11/02/18 - FRIDAY HALL OF FAMER PAT NIXON

As yesterday was November 1st we inducted Richard Millhouse Nixon as the monthly showcase for the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.  And now here we are with the next day falling on a Friday when we induct others as Friday Hall of Famers.  A bit of overkill I suspect, but we can amortize your (phantom) pain by inducting another newsmaker who should be paired with Tricky Dick….

PAT NIXON

From Wikipedia:

Thelma Catherine "Pat" Nixon (née Ryan; March 16, 1912 – June 22, 1993) was an American educator and the wife of Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States. During her more than 30 years in public life, she served as both the Second (1953–1961) and First Lady of the United States (1969–1974).

As First Lady, Pat Nixon promoted a number of charitable causes, including volunteerism. She oversaw the collection of more than 600 pieces of historic art and furnishings for the White House, an acquisition larger than that of any other administration. She was the most traveled First Lady in U.S. history, a record unsurpassed until twenty-five years later. She accompanied the President as the first First Lady to visit China and the Soviet Union, and was the first President's wife to be officially designated a representative of the United States on her solo trips to Africa and South America, which gained her recognition as "Madame Ambassador"; she was also the first First Lady to enter a combat zone. Her tenure ended when, after being re-elected in a landslide victory in 1972, President Nixon resigned two years later amid the Watergate scandal.

Her public appearances became increasingly rare later in life. She and her husband settled in San Clemente, California, and later moved to New Jersey. She suffered two strokes, one in 1976 and another in 1983, then was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1992. She died in 1993, aged 81.

Like her husband, the televersion of Pat Nixon was a multi-dimensional in the greater Toobworld Dynamic.  Here are the portrayals of the former First Lady, divvied up among the TV dimensions in which they can be found:

References to TV characters, including members of the League of Themselves, can be considered part of Toobworld if they are just mentioned within a show.  So here are two examples for Pat Nixon:

MIKE STIVIC:
Arch, we want to watch the election returns. 
GLORIA BUNKER STIVIC:
You care more about a lousy movie than you do a presidential election? 
ARCHIE BUNKER:
Certainly! What do I care about something I know how it's going to come out? Everybody knows how it's going to come out, including them McGovern people. See them on the newsreels with all the worried looks on their faces? Not the Nixons. See the picture of Pat in the paper today? She was all smiles. 
MIKE STIVIC:
Yeah, well, maybe she won't be smiling tomorrow. 
ARCHIE BUNKER:
Yes, she will, buddy boy, because when she wakes up tomorrow morning, she knows she's been sleeping with the president of the U. S. of A. 
MIKE STIVIC:
Is she going to McGovern's place or is he going to hers? 
EDITH BUNKER:
Oh, I don't think Mr. Nixon would like that either way.
'ALL IN THE FAMILY'

GRACE KARN:

Hello. I'm Grace Karn. You know, I remember the first time I realized well, not realized, but came to understand who Pat Nixon is. I was a young mother of an adorable two-year-old, who, let's be honest, was running me ragged.  And when I heard Vice President Nixon explain about Pat's respectable Republican cloth coat and how much their two little girls loved their cocker spaniel Checkers....  I don't know. I just I got so vivid a picture of a family. A modest, hard-working American family. And it made me proud. Not only proud to be a Republican, not only proud to be a citizen of the greatest democracy on Earth, but proud to be a Republican wife and mother
'AQUARIUS'

Here are the portrayals of the former First Lady, divvied up among the TV dimensions in which they can be found:

EARTH PRIME-TIME
We don’t really have a good televersion of Mrs. Nixon yet for Earth Prime-Time, the main Toobworld, as we do for her husband.  I suppose for now we have to consider Cathleen Cordell, who played the former First Lady in ‘Blind Ambition’ which was a four-part mini-series.  Eight hours may not seem like much to stand among other series, but the mini-series lasted seven hours longer than ‘South of Sunset’.  (Even if all the episodes produced were broadcast, ‘Blind Ambition’ still would outpace ‘South of Sunset’ – SOS! – by two hours!)

But I’d prefer to have an actress play Pat Nixon in some established TV series in which she can interact with the fictional characters of that show.

If anybody knows of such an example, please let me know.

Of course, technically we could just accept Pat Nixon herself as her own televersion in Toobworld.  Besides, all of those appearances on news programs (documentaries belong in Docu-Toobworld) would support the archival footage of her as seen in one of the greatest TV episodes ever – “Nixon vs. Kennedy” when Don Draper settled down at home in the episode finale to watch Nixon’s concession speech.  And there was Pat Nixon, always by her husband’s side. 

So until we do have a good fictional Pat Nixon within a TV series, it will be the real Pat Nixon in the gallery for the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.  In the meantime, here are some of her other doppelgangers in other TV dimensions.

Should we get a more appropriate televersion for Mrs Nixon in the main Toobworld, then Ms. Cordell's televersion would be placed in an alternate TV dimension.  As to which one?  Perhaps a Toobworld geared to book adaptations.  Who knows?  I'm easy.  (But not cheap!)

UNKNOWN MOTW TOOBWORLD
“THE FINAL DAYS”

Susan Brown played Pat Nixon.

O’Bservation: As pointed out in Susan Brown’s Toobular Knells, Ms. Brown had the distinction of playing two former First Ladies in different MOTW TV dimensions.  She also played Nancy Reagan in “Without Warning: The James Brady Story” two years after this movie.

And here is probably my favorite portrayal of Pat Nixon:

SKITLANDIA
‘Saturday Night Live’

Jane Curtin played Pat Nixon in at least two sketches.  In one, she joined Dick Nixon for an interview with David Frost.  Dan Aykroyd again played the President and Eric Idle of Monty Python as David Frost.

In the other sketch, the First Family (Tricky and Pat with their daughter Julie and her husband David) are watching ‘Blind Ambition’ and actual video is used.  (A good example as to why the Toobworld Dynamic can’t just throw it all into a blender.)

Julie Eisenhower:
You know... Daddy, I thought the guy playing you was really terrible!
Richard Nixon:
Yeah, uh... Rip Torn.
David Eisenhower:

He didn’t look anything like you.
Richard Nixon:
Yeah, he was really stiff, too.
Pat Nixon:
I think, in some ways, he was uncannily accurate.
Richard Nixon:  Shut up! I noticed they didn’t spend a lot of time on your dynamic role in history!
Pat Nixon:
Well, I didn’t commit any crimes.

O’Bservation – The reason I liked this best is because it was a take-no-prisoners sketch in which Jane Curtin played Mrs. Nixon as inebriated and showing the after-effects of her stroke.  Yeah, it is cruel (still funny) but you have to remember the times in which it was written.

So there she is – Pat Nixon the Multidimensional.  Her presence in about four different TV dimensions which was enough to warrant her membership in the Hall.  There she joins several other former First Ladies who are already members – Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Michelle Obama, and Betty Ford (to be joined eventually by others like Martha Washington, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mary Todd Lincoln, and Hillary Clinton.)

Welcome to the Hall, Mrs. Nixon.

TVXOHOF 11/01/18 - NIXON'S THE ONE! (105 THAT IS...)

"If Nixon got elected,

You can get elected!"

Cathy Shumway

'Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman'

November has always been the month in which we induct a newsmaker of some sort into the Television Crossover Hall of Fame – usually presidents, politicians, or even those who report the news, both real and fictional.  (For instance, Walter Cronkite and Murphy Brown.)

But presidents have always been a fertile field to choose from, most of them as multi-dimensionals.  (Drumpf is one who made it into the TVXOHOF before he even became the POTUS, but considering his reputation even back then, he was inducted in April of that year. [2009])

Anyway, it shouldn’t come as a surprise who our candidate is this year.  It might be a surprise though as to why we waited this long!

RICHARD NIXON

We probably should have inducted him five years ago at least, when he would have been 100 years old.  So then after realizing I missed the opportunity, I figured I’d wait for the next stepping stone – Tricky Dick would have been 105 this year.

From Wikipedia:
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States from 1969 until 1974, the only president to resign the office. He had previously served as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961, and prior to that as both a U.S. Representative and Senator from California.

Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California. After completing his undergraduate studies at Whittier College, he graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937 and returned to California to practice law. He and his wife Pat moved to Washington in 1942 to work for the federal government. He subsequently served on active duty in the U.S. Navy Reserve during World War II.

Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the Senate in 1950. His pursuit of the Hiss Case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist and elevated him to national prominence. He was the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 1952 election. Nixon served for eight years as Vice President, becoming the second-youngest vice president in history at age 40.

He waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1960, narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy, and lost a race for Governor of California to Pat Brown in 1962. In 1968, he ran for the presidency again and was elected, defeating incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

Nixon ended American involvement in the war in Vietnam in 1973 and brought the American POWs home, and ended the military draft. Nixon's visit to China in 1972 eventually led to diplomatic relations between the two nations and he initiated détente and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union the same year. His administration generally transferred power from Washington D.C. to the states. He imposed wage and price controls for ninety days, enforced desegregation of Southern schools, established the Environmental Protection Agency and began the War on Cancer.

(Actually, that's Homer Simpson experiencing G-Force)

Nixon also presided over the Apollo 11 moon landing, which signaled the end of the moon race. He was reelected in one of the largest electoral landslides in U.S. history in 1972 when he defeated George McGovern.

In his second term, Nixon ordered an airlift to resupply Israeli losses in the Yom Kippur War, resulting in the restart of the Middle East peace process and an oil crisis at home. The Nixon administration supported a coup in Chile that ousted the government of Salvador Allende and propelled Augusto Pinochet to power.

By late 1973, the Watergate scandal escalated, costing Nixon much of his political support. On August 9, 1974, he resigned in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office. After his resignation, he was issued a controversial pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford.

In 20 years of retirement, Nixon wrote nine books and undertook many foreign trips, helping to rehabilitate his image into that of elder statesman. He suffered a debilitating stroke on April 18, 1994 and died four days later at the age of 81.

Like many of the presidents who make it into the Hall, Nixon was a multi-dimensional in the TV Universe and we’re inducting all of these variants of his televersion as one collective group. 

These dimensions would include:

• League of Themselves
• Earth Prime-Time
• Skitlandia
• The Tooniverse
• Doofus Toobworld
• Alternate TV dimensions
• And the many alternate worlds of TV movies.

THE LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES

For the League of Themselves, we would include the Frost/Nixon interviews, and so many appearances on the news and in documentaries.  It's basically a C-Span world, not much adventure or laughs.

EARTH PRIME-TIME
Televersions of people from the Real World can appear in the main Toobworld as either played by themselves or by actors portraying them.  The differences caused by recastaways can be chalked up to changing points of view.

For Nixon, here is a good example of the “As Played By” category:

Doctor Who
The Impossible Astronaut (2011)

From the IMDb:
The Doctor, Amy, Rory and River Song are reunited in the Utah desert.  President Richard Nixon (Stuart Milligan) converses with a younger Delaware (Mark Sheppard) about a series of phone calls he received from a young girl asking for help. The Doctor quickly gains Delaware's trust, convincing Nixon to give him a few minutes to locate the girl.

Doctor Who
Day of the Moon (2011)

From the IMDb:
The Doctor and his allies mount a rebellion against invaders who have been controlling humanity from the very beginning.

Here, Nixon is played by Stuart Milligan, so O’Bviously he doesn’t look exactly like the real deal.  This can be splained away as the audience seeing him from the Doctor’s perspective.  (But he makes for a much better Nixon than Ian MacNeice did as Churchill.)

One exception to that would be Alec Baldwin as Nixon in an episode of '30 Rock'.  In that case, it was a dream sequence experienced by Tracy Jordan.  His subconscious mind fused Nixon with Tracy's "boss" Jack Donaghy.  (They are seen here with the dream version of Hall of Famer Sammy Davis Jr.)

When Nixon showed up in an episode of 'Drunk HIstory', it really is just a narrated dramatization of a particular story from his life as recounted by a drunk. 

But Nixon as himself is often seen in fictional shows, usually as archival footage.  Here’s my favorite example:

Here’s a list of some of those archival appearances:

• Star Trek: Enterprise
• Murphy Brown
• M*A*S*H
• Trust
• The X-Files
• Mad Men

Then of course there are the references to the existence of Nixon’s televersion in TV shows (for which the IMDb lists over 300 such references.)  And there is one which I specifically wish to mention as it comes from a movie which belongs in the universe of Earth Prime-Time even more so than in the Cineverse….

Captain Spock: 

There is an old Vulcan proverb:

only Nixon could go to China.

“Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country”

The great thing about references is that they verify the existence of historical figures in Earth Prime-Time.  After all, if there are Nixon masks, they must be based on an actual Nixon, right?

Here are a few other TV shows with such references for Nixon:

• ‘The Kids Are Alright’
• ‘Dead Like Me’
• ‘Aquarius’
• ‘That 70s Show’
• ‘Swingtown’
• ‘Alone Together’
• ‘Saved By The Bell: The College Years’
• ‘L.A. Law’
• ‘Political Animals’
• ‘Will & Grace’
• ‘Last Man Standing’
• ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’
• ‘Corner Gas’
• ‘Amazing Stories’ (“Guilt Trip”)
• ‘Good Times’
• ‘Better Call Saul’
• ‘Goliath’
• ‘Mama’s Family’
• ‘Masters Of Sex’
• ‘The New Normal’
• ‘Two And A Half Men’
• ‘Superstore’
• ‘NewsRadio’
• ‘Lie To Me’
• ‘Breaking Bad’
• ‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents’ (“Full Disclosure”)
• ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’
• ‘Preacher’
• ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’
• ‘The Outer Limits’
• ‘Lethal Weapon’
• ‘Sons Of Anarchy’
• ‘Gilmore Girls’
• ‘Strange World’
• ‘The Marvelous Ms. Maisel’
• ‘Quarry’
• ‘The Net’
• ‘Borgen’
• ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’
• ‘Weird Science’
• ‘Chicago Code’
• ‘Fargo’
• ‘Maude’
• ‘Bull’
• ‘Psych’
• ‘Journeyman’
• ‘Picket Fences’
• ‘Law & Order’
• Bewitched’
• ‘Three’s Company’
• ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’
• ‘Warehouse 13’
• ‘What’s Happening’
• ‘Starsky & Hutch’
• ‘Sanford’
• ‘Bones’
• ‘The Partridge Family’
• ‘All In The Family’
• ‘Soap’
• ‘Fringe’
• ‘Becker’
• ‘Frasier’
• ‘Renegade’
• ‘The Mindhunter’
• ‘Sanford and Son’
• ‘Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman’

And he was referenced in several alternate dimensions differentiated by their Oval Office occupants or because the show is a remake:

• ‘House OF Cards’
• ‘The West Wing’
• ‘Scandal’
• ‘Veep’
• ‘Lois & Clark’

So when it comes to vouching for the existence of TV’s Nixon, he has quite the pedigree!

SKITLANDIA

Skitlandia is an easy one to find an example.  Before Trump, I don’t think there’s ever been a POTUS who was parodied more in sketch comedy shows and late night talk shows.  Best example would be Dan Aykroyd on ‘Saturday Night Live’, playing Nixon with a mustache.

Years later, Joe Piscopo came closer to a caricature of Nixon.

Other Skitlandian appearances as himself:

• Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus
• Monty Python's Flying Circus
• Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In

Three episodes in the second season of 'Laugh-In which included this memorable moment:

THE TOONIVERSE
My personal favorite televersion for Nixon in the Tooniverse would be as the severed cloned head in the year 3000, as seen in several episodes of ‘Futurama’!

Connected to that….

The Simpsons- Worst Episode Ever (2001)

(O’Bservation – “The Treehouse of Horror” is an annual Halloween special which is outside the canon for ‘The Simpsons’.  However, Nixon showed up on Homer’s jury when he was tried for breach of contract in Hell.)

Even 'Animaniacs' got into the act:

Nixon ranks right up there with Kennedy, Lincoln, and Washington for portrayals in all facets of television.  And there are plenty of alternate TV dimensions in which he could exist.

MOTW TOOBWORLD
Nixon wasn’t always portrayed by an actor in the TV movies.  When he’s not a major factor in the storyline, it was usually decided to rely on archival footage.

Here’s an incomplete list of those TV movies:

• J. Edgar Hoover
• Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis
• Citizen Cohn
• Jackie, Ethel, Joan: The Women of Camelot
• Will: G. Gordon Liddy (Voice of John Byner as Nixon)
• The Final Days (played by Lane Smith)

TOOBWORLDS OF MINI-SERIES
Blind Ambition (Rip Torn as Nixon)
Separate But Equal
Kennedy
The Kennedys (archival footage) 
11.22.63 (archival footage) 

MULTIPLE TV DIMENSIONAL SPINOFFS
Chief among these to be dealt with would be all of the new timelines created by the intervention of the various time-travelers in ‘Timeless’, both the good guys and the baddies.  With each new time period they visited, something in the past was irrevocably altered from what we have in the Real World and (for the most part) the main Toobworld.

The three ‘Timeless’ episodes in which Nixon was featured were:

• "The Watergate Tape"
• "Space Race"
• "The Kennedy Curse"

(Nixon was portrayed by Sheldon Landry.)

DOOFUS TOOBWORLD
(This is a TV dimension of low IQ.)

Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story (1971 TV Short)

From the IMDb:
This mockumentary follows the fictional career of Harvey Wallinger, ostensible chief aide and adviser to Richard Nixon, from Nixon's time as Eisenhower's vice-president through his loss in 1960.

UNDEFINED CATEGORIES
(SPOILERS, SWEETIE!)

Life on Mars
- Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadows? (2008)

O’Bservation: This took place in Limbo, which had been recreated to simulate Manchester, England, in the early 1970s. 

Drunk History
Underdogs (2018)

From the IMDb:
Fred Rogers fights for government funded children's programming.

Observation - The series consists of historical events acted out in the minds’ eyes of drunk comedians.  So these televersions of historical characters don’t really exist in any dimensional plane.

Wherever he ended up, I’m sure Nixon is chortling with devilish glee (okay, so I have an opinion as to where he ended up) about how History will no longer look upon him as the most crooked of United States Presidents.

Enjoy this meaningless accolade, Tricky Dick!

O'Bservation - By the way, the images I used of the "true" Nixon in the Wikipedia segment could be used for fan fiction.  Nixon and the "actual" Lone Ranger, Robocop, and a certain Gallifreyan Time Lord....

HALLOWEEN IN TOOBWORLD - THE HORROR MOVIE OPTIONS OF EMMETT CLAYTON

'COLUMBO'
"THE MOST DANGEROUS MATCH"
March 4, 1973

Emmett Clayton was the world's chess champion, a position he held since Tomlin Dudek was forced to retire five years before due to health concerns.  But now Dudek was ready to re-enter the chess tournament circuit and was scheduled to play against Clayton in a match the next day.  It had captured the attention from the press:

REPORTER:

Can you tell us what your schedule is for tonight? 

EMMETT CLAYTON:

Well, this evening, um, a small martini perhaps, a large steak definitely, 

and a good horror movie, if there's one close by.

I got the feeling from that exchange that Clayton was a horror movie buff.  He could have just said "a good movie" - going to see any movie on the night before a news-worthy chess match would have been enough to show how nonchalant and confidant he felt about facing Dudek.

But Clayton was specific - he wanted to see a horror movie.

I suppose I could have gone with a fictional movie.  But if I wanted to keep it within Columbo's corner of the TV Universe, I couldn't use "The Loves of Frankenstein" because that wouldn't be in theaters for another year.

It's the timing that makes it hard to find a fictional horror movie that might have fit into the timeline.  Of the examples I've found, they were either years too early to still be in an L.A. theater or - as was the case with "The Loves Of Frankenstein" - it was too soon for them to be released.  In fact, many of those weren't even filmed yet.  And probably wouldn't be for decades!  (Among these would be "Whack Job", "Kill It Before It Dies!" and "Headless Honeymoon".)

I suppose Clayton could have gone to some retro theater to see some old classic movie - like "Blood In The Showers", "Land of the Vampires", and "The Monster That Devoured Cleveland".

But there is one movie which could have come out at the same point on the Toobworld timeline as this episode of 'Columbo'.  All we know about it is that the Enterprise starship in 2251 has the title listed in its data banks: "Planet of the Undead".

As noted above, this episode was broadcast March 4, 1973, and I see no reason not to assume that it happened around that same time as well.  And as it happened, a new horror movie had opened just a few days before in the real world.....

Miss Leslie's Dolls
(March 1, 1973)A gay drag queen with a mother fixation terrorizes a city, hunting down, killing and dismembering women.

I'm not exactly sure that would have suited Emmett Clayton's tastes exactly, and might have garnered him some unwanted publicity.  But there were three other horror movies which had opened since January:

Blood Orgy of the She-Devils
(January, 1973)

Lorraine and Mark enter the world of witchcraft where Mara foretells the future and helps them remember their past lives. When a series of mysterious murders begin to occur, they turn to Dr. Helsford for advice.

I'm not exactly sure that would still be in theaters by March of that year.  Los Angeles is the movie-making capital of the world and interest in the latest offerings would be keen; with only so many theaters, there would probably be a very high turnover there.

Scream Bloody Murder 
(February, 1973)
A disturbed boy kills his father with his farm tractor and his arm is mangled in the process. He's taken to a mental hospital where he's outfitted with a hook to replace his lost hand and, years later, he's eventually released from the asylum. He returns home to find his mother has remarried, which sets him off on a murderous rampage.

The poster blares "GORE-NOGRAPHY!" and basically that's all there would be.  For my money, if I wanted to see a guy with a hook going on a rampage, I'll stick with "Rolling Thunder".

Alabama's Ghost 
(February, 1973)
Nightclub janitor discovers a secret room, finds old magician's bbeelongings, tries on the costumes and becomes "Alabama, King of the Cosmos."

That doesn't sound like something that would have sparked Clayton's interest.  This low-budget flick (only cost about $55,000 to produce) probably wasn't even in theaters for more than a week.

But nothing about any of them suggests to me that they would still have been open by the time March rolled around.

I suppose I could have pushed back this episode of 'Columbo' to later in the timeline by a month, (making it sort of "futuristic" in a way.)  That's because two movies would have opened by then which Clayton might have found more to his style.

The Crazies 
(March 16, 1973)
The military attempts to contain a man-made combat virus that causes death and permanent insanity in those infected, as it overtakes a small Pennsylvania town.

If Clayton was an aficionado of horror movies, he knew the reputation of George A. Romero as the "father of the zombie movie".  ("Night of the Living Dead" had come out in 1968.)  So I think he would have been interested in seeing "The Crazies".

As for the other movie, this would have been MY preference:

The Vault of Horror 
(March 30, 1973)
An anthology of five horror stories shared by five men trapped in the basement of an office building.

O'Bviously an inspiration for the TV series "Tales From The Crypt" as both were adapted from the horror comic books published by Bill Gaines.  But it's the cast which grabbed my attention:

• Tom Baker
• Terry-Thomas
• Glynis Johns
• Curt Jurgens
• Denholm Elliott
• Edward Judd
• Daniel Massey
• Anna Massey
• Michael Craig

Pretty impressive, I'd say!

But I don't feel comfortable shoving the episode into the future even if only for less than a month.  Basic Toobworld principle is that unless otherwise stated, or at least obvious from the content (e.g. 'Star Trek', 'Gunsmoke', 'Combat!', 'I Claudius', etc.), then a TV show should take place at the same time as the broadcast.  At least that the storyline should have just been ending as we go back to see how it played out earlier.  Therefore I'm leaving "The Most Crucial Match" as taking place at the beginning of March in 1973.

So I guess I'll stick with "Miss Leslie's Dolls" for now as to Emmett Clayton's movie of choice that night.

BCnU!

O'BSERVATIONS:
Other TV shows have supplied the movie titles listed here:
'Josh & Drake'
'Dobie Gillis'
'Gilligan's Island'
'Six Feet Under'
'Boy Meets World'

THE GAME OF THE NAME MISSING LINK = "COLUMBO" & "THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN"

‘THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN’
“THE SOLID GOLD KIDNAPPING”

From the IMDb:
A criminal organization, known as "O.S.O.", specializes in kidnapping high ranking U.S. representatives. Although Colonel Steve Austin has already thwarted one of their kidnappings, he is unable to stop them from grabbing William Henry Cameron right from under O.S.I.'s nose.   

It was Ambassador Scott, the United States ambassador to Mexico, who was rescued by Colonel Austin.  Because the O.S.O was an organization which might have many cells, it was deemed too dangerous to reassign Scott (first name unknown) to another ambassadorial posting in some other country.  But he was far too valuable an intelligence asset to be left underutilized for long.  And so it was deemed that as he was a man who was able to keep secrets – a lot of classified intel crossed his desk in at the embassy in Mexico, plus the secret of Steve Austin’s cybernetic enhancements remained safe with him – it was decided by the higher-ups in the government that Scott should take on the directorship of one of the shadow ops groups in the nation’s intelligence community.  (I’m going with the S.I.A. as the Toobworld organization – the Secret Intelligence Agency from ‘It Takes A Thief’.)

But as the SIA was so top secret that there weren’t any confirmation hearings for the people in charge, Ambassador Scott couldn’t work under his real name.  Instead he followed the tradition set by his predecessors in the post and used the same code name that they assumed – “Phil Corrigan, Secret Agent X-9”.

From the very beginning of the SIA, it had been decided that even this alias needed to be protected.  And so the organization known as UNReel was brought in to create a cover story.

(For those who have never seen me mention UNReel before, it is an off-shoot of UNIT which concerns itself with providing plausible deniability to people and events which should be kept secret from the public.  Through the use of manufactured books, movies, TV shows, etc., it can be asserted that if somebody in the public claimed to have seen one of those operatives at work (U.N.C.L.E. agents or James Bond) or the real cause behind some disaster [the destruction of Big Ben by a spaceship], UNReel leaps into action to convince the rest of the world that the claimant was deluded by something else, like a movie they saw on the late show.  It is a technique that may have begun with the writings about Sherlock Holmes in the Strand which led people to believe he was fictional.  Sherlock’s brother Mycroft, who was the British government, saw the potential in that concept and created UNReel.  It has been used for the aforementioned MI6 agent [whichever one is currently using the alias of “James Bond”], agents from U.N.C.L.E., superheroes, the various moon-bases, and a certain Time Lord from Gallifrey.)
Here in the Real World, we see this utilized as weather balloons and swamp gas to splain away UFOs.

UNReel began by creating a comic strip series, hiring only the best to be their front – Dashiell Hammett provided the script and Alex Raymond the art.  From there, movie serials and radio shows were also created to maintain the illusion that Phil Corrigan was a fictional character.  Meanwhile, in the “real life” of Toobworld, at least seven men helmed the Secret Intelligence Agency before Ambassador Scott assumed the leadership role, and all of them used the alias of “Phil Corrigan, Agent X-9”. 

‘COLUMBO’
“IDENTITY CRISIS”

From the IMDb:
Nelson Brenner, a top CIA operative, is really a double agent who finds it necessary to rid himself of a fellow spy and make it look like a mugging. Brenner inadvertently leaves tiny clues in a photo shop at a carnival, on Henderson's corpse at the beach, in a tape recording he makes while in his Agency-approved identity as a speech-writing consultant - the kind of clues that no one would ever pick up on. No one, that is, except the rumpled, redoubtable Lt. Columbo. The indefatigable detective will find himself followed by mysterious agents, visited by the top man himself and entertained with a recording of "Madame Butterfly" in Brenner's own mansion before solving this difficult case.  

That “top man” would be Ambassador Scott.

So by the early 1970s, Ambassador Scott became known as “Phil Corrigan, Agent X-9”, the Director of the Secret Intelligence Agency.  He then established a cover identity beyond that, traveling under the alias of “Larry Tate”, an advertising executive from New York City who lived in Westport.  It was a trick one of his operators (he never could get the hang of calling them operatives), code-named Geronimo, used as well.  He would assume the identity of an insurance agent named AJ Henderson from Westport.  (Only “Corrigan” looked more like Tate than Geronimo looked like Henderson.)

The only real crisis Agent X-9 had during his term in office was the double agent/trafficker in intelligence known only as Steinmetz.  It would be the black mark of his career at the SIA that an outsider, a member of the LAPD known as Lt. Frank Columbo, would be the one to solve the mystery of “our old friend Steinmetz” and reveal him to be actually another of his operatives, Nelson Brenner.  (A few years earlier, Nelson Brenner worked as a double agent known as Curtis and was nearly killed during a plot to undermine the sanity of a former M9 operative named John Drake who was his exact double.)

The writing was on the wall for X-9 because of the Steinmetz fiasco, and so he submitted his resignation.  But before he stepped down from the Directorship, Scott performed one last official bit of business.  He sanctioned the assassination of Nelson Brenner before he could go to trial for the murder of “Geronimo”.  The only stipulation on the contract killing was that it had to look like an accident or natural causes. 

The job was assigned to a professional assassin often contracted by the SIA; she was known only by the name “Eve”.  But I can reveal to you, Team Toobworld, her true identity: she was a pan-dimensional spiritual entity, a demi-god known in ancient times as Bastet, the cat-headed deity of the ancient Egyptians.  

When Selena Kyle, AKA Catwoman, perished by falling into a deep chasm in the caves beneath stately Wayne Manor, Bastet possessed her lifeless corpse, rejuvenating it, and resumed the Catwoman’s larcenous career.  Eventually this escalated to becoming a paid assassin.  (It would be almost a decade before she was caught, but Bastet simply fled the shell of flesh so that it looked like she died of a heart attack.)

Sound far-fetched?  Tough.  Remember, we’re dealing with Earth Prime-Time, not Earth Prime.

“Eve” carried out that contract killing by making it look as though the vehicle bringing Nelson Brenner to court on the first day of trial had a terrible accident.  All in the van were killed along with Brenner – the driver, Brenner’s attorney, and the three detectives assigned to guard him.  Director Corrigan pulled a few strings to make certain that Lt. Columbo would not become involved in the investigation of the crash in any way.  He had familiarized himself with Columbo’s career and realized that no matter how thorough “Eve” had been in the execution of the hit, the Lieutenant was bound to find one little niggling piece of evidence that could expose the plot.

With that one last job completed, Ambassador Scott stepped down from the leadership of the SIA and handed over the mantle of “Phil Corrigan, Agent X-9” to his successor.  Since then (which happened by the end of 1975), Scott retired to a life of leisure, taking up the hobby of model trains – a little diversion he picked up after his encounter with Lt. Columbo.  He passed away in 1990, at the age of 74… presumably of natural causes.

TV SHOWS CITED:

• 'The Six Million Dollar Man'
• 'Columbo'
• 'The Prisoner'
• 'Danger Man'
• 'Batman'
• 'Hart To Hart'
• 'It Takes A Thief'
• 'Bewitched'
• 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'
• 'Climax' ("Casino Royale")
• 'Doctor Who'

BCnU!

CROSSING ZONE - "THE HUNT" & "LASSIE"

'THE TWILIGHT ZONE'
"THE HUNT"
&
'LASSIE'
"SHADRACK"
(And 23 other episodes)

From the IMDb re: 'Lucifer':
Lucifer Morningstar has decided he's had enough of being the dutiful servant in Hell and decides to spend some time on Earth to better understand humanity. He settles in Los Angeles - the City of Angels.

Lucifer wasn't the first fallen angel to pull such a stunt.  Back in the late fifties and early sixties, one of the keepers of the gates to Hell also decided to give humanity a try.  He took the name of H. Miller (perhaps an anagram for "I Mr. Hell"?) and relocated to Calverton, California, where he took on the role of Sheriff.  There he found himself often involved with the Martin fammily  And it brought him at times into conflict with Timmy Martin's dog, Lassie.

"Miller" finally had enough and he departed the earthly realm of Toobworld and headed back to his old job as one of Hell's gatekeepers.

He was still annoyed by that interfering collie, so when Hyder Simpson showed up at his gate with his coon dog Rip, the Gatekeeper would have none of it.  He was more than willing to lure Hyder in, but without his dog.  

Hyder wanted no part of such a place, so he and Rip kept a-walking.....

BCnU!

VIDEO SUNDAY - "TRILOGY OF TERROR" (MINUS TWO)

This had to be one of the scariest things I ever saw on TV, back in my college days on a late Friday night.  There were three stories in the one movie, but I find it hard to believe that anybody can remember the first two today; this was so powerful and still is.

No surprise there, I imagine.  The script was by 'Twilight Zone' genius Richard Matheson and the production was under the aegis of Dan Curtis who made his mark in TV horror, most notably with 'Dark Shadows'. 

Enjoy... if you dare!

BCnU!