HALLOWEEN IN TOOBWORLD - THE HORROR MOVIE OPTIONS OF EMMETT CLAYTON

'COLUMBO'
"THE MOST DANGEROUS MATCH"
March 4, 1973

Emmett Clayton was the world's chess champion, a position he held since Tomlin Dudek was forced to retire five years before due to health concerns.  But now Dudek was ready to re-enter the chess tournament circuit and was scheduled to play against Clayton in a match the next day.  It had captured the attention from the press:

REPORTER:

Can you tell us what your schedule is for tonight? 

EMMETT CLAYTON:

Well, this evening, um, a small martini perhaps, a large steak definitely, 

and a good horror movie, if there's one close by.

I got the feeling from that exchange that Clayton was a horror movie buff.  He could have just said "a good movie" - going to see any movie on the night before a news-worthy chess match would have been enough to show how nonchalant and confidant he felt about facing Dudek.

But Clayton was specific - he wanted to see a horror movie.

I suppose I could have gone with a fictional movie.  But if I wanted to keep it within Columbo's corner of the TV Universe, I couldn't use "The Loves of Frankenstein" because that wouldn't be in theaters for another year.

It's the timing that makes it hard to find a fictional horror movie that might have fit into the timeline.  Of the examples I've found, they were either years too early to still be in an L.A. theater or - as was the case with "The Loves Of Frankenstein" - it was too soon for them to be released.  In fact, many of those weren't even filmed yet.  And probably wouldn't be for decades!  (Among these would be "Whack Job", "Kill It Before It Dies!" and "Headless Honeymoon".)

I suppose Clayton could have gone to some retro theater to see some old classic movie - like "Blood In The Showers", "Land of the Vampires", and "The Monster That Devoured Cleveland".

But there is one movie which could have come out at the same point on the Toobworld timeline as this episode of 'Columbo'.  All we know about it is that the Enterprise starship in 2251 has the title listed in its data banks: "Planet of the Undead".

As noted above, this episode was broadcast March 4, 1973, and I see no reason not to assume that it happened around that same time as well.  And as it happened, a new horror movie had opened just a few days before in the real world.....

Miss Leslie's Dolls
(March 1, 1973)A gay drag queen with a mother fixation terrorizes a city, hunting down, killing and dismembering women.

I'm not exactly sure that would have suited Emmett Clayton's tastes exactly, and might have garnered him some unwanted publicity.  But there were three other horror movies which had opened since January:

Blood Orgy of the She-Devils
(January, 1973)

Lorraine and Mark enter the world of witchcraft where Mara foretells the future and helps them remember their past lives. When a series of mysterious murders begin to occur, they turn to Dr. Helsford for advice.

I'm not exactly sure that would still be in theaters by March of that year.  Los Angeles is the movie-making capital of the world and interest in the latest offerings would be keen; with only so many theaters, there would probably be a very high turnover there.

Scream Bloody Murder 
(February, 1973)
A disturbed boy kills his father with his farm tractor and his arm is mangled in the process. He's taken to a mental hospital where he's outfitted with a hook to replace his lost hand and, years later, he's eventually released from the asylum. He returns home to find his mother has remarried, which sets him off on a murderous rampage.

The poster blares "GORE-NOGRAPHY!" and basically that's all there would be.  For my money, if I wanted to see a guy with a hook going on a rampage, I'll stick with "Rolling Thunder".

Alabama's Ghost 
(February, 1973)
Nightclub janitor discovers a secret room, finds old magician's bbeelongings, tries on the costumes and becomes "Alabama, King of the Cosmos."

That doesn't sound like something that would have sparked Clayton's interest.  This low-budget flick (only cost about $55,000 to produce) probably wasn't even in theaters for more than a week.

But nothing about any of them suggests to me that they would still have been open by the time March rolled around.

I suppose I could have pushed back this episode of 'Columbo' to later in the timeline by a month, (making it sort of "futuristic" in a way.)  That's because two movies would have opened by then which Clayton might have found more to his style.

The Crazies 
(March 16, 1973)
The military attempts to contain a man-made combat virus that causes death and permanent insanity in those infected, as it overtakes a small Pennsylvania town.

If Clayton was an aficionado of horror movies, he knew the reputation of George A. Romero as the "father of the zombie movie".  ("Night of the Living Dead" had come out in 1968.)  So I think he would have been interested in seeing "The Crazies".

As for the other movie, this would have been MY preference:

The Vault of Horror 
(March 30, 1973)
An anthology of five horror stories shared by five men trapped in the basement of an office building.

O'Bviously an inspiration for the TV series "Tales From The Crypt" as both were adapted from the horror comic books published by Bill Gaines.  But it's the cast which grabbed my attention:

• Tom Baker
• Terry-Thomas
• Glynis Johns
• Curt Jurgens
• Denholm Elliott
• Edward Judd
• Daniel Massey
• Anna Massey
• Michael Craig

Pretty impressive, I'd say!

But I don't feel comfortable shoving the episode into the future even if only for less than a month.  Basic Toobworld principle is that unless otherwise stated, or at least obvious from the content (e.g. 'Star Trek', 'Gunsmoke', 'Combat!', 'I Claudius', etc.), then a TV show should take place at the same time as the broadcast.  At least that the storyline should have just been ending as we go back to see how it played out earlier.  Therefore I'm leaving "The Most Crucial Match" as taking place at the beginning of March in 1973.

So I guess I'll stick with "Miss Leslie's Dolls" for now as to Emmett Clayton's movie of choice that night.

BCnU!

O'BSERVATIONS:
Other TV shows have supplied the movie titles listed here:
'Josh & Drake'
'Dobie Gillis'
'Gilligan's Island'
'Six Feet Under'
'Boy Meets World'

THE GAME OF THE NAME MISSING LINK = "COLUMBO" & "THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN"

‘THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN’
“THE SOLID GOLD KIDNAPPING”

From the IMDb:
A criminal organization, known as "O.S.O.", specializes in kidnapping high ranking U.S. representatives. Although Colonel Steve Austin has already thwarted one of their kidnappings, he is unable to stop them from grabbing William Henry Cameron right from under O.S.I.'s nose.   

It was Ambassador Scott, the United States ambassador to Mexico, who was rescued by Colonel Austin.  Because the O.S.O was an organization which might have many cells, it was deemed too dangerous to reassign Scott (first name unknown) to another ambassadorial posting in some other country.  But he was far too valuable an intelligence asset to be left underutilized for long.  And so it was deemed that as he was a man who was able to keep secrets – a lot of classified intel crossed his desk in at the embassy in Mexico, plus the secret of Steve Austin’s cybernetic enhancements remained safe with him – it was decided by the higher-ups in the government that Scott should take on the directorship of one of the shadow ops groups in the nation’s intelligence community.  (I’m going with the S.I.A. as the Toobworld organization – the Secret Intelligence Agency from ‘It Takes A Thief’.)

But as the SIA was so top secret that there weren’t any confirmation hearings for the people in charge, Ambassador Scott couldn’t work under his real name.  Instead he followed the tradition set by his predecessors in the post and used the same code name that they assumed – “Phil Corrigan, Secret Agent X-9”.

From the very beginning of the SIA, it had been decided that even this alias needed to be protected.  And so the organization known as UNReel was brought in to create a cover story.

(For those who have never seen me mention UNReel before, it is an off-shoot of UNIT which concerns itself with providing plausible deniability to people and events which should be kept secret from the public.  Through the use of manufactured books, movies, TV shows, etc., it can be asserted that if somebody in the public claimed to have seen one of those operatives at work (U.N.C.L.E. agents or James Bond) or the real cause behind some disaster [the destruction of Big Ben by a spaceship], UNReel leaps into action to convince the rest of the world that the claimant was deluded by something else, like a movie they saw on the late show.  It is a technique that may have begun with the writings about Sherlock Holmes in the Strand which led people to believe he was fictional.  Sherlock’s brother Mycroft, who was the British government, saw the potential in that concept and created UNReel.  It has been used for the aforementioned MI6 agent [whichever one is currently using the alias of “James Bond”], agents from U.N.C.L.E., superheroes, the various moon-bases, and a certain Time Lord from Gallifrey.)
Here in the Real World, we see this utilized as weather balloons and swamp gas to splain away UFOs.

UNReel began by creating a comic strip series, hiring only the best to be their front – Dashiell Hammett provided the script and Alex Raymond the art.  From there, movie serials and radio shows were also created to maintain the illusion that Phil Corrigan was a fictional character.  Meanwhile, in the “real life” of Toobworld, at least seven men helmed the Secret Intelligence Agency before Ambassador Scott assumed the leadership role, and all of them used the alias of “Phil Corrigan, Agent X-9”. 

‘COLUMBO’
“IDENTITY CRISIS”

From the IMDb:
Nelson Brenner, a top CIA operative, is really a double agent who finds it necessary to rid himself of a fellow spy and make it look like a mugging. Brenner inadvertently leaves tiny clues in a photo shop at a carnival, on Henderson's corpse at the beach, in a tape recording he makes while in his Agency-approved identity as a speech-writing consultant - the kind of clues that no one would ever pick up on. No one, that is, except the rumpled, redoubtable Lt. Columbo. The indefatigable detective will find himself followed by mysterious agents, visited by the top man himself and entertained with a recording of "Madame Butterfly" in Brenner's own mansion before solving this difficult case.  

That “top man” would be Ambassador Scott.

So by the early 1970s, Ambassador Scott became known as “Phil Corrigan, Agent X-9”, the Director of the Secret Intelligence Agency.  He then established a cover identity beyond that, traveling under the alias of “Larry Tate”, an advertising executive from New York City who lived in Westport.  It was a trick one of his operators (he never could get the hang of calling them operatives), code-named Geronimo, used as well.  He would assume the identity of an insurance agent named AJ Henderson from Westport.  (Only “Corrigan” looked more like Tate than Geronimo looked like Henderson.)

The only real crisis Agent X-9 had during his term in office was the double agent/trafficker in intelligence known only as Steinmetz.  It would be the black mark of his career at the SIA that an outsider, a member of the LAPD known as Lt. Frank Columbo, would be the one to solve the mystery of “our old friend Steinmetz” and reveal him to be actually another of his operatives, Nelson Brenner.  (A few years earlier, Nelson Brenner worked as a double agent known as Curtis and was nearly killed during a plot to undermine the sanity of a former M9 operative named John Drake who was his exact double.)

The writing was on the wall for X-9 because of the Steinmetz fiasco, and so he submitted his resignation.  But before he stepped down from the Directorship, Scott performed one last official bit of business.  He sanctioned the assassination of Nelson Brenner before he could go to trial for the murder of “Geronimo”.  The only stipulation on the contract killing was that it had to look like an accident or natural causes. 

The job was assigned to a professional assassin often contracted by the SIA; she was known only by the name “Eve”.  But I can reveal to you, Team Toobworld, her true identity: she was a pan-dimensional spiritual entity, a demi-god known in ancient times as Bastet, the cat-headed deity of the ancient Egyptians.  

When Selena Kyle, AKA Catwoman, perished by falling into a deep chasm in the caves beneath stately Wayne Manor, Bastet possessed her lifeless corpse, rejuvenating it, and resumed the Catwoman’s larcenous career.  Eventually this escalated to becoming a paid assassin.  (It would be almost a decade before she was caught, but Bastet simply fled the shell of flesh so that it looked like she died of a heart attack.)

Sound far-fetched?  Tough.  Remember, we’re dealing with Earth Prime-Time, not Earth Prime.

“Eve” carried out that contract killing by making it look as though the vehicle bringing Nelson Brenner to court on the first day of trial had a terrible accident.  All in the van were killed along with Brenner – the driver, Brenner’s attorney, and the three detectives assigned to guard him.  Director Corrigan pulled a few strings to make certain that Lt. Columbo would not become involved in the investigation of the crash in any way.  He had familiarized himself with Columbo’s career and realized that no matter how thorough “Eve” had been in the execution of the hit, the Lieutenant was bound to find one little niggling piece of evidence that could expose the plot.

With that one last job completed, Ambassador Scott stepped down from the leadership of the SIA and handed over the mantle of “Phil Corrigan, Agent X-9” to his successor.  Since then (which happened by the end of 1975), Scott retired to a life of leisure, taking up the hobby of model trains – a little diversion he picked up after his encounter with Lt. Columbo.  He passed away in 1990, at the age of 74… presumably of natural causes.

TV SHOWS CITED:

• 'The Six Million Dollar Man'
• 'Columbo'
• 'The Prisoner'
• 'Danger Man'
• 'Batman'
• 'Hart To Hart'
• 'It Takes A Thief'
• 'Bewitched'
• 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'
• 'Climax' ("Casino Royale")
• 'Doctor Who'

BCnU!

CROSSING ZONE - "THE HUNT" & "LASSIE"

'THE TWILIGHT ZONE'
"THE HUNT"
&
'LASSIE'
"SHADRACK"
(And 23 other episodes)

From the IMDb re: 'Lucifer':
Lucifer Morningstar has decided he's had enough of being the dutiful servant in Hell and decides to spend some time on Earth to better understand humanity. He settles in Los Angeles - the City of Angels.

Lucifer wasn't the first fallen angel to pull such a stunt.  Back in the late fifties and early sixties, one of the keepers of the gates to Hell also decided to give humanity a try.  He took the name of H. Miller (perhaps an anagram for "I Mr. Hell"?) and relocated to Calverton, California, where he took on the role of Sheriff.  There he found himself often involved with the Martin fammily  And it brought him at times into conflict with Timmy Martin's dog, Lassie.

"Miller" finally had enough and he departed the earthly realm of Toobworld and headed back to his old job as one of Hell's gatekeepers.

He was still annoyed by that interfering collie, so when Hyder Simpson showed up at his gate with his coon dog Rip, the Gatekeeper would have none of it.  He was more than willing to lure Hyder in, but without his dog.  

Hyder wanted no part of such a place, so he and Rip kept a-walking.....

BCnU!

VIDEO SUNDAY - "TRILOGY OF TERROR" (MINUS TWO)

This had to be one of the scariest things I ever saw on TV, back in my college days on a late Friday night.  There were three stories in the one movie, but I find it hard to believe that anybody can remember the first two today; this was so powerful and still is.

No surprise there, I imagine.  The script was by 'Twilight Zone' genius Richard Matheson and the production was under the aegis of Dan Curtis who made his mark in TV horror, most notably with 'Dark Shadows'. 

Enjoy... if you dare!

BCnU!

VIDEO WEEKEND - TURN ON, TUNE IN, ZONE OUT

Halloween is in a few days....  Who's up for a trip to 'The Twilight Zone'?  These Toobworld characters and musical guests were.

Submitted for your approval (not that I care....)

Perry Mason in the Twilight Zone

Kojak in the Twilight Zone

Outer Limits & Twilight Zone

ARCADE FIRE TWILIGHT ZONE

NINE INCH NAILS TWILIGHT ZONE

BCnU!

FRIDAY HALL OF FAMER, 10/26/18 - HERMAN MUNSTER (AGAIN)

We’re celebrating Halloween with our last two Friday Hall of Famers for the month.  Last week it was Barnabas Collins as a multi-dimensional and now we have perhaps one of the most prominent of TV characters connected to horror fiction, albeit in a twisted version.

Technically, Herman Munster is already a member of the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.  The Hall was “founded” in 1999, but before that I did write extensively about certain iconic characters who were certainly qualified to have already been in the Hall if it existed.

And among those were all of the Frankenstein creatures, including Herman Munster.  But unlike the others who were mostly one-shot appearances (and still growing!), Herman had quite the body of work. 

But before we get into that, let’s take a look at the “life” of Herman Munster in the main Toobworld:

From Wikipedia:
Herman Munster is a fictional character in the CBS sitcom ‘The Munsters’, originally played by Fred Gwynne. The patriarch of the Munster household, Herman is an entity much like Frankenstein's monster, comparable to Lurch on the show's competitor, ‘The Addams Family’.

 In the context of the series, Herman was created in 1815 at the University of Heidelberg by Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Work on him was finally completed around 1850 (neither Lily nor Grandpa is quite sure when) along with his twin brother Charlie. Leaving (Germany) for Great Britain at a young age, Herman was adopted by the Munsters of Munster Hall, a noble family living in the fictitious Shroudshire, England.

At some point Herman moved to Transylvania (a region in Hungary, from 1920 part of Romania), where he met Lily Dracula. In 1865 (technically at the age of 15, but physically older) Herman married Lily, and eventually the couple and Grandpa (Lily's father) moved to America, where Herman joined the U.S. Army, fighting in World War II.  In episode 34, Grandpa says that it was thanks to Herman that he was able to leave Transylvania and have a better life in America.

Here are the credits which cemented Herman’s claims to be in the TVXOHOF as a citizen of Earth Prime-Time:

‘The Munsters’ 
72 episodes

“Munster, Go Home!” 
The Munsters travel to England after Herman discovers he's the new Lord of the Munster Hall.  

“The Munsters' Revenge” 
When a wax museum owner attempts to frame the Munsters for pulling a jewelry heist, they must both prove their innocence and find out the true thieves.

Two of those qualifications were movies and only one of them, “The Munsters’ Revenge”, is a TV movie.  “Munsters Go Home!” was a theatrical release which, like several other movies, has been absorbed into the greater TV Universe out of the Cineverse.

With that hefty amount of credits, and still being so popular that he commands a two-hour block of programming on the COZI-TV retro network, Herman Munster does deserve to have a listing for himself, apart from his many “brothers” and “cousins” (those created by Frankenstein cousins.)
  
But as I said, he is already a member of the Hall; I just wanted to salute his contribution to the main Toobworld first.

Herman Munster is a multidimensional as well as a multiversal.  And so today we’re celebrating Herman Munster – but the one to be found in Skitlandia. 

Hopefully you know that Skitlandia is the sketch comedy TV dimension in which all of those comedy skits over the years share the same world – characters from ‘Saturday Night Live’, ‘Fridays’, ‘MadTV’, ‘The Carol Burnett Show’, ‘The Dean Martin Show’, ‘The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour’ and the many late-night talk shows; where Miss Swan could rub shoulders with the Coneheads, for example, or Norma Desmond could make a movie with Master Thespian.

So Herman Munster is one of those comedy sketch characters and luckily he covers the minimum requirements for membership in the Hall:

‘The Red Skelton Hour’ 
- Ta-Ra-Ra-Bum-Today (1965) 
Fred Gwynne appears as Herman Munster in a 'Freddie the Freeloader' comedy sketch.

From Hal Erickson:
Fred Gwynne, then starring in the sitcom ‘The Munsters’, is Red Skelton's guest on this episode from April 27, 1965. In a "Freddie the Freeloader" comedy sketch, hobo Freddie (Red) camps out in the spooky domicile of Herman Munster (Fred, of course). 

‘The Danny Kaye Show’
- Episode #3.30 (1966) 
Spoofing Gwynne's role on ‘The Munsters’ and NBC newscasters Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, the cast performs a sketch with Danny as 'David Dracula' and Fred as 'Chet Munster' as the broadcast team behind "The Munster-Dracula Report" with Edie as Fred's neglected wife 'Lily'.   

“Salute to Stan Laurel” 
A program featuring original comedy skits written as a tribute to Stan Laurel.

O’Bservation: Fred Gwynne’s contribution as Herman Munster was that he burst through a door while playing a violin in a sketch about making a silent movie.  Nothing to do with Stan Laurel, and it’s pretty grim viewing.  (Others in the sketch include Cesar Romero, Tina Louise, Louis Nye, and Leonid Kinsky.) But nevertheless it counts towards Herman’s tally.

I doubt there’s anybody out there who writes Skitlandia fanfic, specifically, but there you go – Herman Munster is part of that TV dimension.  So you could have a teenaged Eddie Munster bringing home a classmate – Ed Grimley, which would freak the kid out, I must say.  Or any combination with other sketch comedy characters.  That's up to you.  But if you do write Herman of Skitlandia fan fiction, let me know where I can read it.

So now we have two Herman Munsters in the Hall.  When it comes to fictional TV characters, that may be a first.  (We already have Adam West, a member of the League of Themselves, included for both the main Toobworld and for the Tooniverse.)

Welcome to the Hall, Herman.  Again….

THURSDAY'S THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY - CONNECTING 'CHEERS' TO 'HAWKINS'

Billy Jim Hawkins was one of the most famous lawyers known across the whole country by the 1970s.  Although he was based in his hometown of Beauville, West Virginia, Billy Jim represented clients in courts from Hollywood to Arizona and Florida.  (In one episode it is suggested that he once had a case in Rochester, New York.)

Billy Jim came from a large family - three brothers and ten sisters.  It's likely he was the oldest because he claims to have raised his sisters after their parents died,  (But it could be that he was the youngest of the boys and his three older brothers didn't want to take on that responsibility.  

Billy Jim with his cousin RJ

Billy Jim also had 58 nieces and nephews and 174 first cousins.  One of his sisters married a man named Coleman and had two children, Theresa Ruth and Earl.  Another sister married a man named Stocker and their son’s name was Jeremiah.  I'm sure both the Stockers and the Colemans had other children as well (Those are the only ones we met), in order to swell those numbers for the 58 nieces and nephews.  (Because the sister I'll be talking about was good for only one child.)

It's a good bet that if any other TV show has a Southern character named Hawkins, Stocker, or Coleman - or even any Southern character who might resemble a relative of Jimmy Stewart, (considering eight other sisters probably married and changed their names as well) – then a theory of relateeveety could be suggested to connect them to Billy Jim.

And I have one such suggestion now, but of course from this point on, everything is conjecture….

The youngest of Billy Jim’s ten sisters was born in 1930 and was named Esther.  (She has a twin sister nicknamed Willie Rae - short for Wilhelmina - who moved to Atlanta when she married Clay Johnson.  Clay and Willie Rae have a daughter named Brenda Leigh, who became a Deputy Police Chief for the LAPD.)

From an early age Esther had a desire to go to sea.  Once she was old enough (17 with the permission of her guardian – older brother Billy Jim), she enlisted in the US Navy, into their auxiliary unit known as WAVES (Women Appointed for Voluntary Emergency Service.) 

Esther was first stationed at the naval base in Norfolk, Virginia.  Within a year she was transferred to the Charlestown Navy Yards in Boston.  From there she was assigned to a tour of duty on board the pink-painted submarine, the USS Sea Tiger.

When her service aboard the Sea Tiger was over, she returned to the Charlestown Navy Yards to complete her tour of duty.  It was there in Boston where Esther Hawkins met a local man named Clavin and they fell in love.  They married and had a son they named Clifford. 

The marriage didn’t last long and the Clavins were divorced before Cliff got into high school.  Esther sought solace in smothering Cliff with attention to the point he could never bring himself to move out of her house when he got older.  That may have been a contributing factor to Cliff abandoning his dream of becoming a Marine and instead sticking close to home by becoming a Boston mailman.  (At least he still got to wear a uniform.)

When it was announced that the USS Sea Tiger was finally going to be decommissioned, former WAVE Esther Hawkins Clavin was allowed to go on one of its final ceremonial voyages along the New England coastline.  On her trip, the submarine surfaced in the harbor of Cabot Cove, Maine, to the delight of the town's residents.  (And it also served as the inspiration for a mystery novel by Cabot Cove's own J.B. Fletcher.)  The story made the news back home in Boston on WYN-TV and some of her far-flung Hawkins relatives were able to see the news report on WPIXL.

Every few years Esther Clavin would travel down to Beauville, Virginia, to visit her extended Hawkins family.  In 1997, she made the trip one last time to attend the funeral for the brother who raised her, Billy Jim Hawkins.  (In 2012 she traveled to Atlanta for the memorial service of her twin sister.  Willie Rae had died in Los Angeles earlier that year.)

At least that’s how it all played out in Toobworld….

SHOWS CITED

• 'Cheers'
• 'Hawkins'
• 'Operation Petticoat'
• 'Murder, She Wrote'
• 'Goodnight, Beantown'
• 'Green Acres'
• 'Petticoat Junction'
• 'The Closer'

BCnU!
 

WIKI TIKI WEDNESDAY - RAMP IT UP!

I love when I can claim TV is a teaching tool.  Before I saw this episode yesterday, I had never heard of this….

Jeremiah Stocker:

Know what a ramp is? 

Karen Guilfoyle:

An inclined slope. 

Jeremiah Stocker:

Nope.  It’s kind of a bulb;

not quite onion, not quite garlic. 

‘HAWKINS’
“DIE, DARLING, DIE”

From Wikipedia:
Allium tricoccum (commonly known as ramp, ramps, spring onion, ramson, wild leek, wood leek, and wild garlic) is a North American species of wild onion widespread across eastern Canada and the eastern  United States. Many of the English names are also used for other Allium species, particularly the similar Allium ursinum which is native to Europe and Asia.

According to West Virginia University botanist Earl L. Core, the widespread use in southern Appalachia of the term "ramps" (as opposed to "wild leek" which is used in some other parts of the United States) derives from Old English:

The name ramps (usually plural) is one of the many dialectical variants of the English word ramson, a common name of the European bear leek (Allium ursinum), a broad-leaved species of garlic much cultivated and eaten in salads, a plant related to our American species. The Anglo-Saxon ancestor of ramson was hramsa, and ramson was the Old English plural, the –n being retained as in oxen, children, etc. The word is cognate with rams, in German, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian, and with the Greek kromuon, garlic [...]. Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary (1904) lists as variants rame, ramp, ramps, rams, ramsden, ramsey, ramsh, ramsies, ramsy, rommy, and roms, mostly from northern England and Scotland.

Chicago received its name from a dense growth of ramps near Lake Michigan in Illinois Country observed in the 17th century. The Chicago River was referred to by the plant's indigenous name, according to explorer Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, and by his comrade, the naturalist and diarist Henri Joutel.  The plant, called shikaakwa (chicagou) in the language of local native tribes, was once thought to be Allium cernuum, the nodding wild onion, but research in the early 1990s showed the correct plant was the ramp.

The ramp has strong associations with the folklore of the central Appalachian Mountains. Fascination and humor have fixated on the plant's extreme pungency. Jim Comstock, editor and co-owner of the Richwood News Leader, introduced ramp juice into the printer's ink of one issue as a practical joke, invoking the ire of the U.S. Postmaster General.

The inhabitants of Appalachia have long celebrated spring with the arrival of the ramp, believing it to be a tonic capable of warding off many winter ailments. Indeed, ramp's vitamin and mineral content did bolster the health of people who went without many green vegetables during the winter.

According to Jeremiah Stocker (Billy Jim Hawkins’ journalist nephew), if you eat 10 or 12 ramps at a ramp-fest, you’re not going to get along with anybody else unless they also ate 10 or 12 ramps. 

Being a long-time fan of Tolkien's Middle-Earth and his use of philology, I like to think Hransa could be cribbed as an old Hobbit name which would eventually become the plant-based name Ramson (either as a first name or surname.)

Now I’m curious to try them!

BCnU!

MISSING LINKS WISH-CRAFT: "THE THIN MAN" & "COLUMBO"

‘THE THIN MAN[
“THE FATAL CLICHÉ”

Nick and Nora Charles were visiting the Vandrey Modern Art Museum when they learned that a collection of valuable coins had been stolen from the museum’s safe.  Businessman August Vandrey, who financed the museum, described one of the stolen coins as a "Prince John Tuppence" (two pence), supposedly "a commemorative struck off in the year 1215 for the signing of the Magna Carta".

I think that by the 1960s, the Vandrey Modern Art Museum expanded their scope and exhibited the old classics as well in limited exhibitions.  Including Degas pastels….

‘COLUMBO’
“SUITABLE FOR FRAMING”

Dale Kingston:
I'm an art critic. You're the detective. 
Lt. Columbo:  
You're the art critic. 
Dale Kingston:  
That's right. 
Lt. Columbo:  
And I'm gonna need a lot of your help. I suppose you noticed that already. 
Uh, like in there, there's two little frames and they're empty, 
and there doesn't seem to be anything around that fits inside. 
Dale Kingston:  
Oh, no. 
Lt. Columbo:  
Now, Mr. Evans wasn't quite sure either. 
He thought that one of 'em had some dancing girls. 
But I don't think he knows much about art either. 
He also said that a lot of these things had just been rehung. 
That they'd just come back from some kind of a traveling exhibit? 
Dale Kingston:  
Yes, that's what those crates are out in the hall there.

So it was a traveling exhibit….  Why couldn’t it have gone to the Vandrey Modern Art Museum for a limited exhibition?

I can’t see anything which might invalidate such a supposition….

BCnU!