MARK TWAIN, AS SEEN ON TV - "DEATH VALLEY DAYS"

Since I was talking about Samuel Clemens in Toobworld earlier this week.....

O'BSERVATIONS - MARK TWAIN IN TOOBWORLD

'The Murdoch Myseries' is one of my current favorite TV series, although I hate the fact that it's called 'The Artful Detective' on Ovation.  And there was big news the other day when star Yannick Bisson tweeted this:

 

Still later in the day, a picture was released of William Shatner in make-up to play Mark Twain.

 

I thought - and actually I was hoping - that maybe this was more than just a behind the scenes picture taken of the show's star and perhaps the most famous guest star the series has ever had.  I was hoping that Shatner was not fully in costume yet; that he had yet to don a white wig to complete the resemblance to Samuel L. Clemens as he would have looked in 1903.  But alas, it is not to be.

 

As recounted in The Star, Shatner took a dislike to even sporting the mustache; he was not about to be saddled with a white fright wig as well.  I suppose the Grumpy Old Man (TV Edition) is planning to just invoke the spirit of Twain without actually resembling him.

 

That would be fine in Theater, where an actor without prosthetics or makeup can present himself to be "The Elephant Man" on stage.  And over in Skitlandia the Not Ready For Prime Time Players (at least in the beginning) didn't bother going all out with the make-up to impersonate the leading figures of the day who were being lampooned in the sketches.  Chevy Chase didn't look like or sound like or even act like Gerald Ford; Dan Ayckroyd played Richard Nixon with a mustache. 

 

And with a shared universe like the Toobworld Dynamic, adherence to authenticity when it comes to the portrayal of historical figures in various TV shows is vital.  Granted, they are not always going to resemble each other from show to show because different actors play the role.  But they should all at least put the effort in.  Who's going to believe some fat bald guy with a soul patch as Abraham Lincoln?

 

('Jack Of All Trades' presented a midget Napoleon [played by Verne Troyer of Mini-Me fame], but The Toobworld Dynamic take on the adventures of Jack Styles, a Colonial spy in the South Pacific, is that they were a fictionalized version recounted by a syphilitic and delusional Styles at the end of his life.)

 

There have been so many televersions of Mark Twain* - who was inducted into the Televsion Crossover Hall Of Fame in 2009 - that as Caretaker of the TwD I can afford to pick and choose which ones are allowed to be part of Earth Prime-Time.  Straight off I would put each of the one-shot performances into their own TV dimensions.  Spread the wealth as it were.  O'Bviously the cartoon depictions of Twain in 'Johnny Bravo' and 'The Venture Brothers' would be different aspects of the same man in the Tooniverse.  And that would apply as well in sketch comedy shows like 'Drunk History' and musical variety specials like 'Sing Out, Sweet Land' in which Der Bingle played Clemens - characters in Skitlandia are all recastaways.

 

Earth Prime-Time, on which I am most focused, has had several actors playing Mark Twain over the years on shows in which they interacted with the regular characters.  And all of them  made the effort to look the part:

 

 

• Kevin McCarthy in 'The Rifleman'
• John Cullum in 'Touched By An Angel'
• Jerry Hardin in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' (My personal favorite)

 Over the long span of years for 'Bonanza', Mark Twain visited the Cartwrights three times but each time was played by a different actor:

 

 

• Howard Duff - "Enter Mark Twain"
• William Challee - "The Emperor Norton"
• Ken Howard - "The Twenty-Sixth Grave"

My claim is that the "View Continuum" forced the Trueniverse audience to witness two different TV dimensions, just as was the case with the three Mr. Freezes from 'Batman'.  Because he most closely resembled the Mark Twain image, it is Ken Howard in the episode "The Twenty Sixth Grave" who is the 'Bonanza' contribution for the writer in the main Toobworld - even if he was the last one to assay the role.  Especially since his age seemed to regress from the previous two appearances.  Howard Duff may have been the first to play the role on 'Bonanza', but it was hard to picture him as Clemens, even with the reddish hair.  So it's off to another dimension, perhaps Evil Toobworld, maybe 'West Wing' world, for that one episode.

 

As for the middle portrayal?  William Challee was NOT playing Samuel L. Clemens.  He was actually an alien from the future (now "our" past) who fled Earth Prime-Time into its own past using some kind of variation of the atavachron device from the planet Sarpeidon.  This faux-Twain was a member of an alien race from some unknown planet but which used Mars as a launching pad to take over the Earth in the 1960s.  Their plans went awry, or else they would have been present in all of the TV shows now on the air.  (I think the Doctor dispatched them, as he did with so many other alien incursions into Earth Prime-Time.  Personally, based on the description of what these aliens really looked like before they took human form, I think they were Krillitane.)

And so we come back to William Shatner in the role of Mark Twain.  As he looks nothing like the Twain televersion should, I'm afraid I shall have to cite it as being of someone else claiming to be the author.  I won't fall back on the claim that it is Twain in some other TV dimension because I refuse to give up one of my favorite TV shows to some alternate Toobworld, not even one episode.

I will wait until I have actually seen the episode, but I already have a splainin which I think will adequately make this episode pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, in the main Toobworld.  And it won't require some alien interference as did the faux Twain in the 'Bonanza' episode.

Until then......

SHOWS CITED:

• 'The Murdoch Mysteries'
• 'Bonanza'
• 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'
• 'Touched By An Angel'
• 'Doctor Who'
• 'Star Trek'
• 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents'
• The Rifleman'
• 'Sing Out, Sweet Land'
• 'Drunk History'
• 'Jack Of All Trades'
• 'Saturday Night Live'
• 'Johnny Bravo'
• 'The Venture Brothers'

BCnU!

* For an almost complete list of Mark Twain portrayals on television, click here.)

 

DOUBLE VISION - BIG HEAD & KYLE, IDENTICAL COUSINS

 

Back in 2013, Josh Brener as Kyle the intern in 'Maron' won the Toobits Award for Best Supporting Character in a sitcom.  His role as Nelson "Big Head" Bighetti in 'Silicon Valley' has only solidified my appreciation of his gifts as an actor.  

From Wikipedia:

Nelson "Big Head" Bighetti, a former tenant of Erlich's incubator who works at Hooli. After work on Pied Piper commences, Big Head is offered a huge raise and promotion to help Hooli develop its copycat software, Nucleus, and leaves the incubator on poor terms with the entire team. He is later removed from the Nucleus project due to his lack of technical knowledge, and has absolutely no responsibilities at Hooli.

We have yet to learn Kyle's last name, but I'm not going out on a limb to say that's it's Bighetti.  Eventually we may yet learn what it is, especially now that Kyle is dating.  And thus I won't make the claim that Kyle and Nelson are twin brothers.  As both series are in Earth Prime-Time, I think it's better to rely on one of the best Toobworld tropes: the Identical Cousins.  

It's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, the maiden name of Kyle's mother is Bighetti.  And what helps this theory of relateeveety even more is that both Kyle and Big Head are from California.

BCnU!

LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - HOPPER, FALK & GARNER

I've often stated in the past that photographs can be accepted into the Toobworld Dynamic for the activities that occur off-camera - just so long as those pictures are not screencaps from other TV shows.  (My standard example is a picture of Peter Falk as Lt. Columbo and Gene Barry as Dr. Flemming in the 'Columbo' pilot "Prescription: Murder".  It can't be used to illustrate lawyer Daniel J. O'Brien and Captain Amos Burke from 'Trials Of O'Brien' and 'Burke's Law' respectively.)

The picture shown above is easy for me to accept and it doesn't have to be anything more than what it purports to be - three great actors enjoying a round of golf.

Dennis Hopper, Peter Falk, and James Garner all played themselves in episodes of sitcoms.  (Garner also played himself in an episode of '77 Sunset Strip', a detective series.)

• Dennis Hopper - 'Entourage'
• Peter Falk - 'The Larry Sanders Show'
• James Garner - 'Angel'

So this picture fits into that celebrity-infused corner of Toobworld perfectly!

BCnU!

TUESDAY NEWS DAY - GOODE NEWS!

It looks like it wasn't just a case of Finn Polmar turning down Alicia Florrick's offer to become her partner in the season finale of 'The a Good Wife'.  Matthew Goode, who played Finn, won't be returning to the show as something of a regular, but it's pozz'ble , just pozz'ble, that he could still make occasional guest appearances.

It's a good thing they never took the next step in their relationship and became lovers.  It would have been much harder to extricate Finn from the storyline. 

I would not be surprised to see Goode return to 'Downton Abbey', where he introduced a potential suitor for Lady Mary in the last Christmas special. 

BCnU!

MEMORIAL DAY, 2015 - LT. WILLIAM "FITZ" FITZGERALD

'THE TWILIGHT ZONE'

"THE PURPLE TESTAMENT"

"Infantry platoon, U.S. Army, Phillipine Islands, 1945. These are the faces of the young men who fight. As if some omniscient painter had mixed a tube of oils that were at one time earth brown, dust gray, blood red, beard black, and fear - yellow white, and these men were the models. For this is the province of combat and these are the faces of war."

- Rod Serling

Somehow Lieutenant William "Fitz" Fitzgerald gained the power to foretell who was going to die when he saw an eerie glow envelope that person's face. Whether this was some latent mutant power triggered by the horrors of war around him is unknown, but Fitz soon realized that he could accurately predict that these brothers in arms whom he saw with glowing faces would die.

His superior officer claimed not to believe him, but nevertheless Captain Riker left behind his family pictures and his wedding ring when he was about to embark on a mission which Fitz claimed would be his last. (Captain Riker, an uncle of Darrin Stephens, was an ancestor of Commander William Riker who served in Starfleet in the 25th Century.)

Eventually Fitz saw the strange glow on the face of his driver and on his own face in a mirror's reflection and he resigned himself to his fate. The jeep exploded from a land mine farther down the road.

"From William Shakespeare, Richard the Third, a small excerpt. The line reads, 'He has come to open the purple testament of bleeding war.' And for Lieutenant William Fitzgerald, A Company, First Platoon, the testament is closed. Lieutenant Fitzgerald has found the Twilight Zone."

- Rod Serling

Lt. William Fitzgerald joins our Memorial Day remembrances of those who died in service to our country (Toobworld version):

• Colonel Henry Blake - 2006
• General Frank Savage - 2008
• Joe Cartwright - 2010
• Sgt. Chip Saunder - 2011
• Colonel Sherman Potter - 2012
• Joe Kennedy - 2012
• Mr. Roberts - 2013
• Eugene Sledge - 2014
• Lt. Gil Hanley - 2014

In the alternate reality of Earth Prime-Time, they paid the ultimate price.

Good night and may God bless.

VIDEO SUNDAY - THE HERMIT OF MINK HOLLOW'S TELEVERSION

It's been a couple of days since David Letterman left our airwaves and although I'm not sure the full breadth of that impact has been comprehended yet by the Trueniverse audience, I think we all know we'll never again get the chance to see such classics as the Top Ten List, Stupid Pet Tricks, new Halloween costumes, and so many great musical performances.

Oh, sure.  There will always be great songs played out in late night on other shows, but those performers won't have such a strong backup in a studio band concerned with making them look good.

Here's a compilation of songs by one of my favorite performers who got to sit in with Paul Schaffer and the CBS Orchestra one last time about two weeks ago.  My thanks to Brian Leonard for finding it.....

VIDEO WEEKEND - BILL MURRAY'S BIG ADVENTURE

Bill Murray was David Letterman's first guest on both of his late night talk shows.

Over the years every appearance turned out to be an event and that penultimate show gave us a compilation of the highlights:

So for the last "regular" 'Late Show with David Letterman', Bill Murray burst out of a cake and proceeded to eat cake off his shoe and be his usual low-key weirdo self.  

You can see a couple of drinking glasses on Dave's desk in this next segment and that will be key to what happened later Tuesday night.  Just before Dave tried to end the segment, Bill broke out a bottle of Slovenia Vodka and proceeded to plug it.  And he also chugged from the bottle as Letterman then did as well.  

And then his exit from the set lived up to his reputation with the show - he burst through the "Bill Murray Doors" to the tune of "Power To The People" and rallied the people on the street to his cause: keeping David Letterman on the air.  

But even though the show cut away and soon ended, Bill Murray continued with his street theatre tactics, making his way to Rockefeller Center (or wherever the bleep it is where they broadcast MSNBC's 'The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell') and made his way on to the set while O'Donnell was talking about Senator Elizabeth Warren.  (As you can see, Bill cleaned himself up a bit before he made his appearance.)

And that's when the vodka started to really kick in.......

The next night, on the final 'Late Show with David Letterman', Bill Murray appeared once again as part of the final Top Ten List as one of ten celebrities who made frequent appearances on the show over the years:

At the end you'll see and just barely hear Dave tell Bill that he saw him on TV the night before and wondered if everything was all right.  "I'm okay," Bill reassured him.

I think this locks Bill's appearances on the penultimate 'Late Show' and his surprise walk-on at 'The Last Word' as the Best Reality Show Crossover for the 2015 Toobits Awards.  

BCnU!

SPLAININ TO DO - "THE VIEW" CONTINUUM

Here's a classic Zonk for you....

'The Name Of The Game'

"A Different Kind Of Spy"

"People" magazine reporter Jeff Dillon was investigating corporate espionage at the research facility where a friend of his worked.  This first screencap shows him inside the offices.

But when he steps outside the building, he's no longer wearing the turtleneck sweater and black jacket.  Now he's in a suit and tie.

Here's a close-up as he realizes someone is about to run him over with a car.

Having survived that, he heads straight to the home of the guy he was investigating, only to see him shot.  He races inside to use the phone in order to call for help.  And as you can see, he's now back in the clothes he was wearing when he was inside the building.

I think this is a case in which our viewpoint changed from watching Jeff Dillon of Earth Prime-Time to watching his doppelganger in some alternate TV dimension and then back again, only for the time it took him to leave that facility's parking lot and drive over to his quarry's home.  Before he arrived, the point of view had changed back to the main Toobworld.

This would be the work of some sort of powers that be from within the TV Universe, a kind of hive-mind that speaks with one voice.  And we know that voice.  We've heard it before.  We know it as the Control Voice....

The Control Voice, or this Hive Mind which I'm going to call "The View Continuum", could also serve as a splainin for certain recastaways in shows where the usual excuses - like plastic surgery, alien or android impersonation, or quantum leaping - just wouldn't work.  (Mostly because the show has too realistic a setting - for example: Agent Deborah Ciccerone of 'The Sopranos', who was played by Fairuza Balk at the end of one season only to be recast with Lola Glaudini when the show returned.)

Sometimes the View Continuum would change the point of view for the Trueniverse audience several times within the same series.  For example - the 1966 'Batman' series.  We got to see three different TV dimensions in that series where all of the main characters - Batman, Robin, Aunt Harriet, Alfred, and the two stalwarts at Police Headquarters - were all played by the same actors, but Mr. Freeze was played by three different actors, one from each dimension.  George Sanders is the Mr. Freeze from the main Toobworld; Otto Preminger is from the Land O' Remakes; and the Mr. Freeze played by Eli Wallach is from - oh, I don't know.... Let's say from Zombie Toobworld.  Why not?  That Toobworld was "normal" until the last few years. 

At least once, the View Continuum forced our viewpoint to change within a single episode!  This happened in 'Community' when Jeff and Shirley were playing a cut-throat game of Foosball.  Suddenly we saw their counterparts in the Tooniverse instead of in the main Toobworld.

So what other TV dimension was it for this 'Name Of The Game' episode?  I'll keep it simple and say it was the world of the prequels.  This is a TV dimension which consists mostly of pilots for TV shows which are sold but then key roles are recast.  'The Name Of The Game' is already part of this world, thanks to "Fame Is The Name Of The Game" in which Anthony Franciosa still appeared as Jeff Dillon, but Glenn Howard - played on the series by Gene Barry - is here portrayed by George MacReady.

BCnU!

SUPER SIX QUIZ - THE GAME OF THE NAME

I think it's time for a quiz, don't you?

This week's Super Six List is actually a quiz, a list of six first names for TV characters.

You have to tell me the characters' full names and what show they come from.

These are not one-shots, otherwise you'd be seeing the likes of "Eulalia" in the list.  These were all regular characters in various TV shows.  (One is actually current.)  I don't think any of them were used more than once, but if you give me a regular character whom I wasn't thinking of, I'll accept it.

Now, I know it's simple enough to do this using an online service like "Ol' Reliable".  (You should know what I mean by that.)  But try to solve it on your own.

::sigh:: Right.

What the bleep.  Give it a go.....

1]  Zebulon

2]  Mahala May

3]  Jonas

4]  Throckmorton

5]  Eobard

6]  Orrin

To me, it seems simple enough without using outside sources, but see how you do......

BCnU!