TWO FOR TUESDAY - MacGREGOR'S SYNDROME (PART TWO)

From the early 1960s, Dr. Ann MacGregor had been working with a top-secret government project called Operation Tick-Tock, which was trying to conquer the laws governing time travel.  "She was an electro-biologist supervising the unit that determined how much force and heat a time traveler was able to withstand." (from Wikipedia) 

During her stint in service to the government, Dr. MacGregor discovered that the Time Tunnel was emitting what she called “temporal exhaust”, backwashes of temporal energy that could cause people to disappear into either the past or the future.  Some of these people were able to cross back through these temporal vortices to the time they had left (as an example – wagon train leader Christian Horn), while others were lost forever on the other side of the vortex (three soldiers from the National Guard named Connors, Langsford, and McCluskey, who died in the past at the Little Big Horn). 

But Dr. MacGregor also discovered that there were low-level fluctuations in the time-stream that created a type of radiation, perhaps tachyon-based, which affected humans on a cellular level.  While it may not have been strong enough to catapult those who encountered it into the time-stream, it did cause a rare blood disease that was always fatal.

This is why the Gallifreyan Time Lord known as the Doctor always tried to prevent Terrans from dabbling into the energies of time travel.  Dr. MacGregor began to focus her research on this new form of radiation sickness and eventually it was named after her, not that anybody knew that for several decades. (The government suppressed her findings until a dogged FBI agent began rooting around in the archives known as "the X-files".

For the most part, MacGregor’s Disease is only found in the alternate TV dimension known as Comix Toobworld1, but as it was Ann MacGregor who discovered it, it must be in the main Toobworld as well.  It could be that time travelers Dr. Tony Newman and Dr. Doug Phillips, who have not been seen in the Toobworld timeline since 1969, may have been exposed to the temporal radiation as they were not traveling via a protective vehicle.  It could be that they eventually succumbed to MacGregor's Syndrome.

Perhaps Dr. MacGregor gave her colleagues the bad news once they returned?

SHOWS CITED:

• ‘The Time Tunnel’
• ‘The Twilight Zone’
• ‘Doctor Who’
• ‘Arrow’
• ‘The Flash’
• 'The X-Files'
• “Batman And Robin”

My thanks to Martin Ross for bringing MacGregor’s Syndrome to my attention.

BCnU!

 

TWO FOR TUESDAY - MacGREGOR'S SYNDROME (PART ONE)

Martin Ross used to have a great website dedicated to fanfic murder cases solved by Lt. Columbo.  Sadly he had to give it up, but I'll always have fond memories of those times when he investigated murders that also involved TV icons like Jim Rockford, Carl Kolchak, Dr. Benjamin "Hawkeye" Pierce, and FBI agents Mulder and Scully.

Martin is one of the biggest supporters of the Toobworld Dynamic concept, and he's always got an eye out (but not in the traditional Peter Falk sense of the phrase) for items of interest that I might be able to use.

He gave me this one some time back, but as I was beginning work on "Through The Glass Furnace", the third adventure in my Toobworld series, I had put the blog on hiatus for a time.  So now I'm back - for the prime-time being - and I'm able to start going through the accumulated TV trivia that I can use.

So I figured - now's as good a time as any for Martin's observation:

Martin Ross:
You prolly got this one, but on tonight's 'Flash', Joe West's ex-wife announced that she has MacGregor's Disease -- the same fictional disease Mr. Freeze's wife and Alfred contracted in "Batman and Robin".

ALFRED PENNYWORTH,
SUFFERING FROM MacGREGOR'S SYNDROME

This is an exceptional catch!  At the time Martin sent this in, I was inclined to just say that MacGregor's Syndrome, athough not to be found in the Trueniverse, could be found in more than one fictional universe, let alone one TV dimension.  'The Flash' takes place on Comix Toobworld1, as the Earth Prime-Time, the main Toobworld, already had its own Scarlet Speedster back in the early 1990s.  This is the same TV dimension which houses fellow CW superhero shows as 'Arrow' and 'Legends of Tomorrow' - but NOT 'Supergirl', which takes place in Comix Toobworld2.  

Nora Friese, Alfred Pennyworth, and Francine West were not the only ones to suffer from MacGregor's Syndrome.  William Tockman, also known as the Clock King in 'Arrow', was inflicted with the disease as well.

FRANCINE WEST,
AFFLICTED WITH MacGREGOR'S SYNDROME

Comix Toobworld2 will have its own version of Superman this season, and Earth Prime-Time had theirs back in the 1950s until his death in early 1963 or so.  But so far there hasn't been any hint that Superman or Batman exist in Comix Toobworld1.

I don't see any reason why 'Lois & Clark' can't be part of Comix Toobworld1, and I suppose a perfectly good reason could be found as to why we don't see Superman and his Missus show up in those three CW series.  Then again, 'Smallville' could be the Superman show to call Comix Toobworld1 home, since it does have somewhat of a connected production history.  

As for the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder?  The Batman and Robin of the main Toobworld had his heyday back in the mid-1960s, and Earth Prime-Time absorbed a movie out of the Cineverse because of it.  One of the possibilites for an alternate dimensional Dark Knight would already be dead in the near future depicted in 'Birds of Prey', a show basically set "20 minutes into the Future".  And its grim urban setting seems to be a good fit for a world in which Starling City could also be found.

But should it ever be mentioned - and only mentioned - on 'Arrow', 'The Flash', or 'Legends Of Tomorrow' that Batman is still out there fighting the good fight, then perhaps Comix Toobworld1 could absorb the movie "Batman And Robin" out of the Cineverse.  DC and the CW have openly embraced the idea that it is a multiverse and that all of these incarnations of their superheroes can be found in different dimensions, both from movies as well as TV.

And that way, MacGregor's Disease could be said to exist only in that one TV Dimension, Comix Toobworld1, shared by 'The Flash' and "Batman And Robin".

Of course, all bets are off should the Batman ever show up in one of those three CW series.....

Thanks, Martin!

WELCOME TO MARY TYLER MONDAY!

Sarah: 

Poor Mom....

Ali: 

Poor Mom?
She has her TV shows. 

Sarah: 

We love our Mary Tyler Moore. 

'Transparent'

Taking inspiration from my Southern counterpart, Ivan G. Shreve, who has dedicated weekly features to the TV shows 'Mayberry RFD' and 'The Doris Day Show' (at the cost to his own sanity), I'm going to be looking at the televersion of Mary Tyler Moore every Monday... at least until I get bored.

That quote at the head of this post serves not only as the perfect introduction for the topic, but also as the first point of discussion.  

'Transparent' and 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' should share the same dimension - Earth Prime-Time.  So we can't accept that Raquel and Ali were talking about the show about a woman turning the world on with her smile.  And thanks to the way the dialogue was crafted, we don't have to.  

All they are referring to are TV shows in general, TV shows with Mary Tyler Moore involved in particular.  So while we shouldn't make connections between Ms. Moore and Mary Richards, there is still another possibility we can use: 'The Mary Tyler Moore Hour', the variety show she launched after her very successful sitcom came to a close.  

It doesn't have to be a slavish copy of the TV series we had in the real world, especially since at least one sketch dealt with the WJM TV station.  We've seen many of our TV shows have doppelgangers in Toobworld with fictitious episodes and/or guest stars which were never seen in the Trueniverse. 

And even though it did have a loose sitcom premise to it, the show really only affects the TV dimension of Skitandia.

Of course, as we'll see over the course of this weekly theme, there will be a lot more references that will be quite specific to 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'.  And hopefully, I'll be able to come up with a decent splainin so that it won't create a Zonk.

If you have any suggestions for the 'Mary Tyler Mondays' topic, let me know!

BCnU!

IN MEMORIAM, THE FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY

These are the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the terrorist attack in which two airliners crashed into the Towers and brought them down, leaving nearly 3,000 people dead.

But these pictures are of the Twin Towers in the TV Universe... from the Spring of 2010.

This is not the main Toobworld, Earth Prime-Time.  It is an alternate TV dimension known by the 'Fringe' Science Unit as "Over There".  It is the TV dimension which connects 'Fringe' both to 'Doctor Who' and to 'Sliders'.  Among its differences from Main Toobworld (as well as the Trueniverse) is that former President John F. Kennedy and basketball player Lennie Bias were still alive (at least in that year); dirigibles were still a major form of transport in the skies; and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco was blue, dubbed the Azure Bridge.

But the continued existence of the Twin Towers is the most striking, heart-breaking difference of all.

All of the televersions of those people would still be alive today in the Over There, barring any later accidents, murders, or deaths by natural causes.  As the most trivial difference, any home movies from our world uploaded to YouTube in which those victims might have appeared would be different over there since they could now be included in them.

But unfortunately for Earth Prime and for Earth Prime-Time, they are all now lost to us.  Had Superman actually existed in our world, and had still been alive in Toobworld, things might have been different.  Sadly, 'tisn't, as Swanny Swanson would say.....

May they all rest in peace and that we always remember.....

THE HAT SQUAD - REMEMBERING HUGH O'BRIAN & WYATT EARP

I'll tell you a story a real true life story 

A tale of the Western frontier. 

The West, it was lawless, 

but one man was flawless 

and his is the story you'll hear. 

[Chorus:]

Wyatt Earp, Wyatt Earp, 

Brave courageous and bold. 

Long live his fame and long live his glory 

and long may his story be told. 

When he came to Kansas, to settle in Kansas,

He dreamed of a peaceable life,

Some goods and some chattel,

A few head of cattle,

A home and a sweet, loving wife.

(Chorus)

Now he wasn't partial to being a marshall,

but fate went and dealt him his hand,

While outlaws were looting, and killing and shooting,

he knew that he must take a stand.

(Chorus)

Well he cleaned up the country 

The old wild west country 

He made law and order prevail. 

And none can deny it 

The legend of Wyatt 

Forever will live on the trail. 

(Chorus)

Hugh O'Brian, who helped tame the Wild West as the star of TV's “The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp” and was the founder of a long-running youth leadership development organization, has died. He was 91.

O'Brian, who had several health issues, died Monday morning [September 5th] with his wife nearby at their Beverly Hills home, his publicist Harlan Boll said.

Handsome, square-jawed and athletically fit, the dark-haired O'Brian appeared in a string of movies and TV anthology series in the years before he became a star portraying the real-life Old West peace officer on “The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp,” which ran on ABC from 1955 to 1961.

TV's first adult western, “Wyatt Earp” became a top 10-rated series and made O'Brian a household name.

Portraying what the show's theme song described as the “brave, courageous and bold” frontier lawman, O'Brian wore a black frock coat, a gold brocade vest, a string tie and a flat-brimmed black hat — and he kept the peace with the help of a “Buntline Special”: a .45 revolver with an extra-long barrel.

Decades later, O'Brian showed up as Earp in two 1989 episodes of the TV western “Paradise.” He also appeared as Earp in the 1991 Kenny Rogers TV miniseries “The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw”. And he starred in “Wyatt Earp: Return to Tombstone,” a 1994 TV movie that included flashbacks to scenes from his old series.

As O'Brian once said of the TV western that made him a star: “It's been a great horse, and she keeps coming around the corral.”

He also starred in the 1972-73 NBC adventure series “Search.” 

- Dennis McLellan
LA Times

"I decided to take my mother's family name, O'Brien. But they misspelled it as 'O'Brian' and I just decided to stay with that," O'Brian said to the LA Times in 2013.  (So it's a good thing I didn't bring up how he was misspelling the family name when I got the chance to meet him in the 1990s.  But he had other things 0n his mind and he unloaded them on me.  But that's a story from the real world and we don't do dat.)

In Juy of 2002, when Television Crossover Hall of Fame was celebrating duos in TV, both Hugh O'Brian and Gene Barry were honored with an induction based on their portrayals of Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson (respectively) in their eponymous series, 'The Guns Of Paradise', and "The Gambler IV: The Luck Of The Draw".  (O'Brian also had that other TV movie three years later as well.)

Even within Earth Prime-Time O'Brian was known for playing Earp - as seen in an episode of 'Make Room For Daddy' in which he played himself.  But that's okay since O'Brian was playing an historical figure in the TV show, we can just claim that he looked EXACTLY like Wyatt Earp.  Should any other TV show mention other portrayals of Earp - they are just references to movies, TV movies, or from other TV shows which would be considered fictional.  Any appearance by Earp that should be considered part of Earth Prime-Time - like 'Deadwood', 'Pistols 'n' Petticoats', 'Alias Smith & Jones', and even the aforementioned 'Bat Masterson' - then we are seeing the real Earp, but as they were viewed by one of that particular show's characters.*

Good night and may God bless "Cousin" Hugh O'Brian.....

* O'BSERVATION:

The TV shows in which characters who claimed to be Earp but who were impostors [of one sort or another] would include:

• 'Doctor Who' - alien construct
• 'Star Trek' - alien construct
• 'Buffalo Bill, Jr.' - alternate dimension
• 'Tales Of The Century' - a tall tale told by an outright liar!

TOONING IN: "STRANGER THINGS" IN "GRAVITY FALLS"

Another Saturday morning, another Tooniverse post.....

I don't think another TV series will be coming along in the deluge of Fall premieres which will dislodge 'Stranger Things' as my favorite new TV show of 2016.  I'm so hoping that when it finally runs its course, as all TV shows must (except maybe 'Coronation Street', '60 Minutes' and 'The Simpsons'), it won't have broadcast anything that would disqualify it from being a part of Earth Prime-Time.  

But an artist by the screen name of "Shamserg" has envisioned 'Stranger Things' as part of another TV Dimension, that of the Tooniverse:

Shamserg has depicted four of our main characters - Eleven, Dustin, Mike, and Lucas - as denizens in the cartoon series 'Gravity Falls'.

Here's the link to that Deviantart page.

But just in case you don't see it there, here's a message from Shamserg about how you could support his artistic efforts:

If anyone wants to support me, here's my patreon -
www.patreon.com/shamserg

This isn't an official representation of 'Stranger Things' in the Tooniverse, but I would not be surprised if someday one of the many too-hip-for-the-room cartoon series adds in a cameo pastiche that would be accepted as cartoon canon.

In the meantime, 'Stranger Things' is officially part of Skitlandia, thanks to Jimmy Fallon and the 'Tonight' show, with the participation of those same four young actors.....

If Mike, Eleven, Lucas, and Dustin ever do show up in another show, played by their original actors - even just for a sketch like this! - they would qualify for membership in the Television Crossover Hall of Fame as Pandimensionals.

BCnU!

THE NEW OLD BRITCOMS AND WHERE THEY STAND IN THE TOOBWORLD DYNAMIC

In celebration of their “Britcom” heritage, the BBC has launched a showcase of “Landmark Sitcoms” and “Lost Sitcoms” this month.  Already presented have been new takes on ‘Porridge’, ‘Are You Being Served?’, ‘Til Death Us Do Part’ and ‘Young Hyacinth’, while a new version of a lost episode of ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’ will be broadcast tomorrow and a new ‘Steptoe And Son’, as another 'Lost Sitcom' is scheduled for the 14th. 

I have no information… information… information yet on those last two, but by hook or by crook, I will.*  In the meantime, I have a few O’Bservations on the others which have already been broadcast. (The difference between the "Landmark Sitcoms" & the "Lost Sitcoms" is that the BBC is re-making an episode of each of 'Hancock's Half Hour', 'Till Death Us Do Part' and 'Steptoe And Son' for which a script still exists but the original recording has been lost from the BBC archives while all the others are continuations in one form or another.)

1] ‘PORRIDGE’

Only two of these new offerings are accepted as being part of the world of Earth Prime-Time and this is the one I’m most eager in seeing.  It’s all new cast, but they’re playing new roles and in fact the show is even set in a new prison, updated with 21st Century technology.  We still get Fletch as the main character, but he’s the grandson of the great Ronnie Barker’s Norman Stanley Fletcher.  I’m hoping I’ll get the chance to see this somehow and from what I’ve heard it may have a shot at being picked up as a series.

2] ‘YOUNG HYACINTH’

This show is a prequel to ‘Keeping Up Appearances’, set in the 1950s, and it would also be accepted for the Main Toobworld.  Toobworld Central makes allowances for recasting when it comes to aging and this would work in reverse as well.  If this doesn’t find its way across my eyeballs, I won’t get verklempt.  The original series, for me, was carried by Patricia Routledge’s exuberant portrayal of Hyacinth.

3] ‘TIL DEATH US DO PART’

This "Lost Sitcom" is definitely a version of Alf Garnett and his family to be found in an alternate TV dimension – most likely the Land O’ Remakes.  It’s set during a time when the Garnetts were already established in their classic incarnations and follows exactly the events in the particular episode that's been wiped from the archives.  Who could ever think they could replace Warren Mitchell as the January 2015 inductee into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame?  (But taking place in an alternate dimension, I have no squabble with Simon Day’s interpretation of the role.)

4] ‘ARE YOU BEING SERVED?’

Of all these shows, I would think this department store comedy is most beloved by the American audience.  So a lot would be riding on it if it did get presented over here.  From what I’ve seen of the pictures, this total remake appears to be a slavish copy of the original.  You look quickly at Mrs. Slocombe and probably could be excused for thinking it was Molly Sugden resurrected.  But so far, I’m not hearing good things about it – perhaps it was too much like the original and modern sensibilities might not be so forgiving of its style of humor.  But I do salute them for bringing racial diversity into the cast with a new character.  So this would also have to be relegated to another dimension, and since it takes place in 1988, perhaps it’s a world in which the events of ‘Grace & Favour’ never took place…..

If you do get a chance to see them, or the new ‘Steptoe And Son’ (which is also an exact remake of an old episode), let me know what you thought of them.  (I admit to not knowing very much about 'Hancock's Half Hour' at all.  Was Hancock and the rest of the cast playing themselves each week, making him on a par with Jack Benny, George Burns, and Jerry Seinfeld?  Was the situation different each week?  Was it more like a sketch comedy show?  I need to learn more!) 

I understand 'Goodnight, Sweetheart', the time-traveling bigamy sitcom, was also remade for this celebration - it picks up 17 years after the events of the last episode, in which Gary Sparrow (perhaps related to Sally Sparrow?) was permanently stuck in the 1940s.  So that means it's now the 1960s for him.  I'm not sure who else is in the cast besides Nicholas Lyndhurst and I'm not even sure if recasting would matter, since the two women in Gary's life became recastaways over the course of its six seasons.

I have a long distance FB friend named John Hadlow, but who uses the “nom de whom” of Jon Pertwee. While appearing on BBC Radio Devon the other day to discuss these remakes, he talked about the show he’d most like to see remade – ‘Come Back, Mrs. Noah’.  It would have to be recast since Molly Sugden is no longer with us, but I think it would be an excellent idea.  (My casting suggestion would be Lesley Nicol, who played Mrs. Patmore in ‘Downton Abbey’.  A fellow named Owen McGhee came up with a good choice as well – Annette Badland.)

Just so long as they avoid a remake of ‘Fawlty Towers’!  A current stage show is one thing, but a new televersion would bring out the villagers with their pitchforks and torches!

BCnU!

* That was a reference to another British series, long my favorite show of all time but now relegated to being the “new Number Two”.  It also had a remake several years ago, albeit not a very good one.

A TVXOHOF TRIBUTE - SALUTING GARRY MARSHALL

Back in July we lost Garry Marshall, the writer-producer of so many hit sitcoms who "graduated"* to popular movies like "Pretty Woman", "The Princess Diaries", and "The Flamingo Kid".  But of course it's his TV career we're interested in here at Toobworld Central and why he's on the fast track to membership in the Television Crossover Hall of Fame (besides the fact that we induct those who are eligible and who have passed away as soon as possible.)

He wrote and/or produced and for the most part created the following shows which all connected to each other.  

• 'Happy Days'
• 'Laverne & Shirley'
• 'Mork & Mindy'
• 'Joanie Loves Chachi'
• 'Blansky's Beauties'
• 'Out Of The Blue'

He was also involved with writing episodes of 'Make Room For Daddy', but as far as I can tell, none of them played any part in the crossovers and spin-offs stemming from 'I Love Lucy' and 'The Andy Griffith Show'.

And so we tip our hat to the memory of Garry Marshall, who basically cornered the market on 50s nostalgia in Toobworld, with a few odd detours (aliens & angels!) along the way.....

BCnU!

* O'BSERVATION:
I put "graduated" in quotation marks because I can't stand how television is considered inferior to movies in terms of an artist's career......

MISSING LINKS MONDAY - "GILLIGAN'S ISLAND" & "GENERAL HOSPITAL"

'GILLIGAN'S ISLAND'

"THE HUNTER"

in January of 1967, a big-game hunter named Jonathan Kincaid (who may have been the grandson of a Texan named Bill Longley) arrived on the island with the intent to hunt some big game.....

From the IMDb:
Upon learning there is nothing on the island to hunt, he chooses instead to hunt one of the castaways--and he chooses Gilligan.

I've written in the past about the inspiration for the story "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell.  And if Kincaid wasn't familiar with the story of that Big Game Hunter in Toronto at the beginning of the 20th Century, then he surely was familiar with the story written by Richard Connell.  (And as Hugh Davis pointed out, so was a man who used Connell's name as an alias when he hired Echo from the 'Dollhouse' to be his companion on a wilderness adventure.....)

Kincaid was unsuccessful in killing Gilligan, yet he reneged on his pledge to get them help for a rescue in order to protect himself from the authorities.  However, the guilt over what he had almost accomplished drove him insane....

Later that year, in the summer of 1967, Kincaid won the National Trap Shooting Competition which was held that year along the St. Lawrence Seaway in Port Charles, NY.  He got a perfect score of one hundred clay pigeons out of one hundred.  However, after the match Kincaid broke down and became so violent that local authorities had to be called.  They were unable to calm him down, so the police had no other choice but to restrain him in a strait jacket. He was taken to the mental ward at Port Charles' General Hospital, where he kept muttering these mysterious words over and over again:

"Gilligan... Gilligan... Gilligan..."

General Hospital, located in Port Charles, is the basis for several TV series: the prime one is the soap opera 'General Hospital', which has been on the air since 1963.  And from that sturdy warhorse has come the spin-off 'Port Charles', another soap opera, and 'General Hospital: Night Shift' which was a prime-time serial that ran for two years for nearly 30 episodes.

But the connection between 'Gilligan's Island' and 'General Hospital' was never explicitly made.  During the radio report heard months later by the castaways about what happened to Kincaid, it was only said that he had been taken to General Hospital.  

So why couldn't it have been the same hospital famous in Toobworld for over half a century?  Wouldn't a sporting event like a trap shooting competition look great with the backdrop of the St. Lawrence Seaway? 

So I'm going to expand that connection a little bit more.  The first Port Charles police officer to arrive on the scene when Jonathan Kincaid began to have his mental breakdown was a patrolman named Ross Janelle, the illegitimate son of Ward Cleaver.  Cleaver had an affair during one of his business trips away from Mayfield (but before he married June Evelyn Bronson.  Ward just wasn't the type of man who would have cheated on his wife, even if he was under the sway of a town which had such an influence on its residents.)  Ward Cleaver left town never knowing that the young woman with whom he had the affair was pregnant with Ross.

Officer Janelle recognized the potential threat posed by Kincaid with a gun and called for backup.  As Detective Burt Ramsey arrived and was able to divert Kincaid's attention, Officer Janelle quickly disarmed the big game hunter.  Janelle and Detective Ramsey, along with other police officers arriving on the scene, were able to wrestle Kincaid to the ground so that the EMS technicians were able to strap him into the strait jacket.  

For their quick actions which resulted in saving countless lives, both Ross Janelle and Burt Ramsey found themselves on the fast track to promotion within the department.  In a few years time Janelle became a detective and in 1974 he investigated what was perhaps the biggest case of his career - the murder of Phil Brewer.  (He also found time to briefly romance a nurse at General Hospital by the name of Beth Maynard.  And as though fated to follow in the footsteps of his "father", Detective Janelle may have sired a daughter with Nurse Maynard.  If so, Beth Maynard may have raised the girl on her own, giving the child her father's last name as her first name - Janelle.)

For Detective Burt Ramsey, however, it wasn't happily ever after for him.  He moved up the ranks, from Lieutenant to Captain and finally to being the Chief of Police in Port Charles.  But he chafed under being the "Co-Chief" with Anna Devane and eventually joined the organized crime syndicate in Port Charles, known as "Mr. Big".  He was found out and confessed, which triggered his falling into a catatonic state.  In 1986, he was relegated to the same state mental facility where Jonathan Kincaid had been taken, but he eventually recovered and served his time in prison.  Afterwards Burt Ramsey sought redemption in the Church and became a priest by the new millennium.  

At the end of June, 2014, Father Burt Ramsey passed away.  Toobworld Central is unable to figure out where Detective Janelle eventually ended up, but he probably found employment in some other city as a detective.

And as for Jonathan Kincaid?  I believe that eventually his treatments at the state mental facility were successful and he was released back to his life, such as it was.  But in 1978, when the Castaways were finally rescued from "Gilligan's Island", Kincaid realized that his secret would soon be revealed.  So he begged his faithful manservant Ramoo to end his life as he was too much of a coward to do it himself.  

Four years later, Ramoo took his own life as well.

SHOWS CITED:

• 'Gilligan's Island' - "The Hunter"
• 'General Hospital'
• 'Port Charles'
• 'The Texan'
• 'Leave It To Beaver'
• 'General Hospital: The Night Shift'
• "Rescue From Gilligan's Island"
• 'Dollhouse' - "The Target"
• 'The Murdoch Mysteries' - "Artful Detective"

A lot of that is conjecture, but 'twill serve.....

BCnU!

VIDEO WEEKEND HAT SQUAD - REMEMBERING GENE WILDER

I don't know how you were able to miss such incredibly sad news, but in case you hadn't heard, Gene Wilder, star of "Young Frankenstein", "The Producers", "Blazing Saddles", and "Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory" and a host of other comic movies, passed away from complications of Alzheimer's on August 29 at the age of 83.

As popular as he was in the Cineverse, he also made his mark in the various dimensions of Toobworld - in the Tooniverse, ToobStage, Skitlanida, and of course in Earth Prime-Time.

The year 1974 may have been his most prolific year for movies:

• "Rhinoceros"
  - Stanley
• "Blazing Saddles"
  - Jim
• "Thursday's Game" (TV Movie)
  - Harry Evers
• "The Little Prince"
  - The Fox
• "Young Frankenstein"
  - Dr. Frederick Frankenstein

As you can see, tucked away in the middle of that list is a TV movie, "Thursday's Game" (which was actually filmed in 1971).  The TV Movie Of The Week was a big thing on ABC back in the early 70s and supplied the bulk of its programming on Tuesday and Wednesday nights for the most part.

In "Thursday's Game", Gene Wilder and Bob Newhart played a couple of guys who get kicked out of their weekly poker game and then decide to keep meeting up anyway to discuss whatever is on their minds.  It becomes kind of a one-on-one therapy support group.  This leads to some repercussions with their wives - Ellen Burstyn and Cloris Leachman, respectively - whom they neglected to tell about the change in their schedules.

Also in the cast are Nancy Walker, Martha Scott, Valerie Harper, Rob Reiner, Norman Fell, Dick Gautier, and Chris Sarandon.  It was written by James L. Brooks.  With a cast like that known for comedy, you might be surprised at how heart-felt and touching it is.  And it's Cloris Leachman who shines the most in one particular scene which has stayed with me for the last forty plus years.

Here is the first part of the movie as found on YouTube.  If all goes according to plan, and since I set it up for this post, I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't, each succeeding segment of the movie should follow straight on from the preceding one.  (If it doesn't, I'm sure you know how to find it.)  Think of those momentary lapses as the commercial breaks that weren't.

I hope you enjoy it as much as my eighteen year old self did.....

BCnU!