LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - JERRY SEINFELD

JERRY SEINFELD

AS SEEN IN:
'NewsRadio'
"The Real Deal"

This League of Themselves showcase is dedicated to Tavie P.

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HAPPY WOLD NEWTON DAY!

Today is Wold Newton Day!

From the Introduction to Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Family by Win Scott Eckert:

The Wold Newton Family is a group of heroic and villainous literary figures that science fiction author Philip Jose Farmer postulated belonged to the same genetic family. Some of these characters are adventurers, some are detectives, some explorers and scientists, some espionage agents, and some are evil geniuses.

According to Mr. Farmer, the Wold Newton family originated when a radioactive meteor landed in Wold Newton, England, in the year 1795 (click here to see a monument to the event). The radiation caused a genetic mutation in those present, which endowed many of their descendants with extremely high intelligence and strength, as well as an exceptional capacity and drive to perform good, or, as the case may be, evil deeds.

Popular characters that Philip Jose Farmer concluded were members of the Wold Newton mutant family include: Solomon Kane; Captain Blood; The Scarlet Pimpernel; Harry Flashman; Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis Professor Moriarty (aka Captain Nemo); Phileas Fogg; The Time Traveler; Allan Quatermain; Tarzan and his son Korak; A.J. Raffles; Professor Challenger; Richard Hannay; Bulldog Drummond; the evil Fu Manchu and his adversary, Sir Denis Nayland Smith; G-8; The Shadow; Sam Spade; Doc Savage, his cousin Pat Savage, and one of his five assistants, Monk Mayfair; The Spider; Nero Wolfe; Mr. Moto; The Avenger; Philip Marlowe; James Bond; Lew Archer; and Travis McGee.

As the Curator for the Toobworld Dynamic, I am a great admirer of the work done by Mr. Farmer and Mr. Eckert in detailing the lineage of these great pulp characters.  The Wold Newton Universe was an early influence on the Toobworld Dynamic.

But although there are similarities between the two shared universes, the TwD is NOT the WNU.  The main reason being that the Wold Newton meteorite is not a fixed point in the history of Earth Prime-Time.  At least, not yet.  (I have hopes one day it will be dramatized for TV.)

In the meantime, Toobworld does share many members from the original core of the Wold Newton Family listed above.  They would include:

Sherlock Holmes

Lord Greystoke aka Tarzan

Nero Wolfe

Fu Manchu

Sir Denis Nayland Smith

Bulldog Drummond

Allan Quatermain

Phileas Fogg

Professor James Moriarty

Professor George Challenger

Richard Hannay

Philip Marlowe

James Bond

Travis McGee

Lew Archer

Harry Flashman

And there are others, some perhaps within the extended family, others from the Wold Newton Universe in general, who also have counterparts in the TV Universe:

Arsene Lupin

Lord Peter Wimsey

Monsieur Lecoq

Hercule Poirot

Charlie Chan

Dracula

The Frankenstein Family

Ivanhoe

Robin Hood

Zorro

The Lone Ranger

The Saint

Father Brown

Carnacki

Dr. Thorndyke

Dr. Jeckyll

Horatio Hornblower

Miss Marple

And plenty more who sprang from the "Glass Furnace" first.

So I'd just like to take this moment to salute my comrades across the dimensional vortex with their continuing adventures on this anniversary.

Here's to that chunk of space debris that made it all possible!

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LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - CONNIE CHUNG

CONNE CHUNG

REFLECTING ON:
'Murphy Brown'
"TV Or Not TV"

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LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - MADELEINE ALBRIGHT

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT

AS SEEN IN:
'Gilmore Girls'
"Twenty-One Is The Loneliest Number"

SYNOPSIS:

Every year on the morning of her birthday, Rory Gilmore is awakened by her mother Lorelei to be told the story of her birth.  But on her 21st birthday, while she and her mother are in the middle of a feud, Rory dreams of being awakened by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

TV STATUS:

Dream Figure

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LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - RALPH LAUREN

RALPH LAUREN

AS SEEN IN:
'Friends'
"The One With Ross' Teeth"

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LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - MICKEY ROONEY

Jiminy Jillikers!

MICKEY ROONEY

AS SEEN IN:
'Eagleheart'
"Once In A Wattle"

TV DIMENSION:
Earth Prime-Time

AS SEEN IN:
'The Simpsons'
"Radioactive Man"

TV DIMENSION:
The Tooniverse

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LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - ZSA ZSA GABOR

ZSA ZSA GABOR

AS SEEN IN:

'Cybill'

"The Last Temptation Of Cybill"

Q: You guested on "Cybill" with Zsa Zsa Gabor. Did Zsa Zsa make a pass?

Kevin Sorbo: You know what? She likes her men. The scene had me sitting in a bed with little briefs on. Zsa Zsa arrives in this big white chiffon number and starts yellilng, "Where is my stud?" She gets in bed and we did two takes. The director goes, "Great. We're done." Zsa Zsa, who is really bummed, goes, "That's it?" I said, "That's what all the women say to me." Zsa Zsa kept grabbing me, but it was all in fun.

Q: Did Cybill make a pass?

Kevin Sorbo: She's a good kisser. The only bad part is that her boyfriend [musician Robert Martin] was always on the set.

(31.08.97 Chicago Sun-Times)

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LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - JOHN LENNON

"This is John Lennon.

He's the brains of the Beatles."

Igor

JOHN LENNON

AS SEEN IN:
'The Beatles'
"If I Fell"

TV DIMENSION:
The Tooniverse

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LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - LARRY BIRD

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LARRY!

LARRY BIRD

AS SEEN IN:
'Futurama'
"Saturday Morning Fun Pit"

TV DIMENSION:
Tooniverse

TV STATUS:
Cartoon rendering

O'BSERVATION:
In this case, Larry Bird was a cartoon in a cartoon world.  It has to be assumed that it was based on the real Larry Bird of the Tooniverse.  Which of course means he was a cartoon as well.....

Larry Bird shares this birthday with two very special people in my life - my sister/godchild Leah and her son Thomas.....

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"DOCTOR WHO" IN THE PROMOVERSE

You will be seeing this ITV ident again here come Christmas Eve........

Russell T. Davies wanted to isolate the Time Lords of Gallifrey to the Universe of Earth Prime-Time.  (Actually to its own private universe - all showrunners see their shows as being alone in their own universe.)

But for the Toobworld Dynamic, that just can't be.  There was a Gallifrey in every TV dimension - but not always with Time Lords, apparently.

With the major alternate TV dimensions, we've seen proof of alternate Time Lords:

The Tooniverse - 'The Simpsons' & 'Futurama'

Skitlandia - "The Curse Of Fatal Death"

Black Toobworld - 'Lenny'

As for the Evil Toobworld, we didn't see the Doctor's devilish doppelganger when the Third Incarnation was trapped there, as seen in the story "Inferno".

And then there's the Promoverse.

We know the Doctor exists in the Promoverse, that dimension which sometimes combines shows from the same network, but always with the intent to promote the shows involved.

So in the BBC Christmas ident of 2011, we saw Smith's Incarnation of the Doctor playing Twister with Amelia Pond and a Cyberman.

And with the Doctor in the Promoverse, we can now make the assumption that his adventures in Earth Prime-Time were echoed in that world as well.

And we may have evidence of that in a new ident, even though it's not from the BBC.

In the latest ITV ident, various period dramas and contemporary mysteries all combined in one expansive mansion.

Here are the players we see in the promo:

Hugh Bonneville (Lord Grantham - Downton Abbey), Paddy Considine (Mr Whicher -The Suspicions of Mr Whicher), Katherine Kelly (Lady Mae Loxley- Mr Selfridge), Martin Clunes (Dr Martin Ellingham- Doc Martin), Jeremy Piven (Mr Selfridge), Anna Maxwell Martin (Susan Gray - The Bletchley Circle), Jim Carter (Carson - Downton Abbey), Shaun Evans (Detective Constable Endeavour Morse - Endeavour), Rupert Penry-Jones (DI Chandler -Whitechapel), Phil Davis (DS Miles - Whitechapel) Brenda Blethyn (DCI Vera Stanhope - Vera), David Leon (DS Joe Ashworth - Vera) Aisling Loftus ( Agnes Towler - Mr Selfridge) and Joanne Froggatt (Anna Bates -Downton Abbey) were filmed for these specially shot scenes for the new Where Drama Lives trail.

They are joined by Inspector Morse (John Thaw - Morse), DCI Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren – Prime Suspect), Sebastian Flyte (Anthony Andrews - Brideshead Revisited) and Hercule Poirot (David Suchet - Poirot) who were added through post production techniques, representing some of the channel’s defining, iconic characters. Viewers will also see Sebastian’s teddy bear, Aloysius.

• Hercule Poirot from 1930's London
• Endeavour Morse from Oxford of the 1960's and the 1990's
• Lord Robert Grantham, Charles Carson, and Anna Bates from the Village of Downton in Yorkshire in the 1920's
• Dr. Martin Ellingham, from the new millennium in Portwenn in Cornwall
• Susan Grey, from London of the 1950's
• Harry Selfridge, Lady Mae Moxley, and Agnes Towler from London of the 1910 decade
• DI Jane Tennyson, first in London and then Manchester in the 1990's into the new millenium
• Jack Whicher, London of the 1860's
• DCI Vera Stanhope and DS Joe Ashworth, modern day Northumberland
• DI Chandler and DS Miles in modern day London
• Sebastian Flyte and his teddy bear Aloysius, 1920s Oxford

So they're all blended together from different time periods and locales and we that happen before: 'Doctor Who' - "The Wedding Of River Song", in which Winston Churchill, ancient Romans, dinosaurs, and steampunk technology were all sharing the same timeline in London.

And now we have more proof that the Doctor is in the Promoverse!  In the CBS promo for the Monday night lineup, a planet explodes and we see the TARDIS spin by - all in the first six seconds.  Blink and you miss it!

BCnU!