TVXOHOF-UK: JANUARY, 2015 - ALF!

For our January inductee into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame, we needed someone of classic status to adhere to the traditions of the hall. And no one was better suited to kick off the British invasion of 2015 than the man who inspired one of America's top TV icons.

ALF

 

No, not that one, you stupid git!

I mean Alf Garnett.



'Comedy Playhouse'
- "Till Death Us Do Part" (1965)
As played by Warren Mitchell, this bigoted, racist, homophobic London dockworker first saw the light of day in 1965 in an episode of the anthology TV series 'Comedy Playhouse'. However, this episode has been relegated to Prequel Toobworld because the family name was not Garnett but Ramsey.

Here's the Wikipedia entry for Alf Garnett.....

 

ALF GARNETT

Alfred Edward Garnett was reactionary, mean-spirited, selfish, bigoted, anti-Irish, anti-Catholic, racist, misogynistic and anti-Semitic. Warren Mitchell himself is in fact Jewish. In 'In Sickness and in Health' he also displays homophobia, largely because he gets a gay black man whom he calls "Marigold" as his home help.

In comparison to other British TV shows - except for your prime-time soap operas - Alf Garnett racked up quite a few episodes over the course of several series:

'Till Death Us Do Part' (1966-1975)

Fifty-three episodes

'Till Death...' (1981)

Six episodes

'In Sickness and in Health' (1985-1992)

Forty-seven episodes

"The Life and Times of Alf Garnett" (1997)

"An Audience with Alf Garnett" (1997)

"A Word with Alf" (1997)

'The Thoughts of Chairman Alf' (1998)

Six episodes

"Till Death Us Do Part" (1969)

"The Alf Garnett Saga" (1972)

The Garnett family proved to be so popular that they crossed over to the Cineverse. These movies have been absorbed into Earth Prime-Time. Any possible recastaways that differentiate the movie from the various TV series can probably be splained away with the usual excuses.

The following appearances by Warren Mitchell as Alf Garnett would be his Skitlandian doppelganger, making him multi-dimensional.

"Byline"
- Johnny and Alf Go Home (1989)

"Wogan"
- Episode dated 23 July 1986 (1986)

"Bruce Forsyth and the Generation Game"
- Episode #4.15 (1975)

"It's Lulu"
- Episode #3.1 (1973)

"A Christmas Night with the Stars"
- Episode dated 25 December 1971
- Episode dated 25 December 1967

Norman Lear bought the rights to the characters and the premise and adapted Alf to become Archie Bunker of 'All In The Family'. 'All in The Family' went on to become the defining sitcom of the 1970s and the cornerstone of the TV Universe with several spin-offs, sequels, and spin-offs from spin-offs!

Welcome to the Hall of Fame, Chairman Alf. I hope you find it to your liking, but if not? I'm sure you won't be shy about telling us.

(Wait til he finds out who's getting inducted next month and who will be forever  positioned next to him in the portrait gallery!)

 

 

BCnU!

SATRIALE SATRIANI.... LET'S CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF

 



When 'Gotham' came back from its holiday break, the show came so close to making a theoretical connection to 'The Sopranos'.  And even the fact that they are in two separate Toobworlds - Earth Prime-Time for 'The Sopranos' and Comic Book Toobworld for 'Gotham'.

(Earth Prime-Time already had its own Gotham City, quite a visitors' destination back in the mid-1960s.)

 



But when Butch and another mobster were reminiscing about their childhood together, Butch mentioned the time they hit the Satriani meat market for a truckload of meat.  If only it had been Satriale's Pork Store... then I could have linked 'Gotham' to the meeting place for Tony Soprano and his crew.  Just because 'The Sopranos' took place in the main Toobworld, that doesn't mean they didn't have doppelgangers in Comic Book Toobworld.

Bada Bing!

A MAGICAL CHECKLIST

"We've got foibles and fables just for you....."

"Pippin"

 

From Kiersten Hallie Krum of Entertainment Weekly re: 'The Librarians' - "And The Fables Of Doom"

Finally, Because I had to know, here in no particular order is the list on Jenkins’ chalkboard. My personal favorite is Jacob’s Step Ladder.

Reanimation Elixir, Magic Mushrooms, Lilies, Tesla’s Death Ray, The Black Mask, The Sampo, Book of Thoth, Loki’s Spear, Unicorn, The Stone of Giramphiel, Yata No Kagami, The Trident of Poseidon, The Golden Fish Scale, The Immortals, Libris Fabula, Lantern of Diogenes, The Singing Sword of Conaire Mor, Aztec Smoking Mirror, Icelandic Swans, Wand of Fairies, Pipes of Pan, Goose With Golden Eggs, Mother Goose Treaty (of 1918), John Henry’s Hammer, The Holy Grail, Spear of Destiny, Blackbeard’s Chest, Sitting Bull’s Feather, the Genie’s Lamp, Leprechauns, Gaelic Vampires, Ozymandia’s Dream Journal, Shakespeare’s Quill, Homer’s Sandal, Interstellar Wireless, The Cap of Invisibility, Sirens, The Necklace of Harmonia, The Tell Tale Heart, Fenrir’s Chain, W.D.’s Frozen Head, The Stein of Many Drinkers, The Veil of Scherazade, Aphrodite’s Magic Girdle, Cupid’s Bow, Aesop’s Lyre, The Well of Wishes, the Peaches of Immortality, the Wolf’s Whistle, Whirling Dervishes, The Tree of Confucius, Inuit Raven Claw, Red Herrings of Yangtze, Jacob’s Step Stool, Fountain of Youth, Tazmanian Devil, Robert’s Lancel*

*This is my best guess as it’s the only one I couldn’t definitively make out. Would it have killed director Jonathan Frakes to have one camera pan in which the chalkboard was fully legible?!

Jenkins had listed fifty-seven magical/supernatural items which could have been responsible for bringing fairy tales to life in the small Washington village of Bremen. Among those listed above, several of them could be links to other TV show episodes.

Among those:

Spear of Destiny

"The Librarian: Quest For The Spear"

This was already in the possession of the Metropolitan Museum, not that it would do the Librarians any good - the Library is currently lost in a pocket dimension.

Tesla’s Death Ray

'Murdoch Mysteries' - "The Tesla Effect"

Loki’s Spear

'Conan' - "The Curse Of Afka"

The Trident of Poseidon

'Xena, Warrior Princess' - "Ulysses"

The Immortals

'Hercules: The Legendary Journeys'

Mother Goose Treaty (of 1918)

'Bewitched' - "Sam's Double Mother Trouble"

The Holy Grail

'Babylon 5' - "Grail"

Blackbeard’s Chest

'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' - "The Return Of Blackbeard"

Sitting Bull’s Feather

'The Time Tunnel' - "The Massacre"

The Genie’s Lamp

'I Dream Of Jeannie'

Although she was housed in an ornate bottle, many genies do reside in lamps.

Shakespeare’s Quill

'Doctor Who' - "The Shakespeare Code"

Aphrodite’s Magic Girdle

'Valentine'

Cupid’s Bow

'Supernatural' - "My Bloody Valentine"

Fountain of Youth

'Big John, Little John'

Tazmanian Devil

Geico Commerical

He crossed over from the Tooniverse and was making a commercial in a TV studio......

 

The Lantern Of Diogenes

'Warehouse 13' - Unknown

 

Many of the other items are probably already stored away in 'Warehouse 13' as well.....

 

BCnU!

 

 

TWITTER TOOB ZONKS

On January 1st, the first winner of a 2015 Toobits Award was established with the death of DCI Emma Summerhayes on 'EastEnders'.  She had been investigating the death of Lucy Beale and with the long list of suspects there in Watford Square, Emma was able to narrow it down to the guilty party.  She called them up and let them know that she knew their secret.  But shortly after that she was hit by an out of control car driven by two other neighborhood residents.

And so Emma Summerhayes won the hardly desired "First Toobworld Death of 2015".

Twitterlings had fun with the image of Emma on her phone talking to Lucy's killer, and they came up with several suggestions for suspects outside the boundaries of 'EastEnders'.  Here are just three of them.....

 

 

 



FOR SHERLOCK'S BIRTHDAY

 

For many involved in the study of Sherlockiana, today marks the anniversary of Sherlock Holmes' birth.  

One would think I should focus on the televersion of the Great Man himself on his birthday. But instead, I want to draw attention to an event in the life of Holmes' Boswell, Dr. John H. Watson, and how it can be theoretically connected to background events in another history mystery. 

"You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive."

Sherlock Holmes

"A Study In Scarlet"

Dr. Watson served as a battle surgeon during Britain's second Afghan war, from 1878 to 1880.  He was wounded at the Battle of Maiwand and was shipped back on the troopship Orontes. 

There had to be thousands of British troops in Afghanistan during that conflict, and the chances for Watson to have met one particular soldier would have been slim to none.  Yet in Toobworld the coincidence had a better chance of happening. 

Bat Masterson: [watching a belly-dancer] I don't think I've seen a dance quite like it. 
Inspector Thomas Brackenreid: Reminds me of Afghanistan. Never thought I'd see it here, but I can't say that I mind.
'The Murdoch Mysteries'
"Glory Days"

While he was still a resident of England (originally from Doncaster in the south of Yorkshire), Thomas Brackenreid served Queen and Country during that same war.  It's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that his path crossed with that of Watson's. 

There is a Zonk to this theory but we have a splainin for that. 

In 'The Murdoch Mysteries', Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has been a visitor several times to Toronto's Constabulary station #4 where Thomas Brackenreid is the Inspector.  In the episode, indeed, in the real world in general, Conan Doyle is looked upon as the creator of Sherlock Holmes and as the writer of the stories, not Dr. Watson. 

But ardent believers in the world of Holmes and Watson consider Conan Doyle to have been the literary agent and editor for Dr. Watson. So when Conan Doyle gave serious consideration to Inspector Brackenreid's suggestion that "The Hound Of The Baskervilles" should climax on the moors rather than at the edge of a cliff, it could just as easily have been an example of Sir Arthur as an editor rather than as the writer. 

I'll take it a step further:  for Toobworld purposes, Conan Doyle was a founding member (with the approval of Holmes and Watson) of the shadowy world-wide organization which provides fictional versions of Toobworld citizens in order to provide plausible deniability for their actions.  

Anyhoo, that's my tip of the deerstalker to the Toobworld of Sherlock Holmes on his birthday. 

BCnU!

TVXOHOF '15 - A PROGRAMMING NOTE



Eight hundred years ago this year, King John and his barons signed the Magna Carta.  Drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the document promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons.

At least two TV series had episodes that were centered around the signing of the Magna Carta, so there's as good a reason to announce that the theme for this year's inductions into the Television Crossover Hall of Fame will be the "British Invasion".  Every new member will have some connection to British telly while still O'Bserving the monthly traditions (behind the scenes talents for September, Horror for Halloween, something seasonal for Christmas, and even a Western for August!)

 

Okay, I'll admit it.  I was going to run this theme anyway because there are so many TV characters to choose from, but I may as well have an excuse to do so.....

 

BCnU!

ECHOES: VIEWS OF THE FUTURE

 

Amos McCoy:
"It's just plain foolishness,
squattin' all day in front of the little black box,
starin' bleary-eyed at people who ain't more than 2 inches high.
It's a passing fancy, I tell you,
like buggy whips and high button shoes."
'The Real McCoys'

Liam Moone:
"Mark my words, Martin.
This whole computer thing is just a fad."
'Moone Boy'

 



VIDEO SUNDAY - "SLOWLY I TURNED"

For the first Video Sunday of the new year, I want to share a few variations on the classic "Niagara Falls/Slowly I Turned" comedy routine.

But first, a little history......

From Wikipedia:
"Slowly I Turned" is the most common name associated with a popular vaudeville sketch that has also been performed in cinema and on television. Comedians Harry Steppe, Joey Faye, and Samuel Goldman each laid claim to this routine, also referred to as "The Stranger with a Kind Face" by clowns and clowning aficionados, "Niagara Falls" by fans of The Three Stooges and Abbott and Costello, "Pokomoko", "Bagel Street", and "Martha" by the fans of 'I Love Lucy'.

 

Joey Faye (12 July 1909 – 26 April 1997) was a comedian and actor who was born Joseph Antony Palladino in New York City. He gained fame as a comic in vaudeville and claimed he created two of vaudeville's more renowned pieces of business, "Floogle Street" (a.k.a. "Susquehana Hat Company" on YouTube) and "Slowly I Turned".

In Toobworld, Joey Faye is known as "Doodles" Faye and he is accepted as the creator of the routine.  This was established in the "Good Old Burlesque" episode of 'Make Room For Daddy, in which Faye played himself.

 

So there's the story of the routine; at least in Toobworld, it's official.  Now here are some other versions of "Slowly I Turned":

 

 

 

 

 

And just for bleeps and giggles:

 

 

BCnU!

 

 

 

RALPH MALPH: THE LATER YEARS

'THAT GIRL'
"7 3/4: PART TWO"



In the early 1960s, Ralph Malph received an honorable discharge from the army and return home to Milwaukee. He decided to pursue a career as an optometrist like his father, Mickey Malph, and so he soon departed for college.

Ralph Malph was never again seen in the TV series 'Happy Days".

Here is the Toobworld conjecture:

While at college, Ralph discovered a new passion that was more in keeping with his nature. He became a student of filmmaking, and years later got a job in Hollywood as a film editor.

The Hollywood life changed him. As Ralph got older he put on some weight, as can be seen in these pictures in which he is being interviewed by Donald Hollinger of NEWSTIME Magazine.





The recastaway problem gets a free pass from being a Zonk when the splainin involves the aging process. I don't know who played this film editor in the 'That Girl' episode, but I see no reason not to think that it was Ralph Malph.

BCnU!

DE-ZONKING "THE GOOD WIFE"

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.....



Michael Ausiello asked his readers:

"When is 'The McCarthys' going to do an episode that revolves around Ronnie and his mom’s weekly 'Good Wife' viewing party getting derailed by a football overrun?"

It got me wondering if the show's generic title made 'The Good Wife' Zonk-proof. So I checked the list of references from other shows which can be found at the IMDb.

I focused only on those shows that should be found in the same TV dimension as 'The Good Wife'. So that removed all the cartoon references and shows like 'Madam Secretary' or 'The Vampire Diaries'. And episode titles like "The Food Wife" and "The Giggity Wife" have no bearing on Earth Prime-Time. That's just for the benefit of the Trueniverse audience.

NO ZONK TO WORRY ABOUT

'The Office'
"Stairmageddon"
Angela says she'll play 'The Good Wife' by standing beside her husband, the Senator, as he gives a political speech regarding their fragile marriage.

"The good wife" has been a long-standing political term, used to describe the woman who stands by her man during a scandal. 'Little Britain' did a good job of spoofing it in their shows.

GENERIC REFERENCES

This is one I caught this week by chance. I don't watch this show, but I figured this particular episode would have plenty of Toobworld Hollywood goodies (fictional movie & TV show titles, fictional magazines etc):

 

'Stalker'
"Fanatic"
Ben Caldwell: Interesting how you can work side-by-side with someone and you don't really know them at all.
Janice Lawrence: Let me guess: you watch 'The Good Wife'?



'Friends with Better Lives'

"The Bicycle Thieves"
Lowell: Oh, I thought the girls were out tonight.
Bobby: They are.
Lowell: Then what's with the wine and the cupcakes? And what are you watching?
Will: 'The Good Wife'. It's a good show.
Lowell: What kind of dude's night is this?

(Interestingly, that "dude's night" was on a Friday. They could have been watching a recording, but based on the way Will eagerly kept saying "Here it comes!", I think the Toobworld version has a different place on the network schedule.)



'The McCarthys'

"Pilot"
Marjorie: This game better be over in twenty minutes.
Jackie: Why?
Gerard: They want to watch 'Good Wife'.
Marjorie & Ronnie: 'THE Good Wife'!

'The Big Bang Theory' "The Lunar Excitation"
Howard: Oh, Raj, no. Billions of dollars have gone into inventing the Internet and filling it with pictures of naked women, so we don’t have to peep through windows.
Raj: It’s not like that, I’m watching someone’s TV. 'The Good Wife' is on. I tell you, this is my new 'Grey’s Anatomy'.

('Grey's Anatomy' is another show that should be examined for Zonks in other shows. Hopefully it's generic enough as a title to be Zonk-proof.)

 

'Happy Endings'

"Blax, Snake, Home"
Penny: Just watch some TV.......  Aah! Aah! Why is the DVR filled with 'The Good Wife' and 'The View'? I didn't record these. These are for lonely women who talk to themselves. Oh, my God! I'm talking to myself!

 

'Hot in Cleveland'
"That Changes Everything"
Melanie: Babies make me think about Life. Now that I'm all caught up on 'The Good Wife', I could use another challenge.

'Last Man Standing'

"Mike Advises Mandy"
Mandy: Wait, did you see this? All these orders?
Vanessa: Yeah, about 20 minutes ago. I would have come down sooner, but 'The Good Wife' was on.

So far, so good. The plot for the Toobworld version of 'The Good Wife' could be about anything and even feature fictional actors.

SPECIFIC REFERENCES

 

 'Supernatural'
"Defending Your Life"
Sam: Objection!
Osiris: On what grounds?
Sam: Witnesses being called without prior notice.
Dean: Good one.
Sam: I saw it on 'The Good Wife'.

Not really a Zonk - we just know that 'The Good Wife' deals in legal issues.

But now.....?

Here come de Zonk; here come de Zonk.....

SPLAINABLE ZONK!!!



'Hot in Cleveland'
"Magic Diet Candy"
Melanie: It's my dress for the christening. It's the one the Good Wife wore to visit Big in prison.

Okay, so hopes that Toobworld's 'Good Wife' is a legalese reality show are not yet lost. We might have to bend over backwards with the splainin but it just might work.

It still could have been a multi-episode documentary about Alicia Florrick, who would have been the perfect candidate for a reality show because of her husband's scandal which led to his prison time. It's the mention of "Big" that could doom that idea.

"Big" was the nickname for Chris Noth's character in 'Sex And The City'. We never even learned what his real name was until that HBO series made the transition to the Cineverse.

O'Bviously, since Noth plays both men, Governor Peter Florrick does have a resemblance to "Big". They could have been "identical cousins", with the term being a euphemism for the two of them being half-brothers due to an illicit affair by their father, the senior Florrick. (I think "Big" is dead now.)

So how did Melanie know about "Big"? My splainin for now, subject to change, is that she was an avid reader of Carrie's semi-autobiographical columns which must have been syndicated across the country.

Such a splainin would keep 'Sex And The City' Zonk-free whenever it was mentioned in other shows... so long as the reference wasn't too specific.

UNSPLAINABLE ZONK???



'The New Normal'
"Pilot"
Shania: What were your dreams before you and Daddy accidentally had me?
Goldie: Uh, well I wanted to be a lawyer. An independent woman who didn't need a man, and wear these expensive suits, like Julianna Margulies in 'The Good Wife', but without the disgraced husband.

Okay. Hands in the air, I surrender. Toobworld also has a TV show called 'The Good Wife' starring Juliana Margulies and Chris Noth in which she is a lawyer and - thanks to the 'HiC' reference - Noth's character went to jail.

Toobworld Central accepts that lots of the people living on Earth Prime-Time have TV shows about them. At least in this case, there's a very good reason why the Florricks "deserved" such attention.

Aside from the scandal and the prison time, the Toobworld version of 'The Good Wife' could be avoiding all of the other plot lines from the real series. It might just be focused on Alicia's personal life and only some of her professional life. (Granted, that is the bulk of the show.)

So yes, 'The Good Wife' is Zonked, but so far it hasn't been fully unsplainable.... Yet.

BCnU!