THE HAT SQUAD: FRANKIE THOMAS, JR.

By the clouds of Venus!

The Solar Guards website celebrates the science fiction programs of the 1950s. I checked them out this morning after watching a DVD of 'Rocky Jones, Space Ranger' and found the following notice:

May 12th, 2006:
Frankie Thomas, Jr., died this evening at the Sherman Oaks Hospital of respiratory failure while recovering from a stroke.

We've lost Tom Corbett...

Regretfully,
Jan Merlin

Jan Merlin played Roger Manning on 'Tom Corbett, Space Cadet' and they were life-long friends.

If you visit the Solar Guards, you'll find that they have set up a memorial page for Frankie Thomas Jr. where you can add your thoughts and any pictures you might have.

An hour later, the New York Sun was delivered and the security chief pointed out a lengthy tribute/obituary which was published for Frankie Thomas, Jr.

Here's the relevant segment from the L.A. Times obituary written by Dennis McLellan:

(Frankie) Thomas moved back to New York and worked frequently in radio and early television, including the soap opera "A Woman to Remember." In 1950, he was cast in the title role of Tom Corbett, a Space Academy cadet in training to become a member of the elite Solar Guard, 400 years in the future.

In landing the title role in the children's adventure show, Thomas beat out a number of young actors, including Jack Lemmon.

"Frankie looked like the all-American boy," said Jan Merlin, who played the wisecracking cadet Roger Manning ("So what happens now, space heroes?").

"There was a style of acting that kids in those days had, particularly Hollywood kids," Merlin told The Times. "If you were playing the all-American boy, you talked a certain way, you tensed your jaw in a certain way, and he fitted it.

"Everyone in the room knew immediately this was the guy we were going to get."

"Tom Corbett, Space Cadet" debuted in October 1950 as a 15-minute, three-nights-a-week series on CBS. The show later expanded to 30 minutes and aired variously on ABC, NBC and the DuMont networks. There also was a radio version.

In that pre-Sputnik era, the adventures of Tom Corbett and his fellow space travelers quickly caught on with viewers, who included a surprising number of adults.

"The disc jockeys all picked up our lingo: 'Blast your jets,' 'Don't fuse your tubes, 'Spaceman's luck,' " Thomas recalled in a 2005 interview with Starlog magazine. "We were hearing all of this and we said, 'Hey, if they're saying it, they're watching it.' "

Eventually, Thomas told the Asbury Park Press in 2000, "there were 135 different products bearing the name of 'Tom Corbett.' Kellogg's, which was a wonderful sponsor, renamed their second-biggest seller, Kellogg's Pep, the 'Solar Cereal.' They had my picture on the box."

Because the show aired live, it was prone to occasional flubs.

"Frank had a wonderful retentive memory, and frequently if an actor went up with his lines, Frankie would pop in and say the guy's lines for him," Merlin said.

On one occasion, Merlin recalled, "a fella was so nervous he began with Frank's line. So Frank answered with his line, and they did that through the entire scene. At the end of the scene, the director came out of the booth and said how wonderful they were and didn't realize they had changed lines.

"Frank was delighted with that; he had a marvelous sense of humor."

After the TV series ended in 1955, Thomas gave up acting and wrote for television and radio for a time. He then played on the bridge circuit with master players and taught recreational bridge for many years. He also was the longtime editor of the American Bridge Teachers' Assn. Quarterly Magazine and served as president of the organization.

Thomas also wrote a string of mystery novels, including "Sherlock Holmes and the Masquerade Murders," featuring Arthur Conan Doyle's famous character.

At his request, Thomas was buried Tuesday in his "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet" costume.
~~~~
For Toobworld, Frankie Thomas Jr.'s most famous role figured prominently in one of my first attempts at cobbling together a theory of "relateeveety".

In it, Tom Corbett was descended from Eddie Corbett, whose father was also named Tom Corbett. That Tom Corbett was a magazine editor in the early 1970s and he instilled in his son Eddie the values that would be passed down through the generations until they helped mold the moral background of Space Cadet Tom Corbett 400 years later.

BCnU....
Tele-Toby

TV SERIES TIE-IN

The Mercurian Invasion (1998) (V) .... Cadet Tom Corbett

TV SERIES

'First Love' (1954) TV Series... Chris

'Tom Corbett, Space Cadet' (1950) TV Series .... Tom Corbett

'One Man's Family' (1949) TV Series (as Frank Thomas Jr.) .... Cliff Barbour #1 (1949)

'A Woman to Remember' (1949) TV Series .... Charley Anderson

MEETING YOUR MAKER

Brian-El asks:

A recent episode of 'The Simpsons' had Homer Simpson encountering his "real-life" counterpart, Dan Castellaneta.

Was this a first? Where does this fit into the TV Universe as compared to, say, Castellaneta's appearance on 'L.A. Law' as a guy stuck in a Homer Simpson suit?

And when are characters from 'Lost' going to appear on 'The Simpsons', huh?
~~~~~~
Well, when you realize it took over thirty years for 'The Prisoner' to appear in an episode of 'The Simpsons', you might be well advised not to hold your breath waiting to see Homer meet Hurley!

But as for a cartoon character meeting the actor who played him, I think this is new in the Tooniverse.

But in main Toobworld:

Mork met Robin Williams ('Mork & Mindy').

Lucille Carter met Lucille Ball on 'Here's Lucy'... and she came in second in a Lucy Lookalike contest!

'Moesha' met Brandy Norwood.

Ralph and Norton met Jackie Gleason and Art Carney during an episode of 'The Honeymooners'.

Dean Martin played his own stand-in, Ed Feldman. This was in Lucille Ball's favorite episode ever, "Lucy Dates Dean Martin", on 'The Lucy Show'.

During 'The Sammy Davis Jr. Kidnap Caper' on 'Charlie's Angels', an obnoxious guy named Herbert Brubaker III was kidnapped instead of the star. Sammy played both roles.

As far as cartoons go, it's more common for the toon characters to meet the animators, or at least the producer of their animated shorts.

This goes back over one hundred years with Winsor McKay meeting Gertie the Dinosaur.

One of the best examples had Daffy Duck talking Porky Pig into facing Leon Schlesinger at the Warner Brothers Studio and quitting his cushy gig as a Loony Tunes star. ('You Ought To Be In Pictures')

(Daffy got his comeuppance in a cartoon in which he lost a battle with an animator's pencil.)

Back in the Tooniverse, 'Futurama' had something of a close encounter in which we saw Matt Groening's head in one of those jars at the Head Museum.

Would any appearances on TV in which Jim Henson and Kermit the Frog appeared together count?

The creators of TV shows (or the writers who inspired those shows) have found themselves immersed in their own creations. And we had the latest example of that just this past Sunday - when Aaron Sorkin was spotted on the dais during the inauguration. I wonder how he felt to be there watching his creation "pass the torch"?

Felx Unger and Oscar Madison, 'The Odd Couple', got to glad-hand with Neil Simon in an episode of their show.

Except for the theatrically released cartoons, this seems to me to be a Toobworld-centric experience. At least, when it does happen in the movies, it doesn't seem to go over very well.

An example? How about Julia Roberts as Tess Ocean impersonating Julia Roberts in 'Ocean's Twelve'? I remember reading at the time how that spoiled the illusion of the movie.

At the same time, it seems to be the kind of gimmick you might find in some old movie shown on TCM; something starring Bob Hope perhaps.

Thanks for asking, Brian-El. You just gave me a blog post. Thanks!

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

(Anybody out there have any examples of this?)

IN THE THICK OF A ZONK!

BBC America has introduced us to a sharp, 'Office'-like comedy called 'The Thick Of It' this past Friday. And it shot off a possible Zonk! in its opening salvo.

When government spin-meister Malcolm Tucker heard about an un-authorised program by the Ministry of Social Affairs called the Benefit Fraud Investigation Squad, he dismissed this so-called "Snooper Force" as the "New Avengers".

Sorry, Corey. This is not a comic book reference.

The work of top professional John Steed with his talented amateur assistants (in the case of 'The New Avengers', Purdie and Gambit) wasn't always secretive. But their official affiliation with the government probably was.

Still, those who worked in the cogworks of the bureaucracy probably knew who the "new Avengers" were and most certainly which department they worked for.

And Marcus Tucker, more than anyone else in the government, would have known about them, as he was the Machiavellian puppet-master at the center of the web.

Based on the way he sneered the reference to the 'New Avengers', I think it's safe to say that Marcus did not hold John Steed's service to the Crown in high regard. (More than likely he probably caused their budget to be cut entirely and sent Steed off packing to the old spies home in Battersea.)

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

GRACE NOTE [revised]

I was able to watch the last twenty minutes of 'The West Wing' last night before I rushed off to work. There, during my lunch hour, I blogged my post "Grace Note" based only on that one viewing.

Since then, I've seen it again and also had my Swiss cheese memory jogged by fellow Televisiologist Brent McKee. All during the night as I read my usual TV sites, I kept wondering why they were talking about a cocktail napkin when I was thinking of a sheet of legal paper.

Here's the scene that inspired the best moment in the finale for 'The West Wing':

BARTLET
What do you want to talk to me about?
LEO
I've been thinking about getting back into politics.
BARTLET
I think that's great, man. I think it's about time. You probably mean the House, but I think you should consider the Senate seat in Illinois in two years; I can help raise money.
LEO
No, I wasn't thinking about the Senate. I was thinking about the White House.
BARTLET
Hey, Leo, I swear to God there's no one I'd rather see in the Oval Office than you but if you run there's going to be a lot of discussion about Valium and Alcohol. I mean, it's going to come out; this is the world.
LEO
Yeah. See, I wasn't thinking about me.
BARTLET
Who?
LEO
I've been walking around in a kind of daze for two weeks and everywhere I go...planes, trains, restaurants, meetings...I find myself scribbling something down.
BARTLET
What?

Leo takes a napkin out of his pocket, licks it, and sticks it on the posterboard easel.
It reads "Bartlet for America."

(from the episode "Bartlet For America")

So here's a revision of my original thoughts on the subject:

What better way to honor the memory of the late Leo McGarry during the finale of 'The West Wing' than with a prop which he created?

The series practically ended with President Bartlet unwrapping the framed cocktail napkin upon which Leo had scrawled "BARTLET FOR AMERICA", the springboard for his vision of Jed Bartlet as the POTUS.

I'm hoping it was the original copy and not some well-made forgery of John Spencer's signature, but that would be more in the nature of Television than that of Toobworld.

For in Toobworld, it was real. All of the show was real while at the same time an ideal for what could be in our own world. And I think we were lucky to have it on the air for the past seven seasons.

Someday that framed piece of paper should find a home at the Smithsonian, not only to represent the TV show but also to represent that ideal of what our country could be.

And with it should be the piece of paper upon which Leo scrawled:

"LET BARTLET BE BARTLET".

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

Sorry about the earlier mix-up........

THE HAT SQUAD: "THE MOTHER OF TELEVISION"

Elma Gardner Farnsworth, who helped her husband, Philo T. Farnsworth, develop television and was among the first people whose images were transmitted on TV, died in Bountiful, Utah. She was 98.

Her death was reported by Mary Rippley of the Avalon Care Center, where Ms. Farnsworth lived.

The Farnsworths married in 1926, and Ms. Farnsworth worked by her husband's side, then fought for decades to assure his place in history after his death in 1971.

Other inventors developed precursors of television in the 1920's, including mechanical transmission of images, but it was Mr. Farnsworth's work that led to the electronic television we know today.

His first transmission was in his San Francisco laboratory on Sept. 7, 1927, when he was 21. He sent the image of a horizontal line to a receiver in the next room. He said he had realized seven years earlier, while plowing a field on his family's farm, that an image could be scanned onto a picture tube row by row.

In his book "Philo T. Farnsworth: The Father of Television," Donald G. Godfrey wrote that the first human images transmitted by Mr. Farnsworth were of Ms. Farnsworth and her brother, Cliff Gardner. A 3.5-inch-square image of his wife with her eyes closed was transmitted on Oct. 19, 1929, Mr. Gardner wrote. The book lists her as the "first woman on TV."

As Elma Farnsworth could be considered "the mother of Television", I should have posted this yesterday for Mother's Day......

BCnU.....
Tele-Toby

CROSSOVER RUNNER-UP (5/15/06)

Former Jonathan Antin hairstylist Brandon Martinez starred in 'Salon Diaries', a one-hour special that was scheduled for May 9th. (It appears that the special is getting multiple airings on Bravo.)

This was a spin-off from the reality series 'Blow Out' which centered on Jonathan Antin. But being a reality show, 'Salon Diaries' never really stood a chance against something like the 'Doctor Who'/'Red Dwarf' match-up.

'Salon Diaries' takes place at the Warren-Tricomi Salon in Los Angeles. If successful, the special could become a series.

"We are talking about a series," says salon co-owner Joel Warren, that won't be "just about whining and crying in one salon."

Sounds like... "fun". As Mel Cooley would say, "Yehckch!"

(Not that he had any reason to visit a salon......)

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

CROSSOVER OF THE WEEK (5/15/06)

Remember how Murray Slaughter used to do that vocal trumpet riff whenever John Corcoran entered the room during the "Just A Lunch" episode of 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'? ("What did I tell you? He's embarrasssed!")

I wish he was here to trumpet this week's big Crossover.....

'DOCTOR WHO' - "NEW EARTH"
&
'RED DWARF'

For the first episode of the new season, and the second one for David Tennant as the Tenth incarnation of The Doctor (third if you count that online experience about the Graske), they traveled farther than they ever had gone before. And that meant going beyond 5 billion years and the end of Rose's home planet of Earth Prime-Time.

23 years beyond, in fact, and they ended up on the planet New Earth, which was almost an exact copy of the original. (It looked to have two moons though, but it could have been just my 'magination.)

Here they visited a hospital run by the Sisters of Plenitude, a religious order of sentient, humanoid felines. It could be said that their correct genus would be classified as Felis Erectus (officially recognized by the year 2,002,181).

We know who was responsible for their rise on the evolutionary ladder.....

Frankenstein.

No, not the revived man-thing of the Wollstonecraft legend (who was real in the TV Universe), but the cat smuggled aboard the "Red Dwarf" spaceship by Third Technician Lister during a stopover on Titan on February 21st, 2181. He did so in hopes that he would be caught with the cat and then thrown into stasis for the rest of the trip.

What he didn't count on was that Frankenstein was pregnant. By the time she died at the age of 14 in 2192, the cat population on board the ship was about 198,832.

By the year 502,181 , a plague hit the "Red Dwarf". We would know this plague by its more common name of "hunger".

Because of the "plague", less than thirty cat tribes survived. They roamed the cargo decks in search of food, but all the food was gone.

Here's how the 'Red Dwarf' Timeline site describes what happened next:

Weak and ailing, the cats prayed at the supply hold's silver mountain: huge towering acres of metals rocks which the Cats believed watched over them. One cat took down a silver rock, and placed the V-shaped metal icon on the rim of the rock, and turned the handle. And the rock opened. And inside it was Alphabetti spaghetti in tomato sauce. And in the other rocks were other delights. God had spoken.

Because of this "holy miracle", it could be said that Felis Sapiens was born.

The Timeline continues:

2,502,181
- A holy war flared up between two cat factions. One cat faction believed that their god was named Cloister, and he wanted the sausage diner hats to be red, and the other faction thought that their god was named Clister and he wanted the hats to be blue.

2,504,181
- A truce was called and both factions built 2 arks to go and search for Fucial. They left the sick and lame cats behind on Red Dwarf. The first ark, blue, flew into an asteroid. But, the red ark, flew onward, knowing they were truly righteous.

3,002,181
- Lister comes out of stasis, only to find out that the entire crew is dead and he is the only human left. His companions are the hologram of Rimmer, a lifeform who evolved from Frankenstein, and Holly, a tenth generation artificial intelligence computer with an IQ of 6000.

(+1 day)
- Lister discovers that he is a god to the cat people, and meets a dying priest who has lost his faith.

Based upon this, we can assume that the Sisters of Plenitude were descended from those "truly righteous" cat people. But the sick and lame cats that they left behind must have lived on in their legends and they probably never forgave themselves for abandoning them. And so they turned their attentions to the healing of the sick.

But after several billion years, once again these religious cats lost their way, which led to the events of the 'Doctor Who' episode.....

The Doctor must have had a previous experience with Cat, the lone survivor of his race left behind on the "Red Dwarf". For when trying to describe the properties of the 18th Century fireplace found on board a 51st Century spaceship, he called it a "spatio-temporal hyperlink" - a term he coined to avoid using the phrase "Magic Door".

This was the phrase used by Lister and Rimmer when they tried to explain a time portal to Cat in the episode "Stasis Leak". They finally gave up and just called it a "magic door".

(They should have called it a chrono-synclastic infundibulum, just like Stony Stephenson in 'Between Time And Timbuktu'.)

So, ta-DA! That's the Crossover of the Week for this first of the new episodes of 'Doctor Who'. If you're interested in checking out more of the 'Red Dwarf' timeline, click on the link to the left for "Things That Never Were" and looked under the Televsion Category.

Next week? The crossover for "Tooth & Claw"!

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

MUNCHING ON A SIMPSONS RAP

David Bianculli, TV critic and columnist of the New York Daily News, wrote another column of TV Extras in-jokes and I was singled out for VERY special mention:

Champion class Extra hunter Toby O'Brien of New York City scores another one, thanks to the finale of "Arrested Development" on Fox, which featured a guest appearance by Richard Belzer as undercover officer John Munch.

"This marked Munch's ninth appearance in the TV Universe," O'Brien wrote, which, as he notes correctly, makes Belzer the easy record-holder of Actor Appearing in the Most Series as the Same Character.

O'Brien's impressively chronological tally includes "Homicide: Life on the Street," "Law & Order," "The X-Files," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," "The Beat," "Law & Order: Trial by Jury" and "Arrested Development." He reaches nine by including "Homicide: The Movie," but that's a bit of a cheat. The No. 9 is reached, though, if you add in Munch's cartoon appearance, with Belzer providing the voice, in a guest spot on "The Simpsons."

Okay, so I hope everybody read that right. I did not say that he appeared on an episode of 'The Simpsons'. If he did, that's great for me; gives me a future blog entry about Munch and the Tooniverse. But if he didn't - and I can't find anything saying that he did appear on 'The Simpsons', - I don't want to take the rap for that statement.

I'm thinking that maybe Mr. Bianculli might have made the same error that my intrepid bellman did this morning. Richie went to Wikipedia's entry on Richard Belzer and pointed out the mention of 'The Simpsons'. But had he read the line correctly, it was a reference to the appearance on 'The Simpsons' made by George Wendt and John Ratzenberger as their 'Cheers' characters. Norm Peterson and Cliff Clavin are the two TV characters who come closest to Munch's record number of appearances.

But Richie is also convinced that he has seen Munch ("black suit and yellow face") on the long-running animated hit.

I'm thinking he got hit in the back of the head by an American Tourister bag tossed around by one of the other Magilla-like bellmen.

If anybody knows for certain, please contact me and let me know. Thanks!

Can't wait to see what kind of fallout comes of the statement. He's had two in-joke references in the past get shot down by the faithful readers. So if it happens again, I'll be doing a bit o' the ol' duck and cover!

But I do really appreciate the "Champion class" designation.

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

GRACE NOTE

What better way to honor the memory of Leo McGarry during the finale of 'The West Wing' than with a framed prop which he created during one of the series' most inspirational moments?

The series practically ended with President Bartlet unwrapping the framed sheet of legal paper upon which Leo had scrawled "LET BARTLET BE BARTLET" as they approached the mid-term elections of the Administration's first term in office.

I'm hoping it was the original copy and not some well-made forgery of John Spencer's signature, but that would be more in the nature of Television than that of Toobworld.

For in Toobworld, it was real. All of the show was real while at the same time an ideal for what could be. And I think we were lucky to have it on the air for the past seven seasons.

Someday that framed piece of paper should find a home at the Smithsonian, not only to represent the TV show but also to represent that ideal of what our country could be.

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

A BLIGHT FROM THE PIAZZA

Tonight, 'The West Wing' airs for the last time. For a time it was the show for which I couldn't wait for its next new episode as soon as I finished watching the previous one. But that ardor cooled and was replaced by other shows like 'Lost' and the new 'Doctor Who'.

Still, it was part of my weekly "Must-See" appointment TV and there'll be a big hole in my Sunday night sked come next fall.

And as the finale approaches, my sense of tele-synchronicity kicked in while I was working on the Hat Squad tribute to Susan Browning. While confirming the identity of Ben Piazza's character on 'Forever Fernwood', I discovered that he appeared in a 1987 episode of 'St. Elsewhere' as Josiah Bartlet(t).

Up until that point, I was under the impression that "Dr. Josiah Bartlet" of Boston General was mentioned, but never seen. Honestly, I never remembered him from that episode ("You Again?") and I can't even claim that was due to the time that's lapsed since it aired.

That's because one of the other sub-plots dealt with Dr. Kiem's attempts to concentrate on her work, even though her son had disappeared while hitch-hiking to Boston.

Why would that matter to me? According to reports, her son was last seen in Meriden, Connecticut, after ditching classes at Choate in Wallingford. And Meriden is my hometown.

With a face now attached to that of Josiah Bartlet in the main Toobworld, I can no longer claim that the character who became the President of the United States in an alternate dimension has a counterpart in Earth Prime-Time who became a Boston physician.

I can't even fudge the matter with claims about facial structural damage as the cause for the difference in their looks. I mean, can you picture the late Ben Piazza?

Summon an image of Martin Sheen in your mind. Then click here to see what Ben Piazza looked like in "The Blues Brothers".

If plastic surgery was involved to alter his appearance from Sheen to Piazza, then Dr. Josiah Bartlet better consult somebody at Crane, Poole, & Schmidt!

There is only one way that I can rescue some kind of connection from all of this......

Jed Bartlet has a brother whom we've never met on the show by the name of John. (We learned the brother's name when President Bartlet dressed down that smug bitch of a Dr. Laura Schlessinger radio host in a classic scene from 'The West Wing'. If you want to read that scene, check out Brent McKee's running theme of great moments from the show.)

So......

What if in the main Toobworld, the Bartlets' parents decided to switch their sons' names from the way we know them in the 'West Wing' universe? So that Josiah was now John, and vice versa?

There may be power in names, but it can only go so far in molding a person's future. Being named Josiah Bartlet didn't automatically seal his destiny to go into politics; instead he found his calling in medicine.

Okay, I just read that back. The only downside really is that I think that President Josiah Bartlet is supposed to be considered the older brother. If Martin Sheen and Ben Piazza were supposed to be playing brothers, Piazza was by far the older of the two actors by at least a decade.

And let's face it - they don't look like they could be brothers (not that that's ever been a deterrent for casting in TV shows past).

I've always wanted to see John Dye of 'Touched By An Angel' play the role. (He played Andrew, an Angel of Death.) He at least had a physiognomy that seemed connected to the same genetic lottery from which Martin Sheen might have sprung.

::Sigh::........

As it turns out, it was so much easier to find Leo McGarry's doppelganger in the main Toobworld when John Spencer played a detective named Leo, speaking of 'Touched By An Angel'.....

BCnU!
Tele-Toby