NIP IT IN THE BUD: THE FIFE & ZONK SOCIETY

On 'White Collar', Neal Caffrey is a con artist turned consultant for the FBI. When he asked his "handler", Agent Peter Burke, if he could run with the lead on a case, Burke snarked:

"Run with it? No, Barney Fife, you can walk very slowly."

This doesn't necessarily have to be a Zonk, just because a character on 'White Collar' mentions a character (and one of the most famous characters in all of Toobworld!) from 'The Andy Griffith Show'.

After Barney left the Mayberry police force (which consisted of only Sheriff Andy Taylor and his cousin Barney) in 1965, he moved to Raleigh where he became a detective. Who can say what may have happened during that time which could have thrust Ol' Barn into the national spotlight? There were some references in later episodes when Barney would return for a visit (and on 'Mayberry RFD' when he came back for Andy's wedding) that Raleigh didn't turn out as Barney had hoped. So any such headline-making case would have to have occurred after those appearances. Or it could have happened more recently, at any time after Barney had come back to live in Mayberry as seen in 1986 in a reunion TV movie. I'm afraid that such an event that would get Barney Fife into the national headlines and on the various news networks around the country was probably based on Barney's natural ineptitude. This would splain why his name is often used in a derogatory manner. (A "Barney Fife" would be a reference to inept law enforcement, in the same way as a "Lewinsky" would refer to a specific sex act. Just thought I'd throw that out there.....)

So all in all, it would not be a discrepancy, a Zonk as it were, for Peter to call Neal a "Barney Fife". We just don't know the reason why Barney became so nationally well-known.

Well, as far as that Zonk is concerned, I think I was able to nip it; nip it in the bud!

I could use a Lewinsky after that....

BCnU!

LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES: JON BON JOVI

Jon Bon Jovi appeared as himself in the latest episode of '30 Rock'. And during his opening scene, NBC's "Artist In Residence" was seen as part of the cast of 'Top Chef' and anchoring the NBC Nightly News.



But those won't count towards his League of Themselves application into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame - those are the televersions of those television shows.

But he does have an episode of 'Las Vegas' under his belt so he's 2/3rds of the way there.

He has an impressive body of work as other characters however, especially his run on 'Ally McBeal'. But it's unlikely those will ever get crossed over to other TV series, so appearing as himself will be his best chance for such an - ahem! - "honor".....

BCnU!

CHARLIE: SCHLEMIEL; BABY: SCHLEMAZEL

I realize that I'm not going to be around forever to be the Caretaker of Toobworld. So I really shouldn't plotz over what radical changes various TV shows have in store for the future timeline of the TV Universe. (I do have to keep an eye on the events of the near future, though, as I've been doing since "the Eugenics Wars" of the late 1990s.....)

Maybe that's why I like to find those little trivial nuggets that don't mean very much as far as present-day Toobworld is concerned, but which can provide shading and background for the Toobworld of Tomorrow, or for its inhabitants on a more personal level.

That's what I thought after seeing this sequence near the end of the latest episode of 'Two And A Half Men' ("Aye, Aye, Captain"):

For someone with a sick sense of humor like me, that was pure comedy gold - although I don't think it probably was that color.

But it got me thinking - someday, maybe twenty years or so down the line on some TV show, there will be a young man - or even woman! - a twenty-something, who'll hail from the Malibu area of California.

Why can't we make the claim that as an infant, a strange man vomited on them in their carriage?

It's not something that ever has to come up within their TV series (which will probably be beamed right into the cortex of the brain thanks to special implants). In fact, I'm sure it's the type of fact you want to keep hidden from your friends.

Whoever's going to pick up the Toobworld torch and run with it after I'm gone, just a note of advice: don't waste this opportunity on just any TV character that comes along that might fit the bill. Make it somebody special so that the theoretical link between that show and 'Two And A Half Men' is worth it.

Just sayin', is all.....

As for the subject heading, this is the definition I was once given by a friend who passed away last year, Harry Edelstein the Matzoh King of Broadway: "A schlemiel is the guy who spills the soup. A schlemazel is the guy he spills the soup on."

Thanks, Harry!

BCnU!

PS:
Unfortunately, CBS.com won't let me embed that scene or the episode, but you can watch it at their site. (Jump ahead to the 19:00 minute mark for the scene......)

AS SEEN ON TV: EDWARD BURLESON

Traditionally we save the Western-themed historical figures for the month of August But with the passing of stuntman and actor Robert F. "Bobby" Hoy the other day at the age of 82, we're making an exception for one of the important men in Texas history......

COLONEL EDWARD BURLESON

AS SEEN IN:
"Houston: The Legend Of Texas"

AS PLAYED BY:
Robert F. Hoy

In 1841 [Burleson] was elected vice president of the republic. In the spring of 1842, when the Mexican army under Rafael Vásquez invaded Texas, Burleson met with volunteers at San Antonio, where they elected him to command. Houston sent Alexander Somervell to take over, and Burleson handed the command to him. Burleson then made his famous speech before the Alamo: "though Thermopolae had her messenger of defeat, the Alamo had none." In the fall of 1842 Mexican general Adrián Woll invaded Texas. Burleson raised troops for defense and again yielded the command to General Somervell, sent by Houston. In 1844 Burleson made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency against Anson Jones. In December 1845 he was elected senator from the Fifteenth District to the First Legislature of the state of Texas. He was unanimously elected president pro tem.

During the Mexican War Burleson and Governor James P. Henderson went to Monterrey, Nuevo León; Burleson was appointed senior aide-de-camp, held the rank of major, and served as a spy during the siege of Monterrey and at Buena Vista. In 1847 Burleson, Eli T. Merriman, and William Lindsey surveyed and laid out the town of San Marcos. In 1848 Burleson introduced a resolution to establish Hays County and donated the land for the courthouse. He chaired the Committee on Military Affairs, which awarded a $1,250,000 grant to Texas for Indian depredations.

[seen here with Sam Houston, played by Sam Elliott]

Burleson died of pneumonia on December 26, 1851, in Austin, while serving as senator from the Twenty-first District. He was still president pro tem. He was given a Masonic burial at the site of the future State Cemetery, the land for which was purchased by the state of Texas in his honor in 1854.

Here's the full obituary.....
BCnU!

BBC IDENT QUESTION

Yesterday I asked if the man pictured here in the BBC Drama 2010 promo could have been Bernard Cribbins. (The picture wasn't much clearer in the quick snippet we saw of him.)

Apparently, I may have guessed correctly - at least as far as the first name goes. Based on this press release from the BBC about 'Five Days', it may be Bernard Hill.....

Of course, that press release came out last year, so who knows? Maybe they did add in Mr. Cribbins since then. But as the description of that character seems pretty integral to the plot, then I think it would have been cast long before the release came out.

We'll just have to wait and view....

BCnU!

SNEAK PEEK: "LATE"

Later tonight, NBC will be unveiling a new show called 'Late' - about a bunch of strangers whose elevator crashed on a mysterious floor in the building.

Jimmy Fallon presented a preview of 'Late' on 'The Late Show' this week.....



BCnU!

SUPER BLIPVERTS: FANTASY FOOTBALL LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES

Okay, here's another of my favorite blipverts from this year's Super Bowl:

Betty White wasn't appearing as herself so this wouldn't qualify for her tally in the TV Crossover Hall Of Fame. Not that it matters since she's already a member.

Betty was playing a guy named Mike, who was playing football with his friends as though he was Betty White. So we saw Mike as the others perceived him until his girl-friend gave him a Snickers to renew his energy.

In a way, this is a fantasy figure of Betty White that can be grouped with Sinbad, Oprah, Rob Thomas, and Jim Nantz who appeared as fantasy versions of themselves in various sitcoms.

And as for Abe Vigoda? Based on the way he was dressed, maybe the other players were supposedly channeling a vision of Detective 'Fish' when they looked at the quarterback as his energy sagged. But since that would constitute a Zonk, I'll just stick with Abe Vigoda as the fantasy.

Ugh. Some fantasy....!

"That's not what your girl-friend said!"

BCnU!

SIDE BY SIDEWAYS

Here's a "side-by-sideways" comparison between the flight of Oceanic 815 from the pilot episode of 'Lost' and the Season Six premiere, "LA X".



We won't be able to make any determination until the series is officially over as to how the "Sideways" dimension should be classified. For alls I know, by the end of 'Lost', the two parallel dimensions will have merged somehow.....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: FREDERICK DOUGLASS

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

AS SEEN IN:
"Swing Out, Sweet Land"

AS PLAYED BY:
Roscoe Lee Browne

From Wikipedia:

Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, circa 1818; died February 20, 1895) is best known for his role in bringing the harsh realities of slavery to the attention of white Americans, at the same time being a living example of the fallacy of claims that black Americans were intellectually inferior to whites. He was an American abolitionist, women's suffragist, editor, orator, author, statesman and reformer. Called "The Sage of Anacostia" and "The Lion of Anacostia", Douglass is one of the most prominent figures in African American and United States history.

He was a firm believer in the equality of all people, whether black, female, Native American, or recent immigrant. He was fond of saying, "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."

FREDERIC DOUGLASS & SAMUEL CLEMENS

[played by Bing Crosby]

BCnU!

TEMPLATE OF DOOM

So the Great Experiment is over, as far as the design layout of the Inner Toob blog.

After receiving a comment that the new logo heading was flawed when I added the graphic, I tried out many of the other templates available from Blogger. I found a nice centered heading that worked well with the Inner Toob graphic.... However, I wasn't in love with the lack of borders. And I couldn't get the font to look exactly as it had before.

I experimented with other versions of the logo; to see if I could get it centered in its original template. But that didn't work. So I went back to my original template - "Sand Dollar".

And that's when I accidentally stumbled across the way to change the ugly color I had in that leftover block of space from some kind of mustard to white. I probably shoulld have gone with black to match the logo. And I probably will once I can get the Blogger equipment to cooperate again.....

So I'm back to the basic original with the font and the colors and the logo basically right where I want them. And it feels comfortable.

There's no place like home....

BCnU!

THE HAT SQUAD: ROBERT F. HOY

Too often the character actors go unnoticed in favor of the flashier stars, even with all of the credits to their name. I didn't want that to happen with Robert F. "Bobby" Hoy, a stuntman turned actor perhaps best known for his role as Joe Butler on the TV series 'The High Chaparral'. He also founded the Stuntman's Association and just recently he received the honor of "The Golden Boot", in recognition of his work.

Bob Hoy has passed away at the age of 82. There's a website dedicated to his work in TV and in the movies and even though it hasn't been updated in two years, it still has plenty of fascinating information and plenty of pictures of him in many of the leading Westerns to be found in Toobworld.

But he didn't appear in just Westerns. He was often seen in Toobworld's present day as cops as well as bad guys, and as spies, soldiers, a judge, and even in a few comedy series.

Thanks to bobhoy.com, here are a few examples:

'BAT MASTERSON'

'BONANZA'

'THE HIGH CHAPARRAL'

"THE OVER THE HILL GANG"

"LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE"

'MAGNUM, P.I.'

'MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE'

And for those who still remember him from 'The High Chaparral', there's a whole section dedicated to that under-appreciated Western. And best of all from a Toobworld standpoint, there's even a biography of Hoy's character Joe Butler.

Mr. Hoy was even able to contribute a televersion of himself for the League of Themselves with an appearance on an episode of 'The Fall Guy'. Being about another ex-stunt man, but one who became a bounty hunter, 'The Fall Guy' was the perfect series to showcase Robert F. Hoy as himself.

As Red Skelton would say, "Good night and may God bless." BCnU....

WHAT I'M LISTENING TO TODAY: MUMFORD & SONS

Through Facebook and the Idiot's Delight Digest, I've been telling folks today about "The Cave", a song by Mumford & Sons which is used as the musical bed for the BBC Drama 2010 video.

So now Dailymotion finally sends me an email with a link to their video for the song. Belated serendipiteevee!

Here's the official video for the Mumford & Sons song "The Cave":



And here's how it's used for the BBC Drama 2010 promo:



Of course, I'm eager for the new 'Doctor Who', more 'Being Human' and 'Ashes To Ashes', 'Wallander', "Lennon Naked" and anything with Billie Piper. But I'm hoping BBC-A will also deliver 'Luther', 'The Deep', "The Sinking Of The Laconia" and especially the adaptation of Martin Amis' "Money" with Nick Frost.
And I'm curious about that "Five Days". Was that Bernard Cribbins? No listing for that production in the IMDb. Anybody know about it? Anyone? Bueller.....

BCnU!

THEORIES OF RELATEEVEETY: THE CONSTANTINES

In the last year, we met two British clerics in different series but both played by Richard Wilson. There was Brother Bernard as seen in the 'New Tricks' episode "The War On Drugs"; and there was Father Simeon who appeared in "The Whole Enchilada" and "Nothing Like Nebraska", two episodes of 'Demons'.

BROTHER BERNARD

FATHER SIMEON

It is my conjecture that they are twin brothers.

Brother Bernard joined an order which has dedicated itself to helping their fellow man find a cure for whatever their addictions may be. He has risen in the order to the point where he is in charge of a seminary-like clinic in London. It is there that he sought to help Brian Lane of UCOS to find his way back from his need for alchohol.

Father Simeon chose to follow a darker path. He immersed himself into the study of arcane lore in the hopes that he could defeat the half-lifes that plague Mankind.

Father Simeon liked for others, especially Luke Rutherford the so-called "last of the Van Helsings", to think that he was centuries old. Truth was, Father Simeon was a half-life himself. He had died a few years before* and was able to use the dark arts to keep himself "alive" in a zombie state. Whether or not his twin Brother Bernard knew about this, there's no evidence in that episode of 'New Tricks'. It wasn't relevant to the case at hand for UCOS.

SPOILER ALERT!
*I don't think Father Simeon could have been "un-dead" for more than a decade. When Luke and Ruby found his body in the final episode of the series (having been "killed" by Gladiolus Thripp), there wasn't much evidence of corporeal corruption. Well, there were the flies that emanated from his mouth, but they could have been part of the spell that kept him "alive" and were now freed from their bondage.
SPOILER ENDED!
I also believe that both men decided to join religious orders after the nearly tragic transformation of their father into some kind of creature with a gas mask for a face. This happened during World War II and can be seen in the 'Doctor Who' episode "The Empty Child". This would make their father Doctor Constantine, who must have been settled in middle-age when he fell in love and married, producing twin sons around 1936. The fact that their father survived such a transformation would have been deemed a miracle by the Constantine twins, who had no idea of the involvement of the Doctor. And so overcome were they by this miracle that it shaped their future lives. But they interpreted the event differently and so chose their paths accordingly. Brother Bernard Constantine sought to help other men overcome their problems, while Father Simeon Constantine strove to vanquish these bizarre creatures if it was already too late to save them from the transformation.

As for other characters played by Richard Wilson, I don't think Dr. Constantine was a "playuh". We should instead invoke the Toobworld principle of "Identical Cousins".

And with regards to Gaius, the mentor for young 'Merlin', he's in an alternate TV dimension and would play no part in the ancestry of all these other men. As always with my "Theories of Relateeveety", this is speculation.

BCnU!

SORRY, CHUCK LORRE

CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #277

Belarus is a small, land-locked country next door to Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. According to Wikipedia, one of its major exports is cattle by-products. Which begs the question, what horrible shape are the cattle in, if all they're good for is felt hats and wallpaper paste? But Belarus does have a bustling TV production industry. One of their most recent hits is a sitcom about four nerdy scientists who live next door to a beautiful blonde waitress. The characters are named Sheldon, Leo, Hovard, Raj and Natasha, and the show is entitled, 'The Theorists'. Each episode begins with a rapid-fire montage of images which takes us from the dawn of time to the present moment. Keeping with that theme, the montage is scored with what is probably the worst piece of recorded pop music since the dawn of time. And finally, each episode appears to be a Russian translation of a 'Big Bang Theory' episode. When we brought this to the attention of the Warner Brothers legal department, we were told that it's next to impossible to sue for copyright infringement in Belarus because the TV production company that is ripping us off is owned and operated by the government of Belarus. Having no other recourse, I'm hoping that this vanity card will be read by the fine folks making 'The Theorists', and, wracked with guilt, they break down and send us some felt hats. The Kyrgyzstan version of 'Dharma & Greg' already sent me some wallpaper paste.
Well. Chuck me......

I can sympathize with Chuck Lorre's position; I don't think anybody should see their original ideas ripped off so blatantly. I feel guilty sometimes just for the theories I expound about TV shows - maybe it's not fan fiction per se, but I must be walking a fine line.
At the same time, within the reality of the Toobworld concept, such a legal problem isn't of concern. 'The Theorists' exists and that's that. It doesn't matter that the show is basically a carbon copy rip-off of 'Big Bang Theory' - there are plenty of shows that are remakes of previous series from other countries, although those are usually officially sanctioned by the original producers.

'All In The Family' copied the format of 'Til Death Do Us Part'; 'Sanford And Son' was inspired by 'Steptoe And Son'; and 'The Office' and 'Ugly Betty' are part of worldwide franchises.

"В системе уголовного судопроизводства, преступлениям на сексуальной почве и преступлениям против детей уделяется особое внимание. Раскрытием таких дел занимаются сотрудники специального отдела оперативных расследований. Вот их истории."

Cha-chung!

Dick Wolf's 'Law & Order' empire has expanded to other countries as well: Russia has its own version of 'Special Victims Unit'; France has a 'Criminal Intent' (which was supposed to get a Richard Belzer as Munch crossover); and Great Britain adopted the template for the original series.
Russell T. Davies is now working on an Americanized 'Torchwood' and he already saw his 'Queer As Folk' transplanted from Manchester to Pittsburgh.

So such a doppelganger of a show's format within the same TV dimension is acceptable in Toobworld. It's just that the "Creataurs" usually get compensated for the effort, and the 'Big Bang Theory' folks should be.

Sorry, Mr. Lorre......

And here's the Belarusian version of Leonard hitting on their version of Penny....



BCnU!

'TISN'T THE SEASON, BUT WHAT THE HECK?

If you've never seen "The Christmas Toy", here's the beginning of it. I'm sure you can find the rest of it on YouTube....



BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: JOHN LENNON (NOT NAKED, MICHELLE)

JOHN LENNON

AS SEEN IN:
"Lennon Naked"

AS PLAYED BY:
Christopher Eccleston

Here's a promo for the upcoming TV movie:

"Lennon Naked" charts his transition from "Beatle John" to enduring and enigmatic icon. It covers a period of wildly fluctuating fortunes from 1967-71; a time of worldwide adulation at one extreme, a combination of frustration and despair at the other.

Scenes from the movie can be found in this video compilation of the Winter/Spring 2010 BBC offerings. (You'll also find some of my favorites in there: 'Being Human', 'Wallander', and of course, 'Doctor Who'; plus other productions like 'Luther' that I'm keen on seeing.)



[Thanks to "Blogtor Who" for the portrait and the promo. The Dakota picture is from the video.]

BCnU!

SUPER BLIPVERTS: THE KIA SORENTO TOYS

Time to look at one of my other favorite blipverts that debuted during this year's Super Bowl.....

I was prepped for this one because Kia Sorrento teased us with clips from it and the request to catch them in the third quarter. With the full commercial, we'd finally be able to see what was going on. (In a previous post, I speculated that it was a toy version of a Quentin Tarantino/"Ocean's Eleven" kind of flick. And you can't beat that soul groove of a soundtrack.

Here's the full commercial:



There are those who pointed out that it's similar to the "Toy Story" movies, but I think it has more in common with a TV special that predates the Pixar movies: "The Christmas Toy" by the Jim Henson Muppets team. Seen in 1986, and surprisingly never re-broadcast come the holidays, "The Christmas Toy" told the story of Rugby the Tiger who wanted to relive the sensation of being the center of attention on Christmas morning, just as he was the year before. I think the Kia Sorento toys would easily fit into this world with their own dreams left unfulfilled....

BCnU!

SUPER BLIPVERTS: JEFFREY

Earlier I mentioned that one of my favorite TV characters from the Super Bowl ads was Jeffrey, the sad little robot in the Intel blipvert:



The fact that Jeffrey displays feelings shows that in Toobworld the emotion chip was developed long before Dr. Soong made one for Lt. Commander Data (as seen in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'). Then again, Jeffrey is trumped by Robot of 'Lost In Space' who O'Bviously had an emotion chip, based on his laughter at the expense of Dr. Smith. And the Jupiter Two launched in 1997. If there could be any sense of a family tree for robots, then the basic design, and inspiration, for Jeffrey will surface again in the future with Peepo, the robot at the 'Space Academy'. And it was designed more for function in outer space; Jeffrey looks a lot cooler.....

BCnU!

ABC ON CBS: "ALT-BARNEY CONUNDRUM"

It looks like the Super Bowl advertising gave us more than just a bunch of new TV characters (personal favorite? The robot in the Pentium blipvert.) A CBS promo for 'How I Met Your Mother' showed Barney flashing a sign advertising his Lothario ways. But this differed from the one seen on the HIMYM episode that aired the following night:
The easy splainin? Even though Super Bowl 44 (screw the Roman numerals!) was televised, we were still seeing the actual Super Bowl game. The gang back at Ted's apartment watched the televersion of that same game. And so the difference between the commercial and the telecast within the show have to be considered from alternate dimensions.

The CBS promo has to be the one Super Bowl blipvert that has to be relegated to an alternate dimension. The rest of them can find a home in Earth Prime-Time, the main Toobworld.

The CBS promo could probably fit right into the "promoverse" where many of the USA Network blipverts combining their shows ended up....

BCnU!

TELE-FOLKS DIRECTORY: MINA HARKER

For Toobworld, the official version of Dracula was portrayed by Rudolf Martin, first as a human warlord of Romania in a TV movie about Vlad "The Impaler" Tepesz and then as the vampiric count in an episode of 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer'.

One good thing to come out of the short-lived series 'Demons' was the declaration that the story by Bram Stoker was a work of fiction about the vampire. But even so, Stoker stole many elements from the "historical events" of Dracula's "life" during the last years of the19th Century. And these would include the "real" people Jonathan Harker and his fiance Mina Murray. Stoker used their real names, but fictionalized some of the details in their lives.
So if any adaptation of "Dracula" is even somewhat faithful to the book, we can dispatch it to some alternate TV dimension. And the version of Dracula from 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' and the version of Mina Harker from 'The Buff Vampire Slayer' - er, I mean, from 'Demons', - can be considered the official portayals of those characters in Toobworld because they differ greatly from the novel.

Does that make any sense? It does to me, but then I'm not right in the head.

Looking through the IMDb, it looks like Mina didn't make it into as many adaptations of "Dracula" as would be expected. So it's not like we'd be tossing out a better candidate for the role in Toobworld in favor of Zoe Tapper in 'Demons'. And with her multiple outings in the role, even limited at six with the end of the first and only season, she would have had the upper hand anyway.
Other portrayals of Mina Harker on TV include:

June Crowley
. . . Dracula: A Chamber Musical (2000)

Suzanne Neve
. . . "Mystery and Imagination" (1966)
{Dracula (#4.3)}

Stephanie Leonidas
. . . Dracula (2006)

Jo-Anne Knowles
. . . "Young Dracula" (2006)

Judi Bowker (Wilhelmina 'Mina' Westenra - a different last name for once)
. . . Count Dracula (1977)

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: JOHN MARSHALL

JOHN MARSHALL

AS SEEN IN:
"Equal Justice Under Law"

AS PLAYED BY:
Ed Holmes

From Wikipedia:
John Marshall (September 24, 1755 – July 6, 1835) was an American statesman and jurist who shaped American constitutional law and made the Supreme Court a center of power. Marshall was Chief Justice of the United States, serving from February 4, 1801, until his death in 1835. He served in the United States House of Representatives from March 4, 1799, to June 7, 1800, and, under President John Adams, was Secretary of State from June 6, 1800, to March 4, 1801. Marshall was from the Commonwealth of Virginia and a leader of the Federalist Party.

The longest serving Chief Justice in Supreme Court history, Marshall dominated the Court for over three decades (a term outliving his own Federalist Party) and played a significant role in the development of the American legal system. Most notably, he established that the courts are entitled to exercise judicial review, the power to strike down laws that violate the Constitution. Thus, Marshall has been credited with cementing the position of the judiciary as an independent and influential branch of government. Furthermore, Marshall made several important decisions relating to federalism, shaping the balance of power between the federal government and the states during the early years of the republic. In particular, he repeatedly confirmed the supremacy of federal law over state law and supported an expansive reading of the enumerated powers.

BCnU!

THE LAST OF THE VAN HELSINGS? NOT SO FAST.....

'Demons' has ended its limited run on BBC-America. It already was part of Toobworld, as it was previously broadcast on ITV in the UK during January and February of last year. As the six episode series came to an end over there in Britain, star Philip Glenister (who played Rupert Galvin) announced that he would not be returning for another go-round. Whether that was the main reason or not (could have been the ratings as well?), ITV announced in June that there would be no more episodes of 'Demons' to be made.

It's probably just as well, since the stories weren't that great and the adversaries not that frightening - I mean, really... Mackenzie Crook with a tin nose? What was this? "Son of Tim Strawn"? And the final episode did tie things up somewhat with the revelations about Luke's father and why Galvin was so protective of Luke's "memory" of him.

So Luke Rutherford, allegedly the "Last of the Van Helsings", will continue fighting the good fight against the forces of darkness, unseen by the real world audience - just like Buffy Somers, Angel, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, and the gang of 'Special Unit 2'. (I would have included Carl Kolchak in the mix, but sadly, the Kolchak of the main Toobworld passed away. By coincidence, right around the time that actor Darrin McGavin did.....)

But for Toobworld Central, that gives us a bit more leeway in talking about the show......

This time up, I just want to address that claim of Luke Rutherford as the last of the Van Helsings.....
The claim just doesn't hold up, as far as the general populace of Toobworld goes. There have been plenty of men, as well as a few women, bearing that family name on TV over the years. And Luke went by the surname of Rutherford, his mother's maiden name. There are probably plenty of TV characters out there who are descended from the original Van Helsing family tree but under different surnames. Why shouldn't the blood of destiny run through their veins as well?

It's Rupert Galvin that's the more interesting character for a background check, and I'll be spending more time on him soon enough. And then there's Mina Harker, as well as that zombie priest, Father Simeon.....

BCnU!