliverance", it is revealed that he was also deployed to Colombia on a classified mission. Not long after returning from the Gulf, he retired from the Marine Corps with the rank of Gunnery Sergeant and joined the Naval Investigative Service (as the Naval Criminal Investigative Service was then called) in August 1992.
As a junior agent, Gibbs was mentored by Mike Franks, and the two became close friends; Franks continued calling him "Probie" even after retirement. After Franks retired, Gibbs rose to become head of his own Major Case Response Team. Before the time in which NCIS is set, Gibbs was described to have traveled extensively on operations, particularly in Eastern Europe.
Gibbs is a highly skilled marksman with both his agency-issued SIG Sauer P228 pistol (which he replaces with a .45 Colt M1911A1 pistol in Season 15) and a sniper rifle. In the season 7 premiere, "Truth or Consequences", he kills the terrorists holding his team hostage from an exceptionally long distance and in "South by Southwest" he outshoots a professional hit-man in an approaching helicopter. His knowledge of the Marine Corps and training as a sniper often comes into use, as shown in the episodes "Ravenous", "Vanished" and "Twenty Klicks" where he uses his wilderness tracking skills and marksmanship to aid the investigation and/or get the team out of trouble.
Gibbs is a private man of few words who discloses little to nothing about his personal life. He avoids discussing his life or past before he joined NCIS, especially to agents and co-workers under him, which leads to his team members constantly speculating over his private life. Aside from his tendency to use military slang, he rarely mentions or speaks at length about his time in the Marine Corps although he is often referred to as "Gunny" by other Navy and Marine officers, occasionally dons a "USMC" hoodie or T-shirt when off duty and has a replica of the iconic Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima photograph framed and mounted above the fireplace in his home.
Gibbs holds service personnel in the armed forces in high esteem and to a higher standard. He becomes particularly indignant when the guilty party is someone in a position of trust and authority, and he has reacted violently on several occasions when apprehending corrupt high-ranking officers who committed crimes for monetary gain.
Gibbs has been married four times, and divorced three (his first wife was killed).
- Shannon Fielding
- Diane Sterling
- Rebecca Chase
- Stephanie Flynn
2003
JAGICE QUEEN
MELTDOWN
2003–2022
NCIS
435 episodes (!)
2014–2018
NCIS: NEW ORLEANS4 episodes
Meanwhile, in the land of animation....
THE TOONIVERSE
2012
FAMILY GUYTOM TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAM
1 episode
From IMDb:
Tom Tucker appears on NCIS in "Tom Tucker: The Man and His Dream" after landing a bit part with Peter as his agent.
While the Griffins are trapped in a motel room during a hurricane in "Holly Bibble", they attempt to watch NCIS on CBS, which is billed as the loudest network on television. They struggle to maintain their positions as the volume comes close to blowing them away.
O’Bservation – In order to prevent this most common of Zonks – references made in other TV shows about the topic being a TV show – it’s now a Toobworld standard similar to “Everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes” that eventually everybody will be featured on TV. Sometimes with just a news report, sometimes with entire TV series produced about them. And this would apply in the Tooniverse as well.
Therefore, Toon Harmon was appearing as the Toon Gibbs, who was real in the Tooniverse.
Welcome to the Television Crossover Hall of Fame, Gibbs. You'll find Abby Sciuto has already made herself at home here.
Try to keep the head-slapping to a minimum….
Dedicating this post to the memory of my aunt and godmother, Eleanor Smith. She was a big fan of 'NCIS.'
