Thursday, October 16, 2025

A TVXOHOF CENTENNIAL REMEMBERING JESSICA FLETCHER

 


I'm just taking this opportunity to remember one of the earliest members of the Television Crossover Hall of Fame....

JESSICA FLETCHER

I'm writing this and posting it on October 16, 2025.  Today would have been the 100th birthday of Angela Lansbury, the actress who played that amateur sleuth.

While her birth year was never mentioned in the show, it was established that she was a Pisces and it's possible her birthday was March 15.  As I usually do with TV characters, unless it's revealed to be otherwise, I think they were born the same year as the actor who played the role.



Jessica Fletcher was inducted in May of 2001, the third year of the TVXOHOF, and as the first official May Queen.  It was quite a year for inducting the Legends of Toobworld!  Others in her class were:
  • Dr. Bob Hartley
  • Sammy Davis, Jr.
  • Archie Bunker
  • (Willie) Gilligan
  • Rowlf
  • Suzie MacNamara
  • Ernie Kovacs
  • Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless
  • Bart Maverick
  • Norman Lear
  • H.G. Wells
  • Exigius 121/2
  • Orson Welles
  • Leonardo Da Vinci
  • Walter Cronkite
  • Mayor Rudy Giuliani
  • The Twin Towers
  • Walt Disney
  • Bilbo Baggins
This was the first year in which I fully exercised my discretions in choice for the Birthday Honors List with Suzie McNamara (First crossover I'm aware of), Ernie Kovacs (the Wizard of early TV), Dr. Miguelito Loveless (My favorite TV character and the first example of Crossover Conflation on my part).

This was also the year I introduced the addition of Multiversals and Multidimensionals to the Hall for the Christmas Honors List. In this case: Bilbo Baggins represented by his Tooniverse and Skitlandia/Cineverse incarnations.

(As you can see, my focus in 2001 was on "The Lord of The Rings", "War of The Worlds" - and a certain Martian - and the overriding, tragic news story of the year....)

I am curious to not only see this movie "continuation" of 'Murder, She Wrote' (currently in production) and how it works for the Television Universe, but also for the reactions of others.

Thanks for providing a welcome diversion to end the weekends, Ms. Lansbury....


Tuesday, October 7, 2025

TVXOHOF PROGRAMMING NOTE - HOLIDAY SCHEDULE

 
The October 2025 induction into the Television Crossover Hall of Fame will take place on October 31.

The November induction into the TVXOHOF will occur on November 27.

And while there will (hopefully) be a December "ceremony" on the first of the Month, the Honors List will be posted December 25.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Friday, October 3, 2025

TVXOHOF'S FRIDAY FAREWELL TRIBUTE - HYACINTH BUCKET

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

SEPTEMBER, 2025 - DEPUTY DIRECTOR GORDON COLE

Friday, September 19, 2025

TVXOHOF TRIBUTE FRIDAY FAREWELL - REMEMBERING ROBERT REDFORD IN TOOBORLD


From The Hollywood Reporter:
(Stephen Galloway)

Robert Redford, the Hollywood golden boy and Sundance Film Festival founder who starred in such movies as "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "The Way We Were" and "All the President’s Men" — and who won an Academy Award for directing "Ordinary People" — died Tuesday September 16. He was 89.

Redford died in his sleep at his home outside Provo, Utah, his longtime publicist, Cindi Berger, confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.

The actor-producer-director, a four-time Academy Award nominee and honorary Oscar recipient, was one of the few truly iconic screen figures of the past half-century, the avatar of a certain kind of all-American ideal who nonetheless took a dyspeptic view of his country in several notable dramas including "Downhill Racer" (1969), "The Candidate" (1972), "Three Days of the Condor" (1975), and "All the President’s Men" (1976).

He made his onscreen debut in a 1960 episode of ABC’s ‘Maverick’. Three years later, he earned an Emmy nomination for his work on an installment of the ABC anthology series ‘Alcoa Premiere’.

His final onscreen appearance came this year in an uncredited cameo on the AMC series ‘Dark Winds’, on which he was an executive producer.

He is survived by his daughters, Shauna and Amy; his second wife, Sibylle Szaggars, whom he married in 2009; and seven grandchildren.

O’Bservation:
Other TV series in which he appeared were ‘Perry Mason’, ‘Dr. Kildare’, ‘Naked City’, ‘Route 66’, ‘The Virginian’, ‘The Defenders’, ‘The Untouchables’, ‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents’, and perhaps the one guest star role for which he’ll be best remembered – in ‘The Twilight Zone’.

To qualify for membership in the Television Crossover Hall of Fame, one must have made appearances in three separate productions.  This could be in series, TV movies, even commercials and cartoons and sketch comedy (although those last two are relegated to other dimensions in the TV Multiverse.)

With technical loopholes, Redford qualified to be inducted as a member of the League of Themselves.  But a few years ago, I loosened the rules about the qualifications so that references would also count.  If a televersion of a real person gets mentioned, that signals that they have to exist on Earth Prime-Time.

And boy howdy!  There were plenty for him!

ROBERT REDFORD

Monday, September 15, 2025

MONDAY MEMORIAL TVXOHOF TRIBUTE - BOYCE & HART