SATURDAY MORNING SUPER-HEROES - VIXEN

Since it's Thanksgiving weekend, I thought I'd take it a bit easy.

Here's the character who will link 'Arrow' & 'The Flash' - but only in the Tooniverse, for now....

THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY - JACK DAVIS

Jack Davis:What else have they got against me?

James Hawley: 

Your reputation - you're known as a gunman.

Jack Davis: 

I never drew first in my life. 

They can't hang a man for havin' a reputation.

James Hawley: 

They can try.

'Death Valley Days'

Sometimes I find the greatest nuggets of televisiological trivia when I'm looking for something else.  Okay, so this isn't the lost treasures of the Library at Jasonalexandria, but 'twill serve..... 

I was searching to see if Frank Sutton, as Sgt. Vince Carter, would be eligible for membership in the Television Crossover Hall of Fame as the bane of his existence Gomer Pyle was, when I stumbled across these two roles in his resume at the IMDb.
 
Death Valley Days 
Jack Davis
- Diamond Field Jack (1963)

Frank Sutton in three 'Gunsmoke' episodes

Route 66 
Jack Davis
- To Walk with the Serpent (1962)

Frank Sutton in 'Route 66'

I don't even have to strain with this splainin!
 
With 'Death Valley Days' being an anthology series, not all of the episodes take place in Earth Prime-Time, just as is the case with 'The Twilight Zone'.  This is especially the case if an episode of the series involves an historical figure, like young Mark Twain.
 
But "Diamond Field Jack" does take place in the main Toobworld, even though Davis was an historical figure.  (Click here for the Wikpedia entry.)
 
"Diamondfield Jack" Davis would have been the forefather of the family lineage which would lead to the Jack Davis of Boston in the early 1960s - the televersion of Diamondfield Jack was probably that neo-Nazi's grand-pappy since he died in the 1940s.  That a real world character could be related to a fictional character has precedence in Toobworld.  In this case, Diamondfield Jack probably had fathered a son with a fictional saloon girl. (The fecund sluttiness of saloon girls is going to be a theme in the TV Western showcase for next year.)
 
It doesn't even have to matter what Fate befell either character or what the premise for each plotline entailed; the telegenetics are just that strong in this case.  But in case you wanted to know, I haven't been able to see the "Diamond Field Jack" episode of 'Death Valley Days'.  Here's the TV Guide plot summary for it, however:

Arrested for murder, Jack Davis (Frank Sutton) seems more concerned about preserving his reputation as a gunman than saving his skin.

As for Jack Davis of Boston, he was a follower of the "Awake America" leader John Westerbrooke.  He had been dishonorably discharged in 1950 for torturing a prisoner of war.  At Westerbrooke's rally in the Boston Common, Davis was shot dead by the FBI when he acted as a sniper to blow up a bomb concealed in one of the statues of the Revolutionary heroes.

O'BSERVATIONS:
The pictures of Frank Sutton in Western gear come from his three episodes of 'Gunsmoke':

• "Catawomper"
• "Miss Kitty"
• "Old Comrade" (My personal favorite of the trio)

I couldn't find the 'Death Valley Days' episode except maybe through OVGuide, but I wasn't sure about the site.....

But here is the 'Route 66' episode if you want to see Sutton as the neo-Nazi Jack Davis:

BCnU!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM TOOBWORLD!

Here's this year's Thanksgiving story.  I don't know how Elon Musk will be spending Thanksgiving in the real world, but in Toobworld....?

'THE BIG BANG THEORY'
"THE PLATONIC PERMUTATION"

While working in a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving this year - today! - Howard Wolowitz got to meet the Tesla Motors businessman and inventor.  Both of them were assigned to washing dishes (Howard started out there, but Musk was banished there after being too free and easy with the gravy ladle.)  Musk and Howard shared a tossed-off, half-eaten piece of pumpkin pie and exchanged email addresses.   

From Wikipedia:
Elon Reeve Musk (born June 28, 1971) is a South African-born Canadian-American business magnate, engineer, inventor and investor. He is the CEO and CTO of SpaceX, CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors, and chairman of SolarCity.

He is the founder of SpaceX and a co-founder of Zip2, PayPal, and Tesla Motors. He has also envisioned a conceptual high-speed transportation system known as the Hyperloop and has proposed a VTOL supersonic jet aircraft with electric fan propulsion. His most important goal is to make human civilization multiplanetary. 

Elon Musk also has a counterpart in the Tooniverse, thanks to an episode of 'The Simpsons.'

For the rest of Musk's life story, click here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

MAILING TUBE - FIVE-0 AND THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO

Yesterday's Five-O, visiting San Francisco inspector mentions working with Insps. Stone and Keller, who don't always follow the rules. Given Stone's age in the '70s and Keller's resignation from the force, my guess is the current Stone and Keller followed on their pops' footprint.

Take care,
Martin Ross

I don't place the new version of 'Hawaii Five-O' in the main Toobworld in which 'The Streets Of San Francisco' took place, and for a very good reason - the original 'Five-O' series with Jack Lord, James MacArthur, and on occasion Kigh Diegh has the honor of being part of Earth Prime-Time.  The 2010 series, still on the air, is a total remake... despite bringing in Ed Asner as a character he played in the original show.

For me this reference to the Quinn Martin show which starred Karl Malden and Michael Douglas still was not a Zonk.  Instead, the Frisco detective was referring to the counterparts of Stone and Keller in that Land o' Remakes, who were probably younger and recast - as was the case with the Five-O squad.

So it still works but on an interdimensional level.  Thanks, Martin!

BCnU!

TUESDAY NEWS DAY - VONNEGUT TELEVISION

FX has gained the rights to bring Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle", his fourth novel, into a limited run TV series.  The man overseeing the project is Noah Hawley, who has found the right formula in bringing the Coen Brothers' "Fargo" to fruition as a TV series.

The A.V. Club gave a good summation of the work:

Vonnegut’s original work was published in 1963 and takes on science, technology, and religion with equal satirical fire. After the novel’s narrator, John, becomes involved in the lives of the adult children of Felix Hoenikker, a fictional co-creator of the atomic bomb, he travels to the fake Caribbean island of San Lorenzo and encounters a strange outlawed religion called Bokononism that many of the area’s inhabitants practice anyway. Through Hoenikker’s children he also learns about ice-nine, a way to freeze water at room temperature that could be devastating if used improperly. Needless to say, destruction and dark humor ensue.

I've got a good feeling that FX won't change its mind about the project and that it will make it to air on the network.....

(This won't be the first time Dr. Hoenikker and Bokonon have appeared on TV.  Back in the early 1970s, PBS made a movie combining several of Vonnegut's works in a story about Stony Stephenson traveling through the chrono-synclastic infundibulum.  Other characters included were Harrison Bergeron, Wanda June, and Diana Moon Glampers.  All of these characters take precedence for Toobworld and the new version will go to the Land o' Remakes.

BCnU!

ECHOES: TURN-ONS

Sam Malone:

You are the nuttiest, the stupidest, the phoniest fruitcake I ever met!

Diane Chambers:

And you, Sam Malone, are the most arrogant, self-centered...

Sam:

SHUT UP! Shut your fat mouth!

Diane:

Make me!

Sam:

Make you? Why, I'm... I'm gonna...

I'm gonna bounce you off every wall in this office!

Diane:

Try it and you'll be walking funny tomorrow.

Or should I say funnier.

Sam:

You know, I always wanted to pop you one.

Maybe this is my lucky day.

Diane:

You disgust me. I hate you.

Sam:

Are you as turned on as I am?

Diane:

More!

[They kiss]

'Cheers'

Debra Barone:

I need that squash!

Ray Barone:

Are you as turned on as I am right now?

'Everybody Loves Raymond'

VIDEO SUNDAY - YOUR THANKSGIVING PSA

A public service announcement before you take your Thanksgiving home movies.....

SATURDAY MORNING SUPER VILLAINS - THE ARCHER'S GRANDPA

'Alfred Hitchcock Presents'
"Safety For The Witness"
 

In 1927, Cyril T. Jones was a custom gunsmith who owned and operated a shop in a big city.  (That's according to an on-screen graphic, but we all know it was New York.)  Aong his clients were some of the country's worst mobsters.  Two of those hoods, Big Dan Foley and Joe Felix, gunned him down after he stumbled upon them killing a witness to one of their earlier crimes.  Just before they shot him they apologized since they enjoyed giving them their business, always interested in buying new merchandise from him.
 
But Mr. Jones survived the attack and decided to exact his own revenge rather than risk being killed like that other witness.
 

Although it didn't come up in the course of the show, Jones was born in 1887 and was 40 at the time of his shooting.  (This is based on how old Art Carney was when he played the role.)
 
I have no proof for this, but here is my conjecture for a theory of relateeveety which will connect this episode of 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' to the TV series 'The Honeymooners' and 'Batman'.
 
Cyril T. Jones' wife had died by the time of the episode and his children were already grown, Cyril having married young.  He had a daughter who married a man named Norton and they had twin sons, Edward Lillywhite and Edmund Archeron Norton.  Ed married Trixie (last name unknown, but her first name was Thelma) and he went to work in the New York City Bureau of Water And Sewage Operations.  Meanwhile, his brother Edmund turned to the dark side, eventually becoming the arch-villain known in Gotham City as "The Archer".
 

(I've written about the Brothers Norton in the past.)
 
Cyril T. Jones probably lived long enough to have seen these events, being 80 by the time 1967 rolled around......
 

BCnU!
 

LITTLE BIG SCREEN - "BULLITT"

No matter what TV dimension, "Bullitt" is a 1968 movie starring Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, and Jacqueline Bissett.  It's probably best known for the high speed car chase through the streets of San Francisco.

In "The Bullitt Mustang", the latest episode of 'Blue Bloods', that iconic car belonged to Owen Cairo and was stolen.  'Blue Bloods' takes place in an alternate TV dimension which has a different NYC mayor than in the main Toobworld, where Bill Di Blasio holds that office (as mentioned in 'The Mindy Project', 'The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt', 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit' and in 'Constantine' which takes place in Comic Book Toobworld (as well as in Earth Prime-Time... I think.)

I'm kind of surprised that "Bullitt" was never made into at least a TV pilot by 1970.  But there's no mention of it in Lee Golberg's incredible research book "Unsold Television Pilots (1955 through 1989)".  However, at least that keeps it easy to deal with any mentions of the movie, unlike such other films as the franchises for "Back To The Future" and "The Terminator" which were given Toobworld treatments.

Among the TV shows in the main Toobworld which made reference to "Bullitt" are:

• 'The Flash' (1991)
• 'Full House'
• 'Rederlet'
• 'Hetty Wainthrop Investigates'
• 'UC: Undercover'
• 'Entourage'
• 'Arrested Development'
• 'NCIS'
• 'Gilmore Girls'
• 'Trauma'
• 'General Hospital'
• 'The Mentalist'
• 'Warehouse 13'
• 'Lost'
• "The Man From UNCLE: The Fifteen Years Later Affair"
• The first "Charlie's Angels" movie

BCnU!

FANFICCER'S FRIEND - SIPOWICZ!

A few years back, I ran a monthly feature here in the Inner Toob blog called "Fanficcer's Friend".  I would find pictures from outside the realm of Toobworld - newspaper photos, screencaps from movies, etc., anything EXCEPT from other TV shows - which could be used to illustrate fanfic about the TV characters played by the actors seen in those pictures, even if the pictures weren't of their characters.  Some examples - a publicity picture of Leonard Nimoy as he signed his first studio contract (Paris from the IMF?) and DeForest Kelley in Westerns (Bones back in Time?).

So here's another:

My friend and brother Iddiot Jim Peyton posted this picture in Facebook with the caption:

St. Marks Place, 1978. Legendary clothing boutique Trash & Vaudeville, who outfitted stars like Debbie Harry and The Ramones, announced recently that it will be vacating the St. Marks location that it has inhabited since 1975. Photo by Leonard Freed.

Now, doesn't that cop look like NYPD detective Andy Sipowicz in his younger days as a patrolman?

Toobworld Central accepts recasting when it comes to the aging process, so no matter who this real-life police officer is/was, we have no trouble in claiming that in Toobworld he was Sipowicz.

Eventually Andy Sipowicz will be inducted into the Television Crossover Hall of Fame, probably as part of the Birthday Honors List, since we made valid (at least I think so!) arguments in the blog that he knew Henry and Shawn Spencer of 'Psych' and that one of his ex-wives had an affair with 'NCIS' agent Tony DiNozzo.

Thanks for finding that picture, Jimbo!

BCnU!