As a finale for today's edition of the Video Weekend......
The big Toobworld news this week was that two long-lost episodes of 'Doctor Who' have been found and will soon be available to the public. They've already had at least one public showing at the BFI festival last week or so.
One of the episodes is from the story "Galaxy 4" which was an adventure with William Hartnell as the First Incarnation of the Doctor.
Here's a clip:
The second missing episode came from "The Underwater Menace" starring my favorite Doctor, Patrick Troughton, the Time Lord's Second Incarnation.
It's not often we get to see the original actor play his Toobworld role in Skitlandia; usually that falls to the members of the variety show's cast. A good example had Vinnie Barbarino and Lennie & Squiggy, all in a 'Saturday Night Live' sketch about a Tarantinoesque version of 'Welcome Back, Kotter'. Everybody else in the sketch was played by a member of the show's cast.
But here's another - Balok from 'Star Trek', as played by Clint Howard:
Since we were talking about the new version of 'Hawaii Five-O' the other day, here are a few clips from the true successor to Jack Lord's original series.....
Here are both versions of "The After Hours" episode of 'The Twilight Zone'. First up, the original with Anne Francis:
And here's the remake from the 1980's incarnation of the Rod Serling classic:
I shouldn't call that a remake. I feel it's more of a continuation, with a different mannequin named Marsha. Apparently, the loss of memory as to their true identities is a common occurrence. And Marsha Cole had a different reaction to that realization than Marsha White. The second Marsha resisted, while the first Marsha resigned herself to her fate.
This is another reason why 'The Twilight Zone' is one of Toobworld's "Essentials". These episodes established the premise that mannequins are alive in the TV Universe. And we continue to see them as such in those Old Navy blipverts.
And the Hilfiger's Christmas commercial from the earlier post today.....
Of all the seasonal words I could use to decribe Tommy Hilfiger's Christmas blipvert - Happy, Merry, Holly-Jolly - I think the best I could do would be "festive". But not in an Andy Williams kind of Christmas way.
The words I would use would be "deviant", "saturnalian", "orgiastic".... Word which certainly give me tidings of great joy - in my pants.
It's certainly a bizarre and diverse/perverse bunch at the Hilfiger mansion for the holidays - a Scorsese family member dressed for a low-rent 'Playboy After Dark', an Ecstasy-fueled raver in a bathing suit..... You know these people are going to be tossing off all their clothes by midnight, so it's a good thing one of Cleo's descendents is there to pull the plug on the lights so that we might avert our eyes.
But within the scope of Toobworld, where might the televersion of Tommy Hilfiger find such an eclectic bunch of friends?
Well, considering he's a fashion designer, I'd say from some department store's basement where they keep all the mannequins.
I think what we're seeing is a variation on those 'Twilight Zone' episodes of "The After Hours"* with all of the mannequins still draped in what they wore while on display at the store.
Of course, having all of these mannequins at his beck and call could cast the TV version of Mr. Hilfiger (NOT the real one, as my legal advisers urge me to mention) as a slave owner on his plantation.
(One O'Bservation: Rolling up the mannequin from the boys' department in the carpet can't be a good sign......)
I wonder if the 'Party Down' caterers are in a backroom wearing pink bow-ties, or if they're mannequins as well?
HoHoHo!
* Because both versions of "The After Hours" have alternate endings from each other, I think we can include them both in the main Toobworld. You can judge for yourself in a few minutes.....
There's a Steely Dan song running through my head......
BRUCE DARNELL
AS SEEN IN: 'Switch Reloaded'
AS PLAYED BY: Bernhard Hoëcker
TV DIMENSION: Skitlandia
From Wikipedia: Bruce Darnell (born July 19, 1957) is an American model and choreographer based in Germany.
Darnell was born in New York City and grew up in Colorado. After studying sociology, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served six years as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division.
In 1983 he began his career as a model in Germany. During the following years he modeled for Kenzo, Issey Miyake, Hermès and Calvin Klein in Paris, Milan, Tokyo and New York. Darnell has also worked since 1990 as a choreographer and coached models for the catwalk.
He attained public fame in Germany when he took part in 2006 in the ProSieben show 'Germany's Next Top Model' as a juror. In connection with advertisements for this show he became famous for his typically American accent and his effeminacy. He has also become famous for his mistakes in spoken German, most notably "das ist der Wahrheit" (English "this is the truth", whereas it should be "die Wahrheit"), which he has since taken as a trademark expression.
He has appeared in television advertisements for C&A and O2. From February to March 2008 he hosted his own fashion-themed television show, called 'Bruce', on Das Erste, but the show received poor ratings and was canceled after the initial run's 20 episodes.
While Darnell does not appear in 'Germany's Next Top Model' anymore, he is still a coach on the Swiss edition of the show as well as a judge on 'Das Supertalent', the German incarnation of the 'Got Talent' franchise.
As the Trickster once said, "Reality is boring, that's why I change it whenever I can."
I'm just "The Man Who Viewed Too Much", and "Inner Toob" is a blog exploring and celebrating the 'reality' of an alternate universe in which everything that ever happened on TV actually takes place.
Most of my theories about the TV Universe come from thinking inside the box and thus can't be proven. But I've never been one to shy away from a tall tale.....
Remember: "The more you watch, the more you've seen!"
