TWO FOR TUESDAY - RE-GIFTOSING

'Ironside'
- "Murder Impromptu" (1971)
Stephie Parker

'Murder, She Wrote'
- "Broadway Malady" (1985)
Lonni Valerian  

Stephanie Parker was a struggling young actress back in 1971 when she was hired to perform with an improvisational group in San Francisco.  There she met and fell in love with another improv actor, Seamus Brennan.  Another actor in the company was Jamie Shannon, a once-famous child star, whose best days had been long behind him.  (He had peaked in the movies between the ages of 6 and 16.)

Unfortunately, the founder of the group, Lennie Blake, was blackmailing Stephie to keep her tied to the troupe.  After he was murdered, Stephie broke into his hotel room in hopes of finding the incriminating evidence against her.  She didn't find it, but Chief Robert T. Ironside and his team did - Lennie had forced her to perform in a porn film.  She agreed to do it only to save her boyfriend Seamus from being fired from the company.

After the murder was solved, the rest of the company moved on to Los Angeles in the hopes of making it big.  But by then, the pressures of the relationship between Seamus and Stephie had become too overwhelming and they split up.  Stephie resolved to focus on her career, driven to succeed at all costs.

Over time, she did gain traction in show business to the point where she became a big musical comedy star in the movies.  By that time, she had shed all traces of her past life so that her connection to Lennie Blake's murder was never discovered by the gossip columnists.  To facilitate that, Stephie Parker ceased to exist.  Instead, "Lonni Valerian" rose from the ashes of her life to become a leading light among Hollywood stars.

In 1985, fading diva Rita Bristol was supposed to open in a Broadway show with her daughter Patti, marking Rita's comeback and Patti's debut.  But during rehearsals, Patti was shot by a supposed mugger and almost died from the wound.  In hopes of saving the show, the director (Marc Faber) called on Lonni Valerian to step into Patti's role.  As rehearsals continued, Faber beefed up Lonni's role, clearly smitten with her and probably already having an affair with her.  (This pegged Faber as a possible suspect in the attempted murder of Patti Bristol.)

Patti eventually recovered and returned to the role and the show opened to great acclaim for both mother and daughter.  (Hopefully it helped soften the sorrow they still faced in their personal lives.)

As for Lonni Valerian, the former Stephie Parker, she returned to Los Angeles and probably phased into a TV career.  I find it doubtful that she would accept a transition into character roles, so she was probably out of the business by the turn of the millennium.

Elaine Giftos played both Stephie Parker and Lonni Valerian.

BCnU!

SUPER SIX LIST - CROSSING "REALITY"

'NCIS'

"ONE MAN'S TRASH"

From the IMDb:Gibbs and Ducky see an antique war stick on television that could be the missing murder weapon to a 16-year-old cold case.

The television show is one that exists in the real world and now has its own televersion: 'American Pickers' on the History Channel.  Its host, Mike Wolfe, featured an antique war club in an episode which Gibbs and Ducky recognized as the murder weapon from the 16-year-old case.  (The show is in its 17th year, so technically this case happened during the first season of the series.  I'm only assuming that it must have been one of many which happened off-screen.)

This was not the first time in which fictional characters interacted with real people from reality shows, including game shows.  And it probably won't be the last. 

One of the shows which may have started the trend could have been 'The Odd Couple' in which Felix and Oscar appeared on 'Password'.  I've covered that in the past, so I'll showcase a few others. 

So here is one of my Super Six Lists showcasing past examples.

SUPER SIX LIST

WHEN "REALITY" SHOWS WERE FICTIONALIZED

1] 'SPORTSNIGHT'
"THE SIX SOUTHERN GENTLEMEN OF TENNESSEE"

Casey appears on "View, The" and the team follows the story of seven college football players who are suspended for refusing to play under the Confederate flag.

2] 'FAMILY MATTERS'
"SURELY YOU JOUST"

Feuding neighbors Urkel and Carl decide to settle things on "American Gladiators." 

3] 'L.A. LAW'
"VOWEL PLAY"

Brackman appears on the TV game show "Wheel of Fortune," and ends up getting a date with Vanna White. Meanwhile, C.J. and her old friend from law school, the seedy, alcoholic, chain-smoking Tommy Mullaney, take a civil case of representing a man dying from lung cancer, caused by second-hand smoke, suing a tobacco company. Victor represents a murder victim's sister suing the physician who did not report evidence of her repeated spouse beatings. After having dinner together, Markowitz experiences romantic feelings for Gwen and when Kelsey finds out, she forces him to move out of their house. Also, Mullaney is hired on commission at the firm for his court performance. 

4] 'YES, DEAR'
"BIG BROTHER-IN-LAW"

Jimmy auditions for the Big Brother TV show and is accepted. The other contestants love him. Greg wants him to win so he gets enough money to move out of Greg's home. Meanwhile, the house is calmer without Jimmy around. 

5] 'MAMA'S FAMILY'

"FAMILY FEUD"

Vint's latest money-making scheme is to get on "Family Feud" (the nighttime syndicated edition) and win $10,000 in Fast Money. Somehow, he actually gets the Harper clan (including Ellen, but not Fran or Sonia) on the show, where they play against an obnoxious high-society family. Since the society family is as dimwitted as the Harpers, the game is tied going into the final round and the Harpers have a chance to win by stealing a survey on "Things You Wind Up" -- if they can come up with one answer. This episode features much more game play than most TV sitcoms set on a game-show set.

6] 'THE X-FILES'
"X-COPS"

An investigation into possible Werewolf sightings brings Mulder and Scully to Los Angeles. There they run into a crew filming a 'COPS' episode. While being followed around by the 'COPS' camera crew, Mulder and Scully trail a monster that appears to be able to change into each victim's own worst nightmare. 

All descriptions are from the IMDb.....

BCnU!

VIDEO SUNDAY - LI'L ABNER IN TOOBWORLD

It's the first Sunday in Spring and for some reason, I'm thinking of reading the Sunday funnies at my Grammy's house.  We got the Hartford Courant Sunday paper each week, but she got the New York Daily News - and that had the big pull-out comics section with the oversized strips like "Pogo", "Dick Tracy", and the subject of today's post, "Li'l Abner".

The panels were big enough that as a little kid I would cut them out for home-made Colorforms figures.  And the Li'l Abner characters - a whole army of them! - were my favorites: full-figured, kinetic, and colorful. 

Al Capp's creation is a Mutiversal world - it started in the comic strips, got a musical, a film of that musical, a few musical shorts, theatrical cartoons, and a pilot for placement in Toobworld.

So here today, I'm celebrating that comic strip with the pilot plus a few cartoons, a musical short and even the bloopers from the Cineverse.  We'll even end with a Cineverse in Toobworld moment.  (It might be considered a moment in Skitlandia.)

I hope you enjoy!

BCnU!

VIDEO SATURDAY - A VISIT TO THE ITALIAN TOOBWORLD

When an American TV show is dubbed into a foreign language for broadcast in another country, it becomes a whole new animal.  It belongs in the TV Universe as individual from the original version, but it can't remain in Earth Prime-Time.  It needs to be placed into the appropriate TV dimension based on the language used to replace the characters' voices.

In this case, there is the Italian Toobworld.  I don't know when that world became dominated so totally by the Italians that everybody spoke the language, but 'Columbo' is not the only inhabitant of that dimension.

But here's where it gets interesting and worthy of special attention in this blog post.  As seen in this promo, there are scenes which were never seen in the original American broadcasts.  And that means that although the investigations by the Lieutenant play out as they did in the main Toobworld, it wasn't an exact copy of the original timeline.

A big thanks to fellow 'Columbo' enthusiast Debbie Greenfield for finding this video treasure!

BCnU!

FRIDAY DEADLINE - BULLISH ON THE LEDGER

A couple of selections of dialogue from the "Gag Order" episode of 'Bull':

ANNA:

I'm meeting with Chloe Tomlin. 

CHUNK

Chloe Tomlin. I know that name.

ANNA: 

Maybe you've read her. 

She's an investigative journalist
for the New York Ledger. 

She's also an adjunct professor here, 

and she's the one who recommended me
for the scholarship.

Ms. Tomlin had been arrested for breaking into a computer dating service to get information for a newspaper story which had been approved by her editor three days before.  But during the trial, her editor perjured himself and claimed that Ms. Tomlin was acting as a lone wolf with no authorization from him.

He tried to defend his actions later....

TOM HILL:

I had no choice. 

It came down from the masthead. 

They threatened to lay off half the department.

DR. JASON BULL:

Wait a minute. 

You're saying that the publishers of the New York Ledger 

told you to perjure yourself? 

TOM HILL:

I'm not saying anything of the kind. 

DR. JASON BULL: 

As I recall, one of the owners of the Ledger
made his fortune in tech startups and apps. 

TOM HILL:

I have no idea. I just work there.

The Ledger is best known as the tabloid newspaper of choice in the 'Law & Order' corner of Toobworld, seen throughout the various shows of that franchise.  I would not be surprised if it had been mentioned, if not seen, in episodes of the 'Chicago' farm team of Dick Wolf shows.

But it has also popped up in other shows like 'White Collar' and 'Castle' (although that takes place in an alternate TV dimension.)  And Dick Wolf even gave the newspaper its own show....

From Wikipedia:

'Deadline' is an American drama which was shown on NBC from October 2, 2000 to April 7, 2001. It was aired during the 2000–2001 season. It starred Oliver Platt as Wallace Benton, who worked for the fictional New York Ledger. This was a daily newspaper which was seen in many episodes of 'Law & Order' and modeled after the real-life New York Post.

The series established Si Beekman (played by Tom Conti) as the owner of the New York Ledger.

From the Post-Gazette:
 

Tom Conti is Si Beekman, the eccentric owner who barks out orders and battles with the liberal newsroom staff when they hedge about pursuing an investigation of a Democrat in the second episode.

"If this was a Republican we were discussing here, you'd all be bouncing up and down with glee like a bunch of monks in a whore house," Beekman says.

He's not tactful or classy, but the lines that come out of Beekman's mouth are, at the least, unpredictable.
- Rob Owen

In 'Deadline', Beekman was depicted as being the sole owner of the paper.  But as it's common Toobworld practice to make a character the same age as the actor playing the role unless otherwise stated, Beekman was just approaching his seventies (now reaching the tail end of that decade.)  He was probably feeling the need to guarantee his legacy and to ease the burden on himself. 

So eighteen years later, it appears he has taken on partners in the paper's ownership.  (I'd like to think Si Beekman is still the principle owner with the most shares of stock in the company.  He could have sold it off to a consortium, but where's the sport in that?)

Watching the 'Game of Thrones'-style distribution of power in the Trump family here in the Trueniverse, and knowing how Rupert Murdoch has been keeping his media empire in the family, I think it's more than likely that Si Beekman co-owns the Ledger with his own family - children, siblings, cousins....  Whoever it is, I think it likely that one of them (a male by the dialogue) is the owner mentioned by Dr. Bull as being the one who made his fortune in tech stock and apps.  By the turn of the millennium, Si Beekman was already established in his wealth and I think it happened long before the digital age got into gear.  (He may have even inherited his fortunes.)

So the ruling council of the Toobworld Central has voted and accepted my claim that Si Beekman is still one of the owners of the Ledger, and as such he is the man behind the curtain for the paper.  The New York Ledger is already inducted into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame but now I can make the case that Si Beekman is also eligible for membership.  Every time you see the Ledger in a TV show, it's taken for granted that Beekman is the publisher. 

The Toobworld Central ruling council has mandated that this will only last for as long as Tom Conti is alive, however.  It is standard practice for the curators of Toobworld to declare certain characters as having died once the actor who played them has died as well. 

I would say inclusion in the Hall is already written in stone for Si Beekman, probably as a Birthday Honors inductee or maybe during the 20th anniversary of the TVXOHOF next year.  But it would be great if I can find mention of the paper's owner, most likely without his name, in one of the shows that are outside the Dick Wolf bailiwick. Then 'Deadline', 'Bull', and that show would serve as the triumvirate base for Si Beekman's membership in the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.

That same consideration couldn't be offered to the other cast members of 'Deadline'.  Some of them might have been there for years, but who knows what happened to their employee status after that show was canceled?  

So take care of your health, Mr. Conti!  The longer you're around, the more credits we could add to your tally.

Uh oh.  Looks like a sick day for Si Beekman....

BCnU!

THURSDAY'S THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY - AT HOME WITH THE TUBEMANS

We have a simple theory of relateeveety for this Thursday.....

From Wikipedia:
A tube man, also known as a skydancer, air dancer, or Wacky Inflatable Arm Waving Tube Man and originally called the Tall Boy, is an inflatable moving advertising product comprising a long fabric tube (with two or more outlets), which is attached to and powered by an electrical fan. As the electrical fan blows air through the fabric tube, this causes the tube to move about in a dynamic dancing or flailing motion.

The design of the tube man was invented by Peter Minshall, an artist from Trinidad and Tobago, along with a team that included Israeli artist Doron Gazit, for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Minshall originally called his invention the "Tall Boy". Gazit eventually patented the concept of an inflatable, dancing human-shaped balloon and licensed the patent to various companies that manufacture and sell the devices.

Everything has the capability of being alive in Toobworld - food, appliances, toilets, cars.  And now we know that the Tube Man in this Carvana commercial is a living being as well.  He's not a prop at that car dealership; he's an employee.  he punches a time clock; drives a car; lives in a beautiful house with his beautiful wife; and they have a beautiful child.

I can't speak for Mrs. Tubeman being faithful to their marriage vows all the time, but I'm certain that their child must be the offspring of Mr. Tubeman.  And there is no need for a blood test - even if they had blood!  All you have to do is look at their kid and remember this basic rule:

To create the secondary color green, one evenly mixes the primary colors of yellow and blue.

But the balloon gods help them if Mrs. Tubeman gives birth to a purple baby or a little orange boy runs up to Mr. Tubeman at the mall and shouts "Daddy!"

BCnU!

WIKI TIKI WEDNESDAY - THE TELEVERSION OF DR. WILLIAM OSTLER

'MURDOCH MYSTERIES'
"DR. OSLER REGRETS"

From IMDb:
A spate of murders staged as suicides leads Murdoch to suspect a sequential killer targeting the elderly.

Plenty of historical figures have appeared on this series over the years, some not as famous as your typical turn of the century characters like Teddy Roosevelt, Mark Twain, Harry Houdini, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who have also visited Station 4 in Toronto.

And that's all to the good, because it brings them to the attention of the general public today so that they might learn more about them if they wish.

With this episode, we learned about Dr. William Osler.....

From Wikipedia:

Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet, FRS FRCP (/ˈɒz.lər/; July 12, 1849 – December 29, 1919) was a Canadian physician and one of the four founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of physicians, and he was the first to bring medical students out of the lecture hall for bedside clinical training. He has frequently been described as the Father of Modern Medicine and one of the "greatest diagnosticians ever to wield a stethoscope". 

Osler was a person of many interests, who in addition to being a physician, was a bibliophile, historian, author, and renowned practical joker. One of his achievements was the founding of the History of Medicine Society (previously section) of the Royal Society of Medicine, London.

Osler is well known in the field of gerontology for the speech he gave when leaving Hopkins to become the Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford. "The Fixed Period", given on February 22, 1905, included some controversial words about old age. Osler, who had a well-developed humorous side to his character, was in his mid-fifties when he gave the speech and in it he mentioned Anthony Trollope's "The Fixed Period" (1882), which envisaged a college where men retired at 67 and after being given a year to settle their affairs, would be "peacefully extinguished by chloroform". He claimed that, "the effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages of twenty-five and forty" and it was downhill from then on. 

O'BSERVATION:
This was the background for the 'Murdoch Mysteries' episode.

Back to Wikipedia:

Osler's speech was covered by the popular press which headlined their reports with "Osler recommends chloroform at sixty". The concept of mandatory euthanasia for humans after a "fixed period" (often 60 years) became a recurring theme in 20th century imaginative literature—for example, Isaac Asimov's 1950 novel "Pebble in the Sky". In the 3rd edition of his Textbook, he also coined the description of pneumonia as "the old man's friend" since it allowed elderly individuals a quick, comparatively painless death. 

Coincidentally, Osler himself died of pneumonia.

In 1994 Osler was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

From the Murdoch Mysteries Wiki:

While William Osler is well-known as the 'Father of Modern Medicine', he is also known as an inveterate prankster who wrote several humorous pieces under the pseudonym Egerton Yorrick Davishe. Apparently these often bizarre (and fictitious) medical writings were an expression of the mischievous sense of humor lurking behind the respectable façade of the famous doctor.

BCnU!

TWO FOR TUESDAY - A CRUSHING REPEAT

We've got a little something different for Two for Tuesday....
Because Earth Prime-Time is the Television Universe, certain tropes of TV hold true in that world.  For instance, if you get on the elevator with a pregnant lady, the elevator will break down as she goes into labor.  But there are certain elements of television that are reflected in Toobworld which are not plot elements.  On Sunday afternoons in the Fall, certain actions of note reoccur almost immediately, influenced by instant replays during football games.  

And the lives of people in one country could play out on a delayed basis by somewhat different people in another country.  You should know where that one came from - think of all the foreign TV shows that have been remade in the United States, from 'All In The Family' to 'Worst Week'.  Usually enough changed so that even though the plots were similar (i.e. the first two seasons of 'The Office' before they ran out of the original story lines) both shows - or in the case of 'Ugly Betty', as many as a dozen! - can remain in the same TV dimension.

And then there are the individual episode plots that repeat as well.  I've found several that were done earlier (and most times, better) in episodes of 'Columbo'.  For most of those I splained it away as the murderers were inspired by the book Lieutenant Frank Columbo finally got around to writing, which he talked about in "Publish or Perish".  (I like to think that Jeffrey Neal from that same episode published Columbo's memoirs of his past cases.)

But here's another one which played out yet again in Toobworld nearly a century later.  And before we proceed, a word of warning....

THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD!

'MURDOCH MYSTERIES'

"THE ACCIDENT"

Murdoch investigates a car accident and uncovers sinister motives.

[2017]

&
 

'HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET'
"SUBWAY"

A man is pinned by a train in a subway station, producing a mortal wound that is temporarily suppressed by his situation, the Homicide detectives must determine if the incident was an accident or deliberate.

[1997]

As you might have noticed, the episodes are out of sequence.  But that's based on the order of broadcast.  I have them listed by their placement in the Toobworld timeline.  "Subway"  happened in 1997, around the same time as broadcast.  But "The Accident" took place circa 1905.

Dilbert Dilton was an efficiency expert for the City of Toronto who was crushed against a trolley car.  Although he wasn't feeling any pain, his pelvic area had been crushed.  There was plenty of internal bleeding which was being clamped off by the vehicles - as soon as the car was separated, Mr. Dilton would more than likely die.

Ninety-two years later in Baltimore, the same situation happened in a subway station.  Pushed into the path of an oncoming subway train, John Lange was crushed between the train and the platform with his lower extremities twisted all the way around.  Just as was the case with Mr. Dilton, as soon as the train was leveraged to provide the space to get Mr. Lange out, the damage to his body caused a traumatic shock which killed him.

I sometimes promote "Born to Rerun" - reincarnation.  It would be easy to claim that the soul of Dilton returned as John Lange.  But I think it more likely that one of the cosmic Fates thought it might be fun to replay the previous method of dispatch. 

For those of you who are religious members of Team Toobworld, I'm sorry.  The Judeo-Christian God created Earth Prime-Time's twin planet Mondas; Earth Prime-Time showed up later and is a super-computer created by the engineers of Magrathea for pan-dimensional philosophers to provide the question to the answer supplied by their first super-computer Deep Thought.  God may take a hand in the proceedings of this big blue marble, but there are other religious beliefs at play as well.

If you want to read more about "Subway", click here.

And to check out more about "The Accident", give this hyperlink a shot.

BCnU!

MONDAY MEMORIAL - REMEMBERING BILL BRADY

At the end of the March 18th broadcast of 'CBS Sunday Morning', the end credits began with this:

From Deadline:
William M. “Bill” Brady, a CBS News Director for over 30 years and Directors Guild of America Network Negotiating Committee chairman, has died at age 65. No cause of death was given in the announcement by DGA president Thomas Schlamme and national executive director Russell Hollander.

From CBS News:

A graduate of Queens College in New York, Brady rose from a mailroom job at CBS to become one of the network's most accomplished news directors. For more than 30 years Brady directed such CBS News programs as "America Tonight," "The Early Show," "Eye to Eye," "48 Hours," "Public Eye," "Street Stories," and many special reports, as well as episodes of the series "Survivor." 

From 1998-2011, Brady directed broadcasts of "Sunday Morning." 

"In the universe of television, Bill Brady was, well, a cowboy," said "Sunday Morning" executive producer Rand Morrison. "He made live television an adventure. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes scary ... oftentimes fun.

"He was invaluable in helping us turn the corner from the early days and create a more mainstream 'Sunday Morning' broadcast."

Good night and may God bless.....

VIDEO SUNDAY - A BIT OF LOU

I just felt like a little Lou today.....

STEVE ALLEN SHOW
WITH LOU COSTELLO