TARRYING AT "JERICHO"

With the 'Jericho' episode "The Hollow Men" (NOT the 'Jericho' series about a nuke-isolated town in Kansas!), London police detective Michael Jericho gave proof to my premise that some TV shows mentioned in the TV Universe are based on characters we know from our TV shows, but who exist in the TV Universe. These are not the same shows that we watch here in the Trueniverse.

Confusing, I know. Here's a good example: when Kramer was seen in an episode of 'Murphy Brown' during an episode of 'Seinfeld', we were watching the Toobworld version of 'Murphy Brown' which is not the same show as the one we watch. The Toobworld version of 'Murphy Brown' is based on the life of the "real" Murphy Brown who is just a fictional character to us.

I don't think that helped make it less confusing......

At any rate, Michael Jericho was prodded by his superiors to audition for a new TV show which would dramatize cases from the files of Scotland Yard. Jericho would have been the host, appearing as himself.

But he proved to be too stiff and unnatural on camera, so an actor, previously seen on TV as Robin Hood, hosted the show as Michael Jericho. So there was a TV character named Jericho who was based on the "real" Jericho who was just a TV character to us, portrayed by Robert Lindsay.
I'm just making it worse, aren't I?

BCnU!
Toby OB

RUMFORD'S CROSSING

With the previous post, I demonstrated a theoretical link between 'Doctor Who' and 'Star Trek' via "The Stones of Blood" episode. (There's at least one more connection between those shows and it's a biggie, but that's not the topic today.)

But "The Stones Of Blood" also can forge a link with 'Columbo' thanks to a "Theory of Relateeveety" which I'm proposing.

Professor Amelia Rumford may have had an older brother. It never comes up in her conversations with the Doctor (which were usually drone-fests about the history of the Standing Stones). If so, it could be that during World War One, her older brother was wounded and fell in love with an American nurse. He would have then emigrated to America to be with her.

Once married, they could have had a son, one that they named Lyle. He might have followed his father into the military, making it his career. Later in life, Colonel Lyle C. Rumford became the administrative commander of the Haynes Military Academy in Los Angeles, running it for a senior officer named Haynes whom Rumford served and admired.

(What happened during his tenure can be found in the 'Columbo' episode "By Dawn's Early Light".)

Because their relationship to each other was never germane to the circumstances which involved them, neither Amelia nor Lyle mentioned it. In fact, because their lives had taken such divergent paths, the two branches of the Rumford family were probably estranged.

BCnU!
Toby OB

VAMPIRE STONES (NOT ABOUT KEITH RICHARDS)

Overnight Thursday, my friends Mark, Michael, Kelly, and I went to Blood Manor, a haunted house (haunted condo?) in Manhattan. Afterwards, we trooped back to Apartment Gallifrey, M+M's (but not M&M's) headquarters in the East Village to watch "Little Shop of Horrors". Of course, being Apartment Gallifrey, M+M decided to follow up with the Tom Baker 'Doctor Who' story "The Stones Of Blood".

The Standing Stones of the title are known as the Ogri, and they serve as a link to 'Star Trek'. In the original 'Trek' series, there was a race of stone creatures called the Excalbians, who were introduced in the episode "The Savage Curtain". And it's the contention of Toobworld that the Ogri are the vampiric form of the Excalbians.

They were called the Ogri because their race had been banished to the planet of Ogros, forbidden to ever return to Excalbia (at least in my imagination). I'm not sure if the vampire stones were originally Excalbian in "physiology" and then turned vampiric, or if they were an evolutionary off-shoot like the Excalbians from their common ancestors - the Horta of 'Star Trek' - "The Devil In The Dark". (All of them are silicone-based organisms.)
None of this was established in either 'Doctor Who' or 'Star Trek', nor is it likely to be; just the type of plot point that's perfect for this kind of theory.

If you've got the stones to propose it, that is.....

BCnU!
Toby OB

BITCHIN' ABOUT PITCHIN'

Here's what I just wrote to Richard Sandomir of the New York Times:

How come FOX isn't showing the ceremonial first pitch before the games? I suppose it's possible I wasn't paying attention and thus missed it; but when the first night had Yaz and about ten others from the 1967 Dream Team of Boston on the mound, and the second night had the heart-warming image of a very young Boston fan who just had a heart transplant a month ago, I would think that took far longer than a blink and you'll miss it moment.

FOX was probably too busy touting the Tacos.

I've always loved the ceremonial first pitch in the Series, and it's something that the network should be covering. It's not going to take that much time away from their yada-yada and shilling (not Schilling).

Toby O'B

SUPER-COMPUTER!

This week's episode of '30 Rock' helped a lot with support for my premise that the Toobworld versions of TV shows are not the same shows seen by us in the Trueniverse.

According to Jenna, disparate NBC shows like 'Highway To Heaven', 'Miami Vice', 'The Cosby Show' and 'Cheers' were all spun off from a fictional NBC series named 'Super Computer'. It's doubtful any of them could have had the same plots as their real world counterparts and yet still share a common ancestry.

Well, maybe 'The Cosby Show'......

I just wish I could hear what the mid-70s theme song might be for 'Super Computer'!

"If it's crime you want to neuter
You must call Super-Computer!"

BCnU!
Toby OB

TROUGHTON FISHING IN AMERICA

Have you ever taken one of those online quizzes that determines what character you are from a certain TV show or movie or novel? I know there's a quiz out there that can tell you what Jane Austen novel you are!

Well, I stumbled across one that can figure out which of the incarnations of the Gallifreyan Time Lord known as The Doctor from 'Doctor Who' you are. And the questions were phrased in such a way so that I could maneuver the answer to be what I wanted:

I'm one of those people who can get lost for hours online by clicking from one link to another, until I've totally forgotten what I was searching for in the first place.

I was assuming as I wrote this up that you'd be able to click on the pic and be taken to the website so that you can find out which of The Doctors you are. But Blogger didn't allow it. I suppose it was a problem I could have fixed, had I known how. But as I'm more of a compudorq than a compugeek, you'd be better off finding that site by clicking here.

BCnU!
Toby OB

ACROSS THE VIEW-NIVERSES

Here is a frame grab from Frank Capra's last movie, "Pocketful of Miracles", in which Peter Falk and Thomas Mitchell share the screen.

Mitchell played Lt. Columbo in a Broadway-bound play by Levinson & Link called "Prescription Murder" (with Joseph Cotton as the killer). Sadly, the great character actor died while on tour with the show, before it ever could open on Broadway. "Columbo" was his last character.

"Prescription Murder" was later broadcast live as an episode of 'Suspense'. It ran only an hour, and there were changes made, especially to the ending. This time it was entitled "Enough Rope" and starred Richard Carlson as Dr. Flemming with Bert Freed as Columbo.

Of course, Peter Falk was the second person to play 'Columbo' on TV and he is the actor we will forever identify in the role. His first appearance was in "Prescription Murder" with Gene Barry playing the murderous psychiatrist.

In the last few days, I've found another picture that reminded me of that first picture with Falk and Mitchell. Here is Dick Powell and David Janssen in a publicity pose for 'Richard Diamond'. Powell played the role on radio, but declined to make the transfer to TV. As one of its producers, Powell had a hand in the selection of Janssen to take over the role for Toobworld.

If I ever get around to working out the plotline for a third Toobworld novel, several of my characters will meet their counterparts from other universes based on Mankind's creative imagination. (For example - Thom Cooper and his wife Maggie will come face to face with their doppelgangers from the Rock 'N' Roll Universe, Tommy and Maggie May.)

Anyway, wouldn't it have been cool to see more of an interaction between Peter Falk and Thomas Mitchell during an episode of 'Columbo'? Falk loved the chance to "play" in his scenes with certain actors, and I think Mitchell's over-the-top bravura could have kept him entertained as much as Vito Scotti did in his scenes with Falk.....

BCnU!
Toby OB

(My thanks to this fantastic Columbo site for the pictures of Mitchell and Freed as Columbo.)

YEAR OF THE BUNNY ZONK

Over at TV.com, this mistake was pointed out from last week's episode of 'Journeyman', "The Year Of The Rabbit":

Goof: When Dan leaps to 1994 it's announced as the year of the rabbit, but in the Chinese Zodiac 1994 is the year of the dog.

Here's what actually happened: Dan walked into that Cafe Luna (where all the hip timesters meet) and saw his future wife, Katie Barron, doing a report on Channel 9 News. In her closing, she said that 1939 was the Year of the Rabbit, which was the year in which the topic of her report - some small company - first started. The owner of that company hoped that the next year of the rabbit wouldn't be its last.

That's when Dan looks at the paper and sees that it's November 8, 1994.

Even if Katie Barron was referring to the coming year, How could such a simple mistake not be noticed when it was still in the script development stage? It took less than a minute for me to find at least three pages that gave me the details I was looking for when it came to the Chinese Zodiac. (One thing's cool - I found out that my sister and her son - who share the same birthday - also share the Year of the Monkey.) They got the 1939 one right, so obviously he did the research. Why then did he screw up when it came to 1995?

Probably because "The Year Of The Pig" didn't have the same oomph as "Rabbit".

So now we have to go in and fix the temporal glitch.

I'm not about to suggest that in Toobworld, the Chinese Zodiac is different from the one used by us in the Trueniverse. Then I'd have to go through the whole thing and realign all of the years, and for what? Someday another show will come along and point out the correct Chinese Year and throw it all off again.

Instead, it's time to wield Occam's Razor.

Katie was just as screwed up as the author of the episode. She made a mistake. She should have said "Year Of The Pig" if she was referring to next year, "Year Of The Dog" if she was referring to that current year.

But maybe the store's owner was simply referring to the store having to close within the next couple of years, and therefore maybe it was a reference to 1999, the next Year of the Rabbit.

Simple.

But then, why the urgency in doing a TV news report - even if it's a puff piece - at that point in time? No, it has to be that Katie Barron has to take the fall for the script-writer's screw-up. She made a mistake on the air with her closing.

What happens within the Toobworld reality has no bearing on the episode title which is there for our benefit watching at home. If the author chose "Year Of The Rabbit" as the title because it does sound cooler than "Year Of The Dog" and wanted them to align, then he should have changed the show's "leap" to 1987.

BCnU!
Toby OB
(Born in a Year of the Sheep/Ram)

CHUCKING IRONSIDE

During the 'Chuck' episode "Chuck vs. The Sizzling Shrimp", agent John Casey got the drop on Ben Lo Pan in his inner sanctum, while the wheelchair-bound Chinese Mafia leader was reading.

"Put down the book, Ironside," Casey snarled.

For us at home, this was supposed to be just a reference to the TV series which starred Raymond Burr as Robert T. Ironside, the San Francisco Chief of Detectives who continued working on the Force - despite being paralyzed by a sniper's bullet.

But within the "reality" of Toobworld, it was a reference to the actual Chief Ironside. Forty years after its premiere, and the legend of Ironside in law enforcement would have been well-known throughout not only the police departments across the country, but also in the intelligence-gathering organizations like the FBI, the NSA, the CIA and SID. (In fact, if I'm remembering the show correctly, he did work for one of those organizations at one point or another during his eight year career seen on the Toob.)

Whether or not Ben Lo Pan understood the reference to Ironside, I don't think Casey gave a good God-bleep.

BCnU!
Toby OB

CRAVIN' THE CHUNK

'30 Rock' introduced us to a new perfume designed specifically for the plus-sized woman. It's called "Enormè" and Jenna Malone appeared in its TV commercial.

The way things are going, '30 Rock' might have to be shipped out of the main TV dimension, out of sheer desperation, for all of the Zonks it generates. (I haven't even worked up the energy/courage yet to deal with the examples of "Seinfeld-Vision" from this season's premiere!)

But for the time being, let's just say it is in the main Toobworld, Earth Prime-Time.

So....

Do you think Enormè could be a product that is produced by Reveal Cosmetics, one of the corporations from 'Big Shots'?
If the fortunes of that ABC series continue as they are, we probably won't ever have to worry about such a theory being debunked.....

BCnU!
Toby OB