Wednesday, February 2, 2011

AS SEEN ON TV: KING KAMEHAMEHA I

With all of this snow socking the country, I thought we could go to the Hawaiian Islands for the next "As Seen On TV" showcase.....
KING KAMEHAMEHA I

AS SEEN IN:
'I Dream Of Jeannie'

AS PLAYED BY:
Michael Ansara

From Wikipedia:
Kamehameha I (ca. 1758 – May 8, 1819), also known as Kamehameha the Great, conquered the Hawaiian Islands and formally established the Kingdom of Hawai'i in 1810. By developing alliances with the major Pacific colonial powers, Kamehameha preserved Hawai'i's independence under his rule. Kamehameha is remembered for the Kanawai Mamalahoe, the "Law of the Splintered Paddle", which protects human rights of non-combatants in times of battle. Kamehameha's full Hawaiian name is Kalani Pai'ea Wohi o Kaleikini Keali'ikui Kamehameha o 'Iolani i Kaiwikapu kaui Ka Liholiho Kunuiakea.
BCnU!

BURKE'S LINKAGE

I'm watching the boxed set of the first season of 'Burke's Law' and I'm finding it rich in theoretical pozz'bilities for Toobworld connections. Yesterday was the theory of relateeveety between Captain Burke's chauffeur Henry and Kato, the chauffeur/sidekick of the Green Hornet. I've done a few blog posts in the last few years about the TV show and it's connections to other shows, past and present, and thought you'd like to revisit them as well (if I got you into the 'Burke's Law' frame of mind.....)

It looks like Henry not only worked for the Green Hornet before Captain Burke, but also for Charlie Chan.......
http://toobworld.blogspot.com/2008/09/burkes-link.html

A theory of relateeveety to the soap opera 'Santa Barbara'.......
http://toobworld.blogspot.com/2008/02/warren-piece.html

A theory of "relateeveety" between a guest character and 'M*A*S*H'.....
http://toobworld.blogspot.com/2008/02/iron-guts-solange-kelly.html

A possible romantic liaison linking to 'Lou Grant' via the L.A. Tribune......
http://toobworld.blogspot.com/2008/01/tribunal.html

A reference to a 'Ben Casey' character as though they shared the same universe....
http://toobworld.blogspot.com/2007/11/zonking-zorba.html

A cartography connection to 'Get Smart'. (The 'Sherlock Holmes' series cited here no longer is considered part of the main Toobworld......)
http://toobworld.blogspot.com/2008/03/king-without-country.html

I totally forgot about this splainin as to why 'Amos Burke, Secret Agent' is not about the main character in 'Burke's Law', and yet can still remain in Earth Prime-Time.......
http://toobworld.blogspot.com/2008/11/burkes-flaw.html

A character study for a Hercule Poirot clone......
http://toobworld.blogspot.com/2008/12/profiles-in-cathode-bascule-doirot.html

I hope you enjoy!

BCnU!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

FLANNERY ROW

As always, most of this is conjecture. That's why I call them "theories of relateeveety"......

Stephanie Douglas was born into wealth, with her father John being a rich businessman in Chicago. She attended Northwestern University, where she gained a reputation as quite the party gal (unlike the reputation she built later in life as being a woman of strong moral conservative values.)

Stephanie was dating a college classmate named Massimo Marone back in the 1950's and they slept together when they went off to Geneva, Switzerland, for a vacation. But soon after they broke up when Stephanie met and fell in love with Eric Forrester. Unbeknownst to any of them, Stephanie was pregnant with Massimo's child. However, since she had also been sleeping with Eric at that time, she naturally assumed Eric was the father of the baby whom they named Ridge.

After graduating from college and marrying Eric, Stephanie Douglas Forrester didn't want to trade on her father's name, wealth, and power; she was going to make it on her own. And so she forged her own career path in Los Angeles, one that could lead her one day to gain her own position of wealth and influence. Eventually she landed the position of secretary for famed gossip columnist Lilly Bentley. Susan Flannery was first seen - officially - as Stephanie in 1987 in the second episode of 'The Bold And The Beautiful'. But as the unnamed secretary for Lilly Bentley, she made one quick appearance in an episode of 'Burke's Law' ("Who Killed Harris Crown?") in 1963. By this point, Stephanie and Eric had been married for a few years and were adding to their brood with Thorne, Angela (now deceased), Kristen, and Felicia. With the strain on their finances because of their growing family, Stephanie wanted to make sure her dream of making it big could still be realized. So she went to John Douglas and asked her father for a major loan with which she and Eric founded their Forrester fashion firm. She quit her job as Lilly Bentley's secretary but may have used the contacts whom she met there to get the business off the ground.

But she never looked back - which is why it's never been mentioned on 'The Bold And The Beautiful' that Stephanie once worked as a secretary as seen in an episode of 'Burke's Law'.....
One last point:

Stephanie has never learned that her father had an affair with a married woman named Nelson. John Douglas fathered a daughter and even though there was a decade's difference in their ages, Stephanie Douglas Forrester and Edith Nelson looked exactly alike.*

The power of tele-genetics!

Like her half-sister Stephanie, Edith also started out in an office position. But thanks to the influence of her older brother, Admiral Harriman Nelson, she served as a stenographer in the West Wing of the White House. (This combines two characters Susan Flannery played on 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea', from the episodes "Traitor" and "Hail To The Chief".)

Now, that was during the administration of President Henry Talbot McNeill. But this Toobworld timeline vanished becaue of a course correction to the TV Universe. This was due to a temporal reboot caused by Nick Cutter and his wife Helen when they traveled back through an anomaly to 'Primeval' times. Whether Edith Nelson still held the position of stenographer at the televersion of the Nixon White House in the adjusted timeline is unknown, but likely.
SHOWS CITED:
'The Bold And The Beautiful'
'Burke's Law'
'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea'

'Primeval'

BCnU!

*
Although Susan Flannery's appearance on 'Burke's Law' and 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' were roughly a year apart, 'Voyage' took place about a decade into the future......

AS SEEN ON TV: GARY COLEMAN

Since today is "Two For Tuesday" and the first day of Black History Month, and because Mr. Coleman's most famous character is getting a special showcase this month.....

GARY COLEMAN

AS SEEN IN:
'The Simpsons'

AND:
'Family Guy'

BCnU!

Monday, January 31, 2011

KATO "KIN-ACTIONS"

Here's another chance - like the recent Rooster Cogburn post - to jump on the bandwagon for a current movie. (That's not to say I support that movie; in fact, I haven't seen it....)

In a 1963 episode of 'Burke's Law', Henry the chauffeur groused about getting out of bed late at night to drive Captain Burke to a murder scene:

"Never had aggravation like this when I worked for Green Hornet!"

As I mentioned, "Who Killed Alex Debbs?" took place in 1963, at some point in October. (It aired on October 25.) The TV series version of 'The Green Hornet' debuted September 9, 1966.

But that first episode of the show, "The Silent Gun", was not an origin story. The Green Hornet and Kato were already a crime-fighting team, fully operational.

So at some point before October of 1963, it's pozz'ble - just pozz'ble! - that the Green Hornet had Henry as his chauffeur and sidekick in fighting crime.

Why would Henry quit that in order to work for Captain Burke? Age - and with it the diminishment of skills - could have been a factor.

And maybe - this being just a theory of relateeveety, of course - Henry helped Brit Reid with a replacement by offering his own son to take his place. Henry's son was named after him, but he used the nickname of "Kato" to establish his own identity. (I'm familiar with that concept, actually - I'm Thomas O'Brien III, but I've been known by my initials sounded out since before I was born.) It could also be that "Kato" was the surname for their family. In either of the two series, we never did learn what Henry's last name was.

Eventually, Henry, Jr. - Kato - also grew too old for the job. Maybe the Green Hornet, who would have also aged, finally retired. He may even have been killed during the course of his crime-fighting activities. But I think eventually Henry, Jr. would put aside the identity of "Kato" and once again he could have replaced his father - this time as the chauffeur to Captain Burke. When it comes to recastaways, Toobworld Central always gives a pass when it comes to the depiction of aging. Like Cary Elwes and Jon Voight as Karol Wojtyla/Pope John Paul II, or Levar Burton and John Amos as Kunte Kinte/Toby. So I've got no problem in the change in appearance from Buce Lee as Kato to Danny Kamekona as Henry.

It could be that Captain Burke never really knew any of this about his chauffeurs; so that when Henry mentioned that he worked for the Green Hornet, Amos just shrugged it off as a joke. In another episode, Burke threatened to send Henry back to his previous employer - Charlie Chan (who does exist in Toobworld). And as another theory of relateeveety, the Chinese-American detective could have verified Henry's claim to have worked for him because family should always look out for each other. That's right - I'm suggesting that Henry could have been a cousin to Charlie Chan, or related in some way to the amazing Chan clan.....

It's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that this resume revision is what Henry told his old Captain in order to hide the truth from him. After all, the Green Hornet was considered technically on the wrong side of the Law. O'Bviously, this only concerns the televersion of Green Hornet and Kato. The characters are true Multiversals - beginning with their radio program origins in 1936, branching out to comic books, prose, a movie serial in the 1940's and now the current movie in theatres. Toobworld needs to ignore all of those in order to limit the splainins for all of the recastaways, but in the Wold Newton Universe, Win Scott Eckert and his cohorts have done an excellent job melding them together.

One concept that Toobworld Central does embrace is that the Green Hornet is related to the Lone Ranger. Back in the early days with the radio program, a genealogical link was suggested between Britt Reid and John Reid, who roamed the wild wild West as the Lone Ranger. Back then, the family connection was a lot closer, but for Toobworld alone we have to settle for several generations between the two men (and not a direct line of descent at that.)

And that means, in the grand scheme of all things Toobworld, 'Burke's Law' can be theoretically linked to the TV version of 'The Lone Ranger'... and to 'Batman' while we're at it, since Green Hornet and Kato appeared in a crossover between both shows. Anyhoo, hopefully you'll find this theory of relateeveety to have some merit in linking 'Burke's Law' to 'The Green Hornet'.

SHOWS & TV MOVIES CITED:
'Burke's Law' (1963)
'The Green Hornet'
'Burke's Law' (1994)
"Pope John Paul II"
'Roots'
'The Lone Ranger'
'Batman'
'Charlie Chan'

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: GRETA GARBO

GRETA GARBO

AS SEEN IN:
"The Silent Lovers"

AS PLAYED BY:
Kristina Wayborn

From Wikipedia:
Greta Lovisa Gustafsson (18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990), later known as Greta Garbo, was a Swedish actress primarily known for her work in the United States during Hollywood's silent film period and part of its subsequent Golden Age. Born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden, she moved to Los Angeles, California in 1925 to develop her film career. She appeared in only 27 movies, yet she remains one of the most popular and recognizable Hollywood stars.

The MGM marketing ploy "Garbo talks" became a catch-phrase of the 1930s. Her popularity with the Depression-era audiences allowed her to dictate the terms of her contract in 1932, and she became increasingly choosy about her roles. After 1941, she accepted no more roles, and retired to an apartment in New York City.Regarded as one of the greatest and most inscrutable movie stars ever produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the Hollywood studio system, Garbo appeared in both the silent and the talkies era of film-making. She was one of the few silent movie actresses to successfully negotiate the transition to sound, which she achieved in Anna Christie (1930), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. She appeared twice as the fabled Anna Karenina, once in silent film, Love (1927), and again with Anna Karenina (1935), for which she received the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. She considered her 1936 performance as the courtesan Marguerite Gautier as her best performance and her role in Camille (1936) earned her a second Academy Award nomination.

During the World War II era, MGM attempted to recast the somber and melancholy Garbo into a comic actress with Ninotchka (1939) and Two-Faced Woman (1941), both of which featured her unusually loud, comical, and singing. For Ninotchka, Garbo was again nominated for an Academy Award; Two-Faced Woman did well at the box office, but was a critical failure. Garbo received a 1954 Honorary Academy Award. In her retirement, during which she became increasingly reclusive, she lived in New York City. A 1986 Sidney Lumet film, Garbo Talks, reflected the continuing popular obsession with the star. Until the end of her life, Garbo-watching became a sport among the paparazzi and the media, but she remained elusive. She died in 1990 at the age of 84 from pneumonia and renal failure.

For more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Garbo

BCnU!

Sunday, January 30, 2011

HANGING OUT THE SHINGLE IN TWO DIMENSIONS

I've added 'Harry's Law' to my DVR queue on Monday nights, probably the most over-packed night of programming for Toobworld Central. But I'm a big fan of the David E. Kelley style of quirk and so far I'm enjoying what 'Harry's Law' is contributing to the televersion of Cincinnati.

The series is only two episodes old, but did you know it already exists in an alternate TV dimension?

First, take a look at this overview of the series, provided by NBC:





In the pilot episode that was aired, the opening scene - with Harry getting fired from a high-profile law firm where she dealt in patent law - featured voice-over narration by Harriet Korn. Later, she worked with the nerdy young lawyer who struck her down with his car. Adam Branch was played by Nate Corddry.

You don't find that in the alternate TV dimension.....





Right off the bat, the most notable difference missing from the pilot that was aired is the Woody Woodpecker cartoon. Instead we got a clip from a Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon. (Maybe 'Harry's Law' is a Warner Brothers production?)

But there were two key casting changes as well. Adam Branch started out as an older British lawyer, played by Ben Chaplin. The word on him being dropped was that it wasn't a good fit between the actor and the character. And Harry's boss at the old law firm was changed too, most noticeably follicle-wise. I have no clue who that actor was playing the role originally, but Ivar Brogger is the official version now in the main Toobworld. BCnU!

"EAGLEHART" PREVIEW

Chris Elliott has a new show coming to Adult Swim, which could be described as 'Walker, Texas Ranger' given the 'Get Smart' treatment.

Here's the preview.....




Elliott's an acquired taste, so we'll see......

BCnU!

DVD (& MTM) PLAYER

I don't think I'm ever out of a DVD/MTM frame of mind, so here are three videos to satisfy that craving this Video Weekend......

First up, Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore appearing together on the 'Tonight' show. And for once, Johnny Carson was actually there as the host......





Several years later, Mary was the very special guest on Dick's variety show, 'Van Dyke & Company'.......





And finally, CBS put together a fantastic montage of scenes from 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' as part of the celebrations during a TV special....





BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: THE TEFLON DON

The word on the street has it that John Travolta will be playing John Gotti on the big screen.

He's been played several times on television. Here are a couple of scenes from one of those productions.....


JOHN GOTTI





AS SEEN IN:
"Gotti"

AS PLAYED BY:
Armand Assante

BCnU!