MIDDLE EARTH PRIME-TIME?

Here's another non-Super Bowl blipvert, but one that could be tied into recent news. It appears that the JRR Tolkien estate is suing New Line Cinema for their practice of "accounting chicanery".

Accounting Chicanery - Wasn't that the name of some Celtic Rock band?

So with all this clouding the picture regarding progress on movies based on "The Hobbit", I thought it a good time to point out that the world of Middle Earth may exist in Earth Prime-Time - and some of its inhabitants are still around today!
We already know the fantasy world created by Tolkien already exists in the TV Universe. Over in the alternate dimension of the Tooniverse, there have been animated adaptations of "The Hobbit" and "The Return Of The King". (Combined with the Ralph Bakshi film version of "The Fellowship Of The Ring" and half of "The Two Towers", it makes for a nearly complete version of the story about Bilbo and Frodo and friends.)

And characters from the story have shown up in "Skitlandia", that alternate TV dimension which houses comedy sketches from variety programs, late night talk shows, etc. For instance, when Elijah Wood hosted 'Saturday Night Live', Gollum joined him during the monologue to promote their new sitcom, 'A Hard Hobbit To Break', complete with 80s-styled theme song.)
As for the main Toobworld, however, "The Lord Of The Rings" hasn't yet been absorbed.

But mayhaps we can make the claim it has, thanks to a new commercial for the Bank of Ireland.......

Meet Matt Kelly.

He's a dragon.

Matt could be descended from Smaug, the dragon from "The Hobbit", but he's certainly no monster like his grandsire was. Sure, he's sitting atop a hoard of gold, breathing fire and battling knights, but he's quite civilized about it. When the knight approaches to do battle, they settle their quarrel with a game of "rock paper scissors".

During this commercial, we're not seeing Matt Kelly back during the Third Age or the Fourth Age - unless that's still in effect, being the Age of Men. It's O'Bvious that Matt is a modern-day dragon (with a knack for serlinguism) because the knight arrived at his stronghold via motorcycle.
Heh heh. He's a Knight Rider!

So it is quite tentatively that we're suggesting this blipvert could be a sign that the world of Middle Earth did indeed once exist in the universe of Toobworld. And if so, some of its denizens might still be around, just waiting to appear on some sci-fi/fantasy program.

Or on C-Span if we include Dennis Kucinich.....

You can see the Bank of Ireland ad here.

BCnU!
Toby OB

"Bilbo just popped in with a bunch of Hobbits for a fish supper."
Tyler
'My Hero'

SKED ALERT! THE LAURIE BERKNER BAND ON "THE VIEW"

Adam Bernstein is one of the Iddiot Brethren. That is, he's a member of the Idiot's Delight Digest group, which is nominally centered around legendary free-form deejay Vin Scelsa and his radio show "Idiot's Delight" (heard on WFUV.org and Sirius satellite radio). But the IDD also celebrates all things tangential.

Adam is a musician who's been a member of the David Driver Quartet (upright bass) and is currently performing with the Laurie Berkner Band.

(The picture above is of the Driver Quartet with Vin sitting at the keyboard, back in 1999.)

Adam sent out this notice of an upcoming Toobworld appearance for the band:

"The Laurie Berkner Band with Adam Bernstein and Susie Lampert will be appearing on The View, next Mon Feb 18th at 11AM. [EST]

Check it out. ABC, channel 7. Mainstream, baby!"

Set your DVRs and TiVos accordingly......

BCnU!
Toby OB

Click to join iddiots

BORG AND PONY SHOW

Okay, I still have a few Super Bowl blipverts to address, but just as it is with the Island on 'Lost', Time moves at a different pace in Toobworld than it does in the Real World.

In the meantime, here's a commercial from Sweden for the ATG Vinnare V75, which I guess is a televised horse race. (The caption at the end translates to: “Winners 75 - live horsepowers on TV4 Saturdays at 6.05 PM”.)

But as we usually ignore the captions in Toobworld, the concept of this commercial greatly suggests 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles'. We've already seen in the series that a Terminator can rebuild itself from its dismantled parts left behind in a junkyard. So the same principle must be applied here, only with a cyborg horse, of course, of course.

Hey, maybe Skynet needed to send back a "T-Biscuit" to deal with the talking horses of the Houyhnhm race, found in the mini-series adaptation of 'Gulliver's Travels'. (And in case you didn't know, 'Mr. Ed' was also a Houyhnhm.)

Whenever this one was sent back, it was after the most recent Terminator arrival, Cromartie (now known as "George Laszlo"). It's had an upgrade in that it can replenish its own synthetic skin tissue, so that it can pass for an ordinary horse.

Will we ever see this "Flicka-bot" show up on the 'Terminator' series?

I've got a sneaking suspicion that the answer is "Neigh"......

Sorry about that, Chief.

BCnU!
Toby OB

TIDDLYWINKYDINKS: EDIFICE SPECS

Amy Amatangelo, who writes the TVGal blog at Zap2It.com, was asked by a reader:

I noticed that the set for WPK Law Firm in 'Eli Stone' looks a lot [like] the set used for Wolfram and Hart on 'Angel'. Are they the same?

Greg

Her response:

I actually had quite a few people asking me this question so I looked into it and found out that the set on Eli Stone was built for the show. So, although they look similar, they are officially not the same set.

Within the reality of Toobworld, this holds true. After all, Wolfram & Hart was in Los Angeles, while WPK is in San Francisco. So we could never make the claim that they're the same building.

However, it could be that the same architect who designed the Wolfram and Hart building in Los Angeles also designed the office building used by WPK Law Firm. Or it could be someone from the same architecture firm if there is a huge time gap between the erection of both buildings. (The design of the WPK Law Firm building could have been an homage to the earlier structure.)

BCnU!

Toby OB

Heh heh. He said "erection".....

TIDDLYWINKYDINKS: "LOST" BOOK CLUB

In "The Economist", the latest episode of 'Lost', Sayid was checking out the bedroom of Ben Linus in the barracks village of the Others. On the bookshelf there was a copy of the Holy Qu'ran, and a volume called "Kings of Love".

If I'm not mistaken, the full title would be:

"Kings Of Love
The History and Poetry of the Ni'imatullahi Sufi Order of Iran"
by
Nasrollah Pourjavdy and Peter Lamborn Wilson

(Okay, I googled "Kings of Love".)

The Island being as crazy as it is, would there have been different books on that shelf if someone else have searched the room?

BCnU!
Toby

FAMILY TREES ON THE HIGH SEAS

We've seen in 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' that sea-faring men were already in the family tree of Admiral Harriman Nelson. One of his ancestors was Captain Seamus O'Hara Nelson (also played by Richard Basehart in the episode "The Haunted Submarine").

And here at "Inner Toob", I've posited the theory that Aron Sligo, another former sea captain (seen in his eponymous episode of 'Gunsmoke'), was another of his forebears.

I'm now making the claim there is yet another sailor in the Nelson family tree, who served in His Majesty's fleet back in the 1720s.

Stationed in the Bahamas, Lt. Edward Beamish wasn't exactly in the same mold as Admiral Nelson or Captains Sligo and O'Hara Nelson. Without much experience, Beamish was put in charge of the garrison at New Providence after Governor Woodes Rogers was summoned back to England. Headstrong, impetuous, but woefully outclassed by such foes as Blackbeard, Beamish struck up an alliance with Captain Dan Tempest who helmed the Sultana and who was a reformed pirate pardoned by Rogers.

Lt. Beamish was played by Peter Hammond, not Richard Basehart, but I think there is still a strong case to be made that the powerful genetics of the Nelson lineage can be found in him.
But when it comes to his soul, he's more of a Major Frank Burns from 'M*A*S*H' or a Brother Jerome of 'Cadfael'. So it's not likely he could have reincarnated to be Harriman Nelson, not without a lot of other incarnations along the way to improve his karma.

I'll just stick with the claim that Edward Beamish was a member of the Nelson family tree, thanks.

BCnU!
Toby OB

TIDDLYWINKYDINKS: MICHAEL FARADAY

Michael Faraday, who was the father of electric motor technology, has been cited several times in Toobworld over the last few months, most recently in a blipvert for the Dyson vacuum cleaner. (James Dyson mentions Faraday's creation of his motor in 1831.)

Here's the handy-dandy biography for Faraday from Wikipedia:

Michael Faraday, FRS (September 22, 1791 – August 25, 1867) was an English chemist and physicist (or natural philosopher, in the terminology of that time) who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry.

Faraday studied the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a DC electric current, and established the basis for the magnetic field concept in physics. He discovered electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. He established that magnetism could affect rays of light and that there was an underlying relationship between the two phenomena. His inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor technology, and it was largely due to his efforts that electricity became viable for use in technology.

In the 'Nova' section of PBS.org, there are pages dedicated to a special episode about "Einstein's Big Idea", that being the equation "E=MC2".

Here's some of what they had to say about Faraday:

Faraday went on to make other important discoveries, including the principle behind the electric transformer and generator, innovations that fueled the Industrial Revolution.

In his day, Faraday was celebrated as a great experimenter, but many elite scientists spurned Faraday's more theoretical notions, particularly his vision that the area around an electromagnetic event is filled with a mysterious "field," and his idea that light itself might be an electromagnetic phenomenon.

You can find more about him at his page for "Einstein's Big Idea".

Faraday was portrayed in that episode by Steven Robertson, and it looks like he'll be the official televersion of Faraday in Toobworld. In that same year of 2005, Robertson played the physicist again in "E=MC2" on Britain's Channel 4.

Faraday could be an honorary inductee into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame, as he was also portrayed in a 2004 mini-series ("100 Greatest Discoveries") by James Thompson. And his life in Toobworld can be augmented by two TV series in which his contributions are off-screen, and both of those series are related to each other.

In the episode of 'Doctor Who' entitled "The Mark Of The Rani" the Sixth Doctor and Peri were in Killingworth, England at the height of a Luddite rebellion in the year 1822. (The date was established by author Lance Parkin in his "AHistory".) The Doctor's arch-nemesis, the Master, was plotting to abduct several of the leaders of the Industrial Revolution, including George Stephenson and Faraday. We get to meet Stephenson, but Faraday never does arrive on the scene while the Doctor is in Killingworth.
Nearly ten years later, in that same year mentioned in the commercial for the Dyson vacuum, 1831, Faraday demonstrated the principle of electromagnetic induction. He never realized it would have a practical application in the future, producing electric transformers. But Clan Slitheen of Raxicoricofallapatorius did - in "Revenge Of The Slitheen", one of 'The Sarah Jane Adventures', the aliens tried to destroy the Earth using technology based on his principles.

There's another reason why Michael Faraday has come under notice due to Television, not that he's been explicitly mentioned. A new character on 'Lost', Daniel Faraday, is meant to invoke comparison to Faraday as Daniel is also a physicist. (Although as he told Sayid, ''I guess you could call me a physicist.... I don't like to be pigeon-holed.'') As Doc Jensen of EW.com noted, when Daniel observed how the sunlight on the Island "doesn't scatter quite right", it was the kind of anomalous phenomenon that Michael Faraday might have noticed.

So there's the background necessary for the televersion of this historical figure.

BCnU!
Toby OB

IN DA CLUB FOOTNOTE

Here's a better shot of The Honorary Title performing at the club Tric on this week's episode of 'One Tree Hill'.

In order to add more Toobworld appearances to their League of Themselves resume, here are a few suggestions where The Honorary Title should play next while promoting their album:

The Rack - 'Kyle XY'

Mode Magazine promotional party - 'Ugly Betty'

The Montecito Casino - 'Las Vegas'

Club Duque - 'Cane'

Any other suggestions?

BCnU!
Toby OB

I, CLAUDIA (AND CARLY TOO)

Last week, Caroline "Carly" Benson Corinthos Alcazar Jacks came face to face with female mobster Claudia Zacchara on "General Hospital," and it was an inside joke for longtime fans.
Sarah Brown, playing Claudia, actually created the role of Carly in 1996. She played her until 2001, winning three Daytime Emmys before leaving the show.

Laura Wright took over the role in 2005 to become Carly No. 4) and has played her ever since.

Now comes Splainin Time!

Port Charles, New York, is one of those towns in Toobworld which serve as experimental sites by researchers from the Future. They use 'Quantum Leap' technology to take the place of residents in these towns without anyone around them being the wiser. Sometimes the original residents are returned; sometimes they are replaced several times over by other researchers.

Carly Benson was one of those abducted and taken into the Future. Several times over she was replaced by Time Travelers who used specially designed auras so that they continued to look like her.

As for Claudia looking like the original Carly, I could have gone the safe and practical "identical twin separated at birth" route. It would have been accepted in the soap opera milieu. But that would create continuity problems with their birth mother's history. There was also the tradition of "identical cousins" begun with 'The Patty Duke Show'. But again, eventually that would have to be addressed within the show.

This isn't the town of Harmony, as seen in 'Passions'; it's Port Charles. So magical transformations should not be considered. And I don't think the concept of cloning was really that believable on 'Guiding Light', so I don't think it should be attempted here.

But this splainin should do the trick - plastic surgery. We never met Claudia Zacchara before she arrived in Port Charles, so it's possible she did not always look the way that she does now. It was done far enough in the past that it's no longer even mentioned by members of her own family, like mob boss dad Anthony Zacchara.

Coincidence plays a major part in Toobworld, and it could be a coincidence that she chose a look that was well-known in her new hometown. But I don't think that's the case. I think she deliberately chose it in order to better insure her "chance encounter" with Sonny Corinthos.

When they "accidentally" met in the bar and spent the night together without even knowing each other's name, she didn't need the information. She already knew; she arranged the meeting. And she chose her new look in order to maximize his attraction to her. There must be enough differences in her look so that she doesn't look exactly like Carly, but we just can't notice them from our vantage point in the Trueniverse.

However, she still looked enough like Carly so that subconsciously, Sonny was drawn to her. Later, at the mob meeting she organized where they met "officially", she acted surprised to find out that the guy she slept with was from a rival mob family.

This splainin about her plastic surgery being just slightly different from the look of the original Carly would then be the reason why the new Carly didn't realize that it was like looking in a mirror when she finally met Claudia.

Whew! That was more complicated than I thought! But I'm sticking with it......

BCnU!

Toby OB

RECASTAWAY OF ST. MARY'S MEAD

And so a new Miss Jane Marple has been chosen to continue in the role recently vacated by Geraldine McEwan. (However, she will find her village of St. Mary's Mead to be located in yet another alternate Toobworld.)

Julia McKenzie has been selected to play Agatha Christie's spinster sleuth. I'm not familiar with her work, having never seen 'Fresh Fields' in which she starred with the late Anton Rodgers, nor any of her other works.

I have seen some reservations about her choice to be Miss Marple. Mark Wright of The Stage wrote in the TV Today blog: "Certainly it isn’t obvious casting, and that’s all to the good. It doesn’t feel quite right, but then Geraldine McEwan always felt too right, if that makes any sense."

Not really, but like him, I'll reserve judgement until I've seen how she plays out. Not that it really matters in the long run for Toobworld.....

BCnU!
Toby OB