JUDGE RUBINSTEIN

Earlier tonight on the season premiere of 'The Mentalist', the show - without realizing it, of course - gave me a trivial nugget to be stored away for future use in linking shows together.

I saw John Rubinstein's name in the opening credits, but tucked away nearly at the end of the run and lumped together with others, rather than being trumpeted in a solo credit for the star he once was. It turned out that his role was something of a glorified cameo in which he played a judge arbitrating an investigation dispute between the CBI and the FBI.

His judge was never named in the scene.

Rubinstein is no stranger to playing judges on television, although he's usually appearing as a doctor. Over the course of his career he's played at least four judges, but unfortunately we can't use any of them because they were presiding over courts in other states:

• Judge Randy of 'Harry's Law'(Cincinnatti, Ohio)
• Judge Crawford of 'CSI'(Las Vegas, Nevada)
• Judge Schuyler of 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'(New York, New York)
• Judge Joseph Papp of 'Boston Public' & 'The Practice'(Boston, Massachusetts)

What's needed is a judge in California in order for us to make the claim that Rubinstein was the same character in both shows. Your Toobmeister is a patient man, though. Eventually one will turn up.

In the meantime, if worst comes to worst, Toobworld Central does have a candidate - John Rubinstein played Professor Wendell Peterson in one episode of 'The Paper Chase'. 

Professor Peterson was being considered for a tenured position, along with three other candidates; only there was only two openings available. Peterson was a phenom in the classroom, inspiring his students, but he was not up to snuff when it came to "publish or perish".  It could be that he finally left Harvard to accept a judgeship back in California.

But if not, I can wait for a better option.....

BCnU!

PS:
You know what's great about the timing of this story?  It's the First Monday in October!

AS SEEN ON TV: JAMES BOND (THE FIRST)

To kick off our salute to James Bond this week, here is the very first portrayal of the secret agent - and not just in Toobworld!

BOND. JAMES BOND

AS SEEN IN:

'Climax!'

"Casino Royale"

CREATED BY:

Ian Fleming

PORTRAYED BY:

Barry Nelson

TV STATUS:

Recastaway (Original)

TV DIMENSION:

Earth Prime-Time

From Wikipedia:

"Casino Royale" is a 1954 television adaptation of the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. The show is the first screen adaptation of a James Bond novel and stars Barry Nelson and Peter Lorre. Though this marks the first onscreen appearance of the character of James Bond, Nelson's character is played as an American agent with "Combined Intelligence" and is referred to as "Jimmy" by several characters.

The show was forgotten about after its initial showing until most of it was located in the 1980s by film historian Jim Schoenberger, with the ending (including credits) found afterwards. The rights to the programme were acquired by MGM at the same time as the rights for the 1967 film version of "Casino Royale", clearing the legal pathway and enabling them to make the 2006 film of the same name.

In 1954 CBS paid Ian Fleming $1,000 ($8,654 in 2012 dollars) to adapt his first novel, "Casino Royale", into a one-hour television adventure as part of their dramatic anthology series 'Climax Mystery Theater', which ran between October 1954 and June 1958. Due to the restriction of a one hour play, the adapted version lost many of the details found in the book, although it retained its violence, particularly in Act III.

The hour-long "Casino Royale" episode aired on 21 October 1954 as a live production and starred Barry Nelson as secret agent James Bond, with Peter Lorre in the role of Le Chiffre and was hosted by William Lundigan. The Bond character from "Casino Royale" was re-cast as an American agent, described as working for "Combined Intelligence", supported by the British agent, Clarence Leiter; "thus was the Anglo-American relationship depicted in the book reversed for American consumption".

David Cornelius of Efilmcritic.com described it as an "anthology of suspense and mystery yarns performed live in the tradition of television's golden age." He remarked that "the first act freely gives in to spy pulp cliché" and noted that he believed Nelson was miscast and "trips over his lines and lacks the elegance needed for the role."

Still and all, this was the first James Bond. To fill in the blanks, the Toobworld splainin would be that Clarence Leiter was so impressed by Jimmy Bond's work on this case and by the notoriety it gained, that he suggested to the Home Minister (or whoever was in charge of Intelligence back then) that they should adopt the name of "James Bond" as a cover for their very best operative. That way, should "James Bond" be killed in the line of duty, they could then pass the name on to the next best, and so make it look as though he was virtually immortal and invulnerable. 

 (Leiter may have come up with the idea after reading how the same thing was done in the Wild, Wild West of Wyoming with a Sheriff Lom Trevors, a nom de guerre used by Marshall Dan Troop, Pearly Gates, and the Virginian when they worked undercover for Judge Garth, Governor of Wyoming.)

SHOWS CITED:

• 'Climax!'
• 'Alias Smith And Jones'
• 'The Lawman'
• 'The Virginian'
• 'Maverick'

BCnU!

ALL THIS WEEK - BONDS, JAMES BONDS

On October 5, 1962, the first James Bond movie, "Dr. No", opened in theatres. To celebrate this fiftieth anniversary milestone, the As Seen On TV showcase will feature the televersions of characters from the series of books by Ian Fleming.

James Bond does exist in Earth Prime-Time, but he's only had a fleeting appearance on our TV screens in comparison to the vast output of TV characters over the last sixty plus years. Like his big screen counterpart in the Cineverse, there have been many James Bonds, with no need to splain away the Recastaways with alternate dimensions. "James Bond" is a code name used for the best spy in Her Majesty's Secret Service. Many different men have assumed the mantle of James Bond, giving up their original identities to keep the myth alive.

Because of this, the general public in Toobworld thinks of James Bond as a fictional character from books and movies. This is what a covert organization (which I have dubbed "UNreel") organized. By creating pervasive fictional accounts of this secret agent, "James Bond" is able to operate freely without worrying that his exploits will be revealed as the Truth. (Although fictional in Toobworld, James Bond's book and movie adventures have their own realities in BookWorld and the Cineverse.) "UNreel" has done this before - for the U.N.C.L.E. organization and a Gallifreyan Time Lord known as "the Doctor", among others.

But unlike his counterparts in BookWorld and the Cineverse, James Bond has not always been a British secret agent......

By the way, Ian Fleming also exists in Toobworld. So he joins the ranks of Mark Twain, Shakespeare, Dickens, Jules Verne, and Dame Agatha Christie as an author who shares the same world as the characters he created.....

BCnU!

MIRROR TOOBWORLD - "HEAD OF THE FAMILY"

I have one last example of a TV show within a TV show that would have an effect on life in the Mirror Toobworld.

Carl Reiner created a sitcom idea based on his own life - that of a comedy writer for a television variety show. We know it today as 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' which starred DVD as Rob Petrie.

From the IMDb:

Rob is asked to write an amusing bulletin for the PTA bazaar. Richie is having a difficult time explaining to his friends just what his father does at work and he's taking out his frustration on his father. Laura thinks it would be a good idea for Rob to take Richie with him to the office for a day so he can see first hand what his dad does. Rob is skeptical this will work but agrees to give her plan a try. [Written by tomtrekp ]

If you're a fan of 'The Dick Van Dyke Show', you should recognize that basically as the 22nd episode from the first season, "Father Of The Week".

However, Reiner saw the property as a vehicle for himself as Rob Petrie and he produced that script as a pilot for a show called "Head Of The Family". But the network didn't see Reiner as being right for the part, even though he WAS the part. So Dick Van Dyke, fresh off a success on Broadway in "Bye Bye Birdie", was hired and Reiner not only wrote most of the scripts and produced the show, but he also took the role of tyrannical star of 'The Alan Brady Show', Alan Brady his own self.

The true final episode of 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' is "The Last Chapter", bringing to a close a running sub-plot of Rob writing his memoirs:

From the IMDb:

Rob and Laura decide to put aside all else for one evening after Rob tells Laura that he has finished the manuscript for his book. Laura will read the manuscript while a nervous Rob watches her reading, he trying to gage her reaction. Their plans change when Laura refuses to let him watch. As Laura starts reading, she is excited to learn that the book is the story of their life, and she begins to reminisce about the situations written. Regardless of Laura's reaction, Rob is equally as anticipatory about the reaction of the publisher to who he sent the manuscript.

As it turned out, Alan Brady bought the rights to the book so that he could turn it into a TV sitcom for himself, (albeit many years later once his variety show went off the air - as if that would ever happen!)

So in Mirror Toobworld, there are two Rob Petries (as Rob played by DVD did appear on TV himself). The other one looked like Alan Brady, who looked like Carl Reiner.....

Here is the only known episode from Alan Brady's sitcom:

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, marks the September entry in our year-long salute to 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' in celebration of its fifty years since the first episode aired. (And got it in just under the wire!)

Next week, we wrap up the theme on that anniversary day. One of the pieces I'll be posting the answer to this trivia question which I posted back at the beginning a year ago:

'The Dick Van Dyke Show' has two somewhat tenuous connections to Andy Warhol. One was "outside the box" - one of those six degrees of separation situations on the production side. The other was within the "reality" of the show - one of Andy Warhol's works of art actually appeared in an episode.

No one's even taken a crack at answering either part of it, so you still have a chance to gain the bragging rights. If you win, you could be awarded the Richard Rosebud Petrie Prize - combining presents from the episodes "Punch Thy Neighbor" and "Empress Carlotta's Necklace"!

BCnU!

MIRROR TOOBWORLD - "THE LONE RANGER"

John Hart was also that masked man
by Joe Southern
For one season, in 1952, Clayton Moore was replaced as the Lone Ranger on the popular television series. For 52 episodes, John Hart dashed across the television screen as the man behind the mask.

John Hart played the part from 1952 to 1954 on 52 episodes when Moore held out in a contact dispute.

For more on that story, click here.

The producer (Jack Chertok) was supposedly a cheap guy to work with and he figured that the kids watching the show would accept anybody under the mask as the Lone Ranger. But they knew; boy, did they know! So after a year, Clayton Moore came back and John Hart moved on to other endeavours.

For Toobworld, this is how it plays out: when we see Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger, we're watching the actual Lone Ranger. Those 52 episodes with John Hart are part of a TV series within the main Toobworld in which John Hart portrayed the legendary hero of the West. It's just that unlike many other TV shows we see from Toobworld, there was no framing device of TV characters watching the program in other shows.

So the Lone Ranger in the Mirror Toobworld would look, sound, and act like John Hart, not Clayton Moore. But there was no danger of him crossing over into the "real" world of Earth Prime-Time. That's because the Lone Ranger remained in his proper timeline - the mid-1880s after the Civil War.

However, John Hart did show up in two other TV shows of the 1980s as the Lone Ranger - 'The Fall Guy' and 'Happy Days'. He's not a video transfer from Mirror Toobworld; he's simply appearing as the televersion of himself, in costume as one of his two most famous roles. (Natty Bumppo of 'The Last Of The Mohicans' being the other.)

MIRROR TOOBWORLD - "HI HONEY, I'M HOME!"

'Hi Honey, I'm Home' serves as the template for Mirror Toobworld and as such is one of "The Essentials" of Toobworld Central......

MIRROR TOOBWORLD - "REMOTE CONTROL MAN"

The first time we ever saw TV characters cross over from the Mirror Toobworld could have been in the 1980/81 promo blipverts for CBS. (You can see those in the article.)

A few years later, 'Amazing Stories' did an episode about a man who was able to replace his family with people from the MIrror Toobworld.....

MIRROR TOOBWORLD - "MURPHY BROWN"

In Toobworld, everybody will have a TV show about themselves in the future. One of those TV characters was 'Murphy Brown' who actually had two TV shows about her! (One was based on her actual life, while the other - 'Kelly Green' - was about a character very much like her.)  The TV show based on her "real" life features an actress named Candice Bergen who looks just like her.

Here's a clip from 'Murphy Brown' as seen on 'Seinfeld'. In the Mirror Toobworld, this gives Murphy a living doppelganger, as well as a character named Steven Snell who doesn't exist in Earth Prime-Time.....

MIRROR TOOBWORLD: "ZOMBO!"

Earlier this week I wrote an article about the existence of a Toobworld counterpart to Toobworld itself. "Mirror Toobworld" I call it and it's a dimension in which the TV shows within TV shows have their own reality. (I wouldn't be surprised if it's a situation that goes on forever!)

I listed several examples of the types of TV shows that would make up such a world, but I didn't want to clutter up the post with a lot of YouTube clips. So instead, I'm featuring them today.

First up, here's a fictional show within a show which was not based on a "real" character from Earth Prime-Time:

AS SEEN ON TV: "THE STORY ABOUT PING"

Today's "ASOTV" literary showcase is somewhat different in that we focus on the original story rather than a character adapted for television from that story. This is because the topic has had a long tradition of being read to the audience from the Trueniverse (although it was also adapted for the Tooniverse on 'Sesame Street' thirty years ago.)

On the season finale of 'Louie', Louie C.K. gave his youngest daughter a copy of "The Story About Ping" for Christmas and then read it/will read it to her (if its Christmas 2012). Later, after Louie has an emotional crisis during the holidays, he goes off to China on a holy grail quest to find the Yangtze River because of that book.

Here's the story about "The Story About Ping".....

"THE STORY ABOUT PING"

WRITTEN BY:

Marjorie Flack

ILLUSTRATED BY:

Kurt Wiese

AS SEEN IN:

'Louie'

'Captain Kangaroo'

'The Shari Lewis Show'

'The Howdy Doody Show'

'Sesame Street'

'The Soupy Sales Show'

From Wikipedia:

"The Story About Ping" is a popular children's book written by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Kurt Wiese. First published in 1933, "Ping" is a colorfully illustrated story about a domesticated Chinese duck lost on the Yangtze River. Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association named the book one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children."

Ping is the name of a domesticated duck who lives on a riverboat on the Yangtze River in China. He gets sent out every morning to forage along the river with his relatives, and is expected back every evening. The last duck on the boat would get a swat with a stick and one day he is the last duck. He is afraid to return and spends the night on shore. When he awakens his boat is gone and he is soon caught by a boy on another boat where he worries about becoming their dinner. After some time the boy lets Ping go just as all his duck relatives are getting back on Ping's boat nearby. Ping rejoins his family and happily receives the last duck swat.

"Ping" has appeared on television since the 1950s. Captain Kangaroo (or his friend Mr. Greenjeans) read Ping once a week on his show for seventeen years, while displaying its colorful illustrations in stark black and white on the screen. Only "Stone Soup", "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel", and "The Little Engine That Could" had longer runs on the show.

Soupy Sales and Howdy Doody both featured "Ping" on numerous occasions, and Shari Lewis's sock puppet Lambchop once played the role of Ping in an adaptation for sock puppets and ventriloquists.

'Sesame Street' had an animated version that ran in the 1970s. This version featured the song "Jinzhur" as the background music.

It served as an important plot point on the Season Three finale of 'Louie' in which Louie gives his daughter a copy of the book for Christmas.

BCnU!