AS SEEN ON TV: JOHN MICHAEL FEARING

 

JOHN MICHAEL FEARING

AS SEEN IN:

'Night Gallery'

"Dead Man"

CREATED BY:

Fritz Lieber

PORTRAYED BY:

Michael Blodgett

TV DIMENSION:

Earth Prime-Time

From the IMDb.com:

A doctor uses a man who is highly susceptible to suggestion to simulate any disease through hypnosis. The only carrot keeping the subject there was the attraction between him and the doctor's much younger wife. Finally the doctor decides to have this young man cheat death. When the doctor can't bring him back by signal or medical means the young man is buried, the result of an unfortunate accident. The doctor's colleague goes through his notes and discovers that unconsciously the jealous doctor gave him the wrong signal to revive him. His wife hears this discussion and runs for the cemetery.

(Written by Laird -3)

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"MOCKINGBIRD LANE" PREVIEW

So who's going to watch the 'Munsters' reboot on tonight?  (8 pm EST, NBC)

I plan to catch the special, but I doubt I would have committed to the series.  TV shows that can't fit into my grand design for the Toobworld Dynamic tend to fall out of favor with me.  And Earth Prime-Time already has its Munster family - as seen in the 1960s sitcom 'The Munsters'.

I had my own druthers as to who would play some of the characters in a remake, but they would have hewed closer to the original look for the series.  My choice for Grandpa would have been Judd Hirsch and as for Herman?  Brad Garrett, Adam Baldwin, maybe even Daniel Baldwin.  (No relation!)

I do like the look for Lily with Portia de Rossi, however.

I have a feeling this is going to be very dark, with people actually dying.  Therefore I think the best place to tuck this away would be in the Evil Mirror dimension.  

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: WHITE WALKER

A WHITE WALKER

AS SEEN IN:

'Game Of Thrones'

CREATED BY:

George R.R. Martin

PORTRAYED BY:

Ross Mullan

TV STATUS:

Generic name, one of many

TV DIMENSION:

The main TV Universe, the Planet Mondas

From the 'Game Of Thrones' wiki:

The White Walkers, referred to as the Others in the books, are a mythological race mentioned in ancient legends and stories from the time of the First Men and the Children of the Forest. Eight thousand years before Robert's Rebellion, a winter known as the Long Night lasted a generation. In the darkness and cold of the Long Night, the White Walkers descended upon Westeros from the farthest north, the polar regions of the Lands of Always Winter. None knew why they came, but they killed all in their path, reanimating the dead as wights to kill the living at their command. Eventually the peoples of Westeros rallied and in a conflict known as the War for the Dawn, the White Walkers were defeated and driven back into the uttermost north, with the Wall raised to bar their return. In the present day, most believe they never existed and are just the stuff of legends, and even the few who believe they did once exist think they went extinct thousands of years ago. Certainly, none has been seen for thousands of years.

While held as myths and spoken of in the same breath as ghosts, goblins, "Grumkins and Snarks", there is a growing belief amongst the wildlings who live beyond the Wall that the White Walkers have returned.

"In that darkness the White Walkers came for the first time.

They swept through cities and kingdoms, riding their dead horses,

hunting with their packs of pale spiders big as hounds."

Old Nan

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MISSING LINKS - RICHARD CASTLE & JB FLETCHER?

When Detective Ryan of the NYPD's 12th Precinct (in an alternate Toobworld) found out that a man had been shot who had then stumbled on to the Hamptons property of Richard Castle to die in the pool, Ryan exclaimed that the mystery author was living 'Murder, She Wrote'.

Castle quickly pointed out that it was more like 'Murder, He Wrote'. But unlike Jessica Fletcher, he wasn't on friendly terms with the local law enforcement.

So there's a Zonk that needs to be investigated......

First off, I shouldn't even bother, since 'Castle' takes place in another TV dimension, possibly sharing the same one as 'Commander-In-Chief'. But we've seen, thanks to 'Missing', that he does exist as an author in Earth Prime-Time, at least as an author if not attached to Detective Kate Beckett's team. But just in case he is leading the same life as his dimensional doppelganger, I'll give it a shot.

There would be no Zonk in Richard Castle name-checking Jessica Fletcher. They probably know each other as fellow mystery writers, perhaps sharing the same publisher and maybe even vying for the same awards (such as the Blunt Instrument as seen in 'The Adventures Of Ellery Queen'.)

The true Zonk is the mention of 'Murder, She Wrote', the TV show about Jessica Fletcher.

But on the title was mentioned, and there was no reference to it being a TV show.

THE SPLAININ:

"Murder, She Wrote" is the umbrella title for the mysteries written by JB Fletcher, in much the same way that J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth trilogy is known overall as "The Lord Of The Rings", Paul Scott's novels about India are known as "The Raj Quartet", and the collected novels by George R.R. Martin that are the basis for the HBO series 'Game Of Thrones' are known as the "Song Of Ice And Fire Cycle".

So when somebody in Toobworld - no matter what the dimension - speaks of "Murder, She Wrote", they're talking about novels like:

• "The Corpse Danced At Midnight"
• "The Corpse Swam By Moonlight"
• "The Corpse At Vespers"
• "The Corpse That Wasn't There"
• "The Dead Man Sang"
• "Dirge For A Dachshund"

and

• "Goodbye, Charlie"

Among many others. (In all, Ms. Fletcher wrote about 43 novels during the show's run.)

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: DR. FELIX HOENIKKER

I suppose this entry in the "ASOTV" showcase kicks off our theme week for Halloween. After all, War is horror, isn't it?

DR. FELIX HOENIKKER

AS SEEN IN:

"Between Time And Timbuktu"

(or "Prometheus 5")

CREATED BY:

Kurt Vonnegut

PORTRAYED BY:

Hurd Hatfield

TV DIMENSION:

Alternate Toobworld

From Wikipedia:

Ice-nine is a fictional material appearing in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle. In the story, it is developed by the Manhattan Project for use as a weapon, but abandoned when it becomes clear that any quantity of it would have the power to destroy all life on earth. Ice-nine is supposedly a polymorph of water more stable than common ice (Ice Ih); instead of melting at 0 °C (32 °F), it melts at 45.8 °C (114.4 °F). When ice-nine comes into contact with liquid water below 45.8 °C (thus effectively becoming supercooled), it acts as a seed crystal and causes the solidification of the entire body of water, which quickly crystallizes as more ice-nine. As people are mostly water, this effect means ice-nine kills nearly instantly when ingested or brought into contact with soft tissues exposed to the bloodstream, such as the eyes. A global catastrophe involving freezing the world's oceans with ice-nine is used as a plot device in Vonnegut's novel.

From Technovelogy.com:

A general had a problem: mud. Marines have slogged their way through it for generations. Is it possible to get rid of mud? Without having to carry anything heavy? Marines already have enough to carry.

Dr. Felix Hoenikker, an original thinker, found the "outside-the-box" answer; a single crystal of Ice-Nine would crystallize every bit of water it touched.

From the source ("Cat's Cradle"):
"...suppose, young man, that one Marine had with him a tiny capsule containing a seed of ice-nine, a new way for the atoms of water to stack and lock, to freeze. If that Marine threw that seed into the nearest puddle...?"
"The puddle would freeze?" I guessed.
"And all the muck around the puddle?"
"It would freeze?"
"And all the puddles in the frozen muck?"
"They would freeze?"
"And the pools and the streams in the frozen muck?"
"They would freeze?"
"You bet they would !" He cried. "And the United States Marines would rise from the swamp and march on!" 

With Stony Stephenson

- "Cat's Cradle", by Kurt Vonnegut. 

Published by Random House in 1963

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LA TRIVIATA - PERRY MASON'S URN

Have you ever noticed that large urn behind 'Perry Mason' when he's sitting at his desk? I believe that urn contains the ashes of his dead mother.  I'm thinking that his mother, although never seen on the series, died during the run of the show. Because the urn wasn't always there in the office. For awhile there wasn't even a place back there where he could have placed an urn.

Here's the evolution of his office redecoration:

 

 

I suppose it could have been the ashes of his father, but there's just something about Mason that makes me think he was closer to his mother. And it's nothing to do with the actor Raymond Burr, not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just that time and again Mason has shown a tender side towards his clients and others - even to the real murderers in some cases.  And I think that's something he probably learned from his mother.....

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NUMBERS RUNNING: 23 SKIDOO!

At 23 minutes before 1 AM, Hercule Poirot was awakened by the sound of a "Murder On The Orient Express".

In the 'Perry Mason' episode "The Case Of The Reluctant Model", the murder victim was found in the shower of Maxine Lindsey's apartment. She lived in Apartment #23, which may have made her a magnet for such a life-altering event.

After all, "23" is one of the numbers in the sequence from 'Lost'.

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: DR. CONSTANTINE

DOCTOR CONSTANTINE

AS SEEN IN:

'Poirot'

"Murder On The Orient Express"

CREATED BY:

Dame Agatha Christie

PORTRAYED BY:

Samuel West

TV STATUS:

Multi-versatile Recastaway

[BookWorld, Cineverse, Toobworld, Alternate Toobworld]

TV DIMENSION:

Earth Prime-Time

From Wikipedia:

WARNING! THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD!

Hercule Poirot boards the Orient Express in Constantinople. The train is unusually crowded for the time of year. Poirot secures a berth only with the help of his friend M. Bouc, a director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. When a Mr. Harris fails to show up, Poirot takes his place. On the second night, Poirot gets a compartment to himself.

That night, in Vinkovci, at about twenty-three minutes before 1:00 am, Poirot wakes to the sound of a loud noise. It seems to come from the compartment next to his, which is occupied by Mr. Ratchett.

The next day he awakens to find that Ratchett is dead, having been stabbed twelve times in his sleep. M. Bouc suggests that Poirot take the case, being that it is so obviously his kind of case; nothing more is required than for him to sit, think, and take in the available evidence. [Working with him, along with M. Bouc as his "Watson", is Dr. Constantine who had been in one of the other cars.

Loosely faithful to the original story, it has a number of major differences, such as the character of Cyrus Hardman being omitted from the story, with Doctor Constantine (who is changed from a Greek doctor to Mrs. Armstrong's American obstetrician) taking his place among the "jury".

From the Poirot wiki:
Mary Debenham organised that those wronged by Cassetti should meet on the train. Constantine was one of the twelve to stab Cassetti. He then attempted to mislead Hercule Poirot by suggesting false theories. After uncovering the crime, Poirot let the murderers go as they had killed an evil man. (S12: "Murder on the Orient Express")

O'BSERVATIONS:

This is one time where I thought the changes to Christie's original story improved the mystery, and Dr. Constantine was a good example of that. By making him one of the Twelve, it eliminated a character that never really seemed to fit into the group of suspects.

This Dr. Constantine, albeit an American, could be the son of the Dr. Constantine whom the Time Lord known as the Doctor met in London during the World War II blitz.

BCnU!

AFTER THE FOX - MICHAEL THE FIRST (X2)

Movie characters and even full movies aren't the only things borrowed from the Cineverse and absorbed into the Toobworld Dynamic. Tropes - plot cliches - are sometimes taken so that I can make a particular crossover theory work.

Toobworld has a long tradition of "identical cousins", and that includes half brothers or sisters with a different parent. But thanks to "The Parent Trap", I also use the idea that twins can be separated due to divorce and each raised by a different parent. This sometimes leads to the twins having different last names.

I was in a big 'Burke's Law' phase last year, and right now I'm enjoying 'Perry Mason' on ME-TV. Each of them had one of those twins appearing on a recurring basis, and best of all both of them went into the same line of work!

These "twins" were played by Michael Fox.  And they are definitely two different men and not one guy who decided to change his name in 1963 (where the two series overlap.)  Dr. McLeod has a sense of humor on the job while Dr. Hoxie is of a more serious bent.

On 'Perry Mason', there were 25 episodes in which Fox either appeared or was heard as the coroner Dr. Hoxie. Actually, in almost half of those episodes Fox was simply listed as "Autopsy Surgeon". I'll come back to that later. But in another episode he was listed as Dr. Samuel Anders. I take that to mean that his full name was Samuel Anders Hoxie.

Meanwhile, on 'Burke's Law', Fox played Dr. George McLeod the coroner in 26 episodes. In this series, though, there was another glitch - three of those episodes had Fox playing "Police Officer". Here's the splainin I came up with for that - in Toobworld the rules are sometimes different than in the real world. One of these would be that the coroners sometimes had official police-style uniforms. On three occasions, Dr. McLeod wore his.

As children, Sam and George were separated when their parents divorced. Either one of them could have been raised by the mother and had his name changed once she remarried, with the new husband adopting the boy. If it was Sam, it could also be that the mother remarried twice and Sam ended up with both last names - "Anders" and "Hoxie". But more likely "Anders" is Sam Hoxie's middle name, one that came from the family name on one side of the family tree or the other. "Samuel Anders Hoxie" does sound pretty official.

Now as to Dr. Hoxie being listed as "Autopsy Surgeon".....

As long-time readers of Inner Toob might remember, I give no weight to the end credits on TV shows. Too often either they are wrong or they are just not relevant to the story which preceded those credits.

So we might as well assume that by "Autopsy Surgeon", he was still appearing as Dr. Samuel Anders Hoxie. However, he could just as easily have been appearing as his twin brother George McLeod, normally seen on 'Burke's Law'.

Michael Fox played many different characters in Toobworld. Some of them could be ancestors of these twin brothers, like the attorney he played in 'The Big Valley'. Others could be "identical cousins", like the veterinarian he played in an episode of 'Columbo'.

Or their Daddy was playing around. There would be a good reason that he ended up divorced......

Two for Tuesday!

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: "AUTHOR" WIGGEN & BRUCE PEARSON

On the eve of the World Series, I figured it's time for talking baseball.....

HENRY WIGGEN & BRUCE PEARSON

AS SEEN IN:

'The U.S. Steel Hour'

"Bang The Drum Slowly"

CREATED BY:

Mark Harris

PORTRAYED BY:

Paul Newman as Henry "Author" Wiggen

Albert Salmi as Bruce Pearson

TV STATUS:

Multi-versatile

[BookWorld, Toobworld, Cineverse]

TV DIMENSION:

Earth Prime-Time

From Wikipedia:

"Bang the Drum Slowly" is a novel by Mark Harris, a sequel to "The Southpaw" (1953). It was first published in 1956, and was later made into a 1956 'U.S. Steel Hour' television adaptation starring Paul Newman and a later film adaptation in 1973.

Harris' narrator Henry "Author" Wiggen, a star pitcher, tells the story of a baseball season with the New York Mammoths (a fictional team based on the New York Giants as noted in the author's book "Diamond - The Baseball Writings of Mark Harris") -- a season notable for the team's success but blighted by the Hodgkin's Disease of catcher Bruce Pearson. Wiggen tries to be supportive of Pearson while concealing his illness.

The title comes from the song "The Streets of Laredo", sung by one of the ballplayers (Piney Woods, a back-up catcher recently recalled from the minors) at a team gathering. The version of the song that he sings contains the lyrics, "O bang the drum slowly, and play the fife lowly...."

The novel is written in the vernacular, with idiosyncratic awkward writing by the "author" that Harris has "employed," pitcher Henry Wiggen.

The last line of the novel, "From here on in I rag nobody", was ranked number 95 on American Book Review's "100 Best Last Lines from Novels" in 2008.

O'BSERVATION:

In the New York City of Toobworld, the major baseball teams are now the Yankees, the Mets, and the Empires (from 'Clubhouse'). In the years since this production, the Mammoths have probably been sold and moved to a new location out of state. Perhaps somewhere out West and along the Canadian border. The name is a good fit for such a location.

Two for Tuesday!

BCnU!