THE HAT SQUAD: KIRK BROWNING

Kirk Browning has passed away at the age of 86. Over the years he directed productions for 'Live From Lincoln Center', and was working on a production of "Madama Butterfly" when he died. In the past he also directed the premiere of "Amahl And The Night Visitors", productions for 'Hallmark Hall Of Fame', 'Great Performances', 'Live From The Met', and the first television program to have Frank Sinatra as its host.

Producer John Groberman said, "Kirk contained the entire history of cultural television in our country." He won two Emmys, one for "Turandot" and the other for "Goya with Placido Domingo", and he also directed the television productions of many Broadway shows including "Death Of A Salesman", "Our Town", "House Of Blue Leaves", "You Can't Take It With You", and "Fifth Of July".

What I found interesting in his obituary from the New York Times (by Dennis Hevesi) was this revelation about how his career began:

"Mr. Browning owned a chicken farm in Ridgefield, Conn., in 1947 when he happened into television. He befriended a customer on his egg route, Samuel Chotzinoff, the director of NBC's music division. Mr. Chotzinoff got him a job filing scores in NBC's music library. Later, after working as a stage manager, Mr. Browning was chosen to direct telecasts of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, led by Arturo Toscanini."

That would never happen today! Too much dependence on school training, unions, networking.....

I may pop my copy of "June Moon", which he directed in 1974, or the DVD of the original "Amahl And The Night Visitors" into the computer over the weekend in tribute to Mr. Browning....

BCnU.....

Toby OB

DEEP SIX: ALL LIT UP

I thought I might try my hand at lists, like a Top Ten for Toobworld. But just to be different, and since I'm such a fan of 'The Prisoner', I'm opting to go with a Deep Six list.......

With the WGA strike winding down, I thought I'd bring attention to those characters who began life in another universe, that of the written word.

These are my choices for those characters who were served well by the translation to Television, and in one case even transcended the original source material.

I limited my list to six choices because A) I didn't want to mimic Dave's Top Ten List and B) there would be no stopping once I got started.

I gave serious thought to a lot of books which were adapted for Television. (And during the Seventies there were plenty!) Authors like Stephen King, Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Robert Ludlum, Mark Twain, Taylor Caldwell, Jules Verne, Jonathan Swift, Tom Tryon, and Danielle Steele all enjoyed excellent adaptations of their works. (There were some who were not so fortunate - Philip Jose Farmer and Ursula K. LeGuin among them.)

And the characters I had to leave behind! Horace Rumpole, Father Brown, Jeeves and Wooster, Ebenezer Scrooge, Brother Cadfael, Miss Marple, Phileas Fogg, Potato Brumbaugh, and the Walking Dude....

But these are the six whom I think exemplified the category of crossover characters.....

SHERLOCK HOLMES
Probably the most recognizable fictional character in the world, mostly due to the illustrations by Sidney Paget that appeared with the Conan Doyle stories in the Strand. Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson may have the most televersions of any fictional character as well, especially with the retellings of "The Hound Of The Baskervilles". But it's Jeremy Brett as the Great Detective who best exemplifies the role.

EMPEROR CLAUDIUS
Bit of a cheat here - Claudius is the only character on this list who is also historically real. But as seen through the vision of Robert Graves, Claudius breathed once again in the novel "I, Claudius". Sir Derek Jacobi completed the process in bringing the stuttering Roman emperor out of the lifeless, dusty Past.

HERCULE POIROT
I've got a serious addiction to these adaptations starring David Suchet, and I don't know what I'll do once I run out of the episodes already out on DVD! The brilliant Belgie with his little gray cells has been played in the past on TV (as well as in the movies), but this version gets the blessing of Toobworld Central to represent Earth Prime-Time.

CARRIE BRADSHAW
I will freely admit I wasn't a big fan of this show, but if it hadn't been for the HBO series, the novel by Candace Bushnell might be in the remainder pile by now. And here it is, so many years later and now a theatrical film with the same actors from the show is about to hit the Cineplex! And a lot of that has to be credited to Sarah Jessica Parker in the role of Carrie.

AUGUSTUS "GUS" McCRAE AND WOODROW F. CALL
I had a fear that too many adaptations of other Larry McMurtry books about these two old cowboys might dilute the power of the originals in "Lonesome Dove". But after the latest mini-series, based on "Comanche Moon", I don't think that's possible. It keeps coming back to the legends played by Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones whom we met near the end of the trail.....

BENJAMIN "HAWKEYE" PIERCE
Personally, I prefer Donald Sutherland in the movie version, but Alan Alda did a great job of taking over the role and expanding it. He became a voice of insane reason from the fifties as seen throughout the seventies and into the eighties.

Well, that's my first Deep Six list. It's a category that will crop up whenever the mood strikes.

Let me know who you'd nominate for the best of literary characters on TV.

BCnU!
Toby OB

TIDDLYWINKYDINKS - CONTINGENCY PLANS

The strike may be over today, once the writers vote on the proposal in New York and Los Angeles, and they may even get back to work as early as tomorrow. However, it will still be a month before new episodes of your favorite shows will be trotted out. And even then, some shows are already consigned to having their seasons cut short with an eye towards re-launching in the fall. (Among these are some of my favorites - like 'Chuck' and 'Pushing Daisies'.)

So that's why I'm continuing with my strike contingency viewing - old series on DVD which I'm finding in the Netflix stock, borrowed from friends, or tucked away in the library here at Toobworld Central.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you probably already know what series I've been watching already. Among them are:

'Odyssey 5'
'Poirot'
select episodes from 'Combat!'
'The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard' (again)

Right now I'm watching The Buccaneers' with Robert Shaw, from back in 1956.

But I've glot plenty of other series waiting for me in my Netflix queue to get me through the scripted drought:

'Rosemary and Thyme'
'Damages' (I'll give it another go)
'Rome'
'The Wire'
more of 'Poirot'
'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea'
and
'Foyle's War'

The old shows will probably be back before I get through that lot, but I'm saving these for during my break at work. (And I'm not giving away anymore than that here in print!)

BCnU!
Toby OB

THE HONORARY TITLE ON "ONE TREE HILL"

Tonight on 'One Tree Hill', another band gets its moment in the Toobworld spotlight when The Honorary Title (from Brooklyn) performs at the bar club Tric.

This folk/pop/punk band debuted on Warner Music last summer with "Scream And Light Up The Sky" and music from that album will figure in tonight's episode. While The Honorary Title is playing up on the Tric stage, the travails of the show's main characters will play out throughout the club. For instance, Carrie will use the night out as a way to get closer to Nathan; Mouth gets forced by Brooke to go on a blind date; and Lindsey gets all up in Lucas' face about sneaking off to see Peyton.

Apt name - it's a regular 'Peyton Place' in 'One Tree Hill'!

After tonight, The Honorary Title will have televersions of themselves. Maybe not as cool as having your own action figures, but it's the best we can supply at Toobworld Central. (Pictured here is a fan-snap of the band as they performed before the crowd at Tric.)

'One Tree Hill' airs on the CW at 9 pm EST, 8 pm Central.

BCnU!
Toby OB

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TINA LOUISE

HOMINA THRICE!

We'll be celebrating the life of Ginger Grant in Toobworld here in June.....

BCnU!
Toby OB

WARREN PIECE

In "Who Killed The Surf Broad?" (an episode of 'Burke's Law'), one of the suspects was novelist Franklin Warren. Although he was in Los Angeles at the time of Tina Romaine's murder, he was only living there while he completed a book he was writing about the Borgias. When he wasn't working on a novel, he lived in Santa Barbara with his wife and son.

They showed a picture of his family at one point during the episode, and his son looks to be about 12 to 15 years of age. (The episode took place in the early 60s.) I ran a search of characters from episodes of 'Psych', 'The Bad News Bears', 'Owen Marshall, Counsellor At Law' and of course, 'Santa Barbara', but could find no characters from those series set in Santa Barbara by the last name of Warren.

However, I did find a major character on the soap opera 'Santa Barbara' by the name of Warren Lockridge, who was born in 1962. I see no reason why we can't make the claim that his parents Lionel and Augusta Lockridge named him after their good friend and neighbor, Franklin Warren. (As it turned out, Warren Lockridge's biological father was CC Capwell, but that's par for the course in most soap operas.)

And if the novelist had any influence in the boy's development, it may be reflected in the fact that young Lockridge grew up to be a journalist at the Santa Barbara Sentinel and then at the Santa Barbara Conscience before becoming a professor of journalism at the local college.

As usual, it can't be proven, nor disproved.....

BCnU!
Toby OB

PS:
As for the recastaway issue so common in soap operas, since Warren Lockridge was first played by John Allen Nelson, he is the official face of the character. His first recastaway looked like an actor named Scott Jenkins, whom I believe to have been one of those quantum leapers from the future. They often plague soap opera communities by replacing the residents so that they can do first-hand research into the life of the era (or just to get laid from all the available soap opera quim).
But with the second recastaway, who resembled actor Jack Wagner, I think the original Warren Lockridge was returned, but now with his features altered due to plastic surgery. The reason for this never came up and happened off-screen, which is where the other characters dealt with it and became accustomed to the fact that his features had changed.

Trying to keep it as simple as possible......

TOB3

TIDDLYWINKYDINKS: ROS AND FALL

When 'The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard' ended its run in both the UK and in the USA, there was a cliffhanger in which we saw Ian Pritchard enter his wife's office as the scene faded to black. We were left to wonder if Prime Minister Ros Pritchard would divorce Ian in order to hold onto her position, convince him to turn himself in for laundering mob money fifteen years before, or resign as Prime Minister to keep the secret.A second series/season was hoped for, but the ratings were supposedly abysmal in the UK and those plans were dashed. And so we were left to wonder whatever happened in that alternate dimension of Toobworld.

However, when the series was broadcast in Canada on the Knowledge Network, title cards were added after the fade-out which brought the viewers up to date as to what happened to Ros and her family.

Announcing that she felt as if she had served a purpose in her year and a half as Prime Minister, Ros Pritchard resigned the post and moved back with her family to Eatanswill. (What a great, disgusting name! Sorry, you lot who live there.)

Catherine Walker, who had defected from the Conservative Party to work with Ros as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, took over the leadership of the Purple Alliance and became Prime Minister in her own right. (We also learned that she never married.)

Now, this was not in the original broadcast of the series, and the usual Toobworld rule is that any events shown in the original broadcast are the official entry into the Toobworld timeline.

However, these title cards can be seen as sort of a sequel to the series; and since they don't alter anything that has come before, then I see no problem in accepting them as part of the canon.

At least this way, it gives us closure and besides - it was all in an alternate dimension anyway with no real impact on the main Toobworld. For alls I know, as Stuart Best would say, Ros Pritchard is still a supermarket manager in Eatanswill.

BCnU!

Toby OB

THE HAT SQUAD: ROY SCHEIDER

When I got to work this evening, my co-worker and I found the TV in the lunch room already on. It was tuned in to the Discovery Channel and a special on great white sharks in Hawaii. So we watched about twenty minutes before reporting for our shift.

Twenty minutes later, I checked my email and saw that Roy Scheider passed away at the age of 75.

It's a somber form of my "serendipiteevee", but it was in play once again.

When it comees to his TV characters, Scheider's work as Captain Nathan Bridger will probably have to be relegated to an alternate TV dimension. I never watched the full series, but during those few I did see, I kept thinking that it would never fly in the main Toobworld, that there were too many discrepancies in its depiction of the future that would need reconciling.

Later today, once I get home, I'll check over the timeline of 'SeaQuest DSV' to make sure that assessment is correct.

In the meantime, there are several of his characters that can claim residency in the main Toobworld:

Jonas Falk on 'Love Of Life'

Kenny on 'The Edge Of Night'

Bob Hill (the original) on 'The Secret Storm'

Grant Schiller of 'The Seventh Scroll'

and

Fyodor Chevchenko on 'Third Watch'

plus several other guest star roles.

Scheider is also the face of the televersion for Jacobo Timerman in "Prisoner Without A Name, Cell Without A Number".

Of course, everybody will always immediately associate him with "Jaws". Beyond that, his other movie work will also come to mind: "All That Jazz", "The French Connection", and "The 7-Ups" especially.

But we're remembering him here at Toobworld Central today, as well.....

BCnU....

Toby OB

THE HUMAN STAIN

Former FBI Agents Mulder and Scully are still alive and kicking in Toobworld, but we'll have to go into the borderlands with the movie universe in order to see them again. Another movie based on 'The X-Files' is being produced right now which will reunite David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, and Chris Carter, the power behind the original series.

The movie supposedly will have a stand-alone plot and will not tie into the show's too-confusing and ultimately disappointing mythology. (The image shown here was one of the first released from the film.)

They may no longer be seen in Earth Prime-Time, but there are plenty of cases out there which might pique their interest. After all, the Winchester boys of 'Supernatural' and Team 'Torchwood' can't do everything!

The Tide Ad
Sure, this was a funny commercial in which a guy was interviewing for a new job, but his potential employer couldn't take his eyes off the stain on the guy's shirt. To illustrate how noticeable it was, the stain actually talked!

Cute... until you realize this stain must be some kind of sentient, sycophantic organism come to Earth to conquer the human race. Perhaps it looks like creosote or some extract used in industrial varnishing, but so far as I know, that stuff doesn't talk! (I don't get out much, so I really wouldn't know.)
Yes, I believe this stain is descended from that small patch of brown liquid which put forth the case against the government in a debate on 'Face The Press' (as seen on 'Monty Python's Flying Circus'). This invasion may have started with just this one stain, but who knows where it may lead? If not stopped with some kind of high-tech quicker picker-upper, they probably intend to build their own theme parks with blackjack and hookers! (In fact, forget the theme park and the blackjack.....)

Keep watching the stains!

I better go have a lie-down.....

BCnU!
Toby OB

BLIPTOONS

The Tooniverse was represented by cartoon commercials from SalesGenie.com and by the CGI lizards who danced to "Thriller" in that LifeWater ad from SoBe.

The SoBe LifeWater ad
CGI is nothing more than state of the art animation, and so the lizards are denizens of the Tooniverse. But those pen-and-ink reptiles were dancing with a flesh-and-blood woman, so it's another example of "Tooners" crossing over into Earth Prime-Time.

Previous examples were Superman (American Express), DJ Cat (Paula Abdul video), Daffy Duck ('The Drew Carey Show') and Stewie and Brian Griffin (the 2007 Emmy Awards).

The SalesGenie.com ad
Like George Lucas with that 'Star Wars Holiday Special', SalesGenie.com has come to regret ever letting one of their two blipverts get broadcast. In the one that dealt with Ling Ling and Ching Ching's bamboo furniture company, the pandas were given stereotypical Chinese accents the likes of which haven't been heard on TV since Dana Carvey played Ching Chang on 'Saturday Night Live'.

Still, it was broadcast and thus it is a part of Toobworld forever. And it could be that Ching Ching and Ling Ling are descended from the pandas who lived with 'The Brady Bunch Kids' of the Tooniverse.

As for their other ad, it also had a stereotypical character in the Indian employee who just might be Apu's cousin from 'The Simpsons'. But best of all, the company he worked for was ACME, and we all know what a leading corporation that is in the Tooniverse!

BCnU!
Toby OB