SHADES OF "MY MOTHER THE CAR"!

I'm sure all of the true fans of 'Lost' already know this, but for those of my friends, family, and readers who are not as rabid about the show as I am:

The name of the company is an anagram for "reincarnation".

Just sayin', is all.....

BCnU!
Toby O'B

SPEAK SOFTLY, SCARY BIG DICK

Here's what James Gordon Meek recently wrote about Dick Cheney in the New York Daily News:

Dick Cheney isn't finished scaring the bejesus out of America.

The former vice president warned Wednesday that there's a "high probability" the U.S. will get nuked by terrorists during President Obama's watch.

"The ultimate threat to the country [is] a 9/11-type event where the terrorists are armed with something much more dangerous than an airline ticket and a box cutter - a nuclear weapon or a biological agent of some kind," Cheney told Politico.com from his latest undisclosed location - his new Virginia office.

Cheney said that "perhaps hundreds of thousands of people" would perish in such a strike, and that "there's a high probability of such an attempt."

In some alternate TV dimension, probably the one in the '24'-verse, the tele-twist to this story would be that Dick Cheney would be the evil megalomaniac behind such a dastardly deed. I mean, just look at him!

That's a face made for TV Eeeeeeeevil!!!!

I don't watch '24'; I'm getting too specialized in my dotage with my TV viewing - I'm only interested in those shows that would be set in the main Toobworld, Earth Prime-Time. So, for alls I know, that scenario of a crazy mean Veep nuking his own country was already used in the show. (I know that a nuclear bomb went off in California during the course of one "day", but I don't know the specifics as to who was ultimately responsible....)

BCnU!

Toby O'B

AS SEEN ON TV: SAMUEL ADAMS

We began our look at the historical figures of the American Revolution (as seen in the Tooniverse on 'Liberty's Kids') with an Adams, and we end with one as well. Not Abigail's husband John, he's been seen twice already in this feature and it's just the beginning of February!

Instead, it's his cousin Samuel, perhaps more recognizable today for giving his name to a brewery and its beer. (It was his father who was the true brewer.)

In 1774 the Massachusetts legislature sent Adams and four others as its representatives to the First Continental Congress. Adams served Massachusetts again at the Second Continental Congress where he was an advocate for independence and confederation for the American Colonies.

Adams served at the Continental Congress until his return to Boston in 1781. He initially opposed the new Constitution of the United States, but finally supported its ratification in Massachusetts. Adams served as Governor of Massachusetts from 1793 to 1797.

Tomorrow we're back in the live action TV Universe!

BCnU!

Toby O'B

NUMBERS RUNNING: SWEET SIXTEEN

While watching "Death Is A Seven Point Favorite" earlier this week, one of the Numbers from 'Lost' popped up.

Near the very end of the episode, Sandy King signed off from his telecast on KXRZ, which was Channel 16. That was also the same channel for KXPN in Phoenix, Arizona, as seen on 'Medium' this past week. So "16" not only got two similar work-outs off the Island, but its influence was seen more than thirty years ago as well.

TV columnist and critic David Bianculli pointed out in his online site "TV Worth Watching" (link to the left) that a mistake had been made with the graphic seen on a news broadcast within that episode of 'Medium'. As you can see here, "renowned" was mis-spelled as "renown". Somewhere along the line of production, that mistake was not caught.

Looking at it from within the "reality" of Toobworld, it's acceptable - but as a mistake. When CNN had those crawls along the bottom of the screen (until about a month or so ago), they would often be filled with spelling errors. Look how many times our President's name would show up onscreen as "Osama" rather than "Obama" in the earlier part of his campaign. Toobworld Central would take the position that such a technical error happened here at KXPN while putting together this news report on the death of Nathan Cafferty.

But at the same time, it should have then been mentioned within the script so that the viewers at home would know it was supposed to be a mistake as seen on TV. So since that didn't happen, we can't give the production team on this episode a pass. Even though it exists as a mistake that happened in Toobworld, it never should have been seen by the audience.

Oh..... We're also going to make the claim that based on the call letters for both stations, some Toobworld media mogul like Rupert Murdoch or Sumner Redstone owns both KXRZ and KXPN. Nothing to make a big deal out of, crossover-wise, but it's always nice to fill in the blanks....

BCnU!
Toby O'B

DOUBLE DOWN: PAY-OFF ON A BAD BRET

The classic TV cliche of unrelated twins came up twice this week with the "Generalissimo" episode of '30 Rock' and "Mr. Monk And The Bully" on 'Monk'. Eventually every TV character has a twin, usually evil, but in the grand scheme of Toobworld, these twins don't always show up in the same series as their lookalike.

In "The War Party", James Garner guest-starred as the bad guy, Willis Peake. We know 'Bret Maverick' shares the same timeline as 'Cheyenne' Bodie, thanks to Bret's brother Bart, who met - or tried to meet! - Cheyenne in the 'Maverick' episode "Hadley's Hunters".
Although I wouldn't put it past Pappy Maverick to have "sown his oats" around the Old West, I don't like to think Willis Peake was one of Pappy's illegitimate kids; he was just a regular bastard....

BCnU!
Toby O'B

PS:
That's not a picture of James Garner as Willis Peake on the right. It's not even a real mustache! But 'twill serve......

AS SEEN ON TV: ETHAN ALLEN

We're winding down our salute to the historical figures as seen in the cartoon series 'Liberty's Kids' this weekend. And today we feature Ethan Allen: Nowadays, he's probably better known for his name's association with a furniture company, but he fought for the independence of Vermont as the leader of the Green Mountain Boys. He was captured while trying to take over Montreal in 1777 and was shipped to England to stand trial as a traitor to King George III. However, he was released in exchange for a British officer.

BCnU!
Toby O'B

DEJA VIEW: "ALIAS JESSE JAMES"

I think it was my long-time Toobworld ally Hugh who first alerted me to the movie and TV blending to be found in the big finale of "Alias Jesse James". (Like Dr. Sam Beckett, I have a swiss-cheese memory, forgive me.) As the characters played by Bob Hope and Rhonda Fleming are pinned down in a shoot-out with the James Gang, a lot of TV Western stars of that time come to their aid.

(Hope's character thinks that it's his shots bringing down the bad guys, but it's these Western heroes - hidden away and firing at the same moment as Hope - who are notching up the kills.)

It's a visual joke that serves as the big payoff to the movie and as such achieves its purpose - giving the audience a laugh as these stars poke fun at their own images. Someone far less lazy than I would have to work out the timeline for this movie to determine the date when Jesse and Frank James could have crossed paths with historical figures like Annie Oakley and Wyatt Earp. Then you'd have to squeeze in the fictional characters like Tonto, Matt Dillon, and Major Seth Adams.

Forget about Davy Crockett and Roy Rogers - O'Bviously they are traveling through Time, as Roy was from the future of the 1950's, and Davy died at the Alamo in 1836.

Roy wouldn't be the only singing cowboy of the 1950s to travel in Time. Gene Autry and his sidekick Pat Buttram spent some in the Old West of the 1880's - unless those characters on 'The Gene Autry Show' were the ancestors of the later Gene and Pat; who not only bore the same names but had the same genetic make-up.

In Toobworld genealogy, this is quite common.....

As for Davy Crockett finding himself in the latter half of the 19th Century, there's a splainin as to how he traveled through Time. In an episode of 'Amazing Stories', a young boy at the battle named "Alamo Jobe" finds himself transported to the San Antonio of the 1980's. So it's possible that Davy Crockett also stepped through a similar temporal wormhole to find himself in the late 1880's. (Rogue temporal wormholes were common in the Old West, probably due to "leakage" from Project TickTock in Arizona, where 'The Time Tunnel' was located, and from the 'Quantum Leap' facility in New Mexico.)

Technically, Tonto is a time traveler as well, although he was in his own time period for this movie. But as we saw in a Jeno's Pizza Rolls blipvert, he and the Lone Ranger somehow ended up in the late 1960's at a very swank party. There were two other cowboys who rode to the aid of Milford Farnsworth (Bob Hope) in "Alias Jesse James", but they didn't come from TV shows. The first was played by Gary Cooper, who might have crossed over from the movie "High Noon". (Not that we can get any clues from his dialogue - all he says is "Yup". And the other was played by Bing Crosby, who showed that he was a serlinguist by talking directly to the audience. Finally, here's an interesting note from behind the scenes of this movie. Many sources online, including Turner Classic Movies - who ought to know better! - claim that James Garner appears in this sequence as Bret Maverick. I don't know if he filmed a quick cameo like the others but then was edited out of the final version; but as it stands, he isn't in the movie.

Does this movie count as being absorbed into the TV Universe because of this scene, to join other movies thus adopted like the 'McHale's Navy' movies, the 1966 'Batman', and the 'Star Trek' franchise (and even Mel Gibson's version of 'Maverick')? It's a tough call with so many obstacles that argue against it. But at the same time, it's hard to resist....

You can see the shoot-out sequence here.

BCnU!
Toby O'B

PS:
And this marks my 3500th post to Inner Toob......

AS SEEN ON TV: BENEDICT ARNOLD

Perhaps I should have saved today's historical figure for next Friday - the 13th! - but I have someone else in mind who would be even more appropriate......

Continuing our showcase of historical figures from the American Revolution, as seen in the Tooniverse, we have the traitor Benedict Arnold. He was considered the best general in the Continental Army, and who knows? Had he remained loyal to the cause, he might have come out of the campaign more honored than Washington.

But because he was put out of sorts by the Army's charge that he was using the cause for personal gain, he switched sides and became a British loyalist. And today his name is a synonym for treason.

I'm sorry to say that he's originally from my home state of Connecticut.....

BCnU!
Toby O'B

LOST ON THE PAPER TRAIL

Spoilers for 'Lost' - "The Little Prince" ahead..... I'm fully embracing the sci-fi geekiness of 'Lost' now that they're in full time travel mode. (Actually, this show owned me right from Hurley's fainting spell while helping Jack after the crash!) But I would like to see a little realism creep in every now and then.

Here's an example of what I'd like to see.......

After all that traveling through the Island's jungle during several time jumps, the Island 6 (Locke, Sawyer, Juliet, Daniel, Miles, and Charlotte) reached the remains of their beach camp. I'm thinking it was over three years in the future - based on a theory about the "other Others".

What I would have liked to have seen was somebody grabbing a role of DHARMA toilet paper and heading off quickly into the wood. (With the assumption everybody would eventually go, we just wouldn't have had the time to see it.) But at least somebody should have gone to take a dump. The way the scene was edited, they remained on the beach for less than five minutes before taking off in one of the canoes belonging to the other Others. (Okay, I'm agreeing with the idea that they are the Oceanic 6.)

The Island 6 didn't even take the time to gather a few supplies, like fresh water bottles!

Just a niggling point, true, but the lack of such simple bits of business (literally!) in TV shows and movies really bug me. ('The Lord Of The Rings' films might qualify as an example too, although they did take rest breaks.)

BCnU!
Toby O'B

GUS AGAIN

Burton "Gus" Guster of 'Psych' is two-thirds of the way home for inclusion in the TV Crossover Hall of Fame. If we just want to make it an honorary induction, then he's all set with those Tooniverse commercials for the phone service, in which Shawn and Gus are little kids back in 1987.

But if we just want to deal with live-action appearances, Dule Hill as Gus has fulfilled two of the qualifications for membership, thanks to a new DirecTV blipvert. Gus is trapped in a bank during a hold-up - at least we're assuming Hill is appearing as Gus. (He's certainly acting more like Gus than as Charlie from 'The West Wing'!) This had all the feel of a 'Psych' episode which we'll never see, complete with a guest appearance by Alan Tudyk.
Here's the trivial nit-pick that intrigued me: Usually in these DirecTV ads, a specific movie is always invoked; the previous blipvert featured Ron Perlman as "Hellboy", for example. In that ad, some previously unknown character uses his computer at work to program his DirecTV at home when his imagination conjures up Hellboy. This time, it's the guy with DirecTV whom we know - Gus - and the show he's programming which is unknown and possibly fictional.

And it is a show, not a movie; Gus specifically says that the impending hostage crisis will prevent him from getting home to see his favorite show. And we see at least part of its title on the screen of his cell phone: "The Cri-".

We could make up some sort of title that could only be found in Toobworld: "The Criminalist", "The Crime Of The Century", that sort of thing. But I think we're going to go with an established series here in the real world that doesn't cause a Zonk: 'The Critic'. It was an animated series starring Jon Lovitz as movie critic Jay Sherman.

Even though many animated characters from the Tooniverse have crossed over to interact with live-action humans - Daffy Duck, Superman, Brian & Stewie Griffin, Bart and Lisa Simpson - most Toobworld citizens consider animated shows to be just cartoons. So there's no problem with Gus thinking of 'The Critic' as just a show as well.

That it would be his favorite show? Well, I have no problem with that, I liked the show! (And it's in the Toobworld Central DVD library.)

But it just doesn't sound right. Shouldn't it be some action series from the 80s, like 'Airwolf'?

Just sayin', is all.......

BCnU!
Toby O'B