Monday, December 27, 2010
AS SEEN ON TV: JON STEWART
AS SEEN IN:
'Saturday Night Live'
AS PLAYED/VOICED BY:
Not Applicable
From Wikipedia:
Jon Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz; November 28, 1962) is an American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian. He is widely known as host of 'The Daily Show', a satirical news program that airs on Comedy Central.
Stewart started as a stand-up comedian, but branched into television as host of 'Short Attention Span Theater' for Comedy Central. He went on to host his own show on MTV, called 'The Jon Stewart Show', and then hosted another show on MTV called 'You Wrote It, You Watch It'. He has also had several film roles as an actor.
Stewart became the host of 'The Daily Show' on Comedy Central in early 1999. He is also a writer and co-executive-producer of the show. After Stewart joined, 'The Daily Show' steadily gained popularity and critical acclaim, which led to his first Emmy Award in 2001.
This Jon Stewart lives in the same TV dimension that is home to 'Davy & Goliath', 'Robot Chicken', 'Moral Orel', and those waifs in the Puffs Plus blipverts.
BCnU!
Sunday, December 26, 2010
"I BELIEVE IN FATHER CHRISTMAS"
For me, it just isn't Christmas until I've heard three seasonal songs:
"Christmas Wrapping" by the Motels
"Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth" by Bing Crosby and David Bowie
"I Believe In Father Christmas" by Greg Lake
That last one is a double blast of pleasure because it uses music from the "Lieutenant Kije Suite", one of my favorite bits of classical music.
So I'm shining the spotlight on Greg Lake's song, and I chose the day after Christmas because it just has that feel to it.....
THE ORIGINAL VIDEO
THE STORY BEHIND THE SONG
U2'S COVER VERSION
GREG LAKE LIVE ON ALBANY TV
Now with this version, I have to warn you - it's bloody, violent, and very very disturbing. I was appalled upon seeing it for the first time, and that's really saying something.....
HAPPY TREE FRIENDS
BCnU!
"Christmas Wrapping" by the Motels
"Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth" by Bing Crosby and David Bowie
"I Believe In Father Christmas" by Greg Lake
That last one is a double blast of pleasure because it uses music from the "Lieutenant Kije Suite", one of my favorite bits of classical music.
So I'm shining the spotlight on Greg Lake's song, and I chose the day after Christmas because it just has that feel to it.....
THE ORIGINAL VIDEO
THE STORY BEHIND THE SONG
U2'S COVER VERSION
GREG LAKE LIVE ON ALBANY TV
Now with this version, I have to warn you - it's bloody, violent, and very very disturbing. I was appalled upon seeing it for the first time, and that's really saying something.....
HAPPY TREE FRIENDS
BCnU!
Labels:
Online TV,
Outside the Box,
Reali-TV,
Tooniverse,
TV Classique
BLIPVERTS OF THE SEASON
For this Boxing Day, here are a few more blipverts that for me summon up TV Christmas memories.....
BUDWEISER
NORELCO
FOLGER'S
HoHoHo!
BUDWEISER
NORELCO
FOLGER'S
HoHoHo!
CHRISTMAS IN KANDOR

I don't think any TV sponsor has been more identified with Christmas than Coca-Cola. In fact, if I remember the MusicChoice factoid correctly (from their "Sounds Of The Season" channel), it was Coca-Cola's depiction of Santa Claus in 1931 which became the standard ever after. (And Coca-Cola's website confirms that claim.)For a couple of years now, the Coca-Cola Christmas commercials featured CGI polar bears and penguins bonding over bottles of Coke. In the past, the company also reworked their most famous blipvert into a seasonal solstice song. (Man, I do love me some alliteration!)
But this year, there's a very imaginative spot which brings Santa Claus back in the picture. And it provides a very Toobworldian theory which brings another segment of the DC Comics Universe into the TV Universe.
First off, let me remind you that only one version of the Superman mythology exists in the main Toobworld, and that's 'The Adventures Of Superman'. 'Smallville', 'Lois & Clark', and 'The Adventures Of Superboy' - plus the various cartoon series over the years - are all off in their own TV dimensions.
(This is especially disappointing with regards to 'Smallville', as it has brought the most DCU characters into the TV Universe.)

'The Adventures Of Superman' never gave us more from the DCU than the basic premise, characters, and origin story. We never got the 1950's version of Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Mister Mxyzptlk, Lana Lang, Lori Lemaris, or Bizarro Superman. They may not have been seen during the run of the series, but that doesn't mean they didn't exist in the main Toobworld.
(In fact, I wrote a blog post about who could have been cast in those roles. At the time, I couldn't insert pictures into my posts, so I relied on links to the actors I suggested for the roles.)
So what does all of this have to do with the new Coca-Cola Christmas commercial?
I think the blipvert suggests that the Bottle City of Kandor exists in the main Toobworld.
Here's the basic legend for the Bottle City of Kandor, from Wikipedia:
Kandor is the name of the former capital city of the fictional planet Krypton in the DC Universe. It is best known for being stolen and miniaturized by the supervillain Brainiac. Upon its recovery by Superman, it has been traditionally kept and monitored in the Fortress of Solitude.
Kandor showed up or was mentioned in these animated series:
'Super-Friends'
'Justice League Unlimited'
'Legion Of Superheroes'
But those are exclusive to the Tooniverse. And its presence in 'Smallville' was just too convoluted to be of any use for any kind of synchronicity between fictional universes.
As for the main Toobworld, we don't have to take it on the flabby sentimentality known as faith that Kandor exists in Earth Prime-Time. A character from Toobworld actually talked about it as being real!
Penny:What is this?
Leonard Hofstadter:
Oh, that is the bottled city of Kandor.
Penny:
Uh-huh.
Leonard Hofstadter:
You see, Kandor was the capital city of Krypton, until it was shrunk by Braniac before Krypton was destroyed. It was then rescued by Superman.
Penny:
Oh. It's nice.
Leonard Hofstadter:
It's a lot cooler when girls aren't looking at it.....
'The Big Bang Theory'
Leonard talked about it as though Kandor and its history were facts. (However, he was not referring to his own bottled city as the actual Kandor. That was clearly a model.)
By the new millennium, everybody in the main Toobworld knew the basics about Superman, including that his alias was Clark Kent. That's because Superman died back in the early 1960's, saving Ray Luca and his henchman Paulie from a nuclear bomb blast. (This happened off-screen between the first and second seasons of 'Crime Story'.)
"The Man of Steel" might have survived the blast had it not been for the kryptonite particles that were in those desert sands. The force of the blast drove those particles into Superman's once-impenetrable skin and he later died of kryptonite radiation poisoning.
After his death, the truth came out about his double life as that mild-mannered reporter for a large metropolitan newspaper. Even details like the name of his Kryptonian father was revealed - which is how Jerry Seinfeld knew enough to use "Jor-El" as his ATM password.
By the new millennium, everybody in the main Toobworld knew the basics about Superman, including that his alias was Clark Kent. That's because Superman died back in the early 1960's, saving Ray Luca and his henchman Paulie from a nuclear bomb blast. (This happened off-screen between the first and second seasons of 'Crime Story'.)
"The Man of Steel" might have survived the blast had it not been for the kryptonite particles that were in those desert sands. The force of the blast drove those particles into Superman's once-impenetrable skin and he later died of kryptonite radiation poisoning.
After his death, the truth came out about his double life as that mild-mannered reporter for a large metropolitan newspaper. Even details like the name of his Kryptonian father was revealed - which is how Jerry Seinfeld knew enough to use "Jor-El" as his ATM password.
In the DCU, Superman and Santa Claus have known each other since 1938. Why couldn't it be that their televersions had the same kind of friendship? And since the Fortress of Solitude was in the Arctic Circle, as is Santa's workshop, wouldn't Santa have done what he could for his late friend by taking care of those miniaturized Kandorians who had been left under the guardianship of Superman?
Eventually, after so many decades within that bottled city, Nature still took its course. The population threatened to expand beyond the capacities of Kandor's enclosed environment. So, as seen in the Coca-Cola blipvert, Santa Claus made snow globe suburbs to be homes for any of the Kandorians who wished to emigrate. (The more adventurous of those to do so were probably the ones who had best acclimated themselves to the idea of living on Earth, tiny though they were. As could be seen in the commercial, they had taken to wearing terran-style clothing in the snow globes, and living in homes and working in buildings that could have been found on Earth.)
For the time being, since Santa Claus is immortal, I'm sure he's planning to keep the satellite snow globe suburbs with the original bottled city of Kandor. That way the gene pool won't become stagnant and corrupted in any of them. But if he should ever give them out, being the great gift-giver that he is, Santa would probably only do so to other TV super-heroes, maybe to a powerful yet benevolent alien being - just to make sure the snow globes remain safe from harm by outside forces of evil. (Among those Santa Claus may have entrusted with the snow globes would be Wonder Woman and the Vulcan Mestral, who had been living on Earth Prime-Time since 1957.)
All of that from one TV commercial.....
SHOWS CITED:

Coca-Cola - "Snow Globes"
'The Adventures Of Superman'
'Smallville'
'The Adventures of Superboy'
'Lois & Clark'
'Super-Friends'
'Justice League Unlimited'
'The Legion Of Super-Heroes'
'The Big Bang Theory' - "The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization"
'Wonder Woman'
'Enterprise' - "Carbon Creek"
'Crime Story'
HoHoHo!
For more on Kandor, click here.....
AS SEEN ON TV: HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
The perfect choice for Boxing Day.....

AS SEEN ON:
'Saturday Night Live'
AS PLAYED BY:
Vanessa Beyer
From Wikipedia:
In late November 2010, Clinton led the U.S. damage control effort after WikiLeaks released confidential State Department cables containing blunt statements and assessments by U.S. and foreign diplomats. A few of the cables released by WikiLeaks concerned Clinton directly: they revealed that directions to members of the foreign service had gone out in 2009 under her name to gather biometric and other personal details on foreign diplomats, including officials of the United Nations and U.S. allies.
BCnU!

HIILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
AS SEEN ON:
'Saturday Night Live'
AS PLAYED BY:
Vanessa Beyer
From Wikipedia:
In late November 2010, Clinton led the U.S. damage control effort after WikiLeaks released confidential State Department cables containing blunt statements and assessments by U.S. and foreign diplomats. A few of the cables released by WikiLeaks concerned Clinton directly: they revealed that directions to members of the foreign service had gone out in 2009 under her name to gather biometric and other personal details on foreign diplomats, including officials of the United Nations and U.S. allies.
BCnU!
Saturday, December 25, 2010
TVXOHOF - 12/2010: THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS

Toobworld Central has been running the TV Crossover Hall of Fame since 1999. And in that time I had thought I would have run out of Christmas-themed inductees for the month of December by now - especially with four entries last year to mark the tenth anniversary of the Hall.
Of course, we were able to stretch it out, thanks to some off-beat selections - at least two versions of Santa Claus, for example. And we've got a bit of a stretch this year.
It's because of the nature of the inductee that I held off the announcement until Christmas Day - because Toobworld Central is welcoming the Christmas Spirit into the ranks of the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.
I don't mean that sappy bleep about keeping Christmas in your heart the whole year through. In Toobworld, the Christmas Spirit was personified in human form, in much the same way as Death, Springtime (both in 'Mulberry'), Guilt, and Love (both in 'Amazing Stories') have been in other TV shows. And as with Death at least, the Spirit of Christmas can assume different appearances.
About a week before Christmas in 1973 (although it was first seen on TV screens in 1964), the Seaview submarine picked up a man adrift at sea named Old John. The stranger proved to be the only one who could get through to the Crown Prince of a small country who was about to assume the throne after his father's assassination. But Prince Ang was petulant, immature, and irresponsible - unfit to be a true ruler. Old John was able to guide Ang to becoming more of a man, putting aside his childish ways as it were.
Once they reached Ang's nation, Old John mysteriously disappeared. And it was Admiral Nelson who picked up on what Old John's true nature was when he remembered that they found him near Christmas Island......
For a time, the Spirit of Christmas took the form of Max the Christmas Angel, as seen in three TV movies:
"A Town Without Christmas"
"Finding John Christmas"
"When Angels Come To Town"
But it was a guise that would probably not pass muster when the Spirit of Christmas filled the town of Eureka in 2010. As it was founded on the principles of science, the Christmas Spirit took the form of a scientist named Doctor Noel Drummer. Noel Drummer helped the townsfolk - especially a scientist named Taggart - to accept that not everything had to have a scientific explanation. Some things were just meant to be accepted on faith.
Perhaps the Spirit of Christmas has been seen elsewhere in Toobworld before those five appearances; we may yet see it again pop up in some seasonal episode of a sitcom. But in the meantime, we have these five appearances. And even if you don't think the theory is valid, there's still the matter of Max the Christmas Angel appearing three times in Toobworld, thereby satisfying the requirements for membership in the TV Crossover Hall Of Fame.
Of course, we were able to stretch it out, thanks to some off-beat selections - at least two versions of Santa Claus, for example. And we've got a bit of a stretch this year.
It's because of the nature of the inductee that I held off the announcement until Christmas Day - because Toobworld Central is welcoming the Christmas Spirit into the ranks of the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.
I don't mean that sappy bleep about keeping Christmas in your heart the whole year through. In Toobworld, the Christmas Spirit was personified in human form, in much the same way as Death, Springtime (both in 'Mulberry'), Guilt, and Love (both in 'Amazing Stories') have been in other TV shows. And as with Death at least, the Spirit of Christmas can assume different appearances.
About a week before Christmas in 1973 (although it was first seen on TV screens in 1964), the Seaview submarine picked up a man adrift at sea named Old John. The stranger proved to be the only one who could get through to the Crown Prince of a small country who was about to assume the throne after his father's assassination. But Prince Ang was petulant, immature, and irresponsible - unfit to be a true ruler. Old John was able to guide Ang to becoming more of a man, putting aside his childish ways as it were.
Once they reached Ang's nation, Old John mysteriously disappeared. And it was Admiral Nelson who picked up on what Old John's true nature was when he remembered that they found him near Christmas Island......
For a time, the Spirit of Christmas took the form of Max the Christmas Angel, as seen in three TV movies:
"A Town Without Christmas"
"Finding John Christmas"
"When Angels Come To Town"
But it was a guise that would probably not pass muster when the Spirit of Christmas filled the town of Eureka in 2010. As it was founded on the principles of science, the Christmas Spirit took the form of a scientist named Doctor Noel Drummer. Noel Drummer helped the townsfolk - especially a scientist named Taggart - to accept that not everything had to have a scientific explanation. Some things were just meant to be accepted on faith.
Perhaps the Spirit of Christmas has been seen elsewhere in Toobworld before those five appearances; we may yet see it again pop up in some seasonal episode of a sitcom. But in the meantime, we have these five appearances. And even if you don't think the theory is valid, there's still the matter of Max the Christmas Angel appearing three times in Toobworld, thereby satisfying the requirements for membership in the TV Crossover Hall Of Fame.BCnU!
"Christmas Day will always be,
just as long as we have we."
The Narrator
"How The Grinch Stole Christmas!"
The Narrator
"How The Grinch Stole Christmas!"
SOME COLE FOR YOUR CHRISTMAS STOCKING
When my mother was alive, there was one TV show which she hoped I would be able to track down for her so that she could see it again - an episode of 'The Danny Kaye Show' with Mary Tyler Moore and Nat King Cole as the guest stars.All I was able to find was this publicity photo. The episode was the Christmas special which aired on Christmas Day, 1963. (That scheduling would probably be unheard of today, at least in the United States. Great Britain's BBC has made a tradition of specials shown on Christmas day.)
Apparently this picture was from the segment in which Danny and Nat sang "Jingle Bells".
But as I wasn't able to track down that episode, I'd like to present this video in her memory.....
To learn more about the episode, click here.
So that's for you, Mom. If there really is a Heaven, they better have shown that TV episode to you already......
HoHoHo.......
THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY
I'm sending this scene out to my six year old nephew Thomas. When he wanted to watch the special last year, I grumbled against it. The stop motion puppetry was archaic; and I would rather have been watching either "How The Grinch Stole Christmas!" or "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol".
But I watched this scene and found myself very moved by its emotional kick.
I just hope it didn't bleep off Jesus because they played fast and loose with the actual story........
HoHoHo!
But I watched this scene and found myself very moved by its emotional kick.
I just hope it didn't bleep off Jesus because they played fast and loose with the actual story........
HoHoHo!
Labels:
Alternateevee,
As Seen On TV,
My So-Called Life,
Online TV
THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS
I send this out to Patricia, the boss in my department. (I'm only a front desk infiltrator....)
HoHoHo!
Labels:
My So-Called Life,
Online TV,
Tooniverse,
TV Classique,
TV timeline
AS SEEN ON TV: WASHINGTON CROSSES THE DELAWARE
Last year for Christmas Day, we celebrated the birth of the baby Jesus with his portrayal in a TV production. This year, we're looking at this day in American history.....
WASHINGTON CROSSES THE DELAWAREAS SEEN IN:
'You Are There'
AS PLAYED BY:
Russ Conway as General George Washington
From Wikipedia:
Washington's crossing of the Delaware River, occurring on December 25, 1776 during the American Revolutionary War, was the first move in a planned surprise attack organized by George Washington against the Hessian forces in Trenton, New Jersey.
Planned in partial secrecy, Washington led a column of Continental Army troops across the icy Delaware River in a logistically challenging and potentially dangerous operation. Other planned crossings in support of the operation were either called off or ineffective, but this did not prevent Washington from successfully surprising and defeating the troops of Johann Rall quartered in Trenton. The army crossed the river back to Pennsylvania, this time burdened by prisoners and military stores taken as a result of the battle.It was planned in only partial secrecy because Washington revealed his plans to a CBS news crew who had traveled back in Time to cover the event.
BCnU!
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