LESS THAN HERO

When I read this headline in AOL News:

"JFK Pilot Says He's No Hero; Why He's Right"

It reminded me of this exchange in 'The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy'.......

ZAPHOD:

You’ve just saved our lives.

ARTHUR:

It was nothing really…

ZAPHOD:

Oh, was it? Oh, well forget it. Ok computer, take us in to land…

ARTHUR:

Well, I say it was nothing...

I mean obviously it was something…

I was just trying to say it’s not worth making too much of a fuss about…

I mean just saving everybody’s life you know?

BCnU!

VIDEO SATURDAY HAT SQUAD - TONY CURTIS

There'll be plenty of other sites which will have video tributes to the film work of Tony Curtis, highlighting 'Some Like It Hot', 'The Defiant Ones', 'Spartacus', and my favorite, 'The Great Race'. But of course, that's the "Cineverse" and here we deal with the TV Universe of Toobworld....

As I mentioned in my Hat Squad tribute to the actor, his series from the early 70's, 'The Persuaders', was one of my favorites and still is today. Thanks to YouTube, here's a sampling of clips that give you a feel for the show (which was really nothing more than an excuse for Curtis and Roger Moore to romp across Europe with beautiful girls in an international TV production).

First up, how the fates of their two characters were manipulated into becoming entangled with each other. (And that great title sequence & music is featured as well):











Here's Curtis & Moore "camping" it up on the series. Like I said, the show was just an excuse for them to have fun.....





And now for something completely different - this video is being promoted as an example of video slash involving their characters of Danny Wilde and Lord Brett Sinclair. It's so very very wrong, but also very very funny. I'm sure Mr. Curtis would have found it hilarious!





Here's the big climactic scene for Fernand Mondego, one of the villains in the classic "Count of Monte Cristo". As Mondego, Curtis showed he still had that flair with a sword which he exhibited a decade earlier in the movie "The Great Race". (And he was still able to fill out the white tights as well.)





I wish I could have found some decent clips from 'Vega$' and 'McCoy' to also represent his TV work, but these should work nicely.

But no video tribute could be complete without Tony Curtis' venture into the Tooniverse, circa 1,000,050 B.C.......





Speaking of B.C........
BCnU!

SKED ALERT FOR BORED & BOARD

We're starting off Video Saturday with something that should be weekly until the seasons for 'Boardwalk Empire' and 'Bored To Death' end.

Here are the previews for the next episodes of these two HBO series:

'BORED TO DEATH'

First - George "saddles up"

And then.....

Don't knock it until you've tried it, Jonathan!

'BOARDWALK EMPIRE':

Both shows will air Sunday night on HBO.....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: GROUCHO MARX

On this day in 1890, Julius Marx was born, better known to the world as the one, the only.....

GROUCHO

AS SEEN IN:
"Groucho: A Life In Revue"

AS PLAYED BY:
Frank Ferrante

From YouTube:
Frank Ferrante reprised his role as Groucho Marx in "Groucho: A Life in Revue" for this 1999 performance staged at the Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut where it was taped for a PBS national broadcast. Original show premiered in New York and London starring Ferrante during the 1986-87 season. It ran 254 performances in New York where Ferrante won a Theatre World Award and was nominated for three Laurence Olivier Awards in London. The New York Times picked the tv version as a 'highlight' in 2002. Written by Groucho's son Arthur Marx and Robert Fisher.
Groucho would have been 120 years old today!

BCnU!

I'm sending this out to my brother Tim, who shares Groucho's birthday.......

THE HAT SQUAD: CANNELL BEING CANNELL

I hope 'Castle' acknowledges Mr. Cannell's passing in some upcoming episode this season. It would be wrong to ignore it.


BCnU.....

THE HAT SQUAD: STEPHEN J. CANNELL

Rest in peace, Mr. Cannell. Good night and may God bless.

BCnU.....

LANDINGHAM: BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

Just because certain TV characters must be banished to an alternate TV dimension, that doesn't mean they can't still have counterparts back in the main Toobworld, but in different TV shows. They might lead different lives in Earth Prime-Time and even might have ended up with different genetic structures.

We've got examples from each variance, thanks to 'The West Wing' which (as everybody should know by now) had to get its own TV dimension because of its different line of Presidential succession after Nixon.

The first one we've brought up in the past: Josiah Bartlet - President in the "West Wing Dimension", Boston Doctor in Earth Prime-Time. Instead of getting a doctorate in economics, Bartlet practiced medicine, as seen in 'St. Elsewhere'.

However, there must have been a slight shift in the circumstances of his conception, so that a different sperm fertilized his mother's egg.

The other example never actually appeared on 'The West Wing' - Henry Landingham, husband of the President's secretary Dolores Landingham. (She may have already been a widow when we met her at the Oval Office on the show.)

Back in 1965 on the timeline for the main Toobworld, an FBI agent named Landingham was conducting a background check on advertising executive Don Draper for the Department of Defense (as seen in last week's 'Mad Men'.) There was no mention of his first name, so it could have been Henry; and his personal life was never an issue, so he could have had a wife named Dolores and twin sons named Andrew and Simon who died in Viet Nam... just as it was for his doppleganger back in the "West Wing Dimension".

Like Muskie the Muskrat would say, "It's pozz'ble, it's pozz'ble...."

It's tempting to toss 'Mad Men' over to 'The West Wing' world entirely because of all its Zonks (because they show scenes from actual TV series and identifying them). Those other TV shows should be sharing the same world as 'Mad Men'. But I've made peace with that type of discrepancy and have adapted Andy Warhol's credo for it: In Toobworld, just about anybody can have a TV show made about them. So despite all its faults the two Landinghams can't be one and the same.

BCnU!

FOR JIMMY CARTER, ON HIS BIRTHDAY

So what if she's singing to President Kennedy? She doesn't mention him by name.......

AS SEEN ON TV: PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER

It wasn't my intention to head over to the Tooniverse two days in a row......

PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER

AS SEEN IN:
'King Of The Hill'

AS VOICED BY:
David Herman

On this date in 1924, former President Jimmy Carter was born.

Synopsis for "The Father, The Son, And JC" episode of 'King Of The Hill':
Hank and his father have a falling out at Christmas, and Bobby stumbles upon Jimmy Carter, who uses his famous diplomacy skills to help resolve the dispute. The two best moments here are when Hank first sees Carter and says with an impressed look “You ran our country. America.” and at the end, where Bobby thinks Carter is Jesus Chris since he has J.C on his overalls, is a carpenter and performed a Christmas miracle by resolving the dispute of Hank and his father.

That was an excerpt from a post in Jack Marriott's Blog in which he lists the President Carter appearances in 'The Simpsons'.......

Happy birthday, Mr. President. I hope you're feeling better......

BCnU!

SUPER SIX: TV TOPICS THAT WENT THROUGH MY MIND DURING YESTERDAY'S "PROCEDURE"

These are the "Super Six"* TV topics that went through my mind during yesterday's "procedure".....

1] KATIE COURIC

2] THE TRAPPED CHILEAN MINERS NEWS STORY... AS REPORTED BY KATIE COURIC

3] THE BAJORAN WORMHOLE

4] "TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE....." (THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF ME GOES "HI HONEY, I'M HOME!")

5] GLENN BECK

6] "THESE AREN'T THE ROIDS YOU'RE LOOKING FOR."

BCnU!

* This feature used to be called "Deep Six". That might have been more appropriate this time......