11/02/18 - FRIDAY HALL OF FAMER PAT NIXON

As yesterday was November 1st we inducted Richard Millhouse Nixon as the monthly showcase for the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.  And now here we are with the next day falling on a Friday when we induct others as Friday Hall of Famers.  A bit of overkill I suspect, but we can amortize your (phantom) pain by inducting another newsmaker who should be paired with Tricky Dick….

PAT NIXON

From Wikipedia:

Thelma Catherine "Pat" Nixon (née Ryan; March 16, 1912 – June 22, 1993) was an American educator and the wife of Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States. During her more than 30 years in public life, she served as both the Second (1953–1961) and First Lady of the United States (1969–1974).

As First Lady, Pat Nixon promoted a number of charitable causes, including volunteerism. She oversaw the collection of more than 600 pieces of historic art and furnishings for the White House, an acquisition larger than that of any other administration. She was the most traveled First Lady in U.S. history, a record unsurpassed until twenty-five years later. She accompanied the President as the first First Lady to visit China and the Soviet Union, and was the first President's wife to be officially designated a representative of the United States on her solo trips to Africa and South America, which gained her recognition as "Madame Ambassador"; she was also the first First Lady to enter a combat zone. Her tenure ended when, after being re-elected in a landslide victory in 1972, President Nixon resigned two years later amid the Watergate scandal.

Her public appearances became increasingly rare later in life. She and her husband settled in San Clemente, California, and later moved to New Jersey. She suffered two strokes, one in 1976 and another in 1983, then was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1992. She died in 1993, aged 81.

Like her husband, the televersion of Pat Nixon was a multi-dimensional in the greater Toobworld Dynamic.  Here are the portrayals of the former First Lady, divvied up among the TV dimensions in which they can be found:

References to TV characters, including members of the League of Themselves, can be considered part of Toobworld if they are just mentioned within a show.  So here are two examples for Pat Nixon:

MIKE STIVIC:
Arch, we want to watch the election returns. 
GLORIA BUNKER STIVIC:
You care more about a lousy movie than you do a presidential election? 
ARCHIE BUNKER:
Certainly! What do I care about something I know how it's going to come out? Everybody knows how it's going to come out, including them McGovern people. See them on the newsreels with all the worried looks on their faces? Not the Nixons. See the picture of Pat in the paper today? She was all smiles. 
MIKE STIVIC:
Yeah, well, maybe she won't be smiling tomorrow. 
ARCHIE BUNKER:
Yes, she will, buddy boy, because when she wakes up tomorrow morning, she knows she's been sleeping with the president of the U. S. of A. 
MIKE STIVIC:
Is she going to McGovern's place or is he going to hers? 
EDITH BUNKER:
Oh, I don't think Mr. Nixon would like that either way.
'ALL IN THE FAMILY'

GRACE KARN:

Hello. I'm Grace Karn. You know, I remember the first time I realized well, not realized, but came to understand who Pat Nixon is. I was a young mother of an adorable two-year-old, who, let's be honest, was running me ragged.  And when I heard Vice President Nixon explain about Pat's respectable Republican cloth coat and how much their two little girls loved their cocker spaniel Checkers....  I don't know. I just I got so vivid a picture of a family. A modest, hard-working American family. And it made me proud. Not only proud to be a Republican, not only proud to be a citizen of the greatest democracy on Earth, but proud to be a Republican wife and mother
'AQUARIUS'

Here are the portrayals of the former First Lady, divvied up among the TV dimensions in which they can be found:

EARTH PRIME-TIME
We don’t really have a good televersion of Mrs. Nixon yet for Earth Prime-Time, the main Toobworld, as we do for her husband.  I suppose for now we have to consider Cathleen Cordell, who played the former First Lady in ‘Blind Ambition’ which was a four-part mini-series.  Eight hours may not seem like much to stand among other series, but the mini-series lasted seven hours longer than ‘South of Sunset’.  (Even if all the episodes produced were broadcast, ‘Blind Ambition’ still would outpace ‘South of Sunset’ – SOS! – by two hours!)

But I’d prefer to have an actress play Pat Nixon in some established TV series in which she can interact with the fictional characters of that show.

If anybody knows of such an example, please let me know.

Of course, technically we could just accept Pat Nixon herself as her own televersion in Toobworld.  Besides, all of those appearances on news programs (documentaries belong in Docu-Toobworld) would support the archival footage of her as seen in one of the greatest TV episodes ever – “Nixon vs. Kennedy” when Don Draper settled down at home in the episode finale to watch Nixon’s concession speech.  And there was Pat Nixon, always by her husband’s side. 

So until we do have a good fictional Pat Nixon within a TV series, it will be the real Pat Nixon in the gallery for the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.  In the meantime, here are some of her other doppelgangers in other TV dimensions.

Should we get a more appropriate televersion for Mrs Nixon in the main Toobworld, then Ms. Cordell's televersion would be placed in an alternate TV dimension.  As to which one?  Perhaps a Toobworld geared to book adaptations.  Who knows?  I'm easy.  (But not cheap!)

UNKNOWN MOTW TOOBWORLD
“THE FINAL DAYS”

Susan Brown played Pat Nixon.

O’Bservation: As pointed out in Susan Brown’s Toobular Knells, Ms. Brown had the distinction of playing two former First Ladies in different MOTW TV dimensions.  She also played Nancy Reagan in “Without Warning: The James Brady Story” two years after this movie.

And here is probably my favorite portrayal of Pat Nixon:

SKITLANDIA
‘Saturday Night Live’

Jane Curtin played Pat Nixon in at least two sketches.  In one, she joined Dick Nixon for an interview with David Frost.  Dan Aykroyd again played the President and Eric Idle of Monty Python as David Frost.

In the other sketch, the First Family (Tricky and Pat with their daughter Julie and her husband David) are watching ‘Blind Ambition’ and actual video is used.  (A good example as to why the Toobworld Dynamic can’t just throw it all into a blender.)

Julie Eisenhower:
You know... Daddy, I thought the guy playing you was really terrible!
Richard Nixon:
Yeah, uh... Rip Torn.
David Eisenhower:

He didn’t look anything like you.
Richard Nixon:
Yeah, he was really stiff, too.
Pat Nixon:
I think, in some ways, he was uncannily accurate.
Richard Nixon:  Shut up! I noticed they didn’t spend a lot of time on your dynamic role in history!
Pat Nixon:
Well, I didn’t commit any crimes.

O’Bservation – The reason I liked this best is because it was a take-no-prisoners sketch in which Jane Curtin played Mrs. Nixon as inebriated and showing the after-effects of her stroke.  Yeah, it is cruel (still funny) but you have to remember the times in which it was written.

So there she is – Pat Nixon the Multidimensional.  Her presence in about four different TV dimensions which was enough to warrant her membership in the Hall.  There she joins several other former First Ladies who are already members – Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Michelle Obama, and Betty Ford (to be joined eventually by others like Martha Washington, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mary Todd Lincoln, and Hillary Clinton.)

Welcome to the Hall, Mrs. Nixon.