WISH-CRAFT WEDNESDAY PRESENTS - THE LAUNCH OF "UNSCENE"

Today we're using the semi-regular feature "Wish-Craft Wednesday" to launch a new feature - "The UnScene".

There are plenty of TV characters out there in Toobworld beyond those we actually see on the screen.  After all, every TV character had parents; some had siblings and cousins, co-workers and next-door neighbors; they had ancestors going back centuries.  And some of those characters we know by name even if they are never seen:

• Dr. Lars Lindstrom ('The Mary Tyler Moore Show' and technically 'Phyllis')
• Maris Crane ('Frasier')
• Otis the Elevator Operator ('The Mary Tyler Moore Show')
• Enid Kelso ('Scrubs')
• Stan Walker ('Will & Grace')
• Mrs. Bloom ('The Goldbergs'*)
  
  
  
  
  
• Charlie Townsend ('Charlie's Angels')
• Mrs. Wolowitz ('The Big Bang Theory')
• POTUS ('Veep')
• Tino ('My So-Called Life')
• The Gooch ('Diff'rent Strokes')

At least two of those characters we never saw, but we did hear them - Mrs. Wolowitz and Charlie Townsend.

And then there are the "UnScene" whom we see, but only partially - a hand, the feet, the backside; sometimes their faces are seen but they're hidden - Vera with a pie, Carlton in a gorilla mask.

• Carlton the Doorman ('Rhoda')
• Vera Kreitzer Peterson ('Cheers')
• J. Beresford Tipton ('The Millionaire')
• The Ugly Naked Guy ('Friends')
• Robin Masters ('Magnum P.I.')

And we heard the voices of at least three of those - Carlton, Vera, and Tipton.  (I think Masters hired Orson Welles to provide his voice as a substitute for his own.)

You may have noticed one glaring omission of an UnScene - Mrs. Columbo.  Then again, you might have thought - but we did end up seeing her.  She even had her own show!

But that woman wasn't the wife of the Lt. Frank Columbo of Earth Prime-Time, despite the presence of Dog and Columbo's car.  Her show was set in some alternate Toobworld.  She was the wife of some other Columbo, perhaps still played by Peter Falk.  Or maybe not. 

I doubt she was married to the Lt. Columbo from the Pilot Universe.  He was born circa 1919 while she was born circa 1955.  May-December marriages with an age difference of 36 years like that have been seen in the Real World as well as in Toobworld, and that's not even as great an age difference as seen in some TV shows.  But I just don't see Mulgrew's Rose being married to Freed's Columbo.

As you may have noticed, I called that Mrs. Columbo "Rose".  Although not often heard in the episodes, during the first season that was her first name.  But by the second half of the first season she was "Kate Columbo" and then she was finally "Kate Callahan" in the second season when the series underwent a title change to 'Kate Loves A Mystery'.

I think we have three different TV dimensions involved here.  

First there was the Toobworld in which she was named Rose and married to that world's Lt. Columbo.  

Halfway through the first season, she was now known as Kate Columbo, not Rose Columbo.  She was from a second TV dimension where she had a different first name and she had divorced Columbo.  

When Kate divorced that Columbo, she dropped that name and went back to her maiden name.  As for Jenny, Kate went to court and changed her daughter's name from Columbo to her own name, Callahan. 

Finally, in a third TV dimension when the show was now 'Kate Loves A Mystery', she was Kate Callahan, never having married anyone named Columbo.  However, her ex-husband (Mr. Callahan) was the same man as the Columbo in those other two dimensions.  He would have to be in order to provide his fair share of the DNA which created Jenny Callahan (Jenny Columbo in those other dimensions.) 

He must have been adopted in all three dimensions.  In two of them, he was adopted by a family named Columbo.  In Earth Prime-Time, he was adopted by the Callahans.

I think that husband died, perhaps in the line of duty, maybe an accident.  My only reasoning for that is that I'd want one of those three sets of mother and daughter to have been happy, even if only for a short time.

Confusing, ain't it?  Sorry about that, Chief.

It's Kate and Jenny Callahan who are allowed to be members of Earth Prime-Time, unlike Rose and Jenny Columbo or Kate Callahan Columbo and Jenny Columbo Callahan.

All of the episodes in that second season share the same TV dimension as the Lt. Columbo we all know and love - the main Toobworld - because there was no longer any attempt to connect the two shows together. 

That first season was split between the other two dimensions.

We can't be certain as to what happened to Kate Callahan after the series concluded, but suppositions could be made about the future of little Jenny Callahan.  She studied the violin and when she grew up she became a professional violinist. 

And we saw her practicing her passion and profession in two different series: 'Transparent' ("Kina Hora") and 'Dharma & Greg' ("Without Reservations".) Lili Haydn is listed in the credits for both episodes as merely "Violinist", so why couldn't it be that she was Jenny Callahan?

One day she may even be a Birthday Honors List inductee into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.

Just one more thing....

As for the Mrs. Columbo of Earth Prime-Time, she remains an UnScene and will be to the end of Prime-Time, I'm afraid.  But based on the way Columbo would speak of her, and with acknowledgement of the wishes of the men who created her, Richard Levinson and William Link (who pictured Maureen Stapleton in the role), I've always thought Sada Thompson would have been the perfect Better Half for the Rumpled One.

But of course, we'll never know.....

We will have a new "UnScene" post on Friday, and that will be about another UnScene character from 'Columbo'.

BCnU!

* And by "The Goldbergs", I mean the original series, the brain-child of Gertrude Berg, you amnesiac millennials!