THEORIES OF RELATEEVEETY - THE HEIDEMANN BROTHERS

PERRY MASON
THE CASE OF THE CLUMSY CLOWN

During a power struggle between two dueling owners of a small circus, the top clown in the company was doing his routine using a gun filled with blanks.  However, the gun shot one of the circus owners dead and it was witnessed by everyone in the audience – including Perry Mason, Della Street, and even Lt. Arthur Tragg.

That clown was Felix Heidemann, but thanks to being represented by Mason, the charges against him were dropped and the real murderer was exposed.

And we have a theory of relateeveety for Felix!

COLUMBO
A STITCH IN CRIME

Dr. Edmund Heidemann, one of the leading researchers in developing a drug to help lessen the chance for a human body to reject a transplanted organ.  Dr. Heidemann was not obsessed with finishing  before any of their rivals in order to reap the praise.

However, his junior partner on the project, Dr. Barry Mayfield, lusted for the acclaim and he wanted the sole credit.  But Heidemann wouldn’t budge on declaring the project as complete so Mayfield plotted to kill his senior partner. 

Luckily for Dr. Heidemann, Lt. Columbo proved Mayfield was plotting to kill him which saved Heidemann's life.

Here’s the theory of relateeveety: Edmund and Felix Heidemann were brothers.  True, there are seventeen years separating them, with Edmund being the elder, but that isn’t surmountable.  There’s thirteen years between me and my baby sister; in fact, I was old enough to be her godfather!

There is one catch.  Dr. Heidemann received a telegram from his German rival and the surname was spelled with only one “n” at the end of the name.

However, I’ve got some splainin to do….

It’s simply a typo, perhaps based on Dr I.C. Brechman knowing somebody who spells the name as “Heideman”.

And I should point out that in the IMDb, both characters have their family name spelled with two “n”’s.

BCnU!

"WHAT IF?" WEDNESDAY - PINOCCHIO DOES SPEED

HUGE thanks to my brother Bill for pointing this out to me – that diner patron sitting behind “Pete Nocchio”?  He was played by Carlos Carrasco, who played Ortiz in the movie “Speed”.

Now of course, “Speed” is in the Cineverse, but every so often Toobworld absconds with a film and absorbs it into Earth Prime-Time.  (I don’t think I can fit any more “abs” words into that sentence.  Has ‘Jeopardy!’ ever had a “Nice ABS” category?)

Where was I?  Oh yeah.  “Speed”, TV.

I’m not saying it wouldn’t be in the Cineverse anymore.  Just that TV has always had their own versions of hit movies for the small screen.  Sometimes with some of the cast members from the movie, like Gary Burghoff of ‘M*A*S*H’ fame, and Yul Brynner in ‘The King And I’.

Back in the 1950s, I think it was 20th Century Fox who had an anthology series dedicated to remaking their big movies in a condensed form, again with some of the original cast members.  (A&E ran the syndicated episodes about ten or fifteen years ago.)

Well, why not accept that even though we may not see it play out, movies as they were meant to be – scene by scene the same, with no recastaways – exist in Toobworld as well.

It’s not a blanket absorption of theatrical movies; Toobworld Central would consider them on a case by case basis.  Any movie that was remade for television (“Double Indemnity”, “Miracle On Thirty-Fourth Street” - twice over!) or adapted as a TV series would have to remain in the Cineverse.

A lot of my crossoverist comrades accept a mixture of movies and TV shows already, and I love what I’ve read of their works. (Some even accept the printed word; I have to remain guarded on that.  Too many discrepancies.)

But in this case, I see nothing wrong with accepting “Speed” into Earth Prime-Time. Nothing in the movie contradicts what is established in the main Toobworld – no alternate POTUS, no destruction of the world, etc.

As such, I then have no problem with considering this diner patron to be Ortiz.

I believe we have a candidate for the 2020 Toobits Awards in the Best Theoretical Crossover Between Movie and Commercial…..

Again, thanks to Bill O'Brien for bringing this to my attention.  I never would have remembered him from the movie.

BCnU!

"CRISIS" O'BSERVATIONS - SARGON THE SORCEROR

The CW show runners for “Crisis On Infinite Earths” threw in a lot of televersions for DC Comics characters into the mix to represent the expansive stakes of the Multiverse.  Most of them were already established in other shows and movies and thus most of them were the major players.

But in the final episode of the mini-series, passed off as an episode of ‘Legends of Tomorrow’, they needed a villain with magical abilities in order to have a way for Beebo to once more rear his furry blue head.

And so they tossed Sargon the Sorceror into the stew.

It was just an introductory cameo for the character, played by Raul Herrera, but he’ll be back in this season’s ninth episode (according to the IMDb.)

Here’s what the Arrowverse Wiki had to say for Sargon’s appearance in the mini-series:
"Sargon the Sorcerer" is an otherwise unnamed criminal and sorcerer who formerly operated in Star City.

In January 2020, Sargon created a giant Beebo out of a magical substance to act as a distraction for him to rob a bank, but was discovered by the Flash and White Canary, who knocked him out and presumably sent him to prison.

Wikipedia had more about his televersion:
Sargon the Sorcerer appears in the fifth part of the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover event portrayed by Raúl Herrera. He was seen committing a heist while using an illusion of a giant Beebo as a diversion. When Supergirl, Batwoman, Flash, Sara Lance, Atom, and Heat Wave fought the giant Beebo, they found it wasn't real when they tried to trip it with some cable wire. Flash and Sara were able to find Sargon the Sorcerer in the middle of his heist. Before knocking out Sargon the Sorcerer, Sara stated that Beebo is off limits. Once that was done, the giant Beebo illusion disappeared.

Sargon serves as a good example of why I don’t like to blend “literary” sources into Toobworld.  The biggest problem has been from tie-in novels, especially for ‘Star Trek’, which don’t take into account details from other writers.

And the same holds true for comic books. Look at all the variations in the life of the Joker.  You don’t even have to include the movie or cartoon versions.  Look at the liberties taken in the 1966 ‘Batman’ as well as in ‘Gotham’.

We have yet to see more of Sargon’s story in ‘Legends Of Tomorrow’, but I doubt it will be filled with as much background detail as found in the comics.

More from Wikipedia:
Sargon the Sorcerer is a name used by multiple characters in the comics, namely John Sargent and his descendants, as magic-users and stage magicians.

Sargon the Sorcerer is a fictional character, a mystic, superhero and sorcerer appearing in DC Comics publications during the Golden Age. The original Sargon first appeared in All-American Comics #26, (May 1941), and was created by John B. Wentworth and Howard Purcell. The modern Sargon first appears in Helmet of Fate: Sargon #1 (April 2007) and was created by Steve Niles and Scott Hampton.

The name Sargon is of Mesopotamian origin, and one king of Akkad and two of Assyria bore this name.

Taking his professional name from the ancient king of the same name, Sargon has had a checkered career, acting mostly as a hero during the Golden Age aided by his cartoonish fat little comic relief sidekick / manager Maximillian O'Leary as he battled crooks, spies and his azure-skinned archenemy the Blue Lama, the Queen of Black Magic, but re-emerging in the Silver Age – as a villain, at least at first. It was later explained that his villainous activities were the result of certain side effects of possessing the Ruby of Life.

He was brought back for occasional guest appearances in the Silver Age and was awarded with an honorary membership in the Justice League in Justice League of America #99.

Sargon maintained contacts with several other mages in the DC Universe, notably Baron Winters, Zatara (a fellow faux stage magician), and the younger mage John Constantine. Sargon answered the summons of Constantine to participate in a ritual at the mansion of Winters to help deal with the effects of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, using the Swamp Thing as their portal into the war being fought in Hell.

Locking hands in a circle of power, and using the psychic powers of Constantine's drunken acquaintance Mento, the group of sorcerers (which also included Zatara's daughter Zatanna) observed the events unfolding, and attempted in turn to channel their magical powers into several other mystical characters present in Hell, including Etrigan, the original Doctor Fate, and the Spectre.

Their enemy, a primal form of evil (called the Great Evil Beast) that was surging upwards to obliterate everything in its path, sensed their interference and lashed out several times; its power raced around the circle, finding a weak link and incinerating it.

The first to fall was Sargon. At first panicking and crying out for the others to help him, and almost pulling his hands away from the circle, Sargon was rebuked by Zatara to maintain his composure and die like a sorcerer. In a final act of will, Sargon apologized for his outburst, calmly sat in place and was burned alive without a whimper, never letting go of his colleagues' hands the entire time. This ritual also kills Zatara and drives Mento completely insane.

That story alone would make for a great episode!I

At any rate, I wonder if there will be any mention of Sargon once being a good guy and working with superheroes in the past.  However the divergence between the DC comics universe and the CW’s “Arrowverse” is vast.  I’m sure there will be no mention of any superheroes in Sargon’s past because the Arrowverse isn’t that deep with superheroes from before ‘Arrow’ came along.

But this story could be adapted to fit the Arrowverse version of the DC Universe.  They have John Constantine already and this season marks the exits of Ray Palmer and Nora Dahrk.  So maybe Constantine and Nora with Sargon and a few others recreate that circle of power.  Sargon burns up and perhaps so does Nora.  At a loss, Ray walks away from being a Legend.

It would also be a way to bring one of my favorite DC characters, Dr. Fate, into the Arrowverse.

But that is all wish-craft on my part.  We shall see what we shall view.

BCnU!

NOT SO FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE "CRISIS" CROSSOVERS

So the CW mega-crossover of their DC Comics’ super-hero shows, “Crisis On Infinite Earths” is over and the over-riding maxim held true; “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

After all the sturm and drang about how this might affect the Toobworld Dynamic, even though none of those (current) shows took place in the fictional TV dimension of which I’m most concerned, that of Earth Prime-Time, the main Toobworld, by the end the Multiverse was returned.

There were a few changes of course.  All of the CW shows now exist on one world which they call Earth Prime.  (That’s from their perspective.  Forgive them, they don’t know any better.  LOL)  So ‘Black Lightning’ and ‘Supergirl’ no longer exist on their separate worlds but will now be able to cross over with ‘The Flash’ and ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ (and even ‘Arrow’ until this final season is officially over) without all of that metaphysical hoo-hah of dealing with dimensional vortexes.

But during the winter break, I was ready to hang up my spurs as the Caretaker of Toobworld because of the implications from the destruction of the Multiverse.  My feeble splainin that the Anti-Monitor was not that powerful and only destroyed a relatively small portion of all those dimensions wasn’t that strong.

I was however ready to claim that even if they came back with just the one Earth (one that might include the shows from the DCU streaming service – ‘The Doom Patrol’ and ‘The Teen Titans’ and the upcoming ‘Stargirl’ – even if they never crossed over), they weren’t so all-knowing.  They would have no idea that Toobworld was out there and that’s why they felt secure in dubbing their own world “Earth Prime”.  I’m sure all of the other Earths see themselves as being Numero Uno as well.

Here’s what I wrote in response to my Crossoverist friends in the FB page about the Television Crossover Universe:

Well for me, Earth Prime is our world and Earth Prime-Time is the main Toobworld where almost all TV shows take place, including the original ‘Flash’, ‘The Adventures of Superman’, ‘Wonder Woman’, and ‘Batman’ ‘66 took place. If there has to be a numbering system, that’s Earth 1.

But I can be “diplomatic” - they can continue to think of their Earth Prime as Earth 1 (means the same thing) while my Earth Prime-Time is Earth A.

Sound familiar? I call it the Bender Solution. LOL

As for all those movie worlds that were brought in, I’m leaving them in their various incarnations of the Cineverse. Not my bailiwick. But obviously there must be a greater mosaic bringing in all of those other universes where they could cross over.

Otherwise I had no problem with their distribution/numbering of worlds. Let their Dick Grayson be on Earth 66; he’s still just a döppelganger for the original on Earth Prime-Time.

So Toobworld still exists… not that I will be probably doing too much with it anymore.

The output of new TV shows has grown exponentially with all of these new streaming services and cable networks, more than I can handle.  It would probably have been more than I could have handled when the flame of enthusiasm burned bright for my work as a telly archivist and crossoverist.

I see myself more as a Sherlock Holmes in that it’s time for me to retire from those duties and move to my version of Sussex.  In my case, “Sussex” is my fictional “realm” of the Connecticut village of Wayside and the other villages within Midwich County.  There I have total control over the characters. (Well, almost total control; I have brought in a few literary fictionals from other sources… mostly free from copyright concerns.)

At least with Wayside, Connecticut, I won’t have to bend over backwards to come up with those pesky “splainins” to make the TV Universe’s cohesiveness logical… at least to me.

Hmmm....  Holmes retired to Sussex to tend to his bees.  I think that's what Wayside needs... a beekeeper.

I’ll still be posting here on occasion.  I don’t plan to give up adding new members into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame every Friday with a dozen big monthly showcases every year.  And when something strikes my fancy otherwise, I’ll dash something off.

And I still have O'Bservations to make about the "Crisis on Infinite Earths".  I'll get around to them eventually.....

BCnU….

PS:
If you're interested, I've been putting the first drafts of my Wayside stories on Facebook in the "Wayside, Connecticut" page.  Like I said, they're just the first drafts and you may find discrepancies in other stories as you go along because I've since changed various aspects like names, dates, etc.

If you enjoy them, thank you.  I hope you'll hit the Like button often.  If you don't, feel free to send me a message with your observations and critiques.  I'm sure it will hurt, but I want to improve my experience in writing them as well as yours in reading them.

And hopefully, you'll like the entire page so that my base of Wayside tourists continues to grow.

Which reminds me.  I need a good collective term for the base.  I was using "Tourists", but that's a bit meh.  "Waysiders"?  "Side-Seers"?

Any ideas?  Let me know!

FRIDAY HALL OF FAMER 01/17/2020 - LOVE THAT BOB COLLINS!

For this Friday’s Hall of Famer, keeping it in the Classic TV Groove, we’re inducting a true museum piece – Bob Collins of ‘Love That Bob!’’

BOB COLLINS

From Wikipedia:
‘The Bob Cummings Show’ (also known as ‘Love That Bob’) is an American sitcom starring Bob Cummings, which was produced from January 2, 1955, to September 15, 1959.  ‘The Bob Cummings Show’ was the first series to debut as a midseason replacement.

The series stars Cummings as dashing Hollywood photographer, Air Force reserve officer, and ladies' man, Bob Collins. The character's interest in aviation and photography mirrored Cummings' own, with his character's name the same as the role he played in the 1945 film “You Came Along”.

O'Bservation: There may be more in that movie which Zonks the main Toobworld, so I'll just leave it there in the Cineverse and have two Bob Collins living in separate metafictional universes.

Back to Wikipedia:
The series also stars Rosemary DeCamp as his sister Margaret MacDonald.

From Rod Amateau:
He [Cummings' character] was unsuccessful. He would never score with these girls because his nephew, his sister or Schultzy would show up.He had dreams and illusions of being a playboy but he wasn't making it. His frustration is what made the show funny.

O’Bservation:
Amateau wrote many of the scripts.

Here are the reasons why Bob Collins is elegible for membership in the Hall:

The Bob Cummings Show
160 episodes
(1955-1959)

The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show
- A Marital Mix-Up
(1957)

From the IMDb:
Gracie plays Cupid by trying to find a wife for their plumber, Mr. Jansen.  Robert Cummings appears in his role as fashion model photographer Bob Collins.

O’Bservation:
Interestingly, Bob Cummings also appeared in an episode of this series as himself.  This was just a cameo.

Here's Lucy
- Lucy's Punctured Romance
(1972)

From the IMDb:
Lucy has a new boyfriend Bob Collins, but Kim and Uncle Harry are worried. The milkman doesn't help matters when he informs the pair the Lucy's boyfriend is a playboy. Kim & Harry cook up all kinds of crazy stunts to scare off Bob.

O’Bservation:
Cummings also played a different character in another episode, but although his first name was Robert/Bob, his interests lay in antique furniture.  Not worth jumping through hoops to come up with a splainin to do about them being the same guy.  Instead, I think it’s easier to claim that they were “identical cousins”….

From Wikipedia:
In some episodes, Cummings also doubled as Bob and Margaret's grandfather, Josh Collins of Joplin, Missouri.

O’Bservation:
If Bob Collins does have DNA as strong Corporal Randolph Agarn’s, it’s pozz’ble, just pozz’ble that other TV characters played by Bob Cummings in Toobworld could be related to him… including Bob Cummings.

The Twilight Zone
King Nine Will Not Return

From the IMDb:
A pilot of a downed WWII comes to in the African desert and desperately tries to find out what happened to the rest of his crew.

If all the relatives to Bob Collins (hopefully just the males) look alike, then Captain James Embry, who piloted the B-25 bomber nicknamed the King Nine during World War II, could be his uncle.

I figure he’d be the son of Josh Collins’ sister and he served as an inspiration for Bob Collins to get into aviation.

No fate was ever mentioned for Bob Collins, but I think it’s safe to say that he most likely died around the same time as Robert Cummings did, in 1990.

Whether he was still flying at age 80 like his Grandfather Josh did, he may have died flying his plane at that age.

It might not only be the date of death for Bob Collins which connects him to Cummings.  If other facets of the actor’s life influenced that of his character’s off-screen life, it could be that Bob Collins was pretty "methed-up" when he took off on his last flight….

Welcome to the Hall, Mr. Collins.  You should meet up with a few others you know here – George Burns and Lucille Carter among them….

Don't get all teary-eyed....

BY ANY OTHER NAME? GET SMART, PERRY MASON

In ‘Get Smart’, we never learned the real names of CONTROL’s Chief and Agent 99.  However, in a few episodes of the series, the Chief (as played by Edward Platt) was addressed as Thaddeus, but he was working undercover and so that may be an alias.

From Wikipedia:
The Chief (Edward Platt) is the head of CONTROL. Although sarcastic and grouchy, the Chief is intelligent, serious, and sensible. He began his career at CONTROL as "Agent Q". (He joined the organization back when they assigned letters rather than numbers.) He is supportive of Agents 86 and 99 and rates them as his two closest friends, but he is frustrated with Smart for his frequent failures and foul-ups. As revealed in the season-one episode "The Day Smart Turned Chicken", his first name is Thaddeus, but it is rarely used. His cover identity (used primarily with 99's mom) is "Harold Clark". Another time, when KAOS arranges for the Chief to be recalled to active duty in the U.S. Navy (as a common seaman with Smart as his commanding officer), his official name is John Doe.  

“John Doe” is an O’Bvious alias.  “Harold Clark” also is an alias and as the article mentioned, it was specifically used when dealing with 99’s mother.  I accept “Thaddeus” as being the Chief’s real name.

The interesting part of that Wikipedia synopsis for me is that the Chief was recalled to active duty in the US Navy.  As such, I think we have a candidate for another appearance by the Chief in the main TV Universe.

PERRY MASON
THE CASE OF THE SLANDERED SUBMARINER

From the IMDb:
Perry moves to military court to defend a submariner of two murders - one his wife. The second victim is an officer investigating the murder and in charge of approving a new device for the Navy from a company bought by his father-in-law.  

In the episode, Ed Platt played Commander Driscoll.  Driscoll served as the prosecutor in the murder hearing against Perry’s client Robert Chapman.

At least as far as the IMDb lists the characters, he’s only named as Cmdr. Driscoll.  So who’s to say his first name wasn’t Thaddeus in that episode?  And he might not have been on active duty, he may have been recalled from his then-current position as an agent of CONTROL.

I’m not saying this has to be considered as official.  Your mileage may vary.  But it works for me.

BCnU!

MONDAY MEMORIAL TVXOHOF TRIBUTE 01/13/2020 - GERALD LLOYD KOOKSON III (AKA KOOKIE)

From the Associated Press:
Edd Byrnes, who played cool kid Kookie on the hit TV show “77 Sunset Strip,” scored a gold record with a song about his character’s hair-combing obsession and later appeared in the movie “Grease,” has died. He was 87.

Byrnes died Wednesday at his home in Santa Monica, his son, Logan Byrnes, said in a statement.

Edd Byrnes came to regard the role of Kookie as a millstone, typecasting him and limiting future roles.  But it also has now provided him with an immortality in his video legacy.

And to acknowledge that, this is a memorial induction into the TVXOHOF.  We haven't done one of these in a while - for which I'm thankful.

In the month when we celebrate the classic characters of Toobworld, we’re inducting Gerald Lloyd Kookson III (better known as “Kookie”) into  the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.

From Wikipedia:
[Edd] Byrnes was cast in “Girl on the Run”, a pilot for a detective show starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Byrnes played contract killer Kenneth Smiley who continually combed his hair – Byrnes said this was an idea of his which the director liked and kept in.

Around this time Byrnes decided to change his acting name from "Edward" to "Edd". "I just dreamed it up one day," he said. "Edward is too formal and there are lots of Eddies."

The show aired in October 1958 and was so popular Warners decided to turn it into a TV series ‘77 Sunset Strip’.  Byrnes' character became an immediate national teen sensation, prompting the producers to make Byrnes a regular cast member.

They transformed Kookie from a hitman into a parking valet at Dino's Lodge who helped as a private investigator.

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., explained the situation to the audience:

We previewed this show, and because Edd Byrnes was such a hit, we decided that Kookie and his comb had to be in our series. So this week, we'll just forget that in the pilot he went off to prison to be executed.
— From the pre-credit sequence for the episode "Lovely Lady, Pity Me"

O’Bservation – Kookie and Kenneth Smiley were identical cousins.  That way we don’t have to banish the pilot to some alternate Toobworld.

More from Wikipedia:
The 'breakout' character, who had not been included in the pilot film, was Gerald Lloyd "Kookie" Kookson III (Edd Byrnes), the rock and roll-loving, wisecracking, hair-combing hipster and aspiring PI who initially worked as the valet parking attendant at Dino's, the club next door to the detectives' office. "Kookie" often found a way to get himself involved in the firm's cases, and was eventually made a full partner in the firm with his own office.

Kookie's recurring character—a different, exciting look that teens of the day related to—was the valet-parking attendant who constantly combed his piled-high, greasy-styled teen hair, often in a windbreaker jacket, who worked part-time at the so-called Dean Martin's Dino's Lodge restaurant, next door to a private-investigator agency at 77 Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. Kookie frequently acted as an unlicensed, protégé detective who helped the private eyes (Zimbalist and Roger Smith) on their cases, based upon "the word" heard from Kookie's street informants. Kookie called everybody "Dad" (as in "Sure thing . . . Dad") and was television's homage to the "Jack Kerouac" style of cult-hipster of the late 1950s.

To the thrill of teen viewers, Kookie spoke a jive-talk "code" to everyone, whether you understood him or not, and Kookie knew, better than others, "the word on the street." Although the Kookie character was at least several years older than Jim Stark, James Dean's character in the film “Rebel Without a Cause”, Byrnes exuded a similar sense of cool. Kookie was also the progenitor of Henry Winkler's The Fonz character of the ‘Happy Days’ series (switch hot rod for motorcycle; same hair and comb). By April 1959 Byrnes was among the most popular young actors in the country.

"I was a nobody," said Byrnes. "Now I'm dragging in over 400 letters a week and I'm a name."

Byrnes made a cameo as Kookie in ‘Surfside Six’ and ‘Hawaiian Eye’, a 77 Sunset Strip spin off.  

Here are the appearances made by Byrnes which qualified Kookie to become a member of the TVXOHOF:

1958-1963
77 Sunset Strip
163 episodes

Hawaiian Eye
- Swan Song for a Hero
(1960)
- Among the Living
(1962)

Surfside 6
- Love Song for a Deadly Redhead
(1962)

Kookie & Co. (TV Movie)
(1964)


O’Bservation: This was a TV movie made in West Germany.  Beyond a list of his co-stars, I know nothing more about this.  Byrnes may not have been appearing as his ’77 Sunset Strip’ character.  For years he’s been saddled with Edd “Kookie” Byrnes whenever his name showed up in print.  It could be this was just a variety show which he headlined as himself.

I’m including it for now, but if it has to be jettisoned, its absence won’t affect Kookie’s eligibility for the Hall.

This won’t be the only Edd Byrnes role which will find a home here in the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.  Another will be inducted in September when we look at characters who appear on Toobworld television.

I can’t tell you his name, however.  I don’t know it!

Welcome to the Hall, Mr. Kookson.  You’ll find your old buddies Stu Bailey and Jeff Spencer already ensconced here, dig?