WEREWOLVES & SLAYERS & GHOSTS - OH MY!

In the first episode of the 'Being Human' sophomore season, Annie accompanied George's girlfriend Nina on her first night in which she would transform into a werewolf. At one point she said, "There's a werewolf called Nina on 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'."

This could be a Zonk. However, in the real world Nina the werewolf actually featured on the 'Buffy' spin-off show 'Angel'. The character never appeared or was even referred to on 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'.

And that could help deflate the Zonk.

'Buffy' has been off the air since May of 2003. She and her Scooby gang apparently went to Cleveland to take care of another Hellmouth after the cataclysmic events in that last 'Buffy' episode.
So in the next seven years, anything could have happened. And the events depicted in the 'Buffy' comic books have no effect on the TV Universe. That's only the Buffy to be found in the Comic Book Universe. Therefore, in that time period Buffy's work could have become exposed to the notice of the general public.

And as happened in the TV Universe with such characters as the Brady family, the crew of the starship Enterprise, and the Time Lord known as The Doctor, maybe an unscrupulous producer decided to take advanatage of the situation and create a TV show about Buffy Somers. (In some of those other cases, their stories would have been turned into a movie. But Annie said "on 'Buffy'", a phrase used for TV show references. With movies, most people would say "in 'Buffy'".)

For the TV show within a TV show that is 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer', there could have been a "fictional" werewolf named Nina - one who had no connection to the "real" Nina as seen in 'Angel'.
BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: BARNEY FRANK

It's Two for Tuesday on 02/0/2!

BARNEY FRANK

AS SEEN IN:

'State Of The Union'

AS PLAYED BY:

Tracey Ullman

BARNEY FRANK

AS SEEN ON:
'Saturday Night Live'

AS PLAYED BY:
Fred Armisen

Barney Frank (born March 31, 1940) is the United States House Representative for Massachusetts's 4th congressional district since 1981. He is a member of the Democratic Party. In 1982, he won his first full term, and he has been re-elected ever since by wide margins. In 1987, he became the second openly gay member of the House of Representatives, and he has become one of the most prominent LGBT politicians in the United States.

Frank became the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee in 2007 after the Democratic Party won a majority in the House. The committee oversees the entire financial services industry, which includes the securities, insurance, banking, and housing industries.

Frank is known for his quick wit and self-deprecating sense of humor. He is also widely considered to be one of the most powerful members of Congress. Josh Gottheimer describes Frank as "one of the brightest and most energetic defenders of civil rights issues."

BCnU!

NUMBERS RUNNING: CANDID CAMERA CORPSE

Got around to finally seeing the 'CSI' trilogy event from November on CBS.com. (Can't believe it was that long ago already!) And in the opening scenes of the final episode, on the mothership of the franchise, one of "the Numbers" from 'Lost' reared up: It figures that such a traumatic event would be captured on the camera bearing that numerical designation.....

BCnU!

DOUBLE VISION: OMAR & FELIX

Omar Miller has joined the cast of 'CSI: Miami' as Walter Simmons. He's seen here in the "Bone Voyage" episode with Dr. Raymond Langston crossing over from 'CSI: NY'.

Previous to this, Miller played FBI Agent Felix Lee on 'Eleventh Hour' (a show I liked and was sorry to see CBS didn't support it with a second season; a crossover with some other procedural like 'Criminal Minds' might have helped).

It's a shame Miller couldn't have played Felix Lee again on 'CSI: Miami', as an FBI consultant to the Miami police. That would have put 'Eleventh Hour' into a definite crossover.

Oh well. There's always the possibility for a theory of relateeveety. Maybe "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" could have referred to the daddy of both Felix and Walter....

BCnU!

THE RAT BASTID

In 'Demons', battle-weary demon hunter Rupert Galvin and his young charge Luke Rutherford (last of the Van Helsings) are always on the look-out for "half-lifes" to smite. A half-life could have been "born" that way - such as the demon Gilgamel - or they could have been created - like the vampire Quincey Harker. Tobias Tibbs was a half-life who was part human and part rat. There was nothing Tibbs enjoyed more than performing experiments on humans. Not for any particular end... he just found it amusingly ironic.

For Toobworld Central, Tobias Tibbs stands as more proof, like the business partner of Gomez Addams, of Dr. Moreau's existance in the TV Universe.

When it comes to that, I'll also contend that the Noisy Boys, those demonic cat-like humanoids that seem to work for the higher levels of demonry, are also products of Dr. Moreau's experimentation. However, they may have kept their man-like physiology but they've lost much of the intelligence. They practically have reverted back to the pure savagery of their forebears...... BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: SALLY HEMINGS

February is Black History Month.....

SALLY HEMINGS

AS SEEN IN:
"Sally Hemings: An American Scandal"

AS PLAYED BY:
Carmen Ejogo

From Wikipedia:
Sally Hemings (Shadwell, Albemarle County, Virginia, circa 1773 – Charlottesville, Virginia, 1835) was an African-American slave owned by President of the United States Thomas Jefferson. She was said to have been the half-sister of Jefferson's wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson.

Journalists and others alleged during and after Jefferson's presidency that he had consensual sex with her and may have fathered several children with Hemings after his wife's death, but few historians credited the allegation. However, DNA testing conducted in 1998 indicated that a male in Jefferson's line was the father of at least one of Sally Hemings's children, reigniting the debate.

BCnU!

TORN FROM THE HEADLINES!

From TMZ.com:

"Rip Torn was arrested Friday night for allegedly breaking into a bank while drunk and armed with a loaded revolver.

State police responded to an alarm at the Litchfield Bancorp building in Salisbury, CT at 9:40 PM last night. Police say they found Torn 'with a loaded revolver' and he was 'highly intoxicated.'

Law enforcement sources tell us Torn gained access through a broken window, which they believe Torn broke himself." [Images are from "A Case Study Of Two Savages", an episode of 'Naked City' guest-starring Rip Torn and Tuesday Weld....]

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: PRIVATE SLOVIK

It was 65 years ago today that Private Eddie Slovik was executed for desertion during World War II.......

PRIVATE EDDIE SLOVIK

AS SEEN IN:
"The Execution of Private Slovik"

AS PLAYED BY:
Martin Sheen

From Wikipedia:
Edward Donald Slovik (February 18, 1920 – January 31, 1945) was a private in the United States Army during World War II and the only American soldier to be executed for desertion since the American Civil War.

Although over 21,000 American soldiers were given varying sentences for desertion during World War II, including 49 death sentences, Slovik's was the only death sentence carried out.
BCnU......

AS NOT SEEN ON TV: JD SALINGER

Yesterday in Facebook I made the rather full-of-myself statement that JD Salinger wouldn't be showing up in the 2010 Hat Squad list of people who contributed to Toobworld. He never wrote for TV, never appeared as himself in any TV show (unlike Thomas Pynchon, another reclusive writer), was never portrayed in a docu-drama.

But he was the inspiration for a couple of characters in TV shows. One was Jack Skowron, played by Anthony Zerbe in an episode of 'The Rockford Files'. Jack was a combination of Salinger, Jack Kerouac, and Hunter S. Thompson.

Here's the TV.com description of the episode "The Gang At Don's Drive-In":

Jack Skowron, author of the bestseller “Freefall to Ecstasy” hires his old friend Jim Rockford to assist him with research for his second book. He and Jack are investigating some prominent community members who are connected by the restaurant they used to frequent and the death of a student on a yacht in 1962.

The other writer modelled on Salinger was T.H. Houghton, played by Robert Prosky in 'Frasier'. (The "T" stood for Theodore").

Here's the IMDb description of the episode "A Crane Critique":

Frasier and Niles are thrilled to catch sight of T.H. Houghton, a reclusive author from their youth. They are aggravated, however, when Martin forms a friendship with the man but they are consistently unable to meet him.

Here's the last third of that episode. It pretty much sums it all up as far as it being a mirror image of Salinger:



That clip also has a nice bit of serendipiteevee with that mention of 'Bonanza', since Pernell Roberts - who played Adam Cartwright - passed away the other day as well.

If I had been Frasier and Niles, I would have dashed out to the street to collect as many of those pages as I could. Maybe Houghton never planned to publish them, but there's not much he could have done once he was dead - and he did proclaim those pages to be trash and threw them away. So they'd be worth some pocket change on eBay or the like after his death.....

BCnU!

STEW POTTS

Since he had seen the latest episode of 'NCIS', TV critic/columnist Alan Sepinwall recognized the trend: that one of the beautiful flight attendants on board a flight will turn out to be an assassin. (Sepinwall tweeted: "What I learned from TV in last week: all beautiful flight attendants are secretly assassins.")

I had only seen the latest episode of 'Chuck' and the 'Human Target' episode from the week before, so for me it was just a coincidence. Which of course violates one of the rules of Toobworld - there's no such thing as coincidence.

This deadly double life in the unfriendly skies is nothing new in Toobworld. Judith McConnell played an assassin stewardess in "Rebecca Of Funny Folk Farm", an episode of 'Get Smart'.

I can't remember which comic book this happened in, but there was a villain whose only function in superhero life was to provide the henchmen and sidekicks needed by other super-villains. Perhaps such a situation could be applied in this case; perhaps there is a stewardess school which trains spies to not only be deadly killers but to be flight attendants as well.

So Laura on 'Human Target', Tiffany on 'NCIS', and the unnamed stew on 'Chuck' may have all graduated from this school for flight assassins; they could have all been in the same class together.

And who might have been running such a school? First off, I just think it should be a brilliant but deadly female spy now out in the cold, looking to stay in the game and make money at the same time. We could either go with someone once seen on a serious show, likeTessa Phillips from 'Spooks' ('MI-5') or from a series in a lighter vein, like Honey Potts as seen in an episode of 'Spy Game'.

(If only to justify my bad subject heading pun, I'd go with Honey Potts who had one of the best fictional names in Toobworld. Ever.)

BCnU!