GO GET BRENT

One of my first tele-blogging buddies was Brent McKee, he of "I Am A Child Of Television" and to be found in the Great White North. (The link to that site can be found to the left, Playuhs.)

Recently he saw the 'Big Bang Theory' episode in which Sheldon faced off against Hwill Hwheaton (as Stewie Griffin would say) in a fantasy card war game similar to D&D or Warcraft (I'm assuming).

And that got Brent thinking, in a very Toobworldian way, what it might be like if Sheldon took a stab at playing poker.

You can check out his five card Wish-Craft here. It's a fun read!

BCnU!

NEW TRICKS FOR CALLAN

In the episode "Act Of Kindness", 'Callan' attended a model soldier convention where he met Heathcote Land, an executive with an industrial corporation which sold tractors to Russian as one of its interests. They struck up a friendship as they rolled dice in their war games, but it didn't take long for Land to figure out that Callan was a government agent.Heathcote Land was a "white file" - it was Callan's mission to get him to either resign or back away from causing his rival in the corporation (Donovan Prescott) to resign. (The Russians had figured out that Prescott was a government operative and sent incriminating photos of him to Land.)

It's just a theory, but it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble (as Mushrat would say in those 'Deputy Dawg' cartoons) that another TV character was attending that war gaming convention in 1970 London.As shown in the "Congratulations" episode of 'New Tricks', Brian Lane was also an aficionado of war games and the model soldiers used to carry out those campaigns.

Currently Brian Lane is retired from the Metropolitan Police Force, but he still works for them as a member of UCOS - the Unsolved Crimes and Open Cases Squad. Back in 1970, however, he would have been a 24 year old policeman, perhaps a bobbie, more likely already a detective with that amazing memory of his. And probably with limited means for indulging in his hobby.

Still, it could be that one of the gentlemen seen in the background of that convention was actually young Brian Lane. (Being in the background, away from the camera, would help a lot since Alun Armstrong, even as a young man, might have been too distinctive to be just anybody in the crowd.)

My favorite candidate? This guy, dead center in the background: That's him again behind Heathcote Land, re-emerging from behind the flag. That profile certainly suggests the look of Brian Lane to me, to put it politley. And here he is again, walking away and passing by Callan's snitch, Lonely.It's a tenuous way to have TV characters cross paths, but look how tenuous some of the connections were between the characters of 'Lost' in their flashbacks. For instance, Jin breaks into a man's house and Hurley can be seen on the TV. But that's what we do here at Toobworld Central - we look for those unofficial, unconfirmed link pozz'bilities!

I snared these pics myself off the DVD, but if you're interested in seeing more detailed screen caps of the war games played by Callan and Land, may I suggest you visit the blog Wargaming Miscellany and search out the articles about 'Callan'. He has lots of great pics there not only from "Act Of Kindness" but also from the pilot episode, "A Magnum For Schneider", and the Callan movie, "The Wet Job".

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: BILL GATES

BILL GATES

AS SEEN IN:

"Pirates Of Silicon Valley"

AS PLAYED BY:
Anthony Michael Hall

From Wikipedia:
William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, philanthropist, and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people and the wealthiest overall as of 2009. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder with more than 8 percent of the common stock. He has also authored or co-authored several books.

Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Although he is admired by many, a number of industry insiders criticize his business tactics, which they consider anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts (see Criticism of Microsoft). In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.

Bill Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January 2000. He remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect. In June, 2006, Gates announced that he would be transitioning from full-time work at Microsoft to part-time work and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie, chief software architect and Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer. Gates' last full-time day at Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He remains at Microsoft as non-executive chairman.

[with Steve Jobs]

BCnU!

ROCKFORD DEFILED

I say I don't write about pilots, and here I go again....

It's being reported that Dermot Mulroney has been cast as Jim Rockford in a new version of 'The Rockford Files'.

Bad idea.

And the remake of 'Hawaii Five-0' is a bad idea.

The remake of 'Battlestar Galactica' worked, but that was on a niche channel. There are higher expectations with the major networks. And remakes seldom work.

'Hawaii Five-0' should have been all about a new generation of Five-0 cops, working in the (acknowleded) traditions of the original Steve McGarrett. But there's no way this new crew -even with Grace Park and Daniel Dae Kim on board - will survive comparison to the originals.

The same with Jim Rockford. What were they thinking? How can they expect to erase people's memories of James Garner in the role?

A nephew? That could have worked. Or somebody with a whole different name in the same situations. Sure, put him in a trailer on the beach with his phone in the fridge. Just don't say he's the Rockfish.

At any rate, both shows will have to be relegated to the TV dimension of remakes if their situations remain the same.....

We'll see what happens. I may turn out to be wrong.....

BCnU!

DEFENDERS TENDERED

As I said earlier this week, I don't usually cover pilots until they've actually got the green light to go to series. But this one feels like a given, considering its pedigree.

Jim Belushi is slated to star in a legal drama called 'Defenders' that may be picked up by CBS. The reason I think it may go to series is because Carol Mendelsohn is one of the executive producers. She performs the same duties for 'CSI'.

So I can see CBS picking up the show - about two defense attorneys in Las Vegas (Belushi's role would be modeled on Mickey Sherman) - and then asking for a crossover tie-in to 'CSI' so that 'Defenders' can ride the coat-tails to bigger ratings.

We'll see.....

BCnU!

THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY: LONELY RELATIONS

I've finished the third season for 'Callan', and now that I'm hooked I just realized that Netflix put my request for season four into the "Saved" column. Hopefully they'll pick up a copy soon!

In the meantime, it's onward to another tribute - "Five Red Herrings", a 'Lord Peter Wimsey' mystery in salute to the late Ian Carmichael. (I was watching 'Callan' in memory of Edward Woodward.)

Now I've only seen the first two parts of "Five Red Herrings" and have only nine episodes of 'Callan' under my belt, but already I feel like making a theory of relateeveety that would connect the two shows!

Lonely is the low-life snitch that does odd jobs for Callan in the course of his assignments - surveillance, breaking and entering, passing messages, that sort of thing. As far as I can tell, we never do learn what his real name is or anything about his background, other than how many times he's been nicked for his petty crimes. But as for his parentage, other members of his family? I'm not so sure it ever comes up. And even if it does, it shouldn't cause a problem with this familial link, as this doesn't have to be a claim as closely connected as father and son. (Although it could be if Lonely's lineage remains vague.)

In "The Five Red Herrings", Lord Peter Wimsey has crossed over the border into Scotland for a bit of a vacation, to do some fishing. And he's found himself in a hamlet that is teeming with temperamental artists, one of whom is found quite dead.

One of these artists is Matthew Gowan, a rather hirsute Highlander..... As 'Callan' took place in the late 1960's into the early 1970's, and the 'Lord Peter Wimsey' mysteries are set in the late 1920's and the 1930's, Gowan is at least a generation older than Lonely. The case could be made for Gowan to be Lonely's father: during time spent in London when visiting his club (the Mahlstick Piccadilly), he could have fathered a bastard child. Although if Lonely is the same age as the actor who played him, he would have been born in the mid-1920's. Therefore it couldn't have happened during the case of "The Five Red Herrings" as that took place in 1932. (Betty the maid went to the cinema and saw "Mata Hari" starring Greta Garbo and Ramon Novarro, which came out in America in December, 1931.)

But it just as easily could be that the relation is not that close, and yet still the resemblance between them could be that perfect. It's the Toobworld way with tele-genetics; the best example is Corporal Randolph Agarn of 'F Troop' and all of his distantly related cousins who bore an amazing likeness to him.

So Matthew Gowan could be Lonely's uncle, or an older second cousin, some such relation. And that would theoretically link 'Callan' to 'Lord Peter Wimsey'.

[It may not be apparent what with all of that hair, but Russell Hunter, who played Lonely, also played Gowan.]

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: LADY ELLA!

We began Black History Month with a famous American black woman, and we're going out the same way.....

ELLA FITZGERALD

AS SEEN IN:
"Pirates Of Silicon Valley"

AS PLAYED BY:
Cardella Di Milo


From Wikipedia:
Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996), also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz vocalist. With a vocal range spanning three octaves, she was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.
She is widely considered one of the supreme interpreters of the Great American Songbook. Over a recording career that lasted 59 years, she was the winner of 13 Grammy Awards and was awarded the National Medal of Art by Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George H. W. Bush.

BCnU!

REDJAC AND THE WILHELM SCREAM

It's only been in the last year that I learned about the Wilhelm Scream. Not that I had never heard it before, but that it had an established history... and a name.

For those out there who still may not know what the Wilhelm Scream is, it's a sound bite of a man's death scream that apparently originated in the movie "Distant Drums". Legend has it that it was provided by Sheb Woolley and it's named after the character Private Wilhelm in the movie "The Charge At Feather River", which was the second movie to use it.

Although sound editors have been using it for fifty years, the Wilhelm Scream had a major resurgence when Ben Burtt added it into the original "Star Wars" movie (when Luke shoots the stormtrooper across the chasm in the Death Star). A lot of times it's tossed into the sound mix as an in-joke.

Here is a video clip of some of its uses over the years:



The most recent use of the Wilhelm Scream - to my knowledge at any rate - was in the new series "Human Target". Chance tossed one of the bad guys out of an aerial tram:



Thanks to Wikipedia, here's a list of TV shows which have utilized the Wilhelm Scream*:

Battlestar Galactica

Young Indiana Jones

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Angel

Lost

Chuck

Primeval

The Middleman

CSI: NY

The Day of the Triffids

Human Target

Masters of Horror

('Community' was in that list as well, but it was used in a fictional movie, "Kickpuncher".)

I've rearranged that list so that it's in some sort of historical order. (But since 'Masters Of Horror' was an anthology series, I have no idea when the episode concerned took place.)

Why the timeline? Because I think it comes into play as a theoretical link between all of those shows and the most famous sci-fi TV series of all time, 'Star Trek'

I'm proposing that we hear the exact same death scream in all of those examples because it was emanating from the same source - not the victims, but from an entity that was possessing each of them before their deaths. The Wilhelm Scream is the sound it makes as it leaves the body at the moment of death. And it's off to find a new host to begin anew.

Can you see where I'm going with this?

I think it's Redjac, from the 'Star Trek' episode "Wolf In The Fold".
From Memory Alpha:
Redjac (also known as Jack the Ripper, Beratis and Kesla) was a non-humanoid life-form that existed for centuries by journeying from planet to planet and feeding on the pain and fear he caused by committing serial murders. It was similar to a parasitic organism, and required a humanoid host to inhabit in order to commit crimes. It's already an established Toobworld theory that Redjac left the body of the original Jack the Ripper before the Vorlons abducted him, as revealed in an episode of 'Babylon 5'.

Here's the established timeline for Redjac:

1888 - 1891: 17 women in London, Great Britain

1932: Seven women in Shanghai, China

1974: Five women in the city of Kiev, USSR

2105: Eight women in the Martian colonies

2156: 10 murders in Heliopolis on Alpha Eridani II

In 2266 (as "Beratis") on Rigel IV

In 2267 (in the form of Hengist) on Argelius II**

But these were only the monster's greatest hits. In between the those long stretches of Time, Redjac had plenty of time to possess other victims.

Redjac claimed to have existed since the Dawn of Time, so if the remake of 'Battlestar Galactica' can exist in Earth Prime-Time, then somehow Redjac escaped their home star system in somebody's body in that ragtag fleet of spaceships. But eventually that person (or the next body inhabited by Redjac) was chucked out of the airlock in the episode "Revelations". Either it made it back into the Galactica to possess someone else, or else it waited until its path crossed with another humanoid traversing the stars.

Perhaps the Master in his TARDIS? He'd make for a perfect host for the entity.

And then Redjac abandoned him once the Master arrived on Earth at some point before its manifestation in Sebastian's body to become Jack the Ripper....

When it re-inhabited the body of Mr. Hengist, the Enterprise crew beamed it off the ship with the widest dispersion possible. According to Mr. Spock, "its consciousness may continue for some time, consisting of billions of separate bits of energy, floating forever in space, powerless." But Kirk was convinced that it would eventually die.

(Tie-in novels and comic books have brought Redjac back, but those don't play any role in the TV Universe.) SHOWS CITED:
'Star Trek'
'Doctor Who'
'Babylon 5'
The "Wilhelm Scream Shows" listed above.

BCnU!

*We didn't hear the Wilhelm Scream as Redjac left its final host, Mr. Hengist. But that could be attributed to it inhabiting a body that was already dead. As for when it left the body of Jaris, who remained alive? Well.... Hey, in space nobody can hear you scream, right?

Of course, you could hear the scream in 'Battlestar Galactica'.....

Ahem.

**The Wilhelm Scream also appeared in these shows but as they were either cartoons or some sort of reality shows, they weren't considered for this theory.

THE TOONIVERSE

Out of Jimmy's Head

The Life and Times of Juniper Lee

Back at the Barnyard

Family Guy

American Dad

Ed Edd n Eddy

Class of 3000

Star Wars: Clone Wars

The Batman

Squirrel Boy

Chowder

George of the Jungle

Drawn Together

The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack

Macross

The Venture Brothers

Zeke and Luther

The Simpsons

The Cleveland Show

OTHER

Mythbusters

The Girls Next Door

1000 Ways to Die

American Idol

QI

Embedding of the video is forbidden at YouTube, but you can see "Wolf In The Fold" there in its entirety.

PONDEROSA SLASH

I caught a 1961 episode of 'Bonanza' Thursday, which had as the guest stars Dean Jones, Rusty Lane, Norman Alden, Edward Faulkner, Janet Lake, and Stafford Repp (the future Chief O'Hara on 'Batman'). It was called "The Friendship", but with a bit of tweaking and the right romantic music, it should have had quotations marks directly around the word "Friendship", because this episode would make a great springboard for slash-fic.

I'm assuming most of my readers know what slash-fic is. From the Urban Dictionary: "Slash Fiction is the portrayal of a perceived homosexual relationship between two lead characters in a popular continuity."

In this case, the couple would be Little Joe Cartwright, one of the main characters of 'Bonanza' and Danny Kidd, played by guest star Dean Jones. 23 year old Danny had been in the Yuma Territorial Prison since he was thirteen. One day he was able to save Little Joe's life and the youngest Cartwright repaid the debt by getting Danny released with an amnesty as his responsibility.

From that point on, if edited correctly, one could get a very romantic, very gay, music video out of it.

Some of the dialogue could be mixed into the loop as well.....

Danny:
What do you think you can do for me?
Little Joe:
You just try me.

Little Joe:
Danny and I are going to get along real fine.
Danny:
I don't like anybody coming up behind me, quiet-like.

Little Joe:
We're having a party up at the house for Old Man Carter....

You gonna be there?
Danny:
You askin'?
Little Joe:
Yeah, I'm askin'.
Danny:
I'll be there.

Danny:
I'm not too good at socializing with girls.
Teller:
Looks like they taught that boy lots of things in prison.
Little Joe:
Come on, I'll get you some punch......
Adam:
I'm for bed. How about you guys?

Danny:
You want it real bad, dontchu?
Bob:
That's what I'm here for, little friend.
Ann:
I bet you never held a girl in your arms... or kissed.
Danny:
No, Miss Carter. I've never kissed a girl.

Hoss:
You're always set on going off half-cocked, ain't ya, little brother?

I'm not a fanficcer myself, certainly not a slash-ficcer. (At least not since I was a teenager and wrote up a story where the crew of the Enterprise got it on with the Robinsons on board the Jupiter 2!) I'm just an enabler; if someone wants to take this idea and run with it, be my guest.

For alls I know, somebody already has!

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: STEVE JOBS

It was Steve Jobs' birthday earlier this week......

STEVE JOBS

AS SEEN IN:
"Pirates Of Silicon Valley"

AS PLAYED BY:
Noah Wyle

From Wikipedia:
Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is an American businessman, and the co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Jobs previously served as CEO of Pixar Animation Studios and is now a member of the Walt Disney Company's Board of Directors.

In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula and others, designed, developed, and marketed some of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series and later, the Macintosh. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven graphical user interface. After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher education and business markets. NeXT's subsequent 1997 buyout by Apple Computer Inc. brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he has served as its CEO since then.

In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios. He remained CEO and majority shareholder until its acquisition by the Walt Disney Company in 2006. Jobs is currently a member of Walt Disney Company's Board of Directors.

Jobs' history in business has contributed much to the symbolic image of the idiosyncratic, individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of design and understanding the crucial role aesthetics play in public appeal. His work driving forward the development of products that are both functional and elegant has earned him a devoted following.

Beginning in mid-January 2009, Jobs took a five-month leave of absence from Apple to undergo a liver transplant. Jobs officially resumed his role as CEO of Apple on June 29, 2009.

[with Bill Gates onscreen]

BCnU!