AS SEEN ON TV: STARBUCK

STARBUCK

AS SEEN IN:

"Moby Dick"

AS PLAYED BY:

Ethan Hawke

TV DIMENSION:

Land of Remakes

STATUS:

Recastaway

CREATED BY:

Herman Melville

From Wikipedia:

Starbuck, the young chief mate of the Pequod, is a thoughtful and intellectual Quaker from Nantucket.

Little is said about Starbuck's early life, except that he is married with a son. Unlike Ahab's wife, who remains nameless, Starbuck gives his wife's name as Mary. Such is his desire to return to them, that when nearly reaching the last leg of their quest for Moby Dick, he considers arresting or even killing Ahab with a loaded musket, one of several kept by Ahab (in a previous chapter Ahab threatens Starbuck with one when Starbuck disobeys him, despite Starbuck's being in the right), and turning the ship back, straight for home.

Starbuck is alone among the crew in objecting to Ahab's quest, declaring it madness to want revenge on an animal, which lacks reason. Starbuck advocates continuing the more mundane pursuit of whales for their oil. But he lacks the support of the crew in his opposition to Ahab, and is unable to persuade them to turn back. Despite his misgivings, he feels himself bound by his obligations to obey the captain.

From the source:

Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition; but to that sort of superstition, which in some organization seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than from ignorance... [H]is far-away domestic memories of his young Cape wife and child, tend[ed] to bend him ... from the original ruggedness of his nature, and open him still further to those latent influences which, in some honest-hearted men, restrain the gush of dare-devil daring, so often evinced by others in the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. "I will have no man in my boat," said Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale." By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
—Moby-Dick, Ch. 26

BCnU!

JOHNSON & JOHNSON

'Beyond Westworld' was a very short-lived TV series that continued the story of the androids created for the amusement parks "Westworld" and "Futureworld" (and thus those two theatrical films are pulled into the TV universe). Broadcast in 1980, it was set in the near future (probably at some point in the 1990's.)

Here's the thumbnail description from Wikipedia:

It features Jim McMullan as Security Chief John Moore of the Delos Corporation. The story revolves around John Moore having to stop the evil scientist, Quaid, as he plans to use the robots in Delos to try to take over the world. Despite being nominated for two Emmys (Outstanding Achievement In Makeup, and Outstanding Art Direction For A Series), only five episodes were produced, and only three of them were aired before cancellation.

The androids that were created by the Delos Corporation to infiltrate human society were "enrolled" in a secret university, programmed to believe that they were providing a service to benefit Mankind by replacing them in the world.

Here are a couple of their androids through the years:

The inner workings of those androids were fully mechanical; they were not cyborgs. But their outer covering was "synth-skin" cloned from actual human tissue. This would help provide them the means to escape detection. Not only would it look and feel like real skin - and react appropriately if cut or bruised or injured in any way - but any epithelial tissue left behind at crime scenes would fool the investigators from the local 'CSI' units.

To ensure that last part, detailed background information would be embedded into the world-wide web to back up any claims about the androids' identities. And to keep it as believable as possible, these false identities would claim a relationship to the donors of the cloned synth-skin. This means that more than likely the donors of those genetic samples were dead, so as to eliminate the possibility of contradiction.

As mentioned in the previous post about the 'Screen Directors Playhouse' episode "Partners", Terry Johnson was a fourteen year old boy in 1956 who was "adopted" by rodeo legend Casey Tibbs (his televersion, at any rate.) Because of his iconic status as a child star, it's possible that many of Brandon de Wilde's TV characters never survived past the year 1972 - the year in which de Wilde, who played Terry Johnson, was killed in a car crash at the age of 30. (Which is not to say that they all had to have died, but for the purpose of this article, we're going to claim that Terry Johnson didn't survive much longer beyond de Wilde.)

If Terry Johnson also died at that time (perhaps in a rodeo accident?), it could be that his skin samples were collected by undercover agents for the Delos Corporation at the hospital where he was pronounced dead. Eventually they would be used to create the synth-skin for an android who was also named "Johnson" and who graduated at the top of the "Class Of '99". His online identity would probably mark him as the son of Terry Johnson, and the young bronco rider wouldn't be around to disavow it.

(Brandon de Wilde was 27 years old when he filmed that segment of 'Night Gallery', but being an android, Johnson's "age" would not have been a factor. He could pass for 22 years old.....)

BCnU!

Toobnote: Cinephiles will recognize the picture of Brandon de Wilde, supposedly as Terry Johnson, to be that of young Luke from "Hud". So it's not actually Toobworld, but I think it's a close approximation of what Terry would have looked like at that age.   

THE TELEVERSION OF CASEY TIBBS

From Wikipedia:

Casey Duane Tibbs (March 5, 1929–January 28, 1990) was an American cowboy, rodeo performer, and actor.

He was born northwest of Fort Pierre, South Dakota. Tibbs held the "World All-Around Rodeo Champion" title twice, in 1951 and 1955. He also won in 1949, 1951–1954, and 1959, the world saddle bronc riding championship and in 1951 world bareback bronc riding championship. He was featured on a 1951 cover of LIFE magazine.

He moved to Ramona, California in 1976 to raise and breed horses. After battling bone cancer and then lung cancer for about a year, he died at his home in Ramona, while watching the 1990 Super Bowl. He is buried in Scotty Philip Cemetery, Fort Pierre, South Dakota.

According to another site, he never married and there is no record of any children.

But in Toobworld that's not the case....

In the Toobworld Dynamic, fictional TV characters are related to people from the real world.

My favorite examples:

Vera Louise Gorman and Art Carney are cousins, according to the sitcom 'Alice'

Detective Megan Russert and the late Tim Russert are also cousins, as seen on 'Homicide: Life On The Street'

This category also includes marriages. So there's Terence McQuewick from 'Entourage', who was married to actress Melinda Clark.

But in these modern times, who needs a marriage license?

Here are a couple of sexual relationships between fictional characters and the televersions of real life people:

Larry Sanders & Roseanne

Larry Sanders & Ellen DeGeneres

Artie & Elizabeth Ashley

(all from 'The Larry Sanders Show')

Vincent Chase and Mandy Moore

Vincent Chase and Sasha Grey

(both from 'Entourage')

and

Joan Rivers and David Lee Roth

('Z Rock')

I bring this up (again) because Casey Tibbs presented a new category for this topic and it may have been the first fictional-reality relationship ever in Toobworld.

In the "Partners" episode of 'Screen Directors Playhouse', rodeo champ Casey Tibbs played himself. By the end of the show he had adopted a 14 year old boy named Terry Johnson (played by Brandon de Wilde.)

I'm not sure the adoption was on the up and up - it looked more like Casey signed up to take Terry Johnson on the rodeo circuit as part of an orphanage work-release program. And the orphanage director (played by Don Beddoe) didn't seem to be the real deal - something about the way he giggled made him particularly skeevy. I think no matter what happened, (and I do have a theory about his life during prime-time), Terry Johnson had it better than the kids left behind in that guy's care!

Nothing against Don Beddoe as himself, of course.....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: AHAB

CAPTAIN AHAB

AS SEEN IN:
"Moby Dick" (2010)

AS PLAYED BY:

William Hurt

TV DIMENSION:

Land of Remakes

STATUS:

Recastaway

CAPTAIN AHAB

AS SEEN IN:

"Moby Dick" (1998)

AS PLAYED BY:

Patrick Stewart

TV DIMENSION:

Earth Prime-Time

STATUS:

Original Televersion

CREATED BY:

Herman Melville

From Wikipedia:

Ahab is the tyrannical captain of the Pequod who is driven by a monomaniacal desire to kill Moby Dick, the whale that maimed him on the previous whaling voyage. Although he is a Quaker, he seeks revenge in defiance of his religion's well-known pacifism. Ahab's Biblical namesake is the evil idol-worshipping ruler in the Book of Kings, and this association prompts Ishmael to ask, at his first encounter with Ahab:

"When that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did they not lick his blood?".
—Moby-Dick, Ch. 16

When Ishmael remarks upon the ill associations of such a name, he is rebuked by one of Ahab's colleagues, who points out that "He did not name himself!"Little information is provided about Ahab's life prior to meeting Moby Dick, although it is known that he was orphaned at a young age. When discussing the purpose of his quest with Starbuck, it is revealed that he first began whaling at eighteen and has continued in the trade for forty years, having spent less than three on land. He also mentions his "girl-wife," whom he married late in life, and their young son, but does not give their names.Ahab ultimately dooms the crew of the Pequod (save for Ishmael) to death by his obsession with Moby Dick. During the final chase, Ahab hurls his last harpoon while yelling his now-famous revenge line:

... to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.
—Moby-Dick, Ch. 135

The harpoon becomes lodged in Moby Dick's flesh and Ahab, caught around the neck by a loop in his own harpoon's rope and unable to free himself, is dragged down into the cold oblivion of the sea by the injured whale. The mechanics of Ahab's death are richly symbolic. He is killed by his own harpoon, a victim of his own twisted obsession and desire for revenge. The whale eventually destroys the whaleboats and crew, and sinks the Pequod.

From the source:

The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced in their statue devil; -- Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.

—Moby-Dick, Ch. 41

Two for Tuesday!

TVXOHOF, 01/2012 - SUPER GROVER

There once was a New York City cop named Grover who had worked his way up to the rank of Lieutenant in the uniform division.

But his career hit a major setback in 1958 when a man named Carl checked into a midtown hotel and immediately climbed out onto the window ledge of his 17th floor room. He registered as Carl Adams, but only "Carl" was his real name. Only after he built a rapport with the beat cop was first on the scene, and who climbed out on the ledge as well to help him back inside, did Carl reveal who he was... and more importantly, who his wife was.....

Testifying at the Coroner's Inquest

Because of how he managed that crisis, which proved to be a bad day for the entire department, Lieutenant Grover was reprimanded and busted down to the rank of Sergeant. 

Eventually, he was able to do was to get promoted laterally from a beat cop to plain clothes detective. Grover was assigned to Chief Peter Clifford's division, where he worked often with a cop on loan from Taos, New Mexico - Marshal Sam McCloud.

In 1980, Sgt. Grover had a close encounter of the third kind when Galacticans arrived at his precinct station in order to stop an advanced form of Cylon robot - one that could resemble a human being - from using an NYC radio station to contact the Cylon fleet.

It was probably the kind of situation that forced Sgt. Grover into finally taking retirement. But it was also enough to get Grover inducted into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame as the January Classic TV Character.

'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' - "Man With A Problem"

'McCloud'

'Galactica 1980' - "The Night The Cylons Landed" (Part Two)

(Toobworld reasoning as to why he was back in uniform when the alien humans showed up - earlier in the day he had been to the funeral of a fellow officer and he later went to work in his full dress blues.....)

BCnU!

"THE ARROW SHOW"*

Usually when a new TV series debuts (sometimes even before that - when a projected pilot has been announced), the ruling tribunal of Toobworld Central - that is me, myself, and I - has to make a judgement call as to whether the show will stay in the world of Earth Prime-Time or if it should be banished to an alternate TV dimension.

With the latest news from the CW, "we" made the call that their proposed new superhero series, 'Green Arrow', should be banished from 'The West Wing' dimension and sent back to the main Toobworld.

Green Arrow had already been on TV - played by Justin Hartley as a recurring character in 'Smallville'. ('Smallville' is in the same TV dimension as 'The West Wing' because Clark Kent had not yet revealed himself to be Superman during the administration of Jed Bartlet. If he had, surely the White House would have called upon the Man of Steel to save the USS John F. Kennedy carrier group when Hurrican Sarah changed course and headed straight toward the ships.)

But this time around, Green Arrow (aka Oliver Queen) will not be played by Hartley. (No word yet as to who will play the role.)  Since Hartley is the official Green Arrow for that dimension, there's nothing to be done but send the archer back to Earth Prime-Time. And so another comic book superhero will take up residence in the main TV dimension - along with previous occupants Superman, The Flash, the Hulk, Spiderman, Doctor Strange, Thor, Captain America, Wonder Woman, Batgirl, and Batman & Robin. (If I forgot anybody, I'm sure somebody out there will let me know.) Of them all, Superman is now deceased and the Flash may be.

And speaking of archers, we may be able to make a theory of "relateeveety" that Oliver Queen is somehow related to the nefarious ne'er-do-well known as The Archer, who once plagued Gotham City back in the 1960's. I'm thinking he could be Queen's maternal grandfather and Queen was influenced by him to develop his archery skills - but only as a force for good to clear the family name of his mother.

As Muskie Muskrat would say to 'Deputy Dawg': It's pozz'ble, it's pozz'ble......

Of course, this may all be moot.  The pilot may not get picked up for series, but it might still be broadcast in order to burn off its costs.  Or it may be "leaked" to YouTube or some other Internet video source.  We'll see......

BCnU!

* Back in the 1940's, there was a TV series called "The Arrow Show"......

AS SEEN ON TV: ISHMAEL

ISHMAEL

AS SEEN IN:

"Moby Dick"

AS PLAYED BY:

Charlie Cox

TV DIMENSION:

Land of Remakes

STATUS:

Recastaway

CREATED BY:

Herman Melville

From Wikipedia:

Ishmael is the narrator (and arguably the protagonist) of the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by U.S. author Herman Melville. It is through his eyes and experience that the reader experiences the story of the ship Pequod, and the fight between Captain Ahab and the white whale. He is a central character in the action in the early part of the novel, essentially fulfilling all the requirements of being a conventional protagonist. After the Pequod leaves Nantucket, he increasingly recedes into the background as a commentator, with his voice approaching that of an omniscient narrator at times, able to see into all parts of the ship and into the private motivations of other characters.

Ishmael introduces himself in the opening sentence of the novel with the well-known line "Call me Ishmael." The name Ishmael is Biblical in origin: in Genesis, Ishmael was the son of Abraham by the servant Hagar, who was cast off after the birth of Isaac, who inherits the covenant of the Lord instead of his older half-brother. In the Islamic tradition, with which Melville was certainly much less familiar, Ishmael is an heir of Abraham. In "Moby-Dick" Ishmael does not comment on the significance of his own name, but he does refer to himself by that name several times in the book.

Ishmael provides little about his personal background before his decision at the beginning of the novel to journey to Nantucket, Massachusetts to enlist as a sailor on a whaler. There is evidence in the text to suggest that he was formerly a school-teacher who left that life of theory to pursue the more practical life at sea. At the beginning of the novel, he is an experienced seaman who has not previously served on a whaler but in the merchant marine service (an experience that is ridiculed by the owners of the Pequod when he approaches them to sign on).

He begins the novel in the first chapter wandering through Manhattan in the dreariness of November with dark thoughts suggesting nearly suicidal tendencies: pausing before coffin houses and following funerals. His primary reason for going to sea, he suggests, is to break out of this depressive cycle and obsession with death. Ishmael tends to brood and think his way through things, going so far as to describe himself as a philosopher in The Mast-Head. Ishmael, while seemingly rejecting the arts, does confess that he is—or at least was at one point—a poet.

From the source:

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

BCnU!

TEBOWIE - THE DAY AFTER

I'm sending this out to my brother Tim - one last hurrah.

Sorry, buddy...

THE DOCTOR & THE BEAVER

In these times when high definition resolution, background information, and behind-the-scenes videos released on YouTube are available to the general public, we can learn what really went on during particular scenes that can't be known just by watching the scene in question.

A case in point:

During "Human Nature" the first half of a two-part 'Doctor Who' story, Dr. Martha Jones watched a recording of the Doctor for information about what to do in an emergency while he was "unavailable". (You'll have to watch the episode to understand what happened to him.)

At one point, not finding the pertinent info, she scrolled ahead to reach the relevant remarks. All well and good, we've seen that type of scene before in other TV series, even the more mundane shows.

But now we can find out what it was the Doctor was yammering on about during that sequence....

It puts me in mind of a similar situation when Ward Cleaver had to read a letter sent home by Beaver's teacher in an episode of 'Leave It To Beaver'. Thanks to high-def resolution to the video, we now know what that letter really said, no matter what Ward claimed......

BCnU!

TWIN PEAKS TRUTHINESS

YouTube has been great for the creation of TV mash-ups, and as far as I'm concerned, the crazier the better.

Here's a scene from the 'Twin Peaks' that could probably be found only in Skitlandia.....

BCnU!