THE CHRONICLE OF MISSING LINKS

The World Chronicle is a sensationalist tabloid much like the Weekly World News, but its stories usually turn out to be factual. Although published in New York City, it's not to be confused with the New York Chronicle. The New York Chronicle is a daily paper similar in design to the New York Times. (In Toobworld, New York City is a six paper town. Along with the Times, Post, and Daily News, there are also the Ledger [as seen in all of the 'Law & Order' shows] and the Gazette ['Murder, She Wrote'].)
The New York Chronicle has lately been seen in 'Heroes', in at least four episodes (the latest being last week's "I Am Become Death"). But it first came to prominence about fifty years ago on 'The Patty Duke Show'. Martin Lane, the father of Patty Lane was an editor at the paper.

So on a technicality, the New York Chronicle links 'Heroes' to 'The Patty Duke Show'. There's an asterisk next to this connection, however, because 'Heroes' is no longer in the main Toobworld, Earth Prime-Time. When the series first began, it was and remained so until Future Hiro returned to the Past (which was, at that time, the Present) and created a new time-line by interfering with Peter Petrelli's life. Since that point in the show, they've been in an alternate dimension. (Or at the very least, once Hiro and Ando returned from the Future, they were now in an alternate timeline.)

So the characters we are watching now are not the same characters when the show began*. Those characters still exist in the main Toobworld (except maybe for Hiro and Ando), and - for alls we know - are involved in the same adventures as those being seen on TV now. However, there would be differences. There is no Governor Malden of New York in the main Toobworld; the governor would be Donald Shalvoy, as played by Tom Everett Scott on 'Law & Order'. (As far as I know, no TV show has invoked David Patterson as being the governor of New York. When that happens, we'll have to unveil a new splainin for Governor Don Shalvoy.)

There was no Senator Dickenson in the main Toobworld; the senators (for the time being) would be the same as in the Real World - Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer. (This may change if a character in a main Toobworld show becomes a New York Senator. But if so, that person will be replacing Schumer. Hillary Clinton is such a polarizing figure in the Trueniverse that she'll be surely mentioned again and again in TV dramas and sitcoms - like in 'Boston Legal'.)

Also in the main Toobworld, Nathan Petrelli is still just a Congressman, not the junior senator.

So.... That takes care of the link between 'Heroes' and 'The Patty Duke Show' as well as splainin away why 'Heroes' is no longer of any pressing concern for the Toobworld concept.

Two, two, two posts in one!

BCnU!
Toby O'B

*This is the same situation we have - due to different circumstances - with the discrepancies caused by 'Stargate: SG-1', especially in their President of the United States......

ZONKS AND THE CITY (OF BROTHERLY LOVE)

Last week's episode of 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia' had a more pressing problem than "Who Pooped The Bed?" - a major Zonk in which 'Sex And The City was mentioned not only as a movie (which of course would have posed no problem), but as the original TV series as well.

Sweet Dee always wanted to live out the whole 'Sex And The City' experience - the cosmos, the Manolos, the girlfriends hanging out and dishing about sex - and that yearning had only intensified with the release of the movie.

Like I said, the movie would have been no problem. It could have been a fictionalized version of the "real" lives of Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte; it didn't even have to be about those specific four characters by those names... well, except for the fact that they hang out drinking cosmos, wearing Manolos, and dishing about sex.....

Still, people in the TV Universe do have movies made about them occasionally. It's tougher to splain away why TV characters from one show should be referred to as TV characters by characters in another show when they all should be sharing the same universe.

With 'Sex And The City', I think we can fall back on the Toobworld version of the show being a reality series. First off, a title like that is perfect for a reality show. It sounds like something they'd be showing on BRAVO.

The lives of Carrie Bradshaw and her friends would have been perfect for a reality series. Here in the Trueniverse, we've had 'The Hills', 'The Simple Life', 'Inn Love'.... This quartet could have just as easily been the subject of such scrutiny. Added to the believability factor is that Carrie Bradshaw was something of a celebrity, being a writer.

So that's the position Toobworld Central will take to break up with this Zonk - 'Sex And The City' was a Toobworld reality series, which proved to be either a) so popular, b) so scandalous or c) so tragic that there was enough interest in their lives to make a movie about them.

And thus, the Zonk gets pooped out!

BCnU!
Toby O'B

TODAY'S TWD: OF GUNS AND CANNOLI

When Catherine Willows and Nick Stokes were searching Warrick's car for evidence after he was shot on the ninth seasoner opener of 'CSI' ("For Warrick"), Catherine found a .25 just lying on the floor on the passenger side. Knowing that Warrick's gun was still locked up as evidence from earlier, Nick recognized this as the classic scenario for a hit.

"Leave the gun. Take the cannolis." he said, quoting from "The Godfather".

Here's the quick (7 seconds!) clip of the key scene from the movie.
As a pop culture moment, Clemenza's line has inspired some interesting thoughts on the subject.......

Baron S. Cameron, in his blog "Hey, Dumbass", describes the line this way:

"Leave the gun; take the cannoli” is possibly the greatest throwaway line ever. Delivered beautifully by Richard S. Castellano, as the affable but deadly Peter Clemenza in "The Godfather", I consider it to be one of the best lines in the history of American Cinema. When Paulie, Vito Corleone’s ex-driver, is murdered, Clemenza and his cohorts don’t dwell on it. Paulie is never mentioned again except when Clemenza lets Sonny know that the job is done: “Paulie? You ain’t going to see him no more.” Essentially, the dirty work is behind them; they move on. The gun is the awfulness of the immediate past. The cannoli is the anticipation of a sweet future.

An excerpt from:

Take the Canoli

Stories From the New World

By SARAH VOWELL

My favorite scene in the film takes place on a deserted highway with the Statue of Liberty off in the distance. The don's henchman Clemenza is on the road with two of his men. He's under orders that only one of them is supposed to make the ride back. Clemenza tells the driver to pull over. "I gotta take a leak," he says. As Clemenza empties his bladder, the man in the backseat empties his gun into the driver's skull. There are three shots. The grisly, back-of-the-head murder of a rat fink associate is all in a day's work. But Clemenza's overriding responsibility is to his family. He takes a moment out of his routine madness to remember that he had promised his wife he would bring dessert home. His instruction to his partner in crime is an entire moral manifesto in six little words: "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

I loved Clemenza's command because of its total lack of ambiguity. I yearned for certainty. I'd been born into rock-solid Christianity, and every year that went by, my faith eroded a little more, so that by the time I got to college I was a recent, and therefore shaky, atheist. Like a lot of once devout people who have lost religion, I had holes the size of heaven and hell in my head and my heart. Once, I had had a god, commandments, faith, the promise of redemption, and a bible, The Bible, which offered an explanation of everything from creation on through to the end of the world. I had slowly but surely replaced the old-fashioned exclamation points of hallelujahs with the question marks of modern life. God was dead and I had whacked him.
BCnU!

Toby O'B

BANACEK LIST

The following is pure speculation.....

In 1968, Thomas Banacek of Boston was building up his reputation as an independent insurance investigator who collected 10% of the insured value of any lost or stolen objects he was able to recover as his fee.

One day, he was approached by Noah Bain of the SIA with a request to determine what really happened to a stolen object in Poland, as a favor to the US government. An SIA operative named Alexander Mundy had been captured by the military police of Poland and charged with the crime of stealing it. As much of an embarrassment as that was (not only to the reputation of the United States but to Mundy's skills as a thief), an international scandal would really erupt if the Soviets ever found out the real reason why Mundy was in Poland.
Thomas Banacek had family still in Poland - his father had been born in Warsaw and was a research scientist there until he came to America. In the States, he worked as a mathematician for an insurance firm for twenty years... until he was replaced by a computer. It was one of the main reasons Banacek was chosen for this assignment.

Mundy may have been the best at stealing objects, but Banacek had no peer in getting them back. And being of Polish descent with contacts in his father's homeland was a plus.

Although Banacek initially refused the request with his standard reason ("I don't work for anybody; I work for myself"), he eventually agreed once he understood the stakes involved on the international level.

While on the case in Poland, Banacek seduced a Soviet agent with links to the case. But in the end he threw her over to the Soviet authorities when he exposed her as the real thief. Unbeknownst to Banacek, however, as he left for America with the freed Al Mundy (who was able to successfully complete his own mission), the woman was pregnant with his child.

She died giving birth in prison early the following year, but she gave her newborn daughter Banacek's name before she expired. And that daughter, Sasha Banacek, grew up hating the thought of the man who was her father; a hatred that would intensify and be honed to fuel her skills as a deadly assassin for the Russian regime.

After seven years in a Bulgarian prison (due to yet another hated American, the legendary spy Roan Montgomery), Sasha Banacek aka "The Black Widow" was now in America where she tried to sell the Intersect disk to the highest bidder.
And that's where we picked up the story of Sasha Banacek on this week's episode of 'Chuck' - "Chuck vs. The Seduction".

However.... like I said, this is all speculation. But it makes for a nice way to link a few shows together, doesn't it?

SHOWS CITED:
'Chuck'
'Banacek'
'It Takes A Thief'

BCnU!
Toby O'B

"There is an old English proverb that says:
The only thing worse than a devious Russian is a sneaky Pole."
Felix Mulholland
'Banacek'

A CHRONICLE OF MISSING LINKS

With 'Sanctuary' now playing on Sci-Fi, and after the run of 'The Middleman' this summer on ABC Family, I've been thinking of a short-lived TV series which I hope finds its way to DVD someday: 'The Chronicle'......

'The Chronicle' is the name of a short-lived television series on the Sci Fi cable channel. The series is somewhat influenced by previous television shows such as 'Kolchak: The Night Stalker' and 'The X-Files' and loosely based on the "News from the Edge" series of novels by Mark Sumner. The show centers on a group of quirky employees at a tabloid newspaper, The Chronicle, and the adventures that transpire when they realize that the various monsters, aliens, and mutants turn out to be real.

As this blog is a sandbox where old TV shows still provide the toys we play with, the Chronicle is still out there in Toobworld. But across this 'TV Nation', it has slightly different names on the mast-head (probably for publisher Donald Stern's tax purposes). In the New York area, it's the World Chronicle; in Los Angeles, it's a different kind of Chronicle. But.... I couldn't really make it out on Big Mike's copy in the latest episode of 'Chuck' ("Chuck vs. The Seduction").

But when the headline blares "Celebs Reveal It All!", I wonder if Kevin Sorbo ever admitted publicly that he really was the demi-god Hercules! And did Dennis Rodman go on record as being an alien?

The Chronicle probably carried the story that the late Lloyd Bridges was a cross-dressing, neo-Nazi kleptomaniac......

SHOWS CITED:
'The Chronicle'
'Chuck'
'Sanctuary'
'The Middleman'
'Hercules: The Legendary Journeys'
'Third Rock From The Sun'
'Ned & Stacey'

BCnU!
Toby O'B

TODAY'S TWD: A MUSICAL INTERLUDE

Check out "Hunter S. Thompson's 44th Nightmare" by "Tex Skerball". Basically, it's the Republican ticket as "Animal Farm".

Feast to Feast for the last two terms

They have their snouts in the trough

and filled the apples with worms

They left their filth over the barnyard floor

rolled in blood with their lobbyists whores

They dug up the truffles and ate 'em themselves

Snorted the acorns and squashed the shells

Devoured the meat - they like it red 'n' raw

and then they shot their filth over the White House floor

Don't let the fox back into the hen house

Don't let the wolf back in with the sheep

Well, a pig in lipstick is still a pig

A reptile in disquise with a bee hive wig

I woke up this morning, I heard an alarm

I woke up this morning I heard an alarm

Don't let the swine take over the farm, not again

Don't let the swine take over the farm not again

They painted the walls with gore and slime

Greased the pits with oil and lime

Tarred and feathered the dissenting view

Now they lickin their chops at the ? stewed

Don't let the fox back into the henhouse

Don't let the wolf back in with the sheep

A pig in lipstick is still a pig

A devil eyed huskie with a beehive wig

I woke up this morning I heard an alarm

I woke up this morning i heard an alarm

Don't let the swine take over the farm, not again

Don't let the swine take over the farm, not again

They did not have to look that far

to create a clone in a laboratory jar

A human animal, a hybrid thing

A devil eyed huskie with a poison sting

Don't let the fox back into the hen house

Don't let the wolf back in with the sheep

A pig in lipstick is still a pig

A reptile in disguise with a beehive wig

I woke up this morning I heard an alarm

I woke up this morning i heard an alarm

Don't let the swine take over the farm, not again

Don't let the swine take over the farm, not again

Don't let the swine take over the farm, not again

Don't let the swine take over the farm, not again

"Tex Skerball"..... Shyeah, right! I don't know who GP is fooling on that one!

BCnU!
Toby O'B

SHARP FOCUS

You'll see in my blogroll a listing for Win Scott Eckert's excellent site about "The Wold Newton Universe", which is filled with articles about the connections between hundreds of characters in the multiverse - from pulp novels, movies, TV shows, comic books. It was a concept first proposed by author Philip Jose Farmer in books like "Tarzan Alive!" and Win has provided an excellent showcase for such speculation.

There's a new entry in this type of crossover fiction and at its center is probably the most unlikely of heroines to bring together the classic characters of Conan Doyle, Burroughs, Melville, Haggard, Washington Irving, and the Cthulhu Mythos of Lovecraft - Becky Sharp, originally of "Vanity Fair" by William Makepeace Thackeray.

"The Eldritch New Adventures of Becky Sharp" by Micah S. Harris is a fun adventure story in which we also meet Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Ishmael, Professor Lidenbrock, She Who Must Be Obeyed, the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, the dwarves from the story about Rip Van Winkle, and even King Kong! And overshadowing it all are the Great Old Ones.

I think I can safely state that "The Eldritch New Adventures Of Becky Sharp" will win the Toobit Award for novel most deserving of a TV adaptation. (A television mini-series would be best - there's just too much going on than could ever be fit into one movie!)

But if it was developed for Television, I'm afraid you'd never see it in the main Toobworld. It would have to be relegated to some alternate TV dimension, perhaps even rewarded with its own world. That's because even though many of those same characters exist in Toobworld, their TV productions are not mirror adaptations of the source material from which Micah has woven his tale.

For instance, Holmes, Ishmael, and Captain Clegg (Dr. Syn) existed in the correct time periods in their respective productions, but Tarzan was updated to the 1960s, rather than the Victorian/Edwardian period in the original Burroughs novel.

But if I could have that dream TV cast for a production of "The Eldritch New Adventures Of Becky Sharp", I'd stick with as many of the original actors as possible. (At least one of them is dead, yes, but like I said, it's a DREAM cast!)

BECKY SHARP: Susan Hampshire from her Emmy-winning performance in 1972's version of "Vanity Fair". (There have been at least three TV productions so far.)
"LORD EUGENIDES" (TARZAN): Ron Ely from that 1960s TV series.
CAPTAIN CLEGG/PADRE PERDITIO (DR. SYN): Patrick McGoohan in the Disney three-part mini-series.
SHERLOCK HOLMES: Ronald Howard may have been on the air first, but Jeremy Brett is the definitive Holmes!
PROFESSOR LIDENBROCK: Pierre Richard played the underworld explorer in a French mini-series a few years back. He's meant to be younger in the book, but you go with what you've got. Other TV adaptations of the novel abandoned the Verne plot entirely and came up with new characters.
UNCLE REMUS: Garrett Morris, as seen in a sick sketch with "Mr. Mike" O'Donaghue on 'Saturday Night Live'. (And weren't all the sketches involving Michael O'Donaghue sick and twisted?)

The Dark Ones from Lovecraft's stories about the Cthulhu Mythos were invoked in a 'Night Gallery' vignette starring Carl Reiner. I'm not certain if Tulu was specifically mentioned, but if so it would be by its true name, Cthulhu. And Cthulhu has shown up over in the Tooniverse in an episode of 'The Grim Adventures of Billy And Mandy'
Two characters from "Moby Dick" figure in the story, with only of them actually appearing. Considering the age of Ishmael in this novel, I'd go with Richard Basehart from the movie, but as he looked as an old salt in an episode of 'Gunsmoke'. As played by Henry Thomas in the production from a few years back, we'd have to wait awhile for Ishmael to look the right age.

Queequeg of "Moby Dick" is mentioned often, but Becky never catches up with him. So he wouldn't be in this fantasy TV mini-series, but I think Lance Reddick would have been an excellent choice in the role.....
Captain Nemo also appears in the novel, but Toobworld has always gone more for the Disneyfied version of the character rather than for the Prince Dakkar as favored by Allan Moore in his graphic novel, "The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen". So we could perhaps recast that role afresh, as we would with the Kaatskills dwarves, Tulu, King Kong, and She Who Must Be Obeyed.

If you enjoyed the graphic novel of "The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen" by Allan Moore, you should find this novel to be of interest. And it has a great cover by Loston Wallace of Becky which reminded me of Frazetta's classic "Tits 'n' Lizards" cover for National Lampoon in a way. (I think it was that totem in the background....)

To learn more about the book, especially for how to purchase it, visit

Micah's site. You'll also find the first two chapters there as a sampler. Check it out!

BCnU!
Toby O'B

TODAY'S TWD: CANDLE IN THE WIND

"Six Months Leave", a recent episode of 'Mad Men', took place just after the death of Marilyn Monroe. When the news of her death broke, many in the offices of Sterling-Cooper wondered why she would have killed herself when it seemed like she had everything going for her.

In time, the questions began to broaden as people wondered if somebody else was responsible for her death; that it was murder, not suicide. Among those suspected were the mob, Communists, her psychiatrist, and the Kennedys.

There are plenty of links out there that take a look at this. Here are just four of them.

NATIONAL LEDGER

"THE VOICE OF REASON"

COVER-UPS.COM

TRU-TV

In Toobworld, the evidence leans toward suicide despite how much all of these conspiracies lend themselves to the basic nature of the TV Universe. That's because of an episode of 'Quantum Leap', in which Sam leapt into the life of someone close to the movie star during her final days. (It was one of two episodes of the series in which producer Donald Bellisario wanted to showcase his personal beliefs as to what happened in these mysteries of History. The other episode was about Lee Harvey Oswald, and Bellisario believes he was a lone gunman, with no over-riding conspiracy behind him.)

BCnU!
Toby O'B

RAY QUIPPIN'

I had a dream during the night about the new version of 'Life On Mars', specifically about Michael Imperioli's incarnation of Ray Carling. (Should have tweaked the name slightly for this version to "Carlino".)

No, it wasn't THAT kind of a dream. Not with Imperioli, especially!

What was getting to me were all the one-liners he kept coming up with for each situation. (My favorite: "He's crazier than a fruit bat at a cranberry convention.") At first I thought it was just making him cartoonish. Then I thought - well, he's probably just a figment of Sam's imagination anyway, so he could have two heads at any time as well.

But then I thought - hey, this world of 1973 in Sam's mind is pretty detailed. So maybe this Ray Carling has a reason to spouting all of these wisecracks.

So I'm thinking - what if he wants to be the next Joseph Wambaugh? The next cop to write a major best-seller about his experiences? And so what we're seeing is Ray trying out all of these lines that he might use in a book that he's writing.

They'll probably never use that idea - and they're welcome to it if they stumbled across it here - but it doesn't hurt the overall game plan as is to think that it still might be the case.

BCnU!
Toby O'B

STANFORD UNIVERSITY: CHECKING FOR TIX

Stanford University had a good showing for itself last year in Toobworld, with characters connected to the college in the following shows:

'Reaper'
'Chuck'
'Knight Rider' (the pilot movie)
'Boston Legal'
'The Big Bang Theory'
'Journeyman'
'Moonlight'

And now, with the 2008 season underway, they've already got another mention in 'CSI'.

When Sara and Greg went to Warrick's apartment to get some of his personal belongings, Sara found tickets to a basketball game between Stanford and Western Las Vegas University - the fictional go-to school of higher learning on that show. If it's college-related, it happens at WLVU.

The tickets - as if the opening scene wasn't enough! - establishes that the season premiere picks up immediately following the events of last season's finale. Probably with next week's episode they'll be more synchronous with the current timeline.

BCnU!
Toby O'B