STAGED AGES

In a recent episode of 'My Boys', Mike Callahan wanted the others to throw him a surprise 35th birthday party, but when they balked at the idea, he had to reveal that he was turning forty. By the end of the episode, we learned the truth - Mike was actually 43.

The actor who plays Mike - Jamie Kaler - is also 43, the oldest in the bunch.

But it was nice to see a character as the same age as the actor who plays him. Sure, there have to be certain exceptions - Dracula and other vampires, Duncan MacLeod and other Immortals, - but far too often the character turns out to be younger than the actor playing the part... and it's never convincing.

Other examples that I've mentioned in the past have included characters played by James DAly and Gig Young on 'The Twilight Zone', Adrian 'Monk', and John Locke of 'Lost'. Maybe they don't shave off too many years, but I often use myself as a yardstick and there's no way I'm older than John Locke.

While hanging out with my buddies Mark & Michael recently (I like to think of them as Mark&Michael), we watched "Suitable For Framing", an episode of 'Columbo' starring Ross Martin as the killer. Hoping to find proof that Martin's character had been seen in a certain location, the Lieutenant asked a witness if a man had been there who was 40 years old.
That was awfully generus of Columbo. Ross Martin was 51 at the time and he looked it. But he certainly didn't look 40.

Just sayin', is all.....
BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: JESSE JAMES (TWO FOR TUESDAY)

JESSE JAMES

AS SEEN IN:
'Maverick'

AS PLAYED BY:
Unknown
(But he does look somewhat like Tom Reese) As I've been saying for all of the other members of the Bubbly Springs Asylum Gang (my name for those outlaws seen in the 'Maverick' episode "Full House"), this wasn't the real Jesse James. Instead, he was an escaped mental patient with delusions. He was a rather reasonable fellow, however, willing to compromise when the others didn't trust Bret Maverick to be Foxy Smith.

JESSE JAMES

AS SEEN IN:
'The Legend Of Jesse James'

AS PLAYED BY:
Christopher Jones

The official Jesse James of Toobworld had his own TV show and was more of a Robin Hood of the Old West than he was an outlaw. (It flies against established fact, but then it's not the real world anyway.) And he was something of a pretty boy.
We featured the Frank James of the Bubbly Springs Asylum Gang yesterday; here are a couple of pictures of the official Frank James (played by Alan Case) with his younger brother Jesse. Also pictured with them is Marshall Sam Corbett (who may have been the ancestor to both Tom Corbetts of Toobworld). Two for Tuesday!

BCnU!

PICKIN' IT UP

This is "Pickin' It Up" by Hot Hot Heat. The song was used in the chase scene in a recent 'Psych' episode, "Shawn And Gus In Drag (Racing)".

Only the first two stanzas were used in the scene, so I'm not going to bother including the clip from Hulu. Besides, they'd only remove it after a day or so; what's the point then?

It's pretty infectious and would probably have my foot planted firmly on the gas pedal. Good thing I gave up my license this year for just a NY state ID.......
BCnU!

COLUMBO PSYCH-OUT

DETECTIVE JULIET O'HARA:
Vegetables in the tailpipe....
I don't know if that's brilliant or stupid.

BURTON "GUS" GUSTER:
Probably stupid.
"Psych"

No, it really was brilliant - Shawn Spencer used three zucchinis and a gourd shoved in the tailpipe of a Lamborghini to disable the vehicle so that the killer couldn't get away.

But he didn't come up with that idea on his own. I think he learned about it from reading his father Henry's collection of old police cases of interest from around the country. (You didn't know he had one? Oh, I'm sure it's somewhere in that house and it'll show up on the series... eventually.....)

In this particular case from the Homicide division of the Los Angeles Police Department, a Lt. Columbo shoved a potato into the tailpipe of Private Detective Brimmer's car so that it wouldn't start. That gave the detective the opportunity to plant false evidence in the trunk which allegedly would have implicated Brimmer in the death of Lenore Kennicutt; evidence which Columbo knew the investigator would have to come looking for. Arthur Kennicut:
What would you have done if the car hadn't broken down? You couldn't set up this trap.

Lt. Columbo:
Well, I guess we would have found some other way. You know what this place reminds me of, just seeing all these cars? You know, in our neighborhood we had a bunch of jokers. I mean we were a real loud bunch of guys and we figured out a perfect way to put a car out of commission. You take a potato, you stick it in the exhaust pipe. Doesn't cause any damage but the car won't start. It was a terrible thing to do. And I got a feeling that the reason I became a cop was to make up for all those jokes I played when I was a kid.

Upon hearing that, Mr. Kennicut was tempted to check the tailpipe himself but finally he thought better of the idea.

Mr. Kennicut was a powerful and influential newspaper publisher in California; he would have made sure that the story was featured in his newspapers all throughout the state. And that's how Henry Spencer learned of it down in Santa Barbara.

SHOWS CITED:

'Psych' - "Shawn And Gus In Drag (Racing)"

'Columbo' - "Death Lends A Hand"

BCnU!

SAYIN' THE SECRET WOID

Since May of 2003, all of Toobworld knows about the fate of Sunnydale, California, the small town that was destroyed, collapsed into a sinkhole because of its proximity to a Hellmouth.

Such an apocalyptic image must have appealed to the nihilistic nature of the Chechyan crime boss who ran an illegal gambling house in Manhattan. Otherwise, why else would he have chosen the name "Sunnydale" to be the password for getting into his club? SHOWS CITED:
'Buffy The Vampire Slayer'
'White Collar'

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: FRANK JAMES

FRANK JAMES

AS SEEN IN:
'Maverick'

AS PLAYED BY:
Unknown

There's no way this thickset mobster type from 'The Wild Wild West' version of 'The Sopranos' could be the brother of Jesse James - not when the official Jesse James for Toobworld was played by Christopher Jones. (See the upcoming Two for Tuesday showcase for "As Seen On TV"....)

The reason why this escapee from the Bubbly Springs Asylum thought he was Frank James? Probably because of an onset of age-related dementia....

BCnU!

IT'S NOT ALWAYS MARSHA MARSHA MARSHA

FBI Agent Peter Burke and con man/consultant Neal Caffrey were discussing a woman they had arrested, comparing her to Carol Brady but without the mullet.

When it was pointed out that Carol Brady had a fling with Greg Brady, they agreed that everybody had a dark side.

Mentions of 'The Brady Bunch' are not Zonks. Toobworld TV is a great maw, always looking for new material to use for TV shows; and the story of a widower with three sons marrying a widow who had three daughters was the perfect property to develop. But besides a sitcom that would be somewhat similar to the real world version, the Brady variety show was shown in Toobworld as well.

Those theatrical movies are in the movie universe and their TV movie sequel belongs in some other TV dimension, if it hasn't been totally absorbed by the "Cineverse". And whereas Peter and Neal were probably talking about the date that Florence Henderson had with Barry Williams, within the reality of the scene, they were actually talking about Carol and Greg. It looks like it must have been a big scandal on par with Woody and Soon-Yi: a once-popular housewife (not unrealistic - look at Kate Gosselin!) and her step-son had a torrid affair that made the scandal sheets across the country. ('The Brady Bunch' lived in California; Peter and Neal - as seen in 'White Collar' - live and work in New York City.)

Now we just have to wait for the porno tapes surreptitiously recorded by Bobby to finally surface!

Or we can just assume the "Not The Bradys XXX" video was about the actors of the Toobworld version of the show.....



"Mom always said, don't ball in the house."

BCnU!

ANOTHER BELATED BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE

Ray Bradbury's 90th celebration of his natal day (as my Iddiot buddy and excellent musician Adam Bernstein would say) wasn't the only birthday of note that I missed yesterday. It was also the 94th birthday of Jackson Gillis.

I have to believe the name is at least somewhat recognizable to you; niggling away at the fringe of your memories.......?

Here's what John Raspanti wrote about him:

He helped create a series for movie tough guy George Raft in titled I’M THE LAW. He moved from there to LASSIE and wrote the pilot. He created a kids show called SPIN AND MARTY and THE HARDY BOYS. Whitney Ellsworth asked Jackson to write for THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN. The only information he knew about the man of steel was what he read in the funny papers. It made no difference. For the next three years Jackson Gillis wrote some of the most memorable and to some, the best episodes the series ever produced.

Later in the 1950’s he joined the PERRY MASON team and proceeded to write forty-two episodes.

He worked steadily in the 1960’s and 1970’s writing episodes for MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, BONANZA, THE MOD SQUAD, HAWAII FIVE-0 , MANNIX, THE WILD WILD WEST, LOST IN SPACE, POLICE WOMAN, STARSKY HUTCH, CANNON, BARNABY JONES, MURDER SHE WROTE, and WONDER WOMAN. He also gave Peter Falk some of his better lines in COLUMBO and was the executive story consultant on twenty other COLUMBO stories. He even found the time to write two novels!

In 1972 he was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding writing for COLUMBO…and two years later for an Edgar Allan Poe award.

(More to be found at the George Reeves Hall Of Fame.)

All the best to a man who provided so many hours of entertainment in Toobworld!

BCnU!

BRADBURY'S BELATED BIRTHDAY

Once again I missed the chance to celebrate something connected to TV on the actual day that it happened.

Yesterday was the birthday of Ray Bradbury. And it was a special one too, his 90th.

Mr. Bradbury is the legendary science fiction author and fantasist whose work was adapted for TV for Hitchcock, 'The Outer Limits', and an anthology series called 'The Ray Bradbury Theater'. Perhaps his most famous work may be 'The Martian Chronicles', which was turned into a mini-series starring Rock Hudson and Darrin McGavin.

All the best, Sir, and sorry for the delay.....

BCnU!

WNU-TOOB: TUNE IN TO MOREAU!

Huzzah!

Good news, everyone!

Toobworld Central finally has proof that the H.G. Wells character of Dr. Moreau (from "The Island Of Lost Souls") existed in the TV Universe! So there's another common character between the Toobworld Dynamic and the Wold Newton Universe.....

This past week on 'Warehouse 13', the woman who claims to be H.G. Wells (As far as Toobworld Central is concerned, she's not.) revealed that she once worked with Dr. Moreau on experiments involving amino acids. This knowledge ended up saving Claudia Donovan's life.

As such, we now have a splainin behind that portrait of Gomez Addams' former business partner as seen on 'The Addams Family': a giraffe wearing a business suit.

Of course, he had to be a silent partner - despite what they show you in the Tooniverse, giraffes have no voice boxes!

See? TV can help you learn something everyday!


BCnU!

PS:
And as a reminder, check out Win Scott Eckert's excellent website about the Wold Newton Universe. You'll find the link there to the left, manimals!