After last Sunday’s tragic news, I got an email from a member of Team Toobworld wondering if I had any candidate in mind for February’s monthly showcase induction ceremony. Even if I did, they wrote, maybe I might consider bumping them in favor of Kobe Bryant.
I do have the post honoring Kobe already set up to run on Monday as a “Monday Memorial TVXOHOF Tribute”. But I couldn’t see bumping the already scheduled “honoree” – not when he was bumped two years in a row and then set aside last year for the 20th anniversary theme of superheroes and super-villains. I couldn’t do that to the guy.
And his body of work – the character has appeared 464 times so far in the multiverse (even if most of that is from one show) and counting with no end in sight – far outweighs that of Kobe Bryant’s as seen in a cold logical light.
Therefore, for February 2020, the newest member of the Television Crossover Hall of Fame is…..
From Wikipedia:
Tutuola was raised in the Harlem area of New York City and was six during the 1968 riots following the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination, making his birth year 1961 or 1962. When he was a child, he witnessed his mother being murdered by a business rival of his father, a petty criminal; 30 years later, while investigating an unrelated case, he inadvertently discovered that his mother's killer was himself murdered.
According to the Season 11 episode "Disabled", Tutuola, while still in the police academy, was forced by circumstances to place his maternal grandfather, whom he credits for raising him, in a nursing home. His grandfather later died as a result of abuse from the staff. Tutuola later describes this action as "the worst decision [he] ever made", and says that in his grief, rage, and guilt, he repeatedly started fights with fellow officers "for the hell of it" and was almost kicked off the force until an academy instructor intervened and helped him salvage his career.
Tutuola was previously a US Army Ranger and served on two tours. His military background remains sketchy as he rarely speaks of it or only makes vague and indirect references to it; however, in season 10, he explicitly mentions serving on Operation Gothic Serpent in Somalia in order to connect with a military rape victim.
Tutuola has a son named Kwasi (nicknamed Ken) with his ex-wife Teresa Randall. Subsequent episodes reveal that he has a strained relationship with his family. As of "Intersecting Lives", he is due to be a grandfather, as that episode revealed that Ken and his husband are expecting a baby via surrogate.
As of the Season 19 episode "Mood", his paternal grandfather Iggy is still alive and healthy at the age of 95, despite suffering from diabetes. At the start of the episode "Send In the Clowns," Ken and his husband bring their infant son Jaden to the squadroom for a birthday party.
Tutuola is an avid fan of first-person shooter video games, and is a regular at an annual video game convention. On why he would play such games considering the nature of his job and his military background, he explains to his colleagues that he views these games as an escape from the grey areas he faces in his job, and that he finds solace in the "black and white" nature of these games in which he gets to hunt down and defeat a clearly defined "bad guy".
Here are the appearances for which Fin is being honored:
458 episodes (2000-2020)
- Flaw (2005)
- The Song of Gregory Williams Yates (2016)
- The Number of Rats (2015)
- Conventions (2014)
- ¡Qué Sorpresa! (2011)
O’Bservation:
It is a Warholian mantra that eventually everybody in Toobworld will be featured in a TV show. The incredible work done by the Special Victims Unit over the last twenty years certainly deems them as being worthy to be showcased in a series.
But is it a fictional reenactment or a documentary series? Are we seeing the TV character Fin or the televersion of Ice-T? Based on references in the dialogue of other shows, I’m siding with it being a fictional TV show More on that in a few weeks. (nudge nudge wink wink.)
And Fin is seen in Skitlandia as well, making him a multidimensional:
- Kit Harington/Sara Bareilles (2019)
O’Bservation:
Again, this is an acknowledgement that ‘L&O: SVU’ is a TV series in Skitlandia as well. It’s likely we’re seeing Skitlandia’s Ice-T playing his impression of the Skitlandian cop. (And again, this may come up again in a few weeks.)
Two Hall of Famers
Welcome to the Hall, Detective! You’ll find many other members of the ‘Law & Order’ franchise here, mostly from the 27th Precinct, as well as the man who made it all possible, Dick Wolf.
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