JUST IN TIME FOR HALLOWEEN: O'BSERVATIONS ON TELE-ZOMBIES

I wish I had remembered where I found this summary of 'Z Nation'......

In 'Z Nation' season 2, three years have passed since the zombie virus gutted the country and team of everyday heroes must transport Murphy (Keith Allan) — the only known survivor of the plague — from New York to California, where the last functioning viral lab waits for his blood. Although the antibodies he carries are the world’s last and best hope for a vaccine, he also hides a dark secret that threatens them all.  

So I'm placing this series in Zombie Toobworld in the near future of 'The Walking Dead'.  Nothing about the viral lab needs to be known to the band at the center of the TWD action.

The timeline for Zombie Toobworld so far breaks down to this:

'Dead Set'

'Fear The Walking Dead'

'The Walking Dead'

'Z Nation'

As for 'iZombie', so far I don't think anything has happened that prohibits it from being part of the main Toobworld....

BCnU!

I chose that zombie picture because it made me think it could be the zombie version of "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World".......

THE TELE-FOLKS DIRECTORY - "WEE JOAN" KEMP

'MURDER, SHE WROTE'
"FILM FLAM"

This is Joan Kemp.  In the 1940s, she was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, known to the Public as "Wee Joan Kemp".  By the time she was 12 years old*, Wee Joan had made a million dollars, but unfortunately her parents drank it away - the Jackie Coogan law be damned! - and by the time she entered her twenties, Joan Kemp was lapsing into obscurity.

Wee Joan Kemp's most famous character was known as Bubbles.  She was featured in a franchise of several movies, two of which were "Bubbles Goes West" and "Bubbles In Love".  That last film was probably her last as the character, as she was on the threshold of adulthood, soon to leave her teen years.

In 1960, when she was just turning twenty, Joan Kemp was cast in director Austin Young's last film, "Cry Of Destiny".  Young had always been a big budget director until "Cry Of Destiny", which he shot on a shoestring budget but he only completed three quarters of it.  But unfortunately he died under mysterious circumstances before he could finish it.  It would be almost thirty-five years before Elaine Brown, the daughter of Hollywood producer Boyce Brown, discovered the unfinished movie and was determined to finish it.  Her father agreed for Monolith Studios to finance the production (to the tune of 40 million dollars), spurred by a nostalgic rebirth of interest in Austin Young's life and career.

One of those obsessed with Young was a writer named Fritz Randall.  "the self-appointed expert on the great man's life and death" was working on a book about the director, focusing especially on his mysterious death which could have been suicide.  But Fritz was convinced it was murder.  However, before he could confirm his suspicions, Fritz Randall was also murdered in a similar fashion.

Joan Kemp was hoping that the revival of "Cry Of Destiny" would re-energize her career as well.  She had already begun filming a bit role in the latest Todd Paris movie, thanks to some small intervention by Boyce Brown.  It wasn't to be, however.  The solution to the deaths of both Austin Young and Fritz Randall threw all productions at Monolith Studios into turmoil and not many were restarted afterwards.  And that included the Todd Paris movie.

During those years "in the wilderness", Joan Kemp might have still continued to work, but not at the heights to which she was accustomed.  I suspect there were commercials, produced by the ad agency McMann & Tate; low-budget movies Boyce Brown was forced to make by the studio - movies that his daughter called "chop-socky turkeys".  Perhaps some of them might have been directed by another has-been, Cortland Evans.

At the lowest in her career, during the swinging sixties, Joan Kemp might even have participated in soft-core porn films filmed overseas in countries like Caronia and Glendorra where her reputation would not have been as well-known as it was in the States.  (There is real world precedence for this - see the career of Carroll Baker in Italy during the early 1970s.)

Joan Kemp is still alive, but it's doubtful that she is still in the business.  However, Wee Joan Kemp as Bubbles will be immortal......

BCnU!

* To make the timeline work, this is one case in which the character can't be the same age as the actor.  If Joan Kemp was the same age as Kim Darby, she would have been only about 13 years old when she made "Cry Of Destiny".  It doesn't work for the storylline.  So I think she was born in 1940, not 1947.

MISSING LINKS - THE TOOTH FAIRY IN CONNECTICUT

Continuing with the supernatural theme for this month......

Tooth Fairy on a budget, giving less in 2015

USA Today had this story on August 17, which was also covered by WFSB, Channel 3 in Hartford Ct., during their 11 pm news program.  And both of them treated the Tooth Fairy as being real, the same courtesy and respect they grant Santa Claus at Christmas time.

Here's an example from the USA Today story:

The most profitable area to lose a tooth is in the Northeast, where kids get an average of $3.56 per tooth — that's where the most kids get $5 and $20 bills, or more. The Tooth Fairy leaves an average of $3.13 in the Midwest, $3.09 in the West and $3.07 in the South.

In Toobworld, the Northeast is under the auspices of Mary the Tooth Fairy.  She brings legitimacy to the notion of Tooth Fairies (Teeth Fairies?) in the TV Universe with her appearance in the 'Bewitched' episode "Mary The Good Fairy".  (That wasn't one of her good days on the job, back in January of 1971.  Because she had a cold, Samantha Stephens - a witch who was at that time living in Westport, Ct. - gave her some brandy to help knock out the cold.  Unfortunately, it basically knocked out Mary too.  So, with Mary drunk on her fae butt, Samantha took on her responsibilities that night.)

So it's a technicality, but that news report on WFSB - and perhaps it was covered by other TV news outlets with the same sense of whimsy - can be connected to that episode of 'Bewitched'.

BCnU!

THE ORIENT EXPRESS... IN TOOBWORLD

'Green Acres'
"I Didn't Raise My Pig To Be A Soldier"

On their honeymoon, Oliver and Lisa Douglas traveled on the Orient Express, where they "just happened" to run into Lisa's mother - selling chopped chicken liver sandwiches on the train.

The Orient Express is one of those real-world "locations" which can serve as a crossover touchstone in Toobworld.

Weeding out the cartoons, variety specials, and news documentaries, the Orient Express can connect this episode of 'Green Acres' to the following shows:

• 'Orient Express' was a syndicated TV series in the early-to-mid-1950s. Filmed in Europe, its half-hour dramas featured such stars as Paul Lukas, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Geraldine Brooks, and Erich von Stroheim.
• "Minder on the Orient Express" (1985): a special episode of the long-running ITV sit-com 'Minder'.
• The episode "Emergence" of the science fiction television series 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' partially takes place on a Holodeck representation of the Orient Express.
• In the British soap opera 'EastEnders', in 1986, characters Den and Angie Watts spent their honeymoon on the train. It was also where it was revealed that Angie was lying about her illness, preceding the ultimate storyline in Christmas 1986.
• "Aboard the Orient Express" - 'Get Smart' series 1, episode 13, is set on the Orient Express, though filmed on set. 
• In an episode of the television series 'Chuck', Chuck and Sarah decide to go AWOL and take a trip on the Orient Express.
• At the end of the 'Doctor Who' episode "The Big Bang", the Doctor receives a call for help from the "Orient Express — in space". This setting is used in the episode "Mummy on the Orient Express", including a reference to the ending of "The Big Bang".
• In episode 15 of television series 'Forever', Dr. Henry Morgan traveled from Budapest to Istanbul with his wife Abigail Morgan on his honeymoon in 1955. He performed an appendectomy on a member of the fictional Urkesh royalty.

(from 'Wikipedia')

Even though the original Orient Express didn't show up in those episodes from 'Doctor Who' and 'Star Trek: The Next Generation', their recreations were O'Bviously based on the real thing.

BCnU!

TUESDAY NEWS DAY - DAMIEN DAHRK & THE TVXOHOF

From the Arrowverse Wiki:
Damien Darhk is the leader of H.I.V.E., and a former member of theLeague of Assassins. He is the former best friend/rival of the lateRa's al Ghul, as well as a former "Heir to the Demon".

Neal McDonough plays Darhk on 'Arrow', having made his debut in the Season 4 premiere.  And it's now been announced that he's on the fast track to becoming a member of the Television Crossover Hall Of Fame when Damien Dahrk crosses over to the shows 'DC's Legends Of Tomorrow' and 'The Flash'.

According to TV Line, Damien Dahrk will appear in 'Legends Of Tomorrow' back in 1975.  (The show will bounce around Time, thanks to team leader Rip Hunter.)  “I look exactly the same in 1975," said McDonough to ComicBook.com.  "But you see he’s not as confident, and doesn’t have such an agenda … as he does now.”

As for Dahrk in 'The Flash', McDonough describes him as a "crazy, fun, enjoy-everything-while-I-kill-everybody type of character.”

These crossovers will probably be broadcast in 2016 and after that third version, Damien Dahrk will be eligible for membership in the TVXOHOF.

THE TVLINE STORY

MORE ON DAMIEN DAHRK

BCnU!

(Sorry for the late entry today......)

LINKIN HAZE - "NEW TRICKS" & "DETECTIVE MONTALBANO"

As a Crossoverist, I admire the script writer who can throw in a pop culture reference and trust his audience to understand it without ruining it with explanations. That's because I want to accept such references to being about the real person, place, or thing being mentioned and thus sharing the same world as the show in which it was mentioned.

That's why last night's episode of 'New Tricks' gave me a small yet global thrill. In her first case with UCOS, DCI Sasha Miller was looking into the murder of an Italian citizen of the UK in 1988. As she was talking with one of her suspects, Massimo Gentile, Massimo said: "I like you. I watch you... clever; works hard.... like Montalbano."

For the writer and the audience, this was meant as a reference to 'Detective Montalbano', the Sicilian police detective who orginated in BookWorld and now has his own series in Italy.

But for the Toobworld Dynamic, Massimo was referring to the actual detective whom he probably knew... or at the very least, read about his cases in an Italian newspaper....)

Happy Columbus Day!

DOUBLE VISION - A COUPLA ASNERS

Carl Cappi
'RUN FOR YOUR LIFE'
"COMMITTEE FOR THE 25TH"

Vince Leonard
'THE NAME OF THE GAME'
"THE PERFECT IMAGE"

Twin brothers who grew up in a Mafia family back in the thirties and forties kept to the family trade and made their marks in Toobworld in the 1960s.
 
One yet lives; the other died in his only "adventure".
 
Vincente and Carlo "Cappi" Leonardi were born in Chicago in November of 1929.  Both of them grew up bad to the bone, but Cappi was far worse.  Before he was twenty, Cappi "made his bones" for his crime family.  And he indulged in various dark pursuits. 
 
Vince Leonardi was the more level-headed of the two, knowing that he had to keep himself away from any taint of scandal if he wanted to rise up in the organization and eventually take it over.
 
Both brothers decided to change their names in order to make good their ambitions.  Vince simply dropped the last letter of the name and became Vince Leonard before he muscled his way into the labor movement and up through its ranks to become its leader.
 
Cappi had to change his name more drastically if he wanted to pass muster as a casino owner in the changing world of organized crime and its involvement in the Las Vegas gambling culture.  From Carlo Leonardi, known to his friends as "Cappi", he became Carl Cappi.  (My theory for the nickname "Cappi"?  He was a fan of Captain America during World War II.)
 

Cappi became obsessed with a flower child of the sixties named Sarah Sinclair, and he had her working as a dancer in one of the cages in his casino's nightclub.  He also hooked her on heroin so that she would have to stay with him.
 
Let's face it: with the way she looked in comparison to him, Cappi needed every advantage he could get to keep her.
 
Sarah was a runaway from San Francisco and her father had been the former mayor of the City by the Bay, Dwight Sinclair.  

  Family friend Paul Bryan called her father to come help rescue her from Cappi's clutches and Paul even had to use a bit of blackmail to force the Syndicate to pull its backing of Cappi.  With the loss of Sarah from his control and the loss of his casino holdings, Cappi was now vulnerable to prosecution for several past crimes, including murder.  Blaming Paul Bryan, Cappi tried to assassinate the former lawyer in broad daylight, instead killing Sarah and a uniformed policeman before being shot dead by Paul.
 

This happened in October of 1966.
 
Meanwhile, Cappi's twin brother Vince Leonard was finally brought to justice for racketeering by an idealistic young prosecutor named John Adrian.  And it was because of the success of that court case that Adrian was able to ride into the Chicago Mayor's office, succeeding political insider and Daley crony Ed Brock.  But there was no forgiveness in Vince's heart, only the need for revenge.  And so he arranged a somewhat complicated smear campaign against John Adrian in hopes that he would be railroaded into resigning from office which would lead to his chances at an influential position in Washington being scuttled.

The plot unraveled in November of 1969, when Vince had just turned forty.
 
Carl Cappi
Cappi doesn't appear in this clip, but he is mentioned.  We do get to see the woman he controlled, Sarah Sinclair, however.....

 

Vince Leonard

 
Vince Leonard is still alive, 86 this year.  He's not in prison anymore, but he never regained his standings in the unions and probably was lucky not to be bumped off by the mob.  

BCnU!

TV ON TV - JOHNNY CARSON ON "COLUMBO"

'COLUMBO'

"FORGOTTEN LADY"

As the murder is being committed in this episode, the butler and the maid are watching the 'Tonight' show with Johnny Carson (TVXOHOF member in January of 2007).  We get to see several clips covering the entire episode, from Johnny's monologue to his goodnight to the audience and a look at who would be on the next show.  This would turn out to be important in the Lieutenant's investigation in establishing the timeline for the murder that night.

But it also helped this televisiologist in establishing the date when this murder took place as well.

First off, here is the dialogue from those excerpts from Carson's show.....

We'll begin with the monologue:

CARSON: I'd like to announce before I start, the producers of "The Towering Inferno", "Poseidon Adventure", "Earthquake" are all contributing to the rest of my monologue tonight.

And then Johnny and Doc Severinson welcome their guest, Della Reese:

DELLA: How you feeling? 

JOHNNY: l'm fine. l've not seen you for a long time. 

DELLA: Yes, a long time. And l've been here several times, and I still think the monologues are great.

JOHNNY: Thank you. But they're not an aphrodisiac.

DELLA: Sometimes you're pretty good, Johnny. 

JOHNNY: You, too? 

DELLA: Yeah, you'd be surprised how sexy you look through my feet like that. 

Johnny makes a quip about the two-way qualities of working in television:

JOHNNY: I probably shouldn't mention this because it'll give away secrets that were long kept in television....  We have a device, you know, in television, where you can also look out. 

DELLA: Well, you sure had fun looking in my room, haven't you? Oh, yes. Yes, you have! 

JOHNNY: You're an active squirrel.... 

We see an old man sitting in the chair next to Johnny's desk, but Della Reese is still cutting in:

DELLA: And l'm one of the few of us who have no rhythm.

JOHNNY: You never took singing lessons, per se, did you? 

(It could be that I'm wrong (It wouldn't be the first time!) as to the identity of that first speaker.  With that sound quality, it could be the old man was the one who had no rhythm.

And then Johnny makes his goodbyes and announces the next show:

JOHNNY: [Inaudible] will be here Monday with Steve Allen, Elke Sommer, Howie Lipton, prize fighter Wina Sturgeon, and a juggling professor, Jim Reinhart. Thank you all. Have a nice weekend!  

One transcript site had Johnny saying "We'll be here Monday," but based on my research I know it has to be "MacLean Stevenson" as the guest host.

Here's what I came up with.

I was already predisposed to have that movie premiere for "Song And Dance" happen on a Friday night, especially since Johnny's sign-off indicated that the next show would be on Monday.  But Friday just felt like a better night to hold such a gala.

So I needed an episode of 'Tonight' with Della Reese as one of the guests, with Johnny definitely hosting (he was known for taking a lot of nights off), and it had to have been broadcast on a Friday night.

I had one other clue - the three movies mentioned in the monologue.  This episode had to happen after they had all opened; so with 'Earthquake' being the last (released in December of 1974), I figured it wouldn't be until some point in 1975 when all three disaster movies had fully permeated the public consciousness.  

A quick search for "Della" on the Wikipedia page for the 'Tonight' show guest list for 1975 gave me the answer:

June 27, 1975

There were three guests that night:

• Earl Holliman
• Euell Gibbons and
• Della Reese as the musical guest.

What seals the deal is the description of the episode from the following Monday, June 30, 1975:

McLean Stevenson (guest host)

with Steve Allen.

I'm guessing that Wikipedia list is incomplete.

As for the other guests on the episode we're interested in, we never do see Earl Holliman, who was probably on first and schilling for 'Police Woman'.  Good thing then - who needs another Zonk to disable?

And that means the old man was Euell Gibbons of "wild hickory nuts" fame as a Serlinguist expousing the benefits of Grape Nuts cereal.

But I'm glad they used Della Reese instead of Holliman and Gibbons because she can connect 'Columbo' to 'Sanford And Son':

'Sanford and Son'
Herself
- "Della, Della, Della" (1975)

"If Della Reese 

is your niece,

My son 

is Attila the Hun."

Fred G. Sanford

Fred was a poet and didn't even realize it......

One last note - back then, the 'Tonight' show ran an hour and a half.  And that played into Columbo's investigation.

BCnU!

PS:

I thought I had written about this before, but I couldn't find the blog post.  No matter.  This time I have pictures!

TELE-FOLKS DIRECTORY - XANDER LEVINE, CYBER-DETECTIVE

'NEW TRICKS'

"BODY OF EVIDENCE"

In order to solve a mystery in which an unidentified dead body was found among the officially donated corpses at a medical school, the UCOS squad called in a member of the E-Crime team: Xander Levine.  

(Jerry Standing scoffed when he heared that name.  He couldn't believe it was real.)

Unlike Detective Inspector Sandra Pullman, the UCOS members were all in their late sixties, early seventies, retired coppers.  So Xander was certainly different - probably still in his twenties and unkempt in almost a hipster sort of way. Apparently he came to the noticce of the E-Crime unit because Xander once walked along the dark side as a hacker, so he certainly had the chops to fight cyber-crime.

He was exceptionally observant when it came to his job - twenty seconds in the main office of the medical college, where the password was changed daily to log in, and Xander knew what that day's password was.  That's because he saw it across the aisle, written on a post-it note attached to the terminal of one of the workers.  From that, Xander gleaned that the worker's home password was probably "PASSWORD" and that he was a security risk.  (He advised the man who ran the administrative side of the medical college not to let that worker take any important documents home with me.)

Another two minutes in the system and Xander quickly found what he was looking for - the identity of the insider who allowed the body dump and security video wipe to happen.  There was no need to take his time on an investigation when he was in his element, the cyber-world; Xander was no Columbo.

He also approached his work with a sense of excitement and whimsy.  After following the SWAT team into the house of their chief suspect to be a cyber-terrorist, Xander gazed at all of her equipment and sighed, "I think I'm in love!"

American TV has a show about cyber crime investigations already, 'CSI: Cyber'.  And the most gripping episode of Kenneth Branagh's series 'Wallander' dealt with computers as well ("Firewall").  As soon as I had the thought that I would not mind seeing a return visit from Xander, it occurred to me that he could have been brought into the story in order to do a back-door pilot for a new series about cyber-crime.  One of the writers for 'Body of Evidence" was Julian Simpson, who had also written 16 other episodes for 'New Tricks'.  I think it pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that Simpson was assigned by the showrunners to come up with a premise for a potential spinoff from the long-running 'New Tricks'.

I've seen pilots set up like that before, using such a character to intrigue the audience enough to try out the new show when it (hopefully) debuted the following Fall.  And if there was an 'E-Crimes' show, Xander Levine wouldn't have to be the main character.  There could be an ensemble cast with a big name star as the head of the team, with Xander as a supporting but still colorful player.

And being the crossover fanatic that I am, I have a suggestion for a guest appearance in connection to Andy Rush's role as Xander Levine.  Besides any former members of the UCOS team stopping by*, I would suggest Alan Davies as Jonathan Creek.  Why not have it turn out that Jonathan had a son he never knew about - and that could be Xander......

This is nothing more than wish-craft on my part.  The final season for 'New Tricks' has already launched in the UK and I'm sure every episode has been locked in place.  And since Xander appeared in only this one episode back in the 9th season (2013), if there ever was an idea to create an 'E-Crimes' show, then it must have been scuttled - more likely deleted - soon after the episode aired.

But I'm sure we'll be seeing more Andy Rush in the future... just not as Xander Levine.

BCnU!

* In its final season, 'New Tricks' doesn't have a single member of the original cast involved.  And of the replacements, only Denis Lawson as Steve McAndrews was involved in the "Body Of Evidence" episode.  So he would be the most likely to show up in the first episode of such a spin-off.  But they could also have called back Alun Armstrong as Brian Lane - who should have been given his own spin-off show, with Susan Jameson as his wife Esther (who would also be his partner in a private investigation business!)

A MISSED OPPORTUNITY... THANK GOD

'THE X-FILES'

"THE TRUTH PART 2"

This series finale ended with Mulder and Scully talking about hope for the future.....  

(SCULLY reaches out and takes hold of MULDER'S hand in a firm grip.)

SCULLY: You've always said that you want to believe. But believe in what Mulder? If this is the truth that you've been looking for then what is left to believe in?

MULDER: I want to believe that the dead are not lost to us. That they speak to us as part of something greater than us - greater than any alien force. And if you and I are powerless now, I want to believe that if we listen to what's speaking, it can give us the power to save ourselves.

SCULLY: Then we believe the same thing.

MULDER: (whispers) Maybe there's hope.

[Fade to black]

But at one point in the script's development, the producers were hoping to use the Oval Office set from 'The West Wing' for a scene in which the POTUS learns that "Sculder" had escaped custody.  And according to Executive Producer Frank Spotnitz, they even wanted Martin Sheen to appear as President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet.  

Instead they hired an actor who kind of looked like President George W. Bush to play out the scene.  

You might think I would have loved for that to have happened, to have 'The X-Files' and 'The West Wing' cross over.  But you would be wrong.

If they had pulled that off, it would have meant that so many shows would have to be relocated to the dimension of 'The West Wing'.  And that would mean there would be Zonks a-plenty since a lot of those shows would have mentioned whoever the current POTUS was at the time.

I would have liked seeing "Dubya" portrayed as being rather villainous, however.  No problem with that....

BCnU!