Every so often I put the spotlight on my friends, or the reasonable facsimiles of those friends, and what their "televersions" might be up to in Toobworld.
Recently, the WFSB/Liberty Bank Surprise Squad went to a supermarket in Meriden, Connecticut, to surprise shoppers with gift cards to ease the cost of their shopping. And one of those shoppers was a man named Frank Vumbaco. (Click on his name there and you'll see the news report.) He not only got his groceries paid for, but they also gave him a gift card to help in his volunteer work at the Church of the Resurrection.
Frank Vumbaco isn't a friend of mine; we've never met. But his sister Georgeanne is a friend. And she is truly Sister Georgeanne, once the principal of St. Joe's in my hometown. And she's one very lucky nun because she didn't come to that parish until long after I could have been a threat to her sanity. But I'll always be grateful to her for giving me the tour of a fabled place that was nothing more than myth, a legend - the third floor of St. Joseph's School. (It had been sealed off for decades and we weren't even allowed on the stairwell which led to it.)
But I don't know her brother Frank.
Still, that doesn't stop the voices in my head from coming up with possible
scenarios for his televersion, now that he officially exists in
Toobworld. (As far as I know - he could have appeared on television in
the past; I’ll have to check with Sister Georgeanne about that….)
Let’s take a look at what we have to work with just from this special interest story on the WFSB3 evening news. First off, and it may be O’Bvious, but this report locks him in as his League of Themselves member. He is the TV Frank Vumbaco. He lives in Wallingford, was shopping in Meriden… so it’s pozz’ble, just pozz’ble, that his televersion has interacted with fictional characters from TV shows which took place in Connecticut.
So maybe he met, or had been friends with, the members of the Tate and Campbell families down near the New York border in Dunn’s River. (‘Soap’) Or maybe at one point he had to serve on a jury for a court case presided over by Judge Amy Gray. (‘Judging Amy’) Perhaps he watched the evening news from a New Haven TV station which employed a dragon puppet to help in the daily weather forecasts, never realizing that it was an actual fire-breathing dragon. (‘Scorch’)
And plenty of other shows created fictional Connecticut towns which TV’s Frank may have visited – Cedar Heights (‘Murder, She Wrote’), Westbourne (‘The Fugitive’), and Joyville from ‘The Hap Richards Show’ – I still have my certificate of citizenship! (But then, I am a member of the Television Crossover Hall of Fame….)
Looking beyond the Nutmeg State….
As mentioned in the news story, Frank Vumbaco served in Vietnam. That serves up a lot of TV characters with whom he could have interacted, either during or after the war.
Three TV shows stand out for being set in Nam (or at least for part of their series’ run):
Let’s take a look at what we have to work with just from this special interest story on the WFSB3 evening news. First off, and it may be O’Bvious, but this report locks him in as his League of Themselves member. He is the TV Frank Vumbaco. He lives in Wallingford, was shopping in Meriden… so it’s pozz’ble, just pozz’ble, that his televersion has interacted with fictional characters from TV shows which took place in Connecticut.
So maybe he met, or had been friends with, the members of the Tate and Campbell families down near the New York border in Dunn’s River. (‘Soap’) Or maybe at one point he had to serve on a jury for a court case presided over by Judge Amy Gray. (‘Judging Amy’) Perhaps he watched the evening news from a New Haven TV station which employed a dragon puppet to help in the daily weather forecasts, never realizing that it was an actual fire-breathing dragon. (‘Scorch’)
And plenty of other shows created fictional Connecticut towns which TV’s Frank may have visited – Cedar Heights (‘Murder, She Wrote’), Westbourne (‘The Fugitive’), and Joyville from ‘The Hap Richards Show’ – I still have my certificate of citizenship! (But then, I am a member of the Television Crossover Hall of Fame….)
Looking beyond the Nutmeg State….
As mentioned in the news story, Frank Vumbaco served in Vietnam. That serves up a lot of TV characters with whom he could have interacted, either during or after the war.
Three TV shows stand out for being set in Nam (or at least for part of their series’ run):
- ‘China Beach’
- ‘Tour Of Duty’
- ‘Call To Glory’
Sister Georgeanne later added more information in a comment:
He was in the Air Force. He served as a medic in the Philippines.
So we don't have to think about his televersion being in Nam itself. The Philippines is an interesting angle for finding Toobworld connections. I decided to utilize the "world" in Toobworld and research a few possibilities to be found in actual shows from the Phillipines in the 1960s to the 1970s.
TV's Frank may have visited Wanbol University, to be found in the 1970s sitcom 'Iskul Bukol'. Or he may have met members of the family who lived in the Magic Stone House ('Hiwaga sa Bahay na Bato' - the first Pinoy soap opera.) Or he knew the Puruntóng family, headed by 'John en Marsha'.
I trust it was a safer environment than actually being "in country" at least.....
Luckily the True Frank and TV's Frank made it back to the United States. And from them, a new subset of TV characters emerged - to be found in so many TV shows which had characters who had served in Vietnam:
- ‘Then Came Bronson’
- ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’
- ‘The Young And The Restless’
- ‘The A-Team’
- ‘Bosch’
- ‘Law & Order’
- ‘Alias’
- ‘Sons of Anarchy’
- ‘Dallas’
- ‘Magnum P.I.’
- ‘Scrubs’
- ‘Miami Vice’
- ‘Stargate SG-1’
- ‘Longmire’
- ‘McGyver’
- ‘The X-Files’
- ‘Highlander’
- ‘Breaking Bad’/’Better Call Saul’
And I’m sure there are plenty more!
I’m partial to those characters who were already veterans of the War and returned home. Even though we don’t see every detail in any TV character’s life, the actual service details for fictional Nam vets is usually kept vague. Having served in Vietnam was enough to know. And so there are so many other fellow vets who might know Mr. Vumbaco.
These are all theoretical of course, and have no bearing on Frank Vumbaco’s actual life. Hey – I’m not so far gone in managing my fictional realm to confuse both worlds. (Not like those people who rant about some detail they see on TV which contradicts how it really is in the Trueniverse. It’s not real, you nutjobs!)
But for a TV character, so much of their lives are never seen on TV. They were in Toobworld from the moment they're born through their TV series and hopefully long after the shows are cancelled. They just don’t freeze in place during the commercials!
So even though we never see it happen, those TV characters could have come into contact with characters from other TV shows. And that’s what could have happened with TV’s Frank Vumbaco.
Congrats on that visit from the WFSB Surprise Squad, Mr. Vumbaco. And all the best in Life – both here and in Toobworld! Thank you for your service, to the country and as a volunteer at the Church of the Resurrection.....
I’m partial to those characters who were already veterans of the War and returned home. Even though we don’t see every detail in any TV character’s life, the actual service details for fictional Nam vets is usually kept vague. Having served in Vietnam was enough to know. And so there are so many other fellow vets who might know Mr. Vumbaco.
These are all theoretical of course, and have no bearing on Frank Vumbaco’s actual life. Hey – I’m not so far gone in managing my fictional realm to confuse both worlds. (Not like those people who rant about some detail they see on TV which contradicts how it really is in the Trueniverse. It’s not real, you nutjobs!)
But for a TV character, so much of their lives are never seen on TV. They were in Toobworld from the moment they're born through their TV series and hopefully long after the shows are cancelled. They just don’t freeze in place during the commercials!
So even though we never see it happen, those TV characters could have come into contact with characters from other TV shows. And that’s what could have happened with TV’s Frank Vumbaco.
Congrats on that visit from the WFSB Surprise Squad, Mr. Vumbaco. And all the best in Life – both here and in Toobworld! Thank you for your service, to the country and as a volunteer at the Church of the Resurrection.....
BCnU!
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