HOORAY FOR HOLLY!

It was via Carolyn Hinsey's column in the NY Daily News that I first heard the story, but Herbie JP over in Media Village had more details - Emma Samms is returning to 'General Hospital' as her character of Holly Scorpio on February 20th.

So that's this coming Monday, and it will be part of the celebration for the soap opera's 11,000th episode.

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

SUPER BOWL BLIPVERTS IV

"Seeing a murder on television can help work off one's antagonisms.
And if you haven't any antagonisms,
The commercials will give you some."

Alfred Hitchcock
'Alfred Hitchcock Presents'

PART FOUR
The Debit MasterCard ad featuring 'MacGyver' was the only blipvert during the Super Bowl to have a direct link to a TV series. But there were a few others that could be connected hypothetically... with only a few slight twists of pretzel logic to make them work.

PS
Perhaps as a preview to 'Eureka!', this summer's series on the Sci-Fi Channel, a company called PS gave us the "Best Defense" spot in which all the residents of a small town went about their everyday activities clad in bio-hazard suits.

Since Eureka is a town in the Pacific Northwest that is populated by scientists working on secret projects for the government, maybe something went wrong that particular day......

NATIONWIDE
Nationwide's spot featuring Fabio as a gondolier? To me, that was the kickoff for an episode on sci-fi shows like 'The X-Files', 'Doctor Who', the short-lived 'The Chronicle' or the upcoming 'Torchwood': in various places around the globe, people are suddenly aged rapidly and that's when the titular strike team leaps into action!

Or it could have been the payoff ending to an episode of 'The Twilight Zone'...... Maybe that woman in the gondola fed off Fabio's life force in much the same way as movie star Pamela Morris did in the episode "Queen Of The Nile".......

ALEVE
For their pain medication, the only one for such a product to run during the game, Aleve instead went behind the scenes of a TV show and delivered a Zonk! with the help of Leonard Nimoy.

We learned that had it not been for the pain reliever, Nimoy's arthritis would have made it impossible for him to give the Vulcan salute of greeting to a convention hall full of 'Star Trek' geeks.

Somewhere in that audience sat the cast of 'Dweebs', I'm sure of it!

SPRINT/NEXTEL
The "Crime Deterrent" ad was already perfect, but in trying to imagine it in terms of TV shows, I can see Barney and Marshall from 'How I Met Your Mother' playing those roles instead. Barney is just the type to whack a friend in the head with a cell phone. And Marshall is just thick enough to fall for it twice.

Their other commercial with that odd, Russianesque fellow so in love with his phone's tunes for every occasion suddenly turned into a tribute to 'The Benny Hill Show'. In a way, it was almost comforting to me, as Benny Hill's erudite straight man Henry McGee passed away only the week before.....

BUDWEISER
One of their many ads (ten in all, I believe) dealt with two hikers in a confrontation with a very angry, probably very hungry bear. Trapped against a rock wall, one of the guys uncaps a bottle of Bud and offers it to the bear. Momentarily gratified by the offering, the bear becomes enraged once again as the other hiker races in and steals the beer before racing down the trail.

The timing of this commercial's premiere was somewhat unfortunate as a documentary by Werner Herzog was broadcast around the same time on the Discovery Channel. "Grizzly Man" was the true story about an amateur bear enthusiast and his girl-friend were mauled to death by bears in Alaska.

Not sure how many people saw that documentary in comparison to those who saw the commercial during the Super Bowl, but I think the truth about such encounters takes the humor out of the spot.

FEDEX
This neatly ties in with 'Dinosaurs!', which also postulated that cavemen were already in existence while the great thunder lizards still roamed the Earth. It also ties in with 'Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy' and 'It's About Time' in that these grunts somehow knew and understood the futuristic concept of Federal Express. How else could they have known about that if not for a splainin from Arthur and Ford or Mac and Hector, respectively?

And yet.... with those rrrrrridges around their eyes looked like somebody from the now disbanded 'Star Trek' make-up department found a new use for their talents. Maybe these were two aliens trapped in Earth's past, trying to cope with the lack of services they were using in Earth's present.

How did they get stuck back in the past? Maybe they went to Kinko's and tried photo-copying a mirror. 'Not Necessarily The News' warned such a result would occur......

Stay tuned.......

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

THE HAT SQUAD: ANDREAS KATSULAS

Andreas Katsulas, best known to fans as G’Kar on 'Babylon 5' and Commander Tomalak from several episodes of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation', passed away this week after a battle with lung cancer. He was 59.

A St. Louis native, Katsulas moved to Los Angeles in 1986 where he quickly began to score supporting parts in a variety of popular film and television series. His turn as the one-armed man in Harrison Ford’s remake of "The Fugitive" was perhaps his biggest film, but the actor was also spotted over the years in everything from 'Alien Nation' to 'NYPD Blue' on the small screen, and "Someone to Watch Over Me" to "Executive Decision" in features.

But it was his turn as the unlikely religious disciple G’Kar on the popular sci-fi show 'Babylon 5' for which fans will most remember Katsulas.

Here's the tribute I left for him at TVSquad.com:

Katsulas' work as Ambassador G'Kar proved not only how great an actor he was, but how good a writer JMS turned out to be with 'Babylon 5'. The character started out as a stock alien villain, but grew over the course of time to have all the shadings and emotions expected in real people.

In fact, it's a quote from another classic in the genre that best sums up his skills as an actor:

Despite playing an alien lizard and hampered by a ton of latex, "of all the souls I have encountered in my travels...his was the most...human."

Both Katsulas and G'Kar will be missed.

BCnU.....
Tele-Toby

TV SERIES
"Babylon 5" .... G'Kar (1994-1998)
"The Guiding Light" .... Lucien Goff (1982)

TV MOVIES
Seduction: Three Tales from the 'Inner Sanctum' (1992) (TV) .... Frank
Murder Times Seven (1990) (TV) .... Marco Volatile
The Neon Empire (1989) (TV) .... Vito
Steal the Sky (1988) (TV) .... Colonel Gemayel
A Very Delicate Matter (1982) (TV) .... Zachary Pscharapolus
King of America (1982) (TV) .... Markos
Série noire (1979) .... Andreas Tikides

TV CLASSICS
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1982) (TV) .... Snout
Mesure pour mesure (1979) (TV) .... Claudio

TV PILOTS
Babylon 5: The Gathering (1993) (TV) .... G'Kar
Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers: To Live and Die in Starlight (2002) (TV) .... G'Kar

TV SEQUELS
Babylon 5: In the Beginning (1998) (TV) .... G'Kar
The Death of the Incredible Hulk (1990) (TV) .... Kasha

TELE-HISTORY
Path to Paradise: The Untold Story of the World Trade Center Bombing (1997) (TV) .... Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman

THE TOONIVERSE
"The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest"
- The Robot Spies (1997) TV Episode (voice) .... Stephano DePace

TV RELATED MOVIES
The Fugitive (1993) .... Frederick Sykes

TV GUEST APPEARANCES
"NYPD Blue"
- Shear Stupidity (2003) TV Episode .... Ron Szudarek
"Enterprise"
- Cogenitor (2003) TV Episode .... Vissian Captain
"Millennium"
- Forcing the End (1999) TV Episode .... Moses Gourevitch
"Star Trek: The Next Generation"
- All Good Things (parts 1 & 2)... (1994) (TV) .... Commander Tomalak
- Future Imperfect (1990) TV Episode .... Commander Tomalak
- The Defector (1989) TV Episode .... Commander Tomalak
- The Enemy (1989) TV Episode .... Commander Tomalak
"Diagnosis Murder"
- The Plague (1994) TV Episode .... DEA Agent
"Murder, She Wrote"
- A Killing in Vegas (1991) TV Episode .... Jerry Pappas
"Hunter"
- Deadly Encounters: Part 2 (1990) TV Episode .... Nikolai Janosch/Arno Kudriescu
- Deadly Encounters: Part 1 (????) TV Episode .... Nikolai Janosch/Arno Kudriescu
"Mancuso, FBI"
- Ahami Awry Kidnapped (1990) TV Episode
"Jake and the Fatman"
- You Turned the Tables on Me (1990) TV Episode .... Everett Ashford
"Alien Nation"
- The Game (1989) TV Episode .... Koulak
"Father Dowling Mysteries"
- The Mafia Priest Mystery: Part 1 (1989) TV Episode .... Assistant District Attorney Douglas
"Houston Knights"
- Cajun Spice (1988) TV Episode
"The Equalizer"
- Video Games (1988) TV Episode .... Warren Briggs
"Max Headroom"
- Baby Grobags (1988) TV Episode .... Mr. Bartlett
- Grossberg's Return (1987) TV Episode .... Mr. Bartlett
"Heure Simenon, L'"
- Un nouveau dans la ville (1987) TV Episode .... Le 'Yougo'

[thanks to the IMDb.com]

SUPER BOWL BLIPVERTS III

"Television has done so much for psychiatry
By spreading information about it,
As well as contributing to the need for it."
Alfred Hitchcock
'Alfred Hitchcock Presents'

PART THREE
With Ford's entry in the lineup of Super Bowl Blipverts, I thought it was as good a time as any to re-examine the plight of Toobworld's most discriminated minority....

Puppets.

The Ford Escape Hybrid could be linked to 'Muppets Tonite!', 'The Muppet Show', and 'Sesame Street' thanks to its very special guest star Kermit The Frog. With this ad, Kermit adds another credit to his TV crossover Hall of Fame resume. In fact, he is one of the Hall's founding fathers, considered part of the "proto-hall" - those characters whose tributes in the old TwD website first gave me the idea that certain crossover characters should be honored in some way.

Unlike many cartoon characters, puppets are not shunted off to their own alternate dimension like the Tooniverse. They co-exist with humans on Earth Prime-Time as sentient beings. Although technically never televised, their roots begin on the Isle of the Blessed, which was first described by Lucian of Samosata in the 2nd Centuray AD.

According to his "True History", the puppet people are invisible beings who gave themselves form by wearing spiderwebs dyed purple. Centuries later, once humans discoved the Isle of the Blessed, (also known as Yazoo, Gortch, or just The Living Island), ambassadors with legendary names of Henson, Tillstrom, and Baird created new shells for these spirits to give them visible bodies.

And the spirits took on the qualities that would be associated with the form of the puppet shell. So Kermit would display the attributes of a frog; Oliver J. Dragon would be a dragon in his own mind; Globey would function within 'Peewee's Playhouse' as a globe; and Skred of 'Saturday Night Live'.... Well, whatever he was, he was damned good at it!

With these new bodies, puppets eventually joined the immigration to the New World, although they are for the most part kept segregated from human society. Puppet people are fine as entertainers, sure. But even though Ed Sullivan had no problem with giving Topo Gigio a goo'night kees, that didn't mean the variety show host would have wanted the Italian puppet mouse accepted by his co-op's board as a new resident.

So they are ghettoized to specific sections of major cities, like on 'Sesame Street' and 'Pinwheel', or in their own communities like 'Eureek's Castle'. At least there are some humans who don't mind living among puppets, like on 'The Hap Richards Show', a local program from Connecticut while I was growing up. (And in fact, I still have my certificate of citizenship in Joyville, Ct.!)

But the prejudice against the puppet people keeps them in the background, out of sight. Don't bother looking for the puppets on Wisteria Lane ('Desperate Housewives') or on board the 'Battlestar Galactica'. I don't think the 'CSI: NY' team would even bother to show up if Big Bird ever got pumped full of bird-shot down on 'Sesame Street'; not even if Dick Cheney pulled the trigger.

So I didn't need to see a human hiking along with Kermit, or even as the driver of the Escape Hybrid, to know that the Muppet frog co-existed with our TV counterparts.

It's just that he probably wouldn't be getting a lift back into town from the driver!

Now, when it comes to the Honda blipvert in which the Ridgeline mudflap silhouette of a woman came to life.... Definitely a denizen of the Tooniverse. The special guest appearance by fellow mudflap star Yosemite Sam clinched that. They were both in the some interface between the dimensions, where pen-and-ink toons can interact with flesh-and-blood humans, since the Honda truck was 3-D live action.

They were probably parked around the corner in Metropolis where Jerry Seinfeld hangs out with the animated Superman.....

Stay tuned.......

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

SUPER BOWL BLIPVERTS II

"Crime does not pay - even on Television.
You must have a sponsor."
Alfred Hitchcock
'Alfred Hitchcock Presents'

PART TWO
In one of the last remaining pages of the old Tubeworld Dynamic website, there's a primordial splainin about the TV Universe, featuring my early theories and beliefs.

Among these, there's a splainin about "quantoon physics":

Most of the oddities in the TV Universe can be traced back to the commercials. In less than sixty seconds, a TV ad can wreak havoc on the natural laws of the TV Universe. People can walk up walls, stretch their bodies to grotesque proportions, and shatter the barrier of the Fourth Wall. It's a scientific principle we call "quantoon physics".

And we wouldn't have it any other way. Most times the commercials can be just as entertaining as the programs they sponsor. And in the case of UPN, they can be even more so.

I'm a baaaaaaaaad TV fanboy.......

There were several ads during the Super Bowl that took the slice o' life motif and stretched it like the Official White House stance on domestic wiretapping printed on Silly Putty. The ads for Full Throttle Energy, Emerald Nuts, and 'The Office'-inspired quest for the "Hidden Bud Light", and the installation of the secret fridge for those Bud Lights in the "Man Kitchen" all went over the top for cartoonish behavior.

FULL THROTTLE ENERGY
While watching the ad for Full Throttle Energy drink, something I'll probably never see anywhere else but in a commercial, I found myself wondering:

If these guys all have the energy to drop what they're doing and chase after this truck with the giant Full Throttle Energy can on its back, then what do they need the drink for in the first place?

I was suspicious. What exactly IS this stuff? Maybe it actually is "The Stuff" (from a pretty obscure Larry Cohen movie). Or maybe it's the live action equivalent of Slurm from the Year 3000, found in 'Futurama' over in the Tooniverse. Only out of whose butt are they getting the squeezin's?

Forget Michelob Amber; I think this is Soylent Amber!!!!

EMERALD NUTS
When I saw the Eagle-Eyed Machete Enthusiasts Recognize A Little Druid Networking Under The Stairs, it only made me shrug. It was just the long-playing version of the Emerald Nuts acronyms that we've seen before in the back alleys of Toobworld. They'd probably be more at home in the TV Sketch dimension, mixing right in with the Widettes, Doug and Debbie Whiner, and the guy who went around squishing your head.....

BUD LIGHT I
Picture the staff in the Scranton offices of Dunder-Mifflin (or my personal favorite - Upton/Weber) infected by the Rage plague of "28 Days Later". That's the visual you get when these office drones go boogatz looking for the hidden bottles of Bud Light.

Not too far out of the realm of possibility in the TV Universe, but as it is with puppets and most human beings in Toobworld, you wouldn't want to attempt meshing the commercial seamlessly into a scene from the movie "Office Space". (Which to my mind belongs in the TV Universe!)

BUD LIGHT II
Hopefully the blipvert for the "Hidden Fridge" sped by quickly for other viewers. That way they never had the time to think about how that guy was able to build a secret panel into the wall to hide his refridgerator from the soon-to-arrive football fans, and yet never realize that there was another apartment on the other side.

For that matter, those dunder-heads in the other apartment should have figured out why they were connected. Me, I was just wonderin' if that apartment came with a two-way medicine cabinet as well as a man-kitchen!

DEGREE
But none reached the apex of "quantoon physics" like the slice o' life seen in that quaint little village of Stunt City, which was featured in the blipvert for Degree deoderant. That location probably can only be found inside the borders of TV-L.A. County, not far from Hollywood and Television City.

Anybody see a white Ford Bronco during that blipvert?

Stay tuned.......

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

SUPER BOWL BLIPVERTS I

"Just as no rose is complete without thorns,
No television show is complete without the following commercials."
Alfred Hitchcock
'Alfred Hitchcock Presents'

With the choice of the Debit MasterCard/MacGyver crossover to kick it off, I'm finally going to write about the Super Bowl ads and their place in the TV Universe. Not ALL of them, of course - even I have limits!

We can skip the ones that aired in the past - used goods. These would include the Hummer 3 love battle between the monster (GojiroDaddy.com?) and the giant watcher robot. And forget about the movie previews and those commercials that were pretty much straight-forward messages like the Dove Campaign For Real Beauty and for the Cadillac Escalade. (Ugh. Was there a commercial more boring than that one during the Super Bowl?)

I can cover a good portion of the blipverts with the sweeping theme of "Everyday TV Life". Sticking the word "TV" in there is key, because even in the mundane details, life in Toobworld can vary greatly from that in the Trueniverse.

Some of these ads could have happened in the real everyday life - well, okay, maybe the guys listening to the game and having a cookout up on their roofs was a tad sitcommish, (as was the finally approved GoDaddy.com bit), but I'll bet there are lots of kids who have had the sort of conversations heard in the Toyota Camry Hybrid spot.

There was nothing with the dramatic pull of last year's popular "Salute To American Troops" by Anhueser Busch (which later in the year I was able to link to 'Over There' on the FX network.) But there was no dearth in the sitcom aspects regarding the lifestyles of the male animal.

The touch football game in the Michelob Amber blipvert followed in the tradition of 'Friends' and 'How I Met Your Mother' - a group of close friends enjoying good times and comedic situations; capping it all off with a beer... and without having to endure being tinted blue like in the old Zima ads.

The two security guards in the Sierra Mist spot populate everybody's nightmares about going to the airport, and they could easily be found causing hassles for the characters in any sitcom, even if the goal of stealing your refreshing beverage never came up.

And what separated 'The Wave' in the Budweiser blipvert from any similar feat attempted in the Real World? Its perfection.

Like I said, it's all in the details.......

Stay tuned. I'll be back with more, after the break.......

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

AS SEEN ON TV....

The rock band Lifehouse performed today on 'One Life To Live', and I'm told they provided a musical backdrop for Michael's proposal to Marcie.

CROSSOVER OF THE WEEK!

This looks to be a good year for blipvert crossovers with Television shows. Just before the new year, we had Frank and Marian Barone of 'Everybody Loves Raymond' in a variation on an Alka Seltzer classic. (It is currently in heavy rotation on many networks.)

And there's a couple of despairing domestic engineers in a beverage blipvert that I'm holding in reserve for the dry spell I've been expecting since January. (As it turns out, I had another week with three contenders for top dawg crossover. This is all due to the disruption caused by that 900 lb. gorilla known as the Olympics.)

Anyway, the Crossover of the Week happened in a commercial that premiered during the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. It was for Debit MasterCard, and as the narration by Billy Crudup pointed out, having the ability to buy the everyday things that could help you get out of any kind of jam was priceless.

What kind of everyday things? A pine-tree air freshener to cut your restraints, tube socks to slide down a wire, and a ballpoint pen, rubber bands, paper clips, tweezers, nasal spray and a turkey baster to hot-wire an old truck.

And who would buy such things in case of such an emergency? None other than Angus 'MacGyver'!

THE CROSSOVER OF THE WEEK!
'DEBIT MASTERCARD' & 'MacGYVER'

(At the end of the blipvert, MacGyver is in a convenience store purchasing an array of off-the-cuff items, awkwardly avoiding the questioning looks of the cashier.)

Twelve years after he was last seen in Toobworld, - and almost a year after the death of his old friend Pete Thornton, - the action hero of the Phoenix Foundation proved that he still had what it takes to get out of a tight fix.

The blipvert also showed that should Richard Dean Anderson ever consider a return to the airwaves as 'MacGyver', a slot on the sked will be available for him.

And if not, we can probably squeeze him in using a clothespin, a shoelace, and no-fat butter substitute.

As Paul Alvarado-Dykstra of robogeek.com put it: "I really love this spot, which is a megadose of pure robogeek joy (though it falls just short of perfection due to the lack of a Dennis McCarthy score).

One can only hope that Paramount will wake up, smell the coffee, and make a smart, fun, suspenseful and action-packed MacGyver movie with Anderson - not to mention Teri Hatcher and Bruce McGill (reprising their recurring roles of Penny Parker and Jack Dalton)."

Richard Dean Anderson had no qualms and happily no apologies for using the blipvert forum to make MacGyver's return to Toobworld.

“While I've had offers to bring the MacGyver character back to life, MasterCard had the sense of humor I felt was needed to bring the character back,” he said. “The commercial really speaks to how oftentimes everyday items are truly 'priceless' and can serve as life savers.”

And if they were watching the Super Bowl in Springfield, Patty and Selma Bouvier exhaled their cigarette smoke with deep satisfaction.....

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

"There's a time to be Daniel Boone,

And there's a time to be a plumber."
Angus MacGyver
'MacGYVER'

MUNCH AS MISS CONGENIALITY???

Over at the Live Journal focusing on the Crossover Universe According to the Mind of Tommy Westphall, (see the link to the left) contributor "Truth Be A Liar" (great name!) recapped a historic event in Crossover history:

"The government was trying to get information on the Bluth family for their case. So they put up this fake flyer claiming to be setting up a workshop to help fathers create scrapbooks for their daughters, so they can connect to them better.

Tobias, knowing that his daughter's birthday was coming up, signed up for the class. It was obvious from the beginning that the class was a set-up, as the narrator said that this had been used to find evidence on such people as Ken Lay.

Basically, Professor Munch kept urging everyone to include personal financial documents in their scrapbook to make it really authentic, obviuosly hoping that Tobias would put some evidence about the Bluth family's crimes in his scrapbook. It was made especially obvious when Tobias said he needed to go to a storage unit to get his documents, and 'Professor' Munch said they would arrange a hellicopter for him."

Professor Munch!

However, a frequent correspondent here, Will Devine (known to us by his "tribal name" of "Words Say Nothing"), wasn't so sure that it should be included:

"Was it truly clear that Belzer was playing the same character of John Munch, from Homicide, SVU, et al? Obviously the name is there, but I'm not sure it corresponds with Munch's government conspiracy views. (I just don't see him directly working for the federal government.)

There's also the fact that AD takes place in California and Munch is supposed to be in New York. I just have to wonder if it's actually John Munch in AD, or perhaps an identical brother/cousin/whatever."

As for me, regular readers know I've had no problem in the past in doing the Limbo to bend the poz'bilities enough to fit my own theories. So I have no trouble in believing that 'Professor Munch' was supposed to be Detective John Munch of the 'Special Victims Unit'. And although I didn't bother to cobble together a splainin as to why he was in California working for a government he clearly distrusted, I can accept it as it stands.

But the fact that I would have to come up with a splainin for that, unlike his appearance on 'The Beat' or in an episode of 'The X-Files', diminishes the strength of the crossover's standing for the week. However, it certainly isn't because of an overdose of "Been There, Done That" when it comes to the Munchkin. All crossovers are important, but when Munch adds yet another show to his own personal roster, and yet another one that crosses network borders at that, then it truly should be seen as the milestone that it is.

This marks Munch's ninth appearance in the TV Universe:

'Homicide: Life On The Street'
'Law & Order'
'The X-Files' (on FOX)
'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'
"Homicide: The Movie"
'Law & Order: Criminal Intent'
'The Beat' (on UPN)
'Law & Order: Trial By Jury'
'Arrested Development' (on FOX)

In the first official year of the TV Crossover Hall of Fame's existence, Munch was inducted as a member. And I wouldn't be surprised if there are some crossover scholars out there who begin to reconsider their view of the TV Universe as being centered around Munch rather than around Tommy Westphall of 'St. Elsewhere'.

But even so, because I would have had to work a bit to make this crossover perfect, it only made it to First Runner-up for Crossover of the Week.

I do so hate to work....

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

CROSSING THEMSELVES OVER

KIRSTIE ALLEY
'THE KING OF QUEENS' <-----> 'FAT ACTRESS'

On this week's 'The King of Queens', Carrie Heffernan got a new, hig-profile client at the real estate business - actress Kirstie Alley, whose televersion was seeking a condo in the New York area. But as they worked together, Carrie found herself eating and even smoking for Kirstie, who was still fighting to lose all of the weight she had gained.

This ties right in with 'Fat Actress', the Showtime series in which Kirstie Alley dramatized her "Battle Of The Bulge" for the TV Universe.

******

CONAN O'BRIEN
'THE OFFICE' <------> 'LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN'

Also in New York City, Michael Scott arrived with the documentary camera crew in tow to attend a Dunder-Mifflin regional managers meeting. While he was in Rockefeller Center, Michael thought he saw Tina Fey of 'Saturday Night Live' and pestered some poor woman, never noticing as talk show host Conan O'Brien strode past him.

This appearance by my semi-cousin is one of the best examples that celebrities appearing as themselves in TV shows are as fictional as the other characters in the show. (This has been a major sticking point for other crossover specialists like the "Westphallians".)

This episode had a specific time-frame; it was taking place on Valentine's Day, this coming Tuesday. But in the Real World, Conan O'Brien will be meeting the new Finnish Prime Minister in Helsinki on Tuesday. (He's taking credit for her election.)

Even if it was supposed to be a give-and-take over a few days, the TV Conan doesn't jibe with the True O'Brien - Conan landed in Finland on Saturday and will probably not be flying out until at least the next day.

Although truth to tell, Conan did look like he was suffering a major case of jet lag in that cameo on 'The Office'!

BCnU!
Tele-Toby