NICOLAS CAGEAS SEEN ON:
'Saturday Night Live'
AS PLAYED BY:
Andy Samberg
BCnU!
Friday, January 22, 2010
AS SEEN ON TV: NICOLAS CAGE
NICOLAS CAGEAS SEEN ON:
'Saturday Night Live'
AS PLAYED BY:
Andy Samberg
BCnU!
JACK & GROUCHO
The blending of real TV game shows (as opposed to shows like '$50,000 Steeplechase' from 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show')with TV characters from other shows has been a staple in TV crossovers: 'LA Law' and 'Wheel Of Fortune', 'Cheers' and 'Jeopardy!', and 'Family Matters' and 'American Gladiators'.
This is from April of 1955, two months before I was born - it's a scene from 'The Jack Benny Show' in which Jack disguised himself so that he could appear on 'You Bet Your Life' with Groucho Marx and win some cash. The other contestant is great character actress Irene Tedrow, perhaps playing Congresswoman Geddes (from two episodes of 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show') before she ran for office......
This may be the first such crossover between a TV series and a game show, although if any show might have trumped it, I would guess 'I Love Lucy' might have done so.....
(My thanks to Mark Evanier - link to the left! - for pointing this out!)
BCnU!
This is from April of 1955, two months before I was born - it's a scene from 'The Jack Benny Show' in which Jack disguised himself so that he could appear on 'You Bet Your Life' with Groucho Marx and win some cash. The other contestant is great character actress Irene Tedrow, perhaps playing Congresswoman Geddes (from two episodes of 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show') before she ran for office......
This may be the first such crossover between a TV series and a game show, although if any show might have trumped it, I would guess 'I Love Lucy' might have done so.....
(My thanks to Mark Evanier - link to the left! - for pointing this out!)
BCnU!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
"AMERICAN TORCHWOOD": STAY AWAY FROM ME?
Guess Who..... LOL
Once again, attempts are being made to translate a British TV show for an American audience, and this time the target is 'Torchwood'.
'Torchwood', an anagram of 'Doctor Who' for those not in the know, is a spin-off of that series intended for a more adult audience. It dealt with a group founded by Queen Victoria that works outside of the government to investigate - and if necessary, battle - alien visitations to the British Empire. There were at least four Torchwood hubs in the UK - the one in London was destroyed by the Dalek-Cybermen war on Canary Wharf; the Cardiff hub was the setting for the TV series and was destroyed in the first episode of the "Children Of Earth" mini-series; there's one in Glasgow which apparently is staffed by only one man; and then the fourth one which disappeared but which might be found someday. (Sounds like one of the space stations in 'Babylon 5'....)
The one reason I'm feeling a little more confident of this project than for others that have been announced in the past (Looking at you, 'Coupling'!) is due to the script being written by the creator of the original series, Russell T. Davies.
(I was happy to see RTD take his death-grip off the controls of 'Doctor Who', but I also loved the pilot script for 'Torchwood', "Everything Changes".)
His producing partner from 'Doctor Who' is also on board, Julie Gardner, as well as Jane Tranter, who's the executive Vice President in charge of programming at BBC Worldwide Productions in the United States.
There's talk that John Barrowman might return as Captain Jack Harkness for this new series. But if not, hopefully RTD will create all new characters and not just rework the originals. The new show will have a more global aspect than the original, which focused on the "Rift activity" to be found in Cardiff.
BCnU!
Once again, attempts are being made to translate a British TV show for an American audience, and this time the target is 'Torchwood'.
'Torchwood', an anagram of 'Doctor Who' for those not in the know, is a spin-off of that series intended for a more adult audience. It dealt with a group founded by Queen Victoria that works outside of the government to investigate - and if necessary, battle - alien visitations to the British Empire. There were at least four Torchwood hubs in the UK - the one in London was destroyed by the Dalek-Cybermen war on Canary Wharf; the Cardiff hub was the setting for the TV series and was destroyed in the first episode of the "Children Of Earth" mini-series; there's one in Glasgow which apparently is staffed by only one man; and then the fourth one which disappeared but which might be found someday. (Sounds like one of the space stations in 'Babylon 5'....)The one reason I'm feeling a little more confident of this project than for others that have been announced in the past (Looking at you, 'Coupling'!) is due to the script being written by the creator of the original series, Russell T. Davies.
(I was happy to see RTD take his death-grip off the controls of 'Doctor Who', but I also loved the pilot script for 'Torchwood', "Everything Changes".)
His producing partner from 'Doctor Who' is also on board, Julie Gardner, as well as Jane Tranter, who's the executive Vice President in charge of programming at BBC Worldwide Productions in the United States.
There's talk that John Barrowman might return as Captain Jack Harkness for this new series. But if not, hopefully RTD will create all new characters and not just rework the originals. The new show will have a more global aspect than the original, which focused on the "Rift activity" to be found in Cardiff.
BCnU!
GUS AGAIN... AGAIN
In February of last year, Inner Toob speculated about a DirecTV commercial with Dule Hill who appeared to be playing his character of Gus from 'Psych'.
We didn't make any speculation about who Alan Tudyk was supposed to be playing in the blipvert because the only TV character we really knew him for was Wash from 'Firefly', and that was set too far into the Future to be of any use.
But since we posted that article, he's shown up on 'Dollhouse' as one of the Big Bads for the series: Alpha, the homicidal maniac "doll" that went on a rampage and has yet to be caught.
It could be that he's appearing in the ad as Alpha, channelling one of his more benign personalities. And if so, Gus was lucky he only escaped that situation as a hostage......
Here's the ad in case you haven't seen it recently:
We didn't make any speculation about who Alan Tudyk was supposed to be playing in the blipvert because the only TV character we really knew him for was Wash from 'Firefly', and that was set too far into the Future to be of any use.
But since we posted that article, he's shown up on 'Dollhouse' as one of the Big Bads for the series: Alpha, the homicidal maniac "doll" that went on a rampage and has yet to be caught.
It could be that he's appearing in the ad as Alpha, channelling one of his more benign personalities. And if so, Gus was lucky he only escaped that situation as a hostage......
Here's the ad in case you haven't seen it recently:BCnU!
AS SEEN ON TV: DAVID LETTERMAN
Continuing with 'Saturday Night Live' and its look at the late night talk show mess.....
DAVID LETTERMAN
AS SEEN ON:
'Saturday Night Live'
AS PLAYED BY:
Jason Sudeikis
'SNL' may not be the shining star it once was, but they're still the go-to when you need a real-life figure "as seen on TV" in a pinch....
BCnU!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
BLIPVERT CLASSIC: SUN FIZZ
That USPS ad with the creepy clown doll reminded me of this favorite from a few years back......
BCnU!
BCnU!
THE NEW CLOWN WITHOUT PITY
January's not even over and we have a candidate for the 2010 Toobits Award for Best Commercial of the Year!
BCnU
BCnU
THE 2009 TOOBITS AWARDS (ADDENDUM)
Turns out that there was one Toobits Awards category I forgot to post. So please forgive this late entry for Best New TV Commercial Character:
BCnU!
BCnU!
HEIR A PERRIN 2
Speaking of theories of relateeveety.......
Back in December, Toobworld Central suggested that Senator Perrin of 'Dollhouse' might be the great-grandfather to whatever power for Perrin, the third wife of Ambassador Sarek.
Now we can look backwards along that family lineage as well.....
In a Christmas episode of 'Branded', Julius Perrin was a Jewish immigrant to America who was living in the Old West town of New Hope. (This may have been the televersion beginnings for New Hope, in Smith County, Texas.)
Besides the prejudice held against him for being Jewish, the townspeople - led by Boss Martin Stoddard - also didn't take kindly to him housing orphans, especially a young Indian boy blamed for the shooting of Stoddard's son. It took the intervention of Jason McCord to get Stoddard to see the error of his ways and to make right what once went wrong.
And it later came out that young Master Stoddard was the one responsible for his own shooting.....
BCnU!
Back in December, Toobworld Central suggested that Senator Perrin of 'Dollhouse' might be the great-grandfather to whatever power for Perrin, the third wife of Ambassador Sarek.
Now we can look backwards along that family lineage as well.....
In a Christmas episode of 'Branded', Julius Perrin was a Jewish immigrant to America who was living in the Old West town of New Hope. (This may have been the televersion beginnings for New Hope, in Smith County, Texas.)Besides the prejudice held against him for being Jewish, the townspeople - led by Boss Martin Stoddard - also didn't take kindly to him housing orphans, especially a young Indian boy blamed for the shooting of Stoddard's son. It took the intervention of Jason McCord to get Stoddard to see the error of his ways and to make right what once went wrong.
And it later came out that young Master Stoddard was the one responsible for his own shooting.....BCnU!
A STERLING REFERENCE
Clancy Brown is playing Hart Sterling in the new ABC legal drama, 'The Deep End'. Sterling is the boss at a very prestigious law firm which bears his name in Los Angeles. (In case you don't know who Clancy Brown is, he's the distinguished gray-haired gentleman standing third from the right above.)So here's the Toobworld question of the day: Could Hart Sterling be related to Roger Sterling of the NYC ad agency Sterling-Cooper (and later, Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce) in the early 1960's, as seen in the AMC drama 'Mad Men'? (And for those who don't know John Slattery who plays Roger, he's standing on the far left in this picture below.)
I think you can make a good argument for such a theory of relateeveety.If Hart Sterling is basically the same age as Clancy Brown, then he was born in 1959. By that point in the Toobworld timeline, Roger Sterling was old enough to have sired several children out of wedlock with a long string of mistresses. But since we need only the one, that makes the odds better that he must have at least one illegitimate child.
Eventually we may meet Hart Sterling's parents in the course of the series. If so, not a stumbling block: We could propose that his father was a cousin to Roger; nothing says Roger ever has to mention the extended branches of the Sterling family tree.
Just another missing link heavily reliant on conjecture. It's all in a day's work for Toobworld Central.....
BCnU!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
