SKED ALERT - "DOCTOR WHO" : "THE CRIMSON HORROR"

To get you ready for "The Crimson Horror", tonight's episode of 'Doctor Who', here are a few videos you might find of interest.....

Ah, who am I kidding?  It's written by Gatiss!  It has Dame Diana Rigg in it!  If that's not enough to get you excited right there, these videos are just wasted on you!

(But didn't you like that reference to Tegan?)

Geronimo!

A VERY MILKY BLIPVERT

It's time to pay the bills.......

Don't you wonder how many idiot kids drank that stuff?

THE HAT SQUAD - CHRIS KELLY OF KRIS KROSS

From the Associated Press:

Chris Kelly, half of the 1990s kid rap duo Kris Kross who made one of the decade's most memorable songs with the frenetic "Jump," has died, according to authorities. He was 34.

Investigator Betty Honey of the Fulton County Medical Examiner's office said the 34-year-old Kelly was pronounced dead around 5 p.m. Wednesday at the south campus of the Atlanta Medical Center.

Honey said authorities are unsure of Kelly's cause of death and that an autopsy has yet to be performed.

Kelly, known as "Mac Daddy," and Chris Smith, known as "Daddy Mac," were introduced to the music world in 1992 by music producer and rapper Jermaine Dupri after he discovered the pair in an Atlanta mall. The duo wore their clothes backwards as a gimmick, but they won over fans with their raps.

Their first, and by far most successful song, was "Jump." The hit, off their multi-platinum 1992 debut album "Totally Krossed Out," featured the two trading versus and rapping the refrain, the song's title. The duo had surprising maturity in their rap delivery, though the song was written by Dupri. It would become a No. 1 smash in the United States and globally, and one of the most popular of that year.

Good night and may God bless.....

LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - MICK JAGGER

MICK JAGGER

From Wikipedia:

Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor, best known as the lead vocalist and a founder member of the Rolling Stones.
Jagger's career has spanned over 50 years. His performance style has been said to have "opened up definitions of gendered masculinity and so laid the foundations for self-invention and sexual plasticity which are now an integral part of contemporary youth culture," and he has been described as "one of the most popular and influential frontmen in the history of rock & roll". His distinctive voice and performance, along with Keith Richards' guitar style, have been the trademark of The Rolling Stones throughout the career of the band. In 1989, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Rolling Stones.

Jagger gained much press notoriety for admitted drug use and romantic involvements, and was often portrayed as a counter-cultural figure. In the late 1960s Jagger began acting in films (starting with Performance and Ned Kelly), to mixed reception. In 1985, Jagger released his first solo album, She's the Boss, and was knighted in 2003. In early 2009, he joined the electric supergroup SuperHeavy.

AS SEEN IN:

'The Knights Of Prosperity'

"Pilot"
"Operation: Fighting Shape" - executive producer  

SYNOPSIS:

The show follows a group of misfits—the titular Knights—who attempt to rob various celebrities, the first being Mick Jagger. (Jagger was also credited as one of the executive producers.)

BCnU!

BORN TO RERUN - ARYA > SALLY

The Toobworld Dynamic supports the concept of reincarnation, even if I personally do not believe in it.  There have been too many instances depicted in TV series over the years which can't be dismissed.

Sometimes the reincarnation includes the scientific as well as the religious, with exact DNA sequence match-ups (meaning that the same actor played both roles.)  But most times, especially with the theoretical bonds, it's more something in the character which suggests the "born to rerun" claim.

Also, souls are universal; they are not bound to the world of Earth Prime-Time.  A character born on some other planet could be reincarnated on the main Toobworld.  (The Minbari believed this, that humans could be reborn as Minbari.  But there was a different splainin to their misguided belief.)

So it is with several souls of long-departed characters from the continent of Westeros on the planet Mondas.  Two of them I'm saving for the "Who's On First" marathon on New Year's Day 2014 - gotta feed the beast!  But I can reveal the other one now.....

Arya Stark was thrust against her wishes into growing up faster than she should have; becoming a strong-willed, rebellious young girl during a time of great revolution in the Seven Kingdoms.  (This all happened on Mondas long before the super computer known as Earth was completed by the Magratheans.)

By the 1960s, Earth time, the planet Mondas was long gone from the solar system, but the soul of Arya Stark transmigrated to Earth where it was eventually reborn in 1955 - as Sally Draper.

Sally also was strong-willed and rebellious during a time of great revolution.  She was wise beyond her years and, like Arya, she had flawed parents who meant well but ultimately failed in being there for her when she needed them most.

That's my theory and I'm sticking with it.

SHOWS CITED:

• 'Game of Thrones'
• 'Mad Men'
• 'Babylon 5'
• 'Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy'
• 'Doctor Who'

BCnU!

LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - MICHAEL CONNELLY

MICHAEL CONNELLY

From Wikipedia:

Michael Connelly (born July 21, 1956, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. His books, which have been translated into 36 languages, have garnered him many awards. Connelly was the President of the Mystery Writers of America from 2003 to 2004.

Connelly was one of the creators and executive producers of 'Level 9', a science fiction action TV series that aired for 13 episodes in the 2000-2001 season on the UPN television network. 

He occasionally makes guest appearances as himself in the ABC comedy/drama TV series 'Castle'. Along with Stephen J. Cannell, James Patterson, and Dennis Lehane, he is one of Castle's poker buddies.

Connelly's novel "The Lincoln Lawyer" was made into a film in 2011, with Matthew McConaughey playing defense lawyer Michael "Mickey" Haller. Following the commercial success of the film, the ABC network had commissioned a pilot for a TV series featuring Haller from the production studios Lions Gate & Lakeshore.

AS SEEN IN: 

'Castle'

"Deep In Death"

"A Game Of Death"

O'BSERVATION:

Connelly also portrayed his televersion in an episode of 'Millennium' ('Cronica negra, Literatura negra'), but he can't connect the two series as they take place in different TV dimensions.

BCnU!

GETTING LUCKY WITH ZOMBIES

When it comes to the TV Universe, my main concern is with Earth Prime-Time, the main Toobworld. That's where most of the TV shows are situated and thus the most opportunity for my theoretical crossovers like the Missing Links and the Theories of Relateeveety. Sometimes I'll post about a few of the other TV dimensions - Evil Toobworld, Skitlandia, the Tooniverse, the worlds of 'The West Wing' and 'Castle', and one day I hope to finally lay out my vision of how the alternate worlds of 'Once Upon A Time' are unified but are NOT BookWorld.

One TV dimension in which I don't have any interest is Zombie Toobworld. I mean, what's the point? Eventually every living person on that world will either be killed outright or turned into a Walker. How could there ever be a world-wide cure for the zuvembies, as Marvel Comics once had to call them?

So far there are only two main contributions to this world - 'The Walking Dead' and 'Dead Set'. 'In The Flesh' could be part of this world as well; I'm not sure and I don't plan on investigating it.

But I did find a piece to the puzzle for Zombie Toobworld that shows a little bit o' life during prime-time when the sheriff from 'The Walking Dead' was in his coma:

Think it unbelievable that the events of that lottery blipvert could happen in the same world as 'The Walking Dead'?

1] On Earth Prime-Time, 'Get Smart' happens in the same world as 'I Spy'.

2] You're already dealing with zombies. Don't talk to me about believability.

BCnU!

LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - CURT GOWDY

CURT GOWDY

AS SEEN IN:

'Banacek'

"Let's Hear It For A Living Legend"

SYNOPSIS:

While Thomas Banacek was in Philadelphia, he watched a televised football game between the Boston Rebels and the Philadelphia Cougars.  Gowdy was calling the game when suddenly Boston player Hank Ives disappeared from under a pile-up tackle.

From Wikipedia:

Curtis Edward "Curt" Gowdy (July 31, 1919–February 20, 2006) was an American sportscaster, well known as the longtime "voice" of the Boston Red Sox and for his coverage of many nationally-televised sporting events, primarily for NBC Sports in the 1960s and 1970s.

In April 1951 at the age of 31, Gowdy began his tenure as the lead announcer for the Red Sox. For the next 15 years, he called the exploits of generally mediocre Red Sox teams on WHDH radio and on three Boston TV stations: WBZ-TV, WHDH-TV, and WNAC-TV (WBZ and WNAC split the Red Sox TV schedule from 1948 through 1955; WBZ alone carried the Red Sox from 1955 through 1957; and WHDH took over in 1958). 

During that time, Gowdy partnered with two future baseball broadcasting legends: Bob Murphy and Ned Martin. Chronic back pain caused Gowdy to miss the entire 1957 season. He also did nightly sports reports on WHDH radio when his schedule permitted.

He left WHDH after the 1965 season for NBC Sports, where for the next ten years he called the national baseball telecasts of the Saturday afternoon Game of the Week and Monday Night Baseball during the regular season (and the All-Star Game in July), and the post-season playoffs and World Series in October.

Gowdy was said to have a warm, slightly gravelly voice and an unforced, easy style that set him apart from his peers. (Author John Updike once described him as sounding "like everybody's brother-in-law".) Unlike many well-known sportscasters, Gowdy never developed catchphrases or signature calls, but merely described the action in a straightforward manner.

Gowdy had numerous network assignments, first for ABC-TV in 1960, where he covered the first five seasons of the American Football League with broadcast partner Paul Christman. Gowdy and Christman also teamed to call college football for ABC in the 1960 and 1961 seasons.

In the fall of 1965 he moved to NBC, with whom he would be employed for over a decade. Gowdy was the lead play-by-play announcer for the network for both the American Football League (AFC from 1970 on) and Major League Baseball, but Gowdy also covered a wide range of sports, earning him the nickname of the "broadcaster of everything."

Besides Paul Christman, who followed him to NBC in 1965, his other football broadcast partners were Kyle Rote, Al DeRogatis, Don Meredith, John Brodie, and Merlin Olsen. His broadcast partners for baseball included Pee Wee Reese, Tony Kubek, Sandy Koufax, and Joe Garagiola. He also had many different partners for basketball. Al DeRogatis was also Gowdy's partner for the college football games.

After the 1975 World Series, he was removed from NBC's baseball telecasts, after a controversy over comments [about] a call by an umpire, and when sponsor Chrysler insisted on having Joe Garagiola (who was their spokesman in many commercials) be the lead play-by-play voice. While Gowdy was on hand in the press box for Carlton Fisk's legendary home run in Game 6 of the 1975 Series, the actual calls went to two of Gowdy's Red Sox successors, Dick Stockton on TV and Ned Martin on radio. Gowdy was Martin's color man on that home run.

Gowdy continued as NBC's lead NFL announcer through the 1978 season, with his final broadcast being the memorable Super Bowl XIII between Pittsburgh and Dallas. With NBC now anxious to promote Dick Enberg to the lead NFL position, Gowdy moved over to CBS and called NFL games on CBS for two seasons with Hank Stram and also did baseball on radio. 

He also called regional college football for ABC in 1982 and 1983. In 1987, Gowdy was the radio voice of the New England Patriots. In 1976, when Gowdy otherwise still worked for NBC, he was loaned to ABC to work on their Summer Olympics coveragein Montreal. Gowdy called swimming with Donna de Varona and basketball with Bill Russell.

Over the course of a career that stretched into the 1980s, Gowdy covered pro football (both the AFL and NFL), Major League Baseball, college football, and college basketball. He was involved in the broadcast of 13 World Series, 16 baseball All-Star Games, 9 Super Bowls, 14 Rose Bowls, 8 Olympic Games and 24 NCAA Final Fours. He also hosted the long-running outdoors show 'The American Sportsman' on ABC.

Gowdy called all the Olympic Games televised by ABC from 1964–84 with Roone Arledge's sports department at ABC.

In the mid-1970s Gowdy was host and producer of 'The Way It Was', for PBS, and in later years provided historic commentary for 'Inside the NFL', on HBO.

In the 1980s, Gowdy voiced a series of beer commercials for Genesee, an American product brewed by the Genesee Brewing Company in Rochester, New York. Essentially, these ads had an outdoor enthusiast theme, with Curt's tag line being "Genesee - the great outdoors in a glass".

BCnU!

TVXOHOF, 05/2013 - RHODA!

"My name is Rhoda Morgenstern. I was born in the Bronx, New York in December, 1941. I've always felt responsible for World War II. The first thing I remember liking that liked me back was food. I had a bad puberty; it lasted 17 years. I'm a high school graduate. I went to art school. My entrance exam was on a book of matches. I decided to move out of the house when I was 24; my mother still refers to this as the time I ran away from home. Eventually I ran to Minneapolis, where it's cold, and I figured I'd keep better. Now I'm back in Manhattan. New York, this is your last chance!"

OUR FIRST INTRODUCTION TO RHODA

Rhoda Morganstern has been eligible for membership in the TV Crossover Hall of Fame since 2000, with the TV reunion movie "Mary and Rhoda" debuted.  It wasn't very good, and that coming from a devoted fan of the characters.  Nevertheless it gave Rhoda that final qualification for entry.

91 episodes of 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'

110 episodes of 'Rhoda'

The TV movie "Mary and Rhoda"

But she's been one of those many characters I kept putting off for inclusion, figuring I'd get around to it someday.  Meanwhile somebody else would come along that was more interesting to write about, somebody who would knock my socks off... if I was wearing any at the time.

And then came the news........

March 6 (Reuters) - Actress Valerie Harper best
known as wise-cracking neighbor Rhoda Morgenstern on
television's "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," has been diagnosed
with terminal brain cancer, People magazine reported on
Wednesday.

Doctors told Harper, 73, on Jan. 15 that she had as little
as three months left to live after a battery of tests revealed
she has leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, according to People. The
rare condition occurs when cancer cells spread into the
fluid-filled membrane surrounding the brain.

Soon after the news became public, Ms. Harper appeared on TV to discuss her situation.  Had it been just about anyone else, I would have typed "her dire situation."  But basically her message was:

"I don't think of dying. I think of being here now."

So that's what I want to do.  I want to celebrate Rhoda Morgenstern while Valerie Harper is still with us (not that she's going to see this.)  The character was too full of life, ready to burst through our TV screens, and doesn't deserve some maudlin tribute after she's gone.

So here's to Rhoda Morgenstern.  To be exact, here's to Rhoda Morgenstern Gerard Rousseau.  Rhoda is the May Queen for 2013 in the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.

BCnU!

LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - JOHN O'CREAGH

JOHN O'CREAGH

From Tobipedia:

John O'Creagh is an actor based in New York who has appeared in productions of "Anything Goes", "Pirates of Penzance", "The Fantasticks", "Equus", "King Lear", "Twelfth Night, and "Perfect Crime" in productions at the Paper Mill Playhouse, the Goodspeed Opera House, New York's Irish Rep, and at the Roundabout Theatre.  He toured around the world in "West Side Story" as Doc, and played Ben Franklin in countless productions of "1776",

For the Toobworld Dynamic he contributed citizens from episodes of 'Law & Order: SVU', 'John Adams', 'Kidnapped" and "A Knock At The Door".  (The one that doesn't count is from the American version of 'Life On Mars', who was a computer-generated dream figure.)

John also writes poems which he publishes on Facebook - his commentary on the socio-political trivia of the day.  In fact, Inner Toob published one this past Sunday.

AS SEEN IN:

'The Late Show with David Letterman'

(04/29/13 episode)

SYNOPSIS:

John O'Creagh suddenly ambled on stage as the down-east, down-home pitchman for Oyster Cove Seafood Syrup.  Made with oysters, clams, and mussels, the thick, grey syrup was supposedly good on pancakes and straight out of the bottle.......

TV DIMENSION:

Both Earth Prime-Time and Skitlandia

O'BSERVATION:

The late night talk shows straddle the dimensional fence when it comes to where they belong in the TV Universe.  On the one hand, these shows are referenced in other TV shows, so we know that - in this case - David Letterman is hosting 'The Late Show' on CBS in Toobworld.  But there are comedy sketches and fake commercials and news reports that would be equally at home in Skitlandia.

So here we have two different points of view for John's appearance on the show.  As a fake TV commercial, it belongs in Skitlandia where Oyster Cove Seafood Syrup would exist.

But that breakfast bilge wouldn't exist in Earth Prime-Time.  In Toobworld, 'Late Night' is an established TV show within a TV show in such programs as:

• 'ER'
• 'Dexter'
• 'Seinfeld'
• 'Frasier'
• 'Entourage'
• 'The Nanny'
• 'The Office'
• 'Love Monkey'
• 'Close To Home'
• 'How I Met Your Mother'

Not to mention TV shows set in alternate dimension, like 'The West Wing' and 'Studio 60'.  And it even exists in the Tooniverse.

So in that context, John O'Creagh appeared on TV sets across the TV America of the main Toobworld as he did a fake commercial sketch.  That means the main televersion of John O'Creagh appeared as himself doing a quick bit in the show within a show of 'Late Night' in Earth Prime-Time, while his Skitlandian televersion was doing an actual commercial for Oyster Bay Seafood Syrup.

Confused?  

Sorry about that, Chief......

BCnU!