M*A*S*H-UP: "DOCTOR WHO" & STEALTH CAT

"FLASH-FORWARD" & TOOBWORLD

I needed to clear out my DVR so that I would have room for everything that needs to be recorded over the next two weeks. (Expect the soup can on Sunday, but fear not, Team Toobworld! At least the "As Seen On TV" showcase will continue!)

So I finally buckled down to watch 'Flash-Forward', which had been stock-piled since its return from hiatus; I just watched the series conclusion last night. (I still have eight episodes of 'The Pacific' also, as well as the new version of "Riverworld", but there's no rush on those.) ABC, in its finite network wisdom, threw 'Flash-Forward' into a three-month hiatus from which it never recovered. I was watching the series every week since it premiered. despite its lack of appeal for me on a Toobworld basis. (Also, I would tell people that they only really needed to watch the first and last ten minutes of each episode, which didn't bode well.) As it went into the hiatus, however, that cliff-hanger was pretty gripping with Lloyd Simcoe was kidnapped. But when the show returned, that interest vested in the show was severed. I kept recording it because I still wanted to know how it all played out. I just didn't need to know right away.

Like I said, the show didn't have any bearing on Toobworld. Once it was reported that the Vice President died in a plane crash during the Great Blackout on October 6th, it was no longer set in the dimension of Earth Prime-Time. The main Toobworld reflects the world of Earth Prime (our world) when it comes to the major details - and that means Joe Biden is the Veep for both worlds and he's very much alive.

Add to that Peter Coyote as President David Segovia and a woman named Clemente who would become the new Vice President, and the "Flash-Forward" blackout could never be part of the main Toobworld. It's probably just as well. The expanse of world-wide destruction caused by the blackout would have dwarfed other major calamities and events that plagued Toobworld in the past. These would include the "V" invasion (from the original production, not the remake from this year), or the Eugenics War from 'Star Trek'. Even the arrival of the Tenctonese as seen in 'Alien Nation' can be absorbed into the main Toobworld and still be a part of "life" there even now. (An easy splainin of prejudice against the "slags" makes for an easy splainin as to why we don't see the Tenctonese in Los Angeles-based TV series today; they're kept segregated.) So we don't need to see TV characters in other shows talk about those events in every episode.

During the height of the Viet Nam War, how many TV shows acknowledged that it was happening, let alone deal with it as a topic? 'The Mod Squad', 'Then Came Bronson', an episode of 'The Twilight Zone'..... 'All In The Family' and 'Maude' may have been the only sitcoms to address the war; I can't see it playing any part in an episode of 'That Girl' or 'My Mother The Car'. There were a few TV shows, even sitcoms like 'Becker', which at least made a reference to the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11. But a fledgling drama at the time, '100 Centre Street' refused to mention the terror track in their scripts, despite it having happened less than a mile away.

As global as those events might have been, they didn't have a direct impact on everyone. But the 'Flash-Forward' experience did. If it happened in the main Toobworld, it's hard to believe strangers wouldn't be adding "What did you see?" to their introductions to each other. I'm not sure I'm sorry to see it go. It was a fascinating premise, although reduced to a pedestrian level with so many storylines to juggle. But it did have interesting characters some of whom I'd like to have seen again. And I am curious about that cliff-hanger at the end - was that Charlie Benford seen in somebody's flashback? It could be the daughter of Mark and Olivia because the flash-forward was apparently taking place on New Year's Eve, 2015. (Those producers were pretty optimistic!) And I want to know how - if - Mark survived the explosion of the FBI building.

(I'm guessing he fell forward as he blacked out and down into that pool outside the building, even though it wasn't very deep. Not that it was a guarantee he'd be back anyway. There were several characters who could be considered superfluous to the storyline once their flash-forwards came about - Nicole Kirby for one. It's a moot point now, anyway - Joseph Fiennes, who played Mark Benford, will now be playing Merlin in a new TV series for Starz.)

I'm fairly certain on one aspect - there will be lots of fanfic out there with their own endings for the series now that it's cancelled......
One last thought about the show's finale - I liked how FBI Agent Demitri Noh was teamed up with Dr. Simon Campos at the lab, trying to stop the next flash-forward from happening. Both of them were the only two regular characters in the series who didn't have a flash-forward on October 6th. I thought John Cho and Dominic Monaghan worked well together in those scenes and I think they'd mesh together well in some other action series as partners, perhaps a futuristic series. Maybe even a sitcom - they've got the chops for it.)

So in the end, an experiment to create a new water-cooler show to carry on from 'Lost', with a great premise that didn't always follow through, and which doesn't affect Toobworld at all*. I can't say it won't be missed, but I wasn't sorry to know that cliff-hanger would never be resolved either.

Oh - there is one thing.... What was up with the reappearance of that damned kangaroo? BCnU!

*It could be argued that with the timeline reboot from 'Primeval', we could consider 'Flash-Forward' part of Toobworld once it was realigned to have Obama as President and Joe Biden still alive after the Great Blackout. But there would still be the massive amount of other casualties that should have been addressed in other TV shows. Best to just leave it as it is: part of some alternate TV dimension......

FANFICCER'S FRIEND: "DRAGNET"

I used to run a monthly feature called "Fanficcer's Friend" in which I'd supply a picture usually from a movie and suggest that TV fanficcers use it to help expand Toobworld with new adventures.

I'm going to tweak that a bit right now and use pictures from 'Dragnet' that are already frozen in time as far as Toobworld is concerned in honor of our two inductees into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.

First up: Here's the premise - Friday and Gannon are looking for a rogue Nazi who's hunting the recently thawed out Colonel Wilhelm Klink. Klink had been the guinea pig in the Nazi experiments to cryogenically freeze a man for decades. The process was developed to use on Hitler (see 'The Man From U.N.C.LE.') using technology developed by the Edwardian archvillain the Face ('Adam Adamant Lives!'), but they didn't want to risk the Fuehrer on the first try.

We know Klink survived into the 1960's without any significant aging.....



So how else to splain it without cryogenics?

Also, Friday and Gannon can't be after Klink himself - if Batman and Robin let him go, he must not be a wanted man by the 1960's.....

In the next picture, Friday and Gannon are in the Movie Universe (where both of them have credentials - Friday in 1954 and Gannon in 1987). The body in question? How about Smiler Grogan of "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"?

Hey, I just supply the pictures and suggestions. You do the rest....

BCnU!

THE COPPER CLAPPER CAPER

In keeping with this month's honorees for the TV Crossover Hall of Fame....



BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: ETHEL KENNEDY

ETHEL KENNEDY

AS SEEN IN:
'Kennedy'

AS PLAYED BY:
Ellen Parker

From Wikipedia:
Ethel Skakel Kennedy (born April 11, 1928) is the widow of Senator and former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

Ethel met Robert F. Kennedy during a ski trip to Mont Tremblant Resort in Quebec, Canada during the winter of 1945. At the time, Robert was dating Ethel's sister, Patricia. That relationship ended and Ethel and Robert started seeing each other. Ethel campaigned for his brother, John F. Kennedy, in his 1946 campaign for United States Congress, and wrote her college thesis on his book Why England Slept.

Bobby and Ethel became engaged in February 1950, and were married on June 17, 1950 at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenwich. [They had 11 children, two of whom have died: David, from a drug overdose, and Michael, in a skiing accident.]

Just after midnight on June 5, 1968, Ethel's husband was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan. He died 26 hours later.

She currently lives at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port.

BCnU!

TVXOHOF, JUNE 2010: JOE FRIDAY & BILL GANNON

Over the years, June used to be the month in which puppets and cartoon characters were inducted into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame. I figured, hey, it's my birth month so let's have some fun. But I think from now on I may go for the theme of duos, pairs and couples to tie it all in with June's Zodiac sign of Gemini - the Twins. I'll leave the puppets and cartoon figures for March. Why not?

The original plan was to kick off this theme with the British detectives Charles Barlow and John Watt of 'Softly, Softly' and several other series. But instead I decided to stick closer to home with a different pair of detectives.

SGT. JOE FRIDAY
&
OFFICER BILL GANNON
"DRAGNET"

After all, thank God it's Friday, right?

Joe Friday had several partners before Bill Gannon. Back in the 1950's, he worked with Sgt. Ben Romero, Sgt. Ed Jacobs, and by an amazing bit of "coincidence", two officers named Frank Smith. Between 1959 and 1967, there may have been even more; we just never got to see them onscreen. (Maybe Joe Friday wasn't easy to work with; maybe a really bad relationship with a partner between '59 and '67 was the root cause for his demotion from lieutenant back down to sergeant.) But because of the reruns of the later color version of the show, it's Bill Gannon who's remembered best by the Trueniverse audience.


As a team, Friday and Gannon have the return of 'Dragnet' in the late 1960's, a 1969 TV movie, and through computer magic, an appearance in at least one TV commercial. Separately, they both have credits that also add to their qualifications for inclusion.

THE 1969 "DRAGNET" TV MOVIE

Joe Friday was the main character in the original run of the series back in the 1950's and had a theatrical film version as well, which brings that movie out of the "Cineverse" and into the realm of Toobworld. He also as a counterpart in the sketch comedy dimension of Skitlandia, thanks to a classic bit with Johnny Carson about a robbery at the Acme School Bell Company as seen on 'The Tonight Show'. But Joe Friday began "life" in the Radio Universe (really should come up with a name for that.....) where 'Dragnet' was a radio series.

As for Gannon, he also has a movie to his credit - the "Dragnet" of 1987 with Dan Aykroyd as the original Friday's nephew. (And Tom Hanks as his partner, with one of my favorite character names of all time - Pep Streebeck.) As with the 1954 "Dragnet" movie, this flick was nicked for the TV Universe. (Because of this movie, we know that Joe Friday was already dead in Toobworld, probably around the same time as the actor who played him. Jack Webb died in 1982.)

By this point in his career, Bill Gannon had been promoted to Captain. Over in the Tooniverse, Friday and Gannon were seen as FBI Agents in Springfield as seen on 'The Simpsons'. (And Harry Morgan was able to give voice to his avatar....)

And then there are the TV commercials.....

The controversy over inserting dead celebrities into blipverts to hawk a product isn't as big a deal anymore. That's why we have this commercial as part of the "official" resume for Friday and one of his earlier partners, the second Frank Smith (giving him another notch towards membership as well) ....



There was also another commercial in which they were digitally inserted into the scene. This was for Service Merchandise stores and ran during the 1996 Christmas season. Oddly, Sgt. Friday and Officer Gannon were seen in black & white with the world around them in color. That's not an odd occurrence in Toobworld - one of the characters in my Toobworld novel suffers from a colorization deficiency - but the 1960's 'Dragnet' was in color....


Those are just the facts, and as such the evidence is overwhelming: Sgt. Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon deserve to be in the TV Crossover Hall of Fame. This time, gentlemen, the spotlight is on you!
Dun de dun dun. Dun de dun dun dunnnnn indeed.....

BCnU!

WILDE, WILDE WISH-CRAFT

Because of a special birthday salute on Sunday, I'm bringing the TV movie "The Librarian: Quest For The Spear" along with me on vacation this year. As I was grabbing pictures from it, I realized I'd like to watch that again.

And as I was looking for the specific pictures to use in Sunday's blog post, I came up with another theory of "relateeveety" from it.....

The antagonist in that first "Librarian" TV-movie was Edward Wilde, who held the post of Librarian before Flynn Carsen.

Here's the thumbnail biography for Wilde from Wikipedia:
Edward Wilde was the preceding 'Librarian' before Flynn, and he was considered to be very good. He worked with Nicole for two years during which time she fell in love with him. During an adventure in the Antarctic involving the Serpent Brotherhood, Wilde had to build an igloo to shelter himself and Nicole. He made it appear to Nicole that he had been killed by the Serpent Brotherhood, but in reality Edward staged his own death to ally himself with the Brotherhood in an effort to steal the Spear of Destiny and take control of the world.

Toobworld Central is proposing that Edward Wilde is the son of Danny Wilde, whose crime-fighting exploits and sexual escapades in middle age across the European continent were chronicled in the TV series 'The Persuaders'.

And here's what can be found in Wikipedia about Danny Wilde:
Danny Wilde (Tony Curtis) is a rough diamond, educated and molded in the back slums of New York City, who escaped by enlisting in the U.S. Navy. He later became a millionaire in the oil business. Wilde never reveals nor explains his reasons (for working for Judge Fulton with Lord Brett Sinclair.)

But a better biography can be found in the show's opening titles sequence (because it has a great John Barry score):



But that file, put together by Judge Fulton to get those two men working for him, may not have shown all the details in Danny Wilde's life. It's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that Danny married as a young man, perhaps to a girl from the old neighborhood. But when he struck it big, he found that he no longer shared the same interests as his wife. Money may have gone to his head and he went searching for the good things to be found in the high life, perhaps even a second, "trophy wife". As such, he would have obtained a divorce, providing his ex-wife with the means to live comfortably on her own. But she wouldn't be all alone - for the purposes of this theory of relateeveety, Mrs. Wilde gave birth to Danny's son in 1959 and named him Edward. (The birth date for Edward Wilde is based on the age of the actor who played him, Kyle MacLachlan.)

Danny Wilde provided his son with everything he needed, except his love and companionship. (Danny probably had a closer relationship with Lord Sinclair than he ever had with his own son.) Edward grew up, wanting for nothing, but seething with resentment against his father and the world in general. A certified genius, his father's money guaranteed Edward's chance to get into the right schools and he soon came under the notice of Judson at the Metropolitan Public Library. The rest we know from the TV-movie.

The rift between Edward and his father was so great, that Danny's crime-fighting partner, Lord Brett Sinclair, may not even have known that Danny's son existed. It was probably listed in the file compiled by Judge Fulton, but he apparently never felt the need to share it with his Lordship...... BCnU!

THE TWO FRANK SMITHS OF "DRAGNET"

During the 1950's run of 'Dragnet', Lt. Joe Friday (played by Jack Webb) was partnered with several cops:

Sgt. Ben Romero (played by Barton Yarborough)

Sgt. Ed Jacobs (played by Barney Phillips)

Officer Frank Smith (played first by Herbert Ellis and then by Ben Alexander) But that isn't exactly recasting when it comes to Officer Frank Smith. They weren't the same police detective, but two different cops who happened to have the same name.

In a police department as large as the one in Los Angeles, there was bound to be several policemen who had the same name. And you have to admit "Frank Smith" is rather common. (In Toobworld, the LAPD even had three lieutenants all by the name of "Columbo".)

That Joe Friday got saddled with two Frank Smiths as his partner, one right after the other, is typical of Toobworld "coincidence". But it's always better to go with the simplest splainin, rather than drum up some reason for the original Frank Smith to be replaced by an alien imposter or quantum leaper.....

And I don't think either one of them could be related to the crime syndicate boss of Port Charles, NY, who was also named Frank Smith. Now THAT's a guy who had to be replaced by a quantum leaper from the future! BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: ISRAEL BOONE

ISRAEL BOONE

AS SEEN IN:
'Daniel Boone'

AS PLAYED BY:
Darby Hinton

Israel Boone is a good example of the differences between the historical figures of the Trueniverse and their televersions. Throughout the run of the series, Israel was the only child of Daniel and Rebecca Boone. However, the Boones had ten children in all. BCnU!

THE GOLDEN GIRLS: SINGLE LADIES

Here's another video tribute to Rue McClanahan, just posted to YouTube today...