AS SEEN ON TV: IN DREAMS YET BROWN

'Saturday Night Live' had a lot of fun with Senator-Elect Scott Brown's "sexy" image last Saturday, especially on how it might affect various members of Congress....

Senator Barbara Boxer
(played by Nasim Pedrad)
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
(played by Kristen Wiig)
Congressman Barney Frank
(played by Fred Armisen)
Senator Robert Byrd

(played by Bill Hader)

And as mentioned the other day, Senator-Elect Brown was played by Jon Hamm.

BCnU!

LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - NANTZ & SWISHER

Sportscaster Jim Nantz appeared on 'How I Met Your Mother' as a figment of Barney's imagination. Technically, this does count towards his League of Themselves appearances in Toobworld because it acknowledges that he does exist in the TV Universe. Otherwise, how could Barney have dreamed him up?

Not that it actually matters, however. Nantz already has enough appearances as himself in TV shows to qualify for membership in the TV Crossover Hall of Fame. And (not so) suprisingly, they're almost all CBS shows: 'Arli$$' (the one ringer in the bunch), 'Yes, Dear', 'Criminal Minds' and three episodes of 'Clubhouse'

It also puts Nantz into a category in which celebrities appear as themselves in visions, dreams, and fantasies of TV characters - Oprah, Sinbad, Rob Thomas......

Nick Swisher of the New York Yankees was also in the episode last night, but he was actually there in McLaren's Bar. (That's him in the booth to the far left. He apparently stole Astro Boy's haircut....)
BCnU!

EM-50: AS SEEN ON TV... AND IN THE MOVIES

Alan Sepinwall, who writes about TV for the Star-Ledger of New Jersey, pointed out a cross-universal nugget of trivia from the latest episode of 'Chuck': One of the items on sale at Weap-Con is the "EM-50 mobile interrogation unit," where in "Stripes," the EM-50 was a mobile assault vehicle disguised as an RV.

This is a great example of how something from the TV Universe can exist in other fictional universes born of Mankind's creative spark. Only the EM-50 in the "Cineverse" (a term coined by Craig Shaw Gardner) has a different function and look from the one in "Chuck vs. The Nacho Sampler". BCnU!

TAKING A SECOND CHANCE

When it was announced that there would be a new version of 'Human Target' (which in itself was based on a comic book), I was resigned to relegating the new version to an alternate dimension since Earth Prime-Time already had a version.

But a moment near the end of the latest episode, "Embassy Row", gave me hope that both versions can exist in the main Toobworld.

FBI Agent Emma Barnes ran Christopher Chance's prints through the database and learned that he had a slew of alias identities, including that of Christopher Chance: So I'm thinking that this super bodyguard picked up where the last one left off, even taking over the first one's identity - or maybe even all of his identities. (We never saw that Christopher Chance again after August of 1992.) And none of the supporting cast from that previous show have the same names as those of Winston and Guerrero. So we don't have to worry about splainin why they might have picked up those identities as well. (Nevertheless, "Guerrero" is an alias. I'll have a theory on that soon.....)

So this is one time when both versions of a TV show can share the same universe without driving each other crazy....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: SCOTT BROWN

Republican Scott Brown recently won the Senate seat which the late Democrat Ted Kennedy, the "Lion Of The Senate", held for more than fifty years. And even Brown admits that he did so thanks to beginning his public life posing nude for Cosmo.

'Saturday Night Live' played up that sex symbol image last Saturday.......

SCOTT BROWN

AS SEEN ON:
'Saturday Night Live'

AS PLAYED BY:
Jon Hamm

Senator-Elect Brown saw the impression. As he told the "National Review Online":

"Thank goodness I like a good laugh. That was pretty funny. I wish I could host 'SNL' some day. I’ve been watching it since I was young. Jon Hamm is great.”

As for Jon Hamm's accent: “He did a great job. He doesn’t really sound like me, but it was very funny.”

BCnU!

FIVE SEASONS OF "LOST" IN TEN MINUTES

To get you caught up before tonight's return of 'Lost' for its final season, Dude, here's a ten minute recap by the Reduced Shakespeare Company. And as an added bonus, Brothuh, there's a message from Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse to kick things off.....



Namaste!

SKED ALERT FOR TUESDAY: "LOST"

TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT!

There was a phrase that David Letterman once tried to make into a popular catch-phrase, and which I think best sums up my excitement for this final visit to the Island....

"I'm moist!"

BCnU!

LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES: PAGING DR. GUPTA

Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN has made his first foray into the televersion world of the League of Themselves with an appearance on '30 Rock'...... Two more and he'll be eligible for membership in the TV Crossover Hall of Fame. And appearing on 'The Colbert Report' doesn't count.

BCnU!

THE RIGHT TO AIR BEARS

When Conan O'Brien moved out to Hollywood to host the 'Tonight' show, he left a lot of material behind from his old show because some of those sketches wouldn't be appropriate for the audience an hour earlier.

And that included the Masturbating Bear.

Now that Conan is out as the host, NBC has claimed a lot of his material to be the intellectual property of the Peacock Network. And it looks like the Masturbating Bear's cousin showed up on '30 Rock' just to prove that point: Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he was just a random actor (perhaps even Josh!) who plays a bear on 'TGS with Tracy Jordan'. But I don't trust network suits - may they be nibbled to death by ducks! I think it was a way to lay claim to the bear's ownership, even if it was a different costume.

At least he wasn't getting one off the wrist.......

BCnU!

"GOSSIP GIRL" GETS "30 ROCK'D"

Fictionalized versions of real-world TV shows are nothing new in Toobworld. Accepting them (with splainins) is the best hope to keep the TV Universe cohesive; I just can't throw everything that gets Zonked into a parallel dimension.... Where's the sport in that?

So along with the show-within-a-show version of 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' as mentioned in the previous post, there's also a Toobworld version of 'Gossip Girl' - thanks to a recent episode of '30 Rock'. Since the real TV show is based on a series of novels, we can make that same claim for the fictional version.

In the scene pictured, a young girl named Tartine has a tearful goodbye with her mother, who's dying of old age - at 41. (Damn! I wish it had been "42"!) Jenna Maroney of 'TGS with Tracy Jordan' guest-starred as the ill-fated Mom.

BCnU!