MONDAY MEMORIAL TVXOHOF TRIBUTE - EDDIE HASKELL

Two Monday Memorial TVXOHOF Tributes in a row….  (Last week we saluted the memory of talk show sidekick Jerry Hubbard after the death of Fred Willard.)

To be honest, I thought there would be more due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This week, we’re paying tribute to a sneak….

EDDIE HASKELL 

From the L.A. Times:
Ken Osmond, who played the two-faced teenage scoundrel Eddie Haskell on TV’s “Leave It to Beaver,” has died at his home in Los Angeles.

Osmond, who died Monday, was 76. No cause was given.

“He was an incredibly kind and wonderful father,” son Eric Osmond said in a statement. “He had his family gathered around him when he passed. He was loved and will be very missed.”

Ken Osmond’s Eddie Haskell stood out among many memorable characters on the classic family sitcom “Leave It to Beaver,” which ran from 1957 to 1963 on CBS and ABC, but had a decades-long life of reruns and revivals.

From Wikipedia:

Edward Clark Haskell (also referred to as Edward W. Haskell) is a fictional character on the 'Leave It to Beaver' television situation comedy, which ran on CBS from October 4, 1957 to 1958 and on ABC from 1958 to 1963.

The character was also featured in the later series 'Still the Beaver', and in the film remake of the original series.

The son of George (however, in Season 1, episode 20, Eddie gives his name as "Edward Clark Haskell, Jr.") and Agnes, Eddie Haskell was the smart-mouthed best-friend of Wally Cleaver. The character, played in the original series by Ken Osmond, has become a cultural reference, recognized as an archetype for insincere sycophants. Ward Cleaver once remarked that "[Eddie] is so polite, it's almost un-American".

Eddie was known for his neat grooming —hiding his shallow and sneaky character. Typically, Eddie would greet his friends' parents with overdone good manners and often a compliment such as, "That's a lovely dress you're wearing, Mrs. Cleaver."

However, when no parents were around, Eddie was always up to no good—either conniving with his friends or picking on Wally's younger brother Beaver. Eddie's duplicity was also exemplified in his efforts to curry favor by trying to talk to adults at the level he thought they would respect, such as referring to their children as Theodore (Beaver's much-disliked given name) and Wallace, even though the parents called them Beaver and Wally.

S4-E38 "Beaver's Doll Buggy" may explain how Eddie's scheming character came to be. He related a story from kindergarten, when a caregiver sent him to school with a home permanent (hair style). When he told his father about it, his father made a big joke about it. Eddie claims that was the last time he told his dad anything. Then he adds "If you can make the other guy feel like a goon first, then you don't feel so much like a goon."

In the 1980s revival series, titled ‘The New Leave It to Beaver’, Eddie is now married to Gert, and they have two sons, Freddie and Edward Jr. (played by Osmond's real-life sons, Eric and Christian, respectively).

Eddie operates an eponymously named contracting company. He remains an avid Woody Woodpecker cartoon fan.

In 1999, TV Guide ranked Eddie Haskell number 20 on its "50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time" list.

That was 21 years ago.  Many great TV characters have come along since who have probably strong-armed their way into the top 20.  Off the top of my noggin, I can think of a few – Tony Soprano, Walter White, Tyrion Lanister.  But how many of them will be so iconic that they appear in more than one TV series?  That’s why Eddie Haskell is going into the TVXOHOF while they're left outside with their faces pressed against the windows.

I just hope Eddie will still be able to stay in that top 50….

Eddie Haskell was a multiversal (existing within more than one fictional universe) and a multidimensional (existing within more than one TV dimension.)

We’re going to take a look first at his life during Prime-Time in the main Toobworld.  It is these credits which are getting him into the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.

EDDIE HASKELL
EARTH PRIME-TIME

1957-63
Leave It to Beaver
96 episodes
O'Bservation: Where it all began....

1983
Still the Beaver
From the IMDb:
This movie reunites most of the members of the Cleaver clan, Wally, June, and of course, the Beaver. Their father Ward has passed away. Wally's married to Mary Ellen and a successful lawyer and has everything to make his life complete except for a child. The Beaver is married but unfortunately is still the same which is why his wife threw him out. With nowhere else to go, he goes home. And he also decides that he wants to raise his children, in his hometown of Mayfield. His wife, who decides that she hasn't done anything in her life, decides to become a veterinarian, but she can only go to school out of the country, so she let's Beaver have the children. So he brings his sons there and they are not exactly impressed with Mayfield and feel that they were dumped there, and bond more with Wally than with their own father. They also have to deal with Eddie Haskell, who has gone from nasty to crooked. It's a good thing they still have their mom.

1983-89
The New Leave It to Beaver
101 episodes

Parker Lewis Can't Lose
- Father Knows Less (1991)
From the IMDb:
What starts off innocently enough (A parent/student project) unravels many of the students at Santo Domingo's relationships with their parents. Parker deals with his over-thinking father, Jerry and his father could probably create cold fusion with their brain power, and Mikey's rocky home life comes out. A potentially disastrous episode begs the question of how Parker can fix this one... (Ken Osmond reprises his role as Eddie Haskell in a cameo appearance.)

According to an episode of ‘Quantum Leap’, on my sixth birthday Eddie Haskell could be seen in the Toobworld televersion of ‘Leave It To Beaver’.  So the lives of the Cleaver family, like so many others, had been dramatized for television within the TV Universe.  And obviously the televersion of Ken Osmond was hired to play the role of Eddie Haskell’s televersion.  Thus within the “reality” of Toobworld, Ken and Eddie co-exist.

I’ve tried to avoid the topic in the past, but now is as good a time as any to address it:

The TV shows from our world serve as the basis for Toobworld.  And when those same TV shows then become TV shows again within Toobworld, something magical happens – they become the basis for yet another incarnation of Toobworld.  Only this time, those living TV characters can cross back over into the world in which they were created which was a created world in itself.

And that’s what happened with the Eddie Haskell of another world.  (And I ain’t talking about the soap opera!)

THE MAIN TOOBWORLD
&
TOOBWORLD-TOOBWORLD
(The alternate TV dimension of TV characters based on TV characters.)

Hi Honey, I'm Home
- Take My Son Please (1992)
From the IMDb:
In an effort to fit in, Chucky helps Skunk pull off a robbery. Meanwhile, Babs skips out on a school project, leaving Mike to care for their egg baby alone; plus Eddie Haskell stops by.

The tricky thing about those exiled TV characters living in the sitcom protection program, they have to be careful that they don’t meet the “real” people they are based on.  That’s the difficulty TV’s Eddie Haskell from Toobworld-Toobworld risked when he visited the Nielsens in Toobworld.

TV's Eddie Haskell would be the Eddie Haskell we saw in that McDonald's commercial with all of those other relocated TV characters now living in Toobworld rather than in their home world of Toobworld-Toobworld.

Makes your head hurt, don't it?  This is why I've curtailed my tele-spelunking - it takes its toll on one's sanity!

And then there’s the Eddie Haskell of the Cineverse….

THE CINEVERSE

1997
Leave It to Beaver
as
Eddie Sr.
From the IMDb:
The several misadventures and life-lessons learned by 8-year-old Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver in an entertaining and hilarious tale of a small-town Ohio family and the daily trials and tribunes of life.
O'Bservation: I'm sure that writer meant "tribulations" instead of "tribunes".

Because of the genetic changes for Ward and June Cleaver, Wally and Beaver were altered in their appearance.  But the Cineverse is never going to be an exact copy of Toobworld so Eddie Haskell’s father looks more like the Eddie Haskell of Toobworld, but from later in his life.

Here’s to you, ya goon.  Thanks for cutting through the vanilla blandness of the 1950s to show us a more realistic TV American.

You’ll find the Squirt is already a member of the Hall….

THE BALLAD OF RAY BALLARD

Ray Ballard was one of those journeyman actors who appeared in so many different TV productions and usually in small "blink and you miss him" roles. He was one of those "Hey, it's that guy!" type of actors who might go unnoticed... except by others like yours truly.

Looking through his list of credits, many of them nameless, there were three categories that jumped out at me:

• Newsman/Reporter
• Photographer
• Poker Player

I'm going to claim that the reporter and the photographer were twin brothers, each traveling the country to pursue their careers. The newsman was probably based in Los Angeles, although he did follow a story in New York City.

He may have been there to visit his twin brother who was working in the Big Apple at the time. And the photographer was not only a "Crime Photographer", but also working as a fashion photographer. As a news photographer, his assignments took him to Clayton City and to San Francisco (where he dabbled in more lurid pictures.)

Ballard also played a Poker Player in two different series. I think I'll just split those between the twins, with the one game definitely set in California going to the reporter.

That gives both brothers four roles each (and Ballard himself eight) which gives them both the right to enter the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.

Since it can't be unequivocally stated that all of these roles are connected, I'm inducting the newshound and the shutterbug as a Birthday Honors List choice. "What I say, goes."

It's also appropriate that it falls under the sign of Gemini.

'Quincy M.E.'

1st Newsman

- "A Star Is Dead" (1976)

'McCloud'

2nd Reporter

- "Who Says You Can't Make Friends in New York City?" (1970)

'Run for Your Life'

Stuffy Reporter

- "I Am the Late Diana Hays" (1966)

'The Feather and Father Gang'

Poker Player

- "Never Con a Killer" (1977)

'The Invisible Man'

Poker Player

- "Pin Money" (1975)

'Ironside'

Creepy photographer #1

- "Eat, Drink and Be Buried" (1967)

'The Name of the Game'

Photographer

- "The Showdown" (1971)

'Family Affair'

Photographer / Make-up Man

- "Star Dust" (1967)

BCnU!

TVXOHOF, JUNE 2020 - ROLAND THE RAT

Traditionally, the month of June inductees into the Television Crossover Hall of Fame has either been a series of pairs (to reflect the Gemini motif) or puppets because -# well… because I like puppets.

Now with the added Friday Hall of Famers to bolster the membership, Toobworld Central doesn’t have to choose one over the other each year.

Because we ran a memorial induction on Monday the First, we’re using the first Friday Hall of Famer spot for the monthly showcase.  And we’re siding on the side of puppetry to kick things off….

ROLAND RAT

From Wikipedia:
Roland Rat is a British television puppet character. He was created, operated and voiced by David Claridge, who had previously designed and operated Mooncat, a puppet in the Children's ITV television programme ‘Get Up and Go!’ Claridge worked for Jim Henson, then the second series of ‘The Young Ones’. Claridge would later operate and voice Brian the Dinosaur for BBC's ‘Parallel 9’; create and direct ‘Happy Monsters’, a preschool series for Channel 5; and shoot a CGI series, ‘Mozart's Dog’, for Paramount Comedy.

Roland lives beneath King's Cross railway station in The Ratcave and also in Ratcave Two under the Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles. He has an infant brother called Little Reggie and had a relationship with a guinea pig called Glenis. His colleagues include dour Welsh technical whizz Errol the Hamster and over-enthusiastic self-appointed "number one ratfan" Kevin the Gerbil, who is from Leeds and loves pink buckets. Claridge actually provides voices for all the main characters: Roland Rat, Errol the Hamster, Kevin The Gerbil, Little Reggie, Fergie the Ferret and Roland's father Freddie, as they often appear on screen together. Roland's car 'the Ratmobile' is a bright pink 1953 Ford Anglia.

Roland Rat first appeared on 1 April 1983 (Good Friday) on the ailing breakfast television network TV-am, and is generally regarded as its saviour, being described as "the only rat to join a sinking ship". After a couple of months on TV-am, Roland took the audience from 100,000 to 1.8 million. Roland was launched at TV-am by Children's editor Anne Wood to give kids entertainment during the Easter holidays.

Initially, Roland was featured as the host of ‘The Shedvision Show’, ostensibly broadcast from a wooden shack on the roof of TV-am's studios. On the strength of this, Roland was soon given a regular slot every morning introducing cartoons for younger viewers.

Arguably Roland Rat's golden age on TV-am was the period from summer 1983 until summer 1985. During this period, Roland and friends would feature in a half hour episode transmitted on school holiday weekdays on TV-am from 9.00 am. The school summer holidays of 1983 and 1984 saw ‘Rat on the Road’ in which Roland and Kevin would spend each week in a different town of the United Kingdom. One notable highlight during this period was the visit of Austrian racing driver Roland Ratzenberger who appeared on the show in a motor race against the Ratmobile ending with Ratzenberger's car being sabotaged by his near-namesake.

On 3 October 1985, he transferred to the BBC, for a three-year contract, which ended up being extended to six years. Roland said, "I saved TVam and now I'm here to save the BBC."

Roland made a number of series during his time at the BBC, most notably ‘Roland Rat the Series’, a chat show set in Roland's sewer home, now converted into a high-tech media centre called the ‘Ratcave the show’ would intersperse the chat show segments with a storyline involving some sort of situation "behind the scenes".

Roland also made two spoof drama series, ‘Tales of the Rodent Sherlock Holmes’, in which he played Holmes with Kevin as Dr Watson, and ‘Ratman’, a ‘Batman’ spoof with Kevin as his sidekick, "Pink Bucket Man". During Christmas 1985, British Telecom operated a free "ratphone" number on 0800 800 800 where fans could listen to Roland's prerecorded Christmas message.

Roland would also host the children's game show entitled ‘Roland's Rat Race’, where child contestants answered general knowledge questions in a race car setting.

In the late 1990s he made a series for Channel 5, called ‘L.A. RAT’, which featured Roland and friends living in Los Angeles. In 2003 Roland was a guest presenter for ITV children's ‘CiTV’.

Roland appeared on ‘Big Brother UK’ several times, his first being 2004 in a task that involved the housemates playing a version of 20 Questions in order to guess the identity of various celebrities.

In December 2007, Roland Rat appeared on a puppet special of the ‘Weakest Link’ hosted by Anne Robinson which was originally broadcast on Friday 28 December 2007 at 18:00GMT on BBC One. Roland reached the final round with Soo from ‘The Sooty Show’ which went to sudden death after initially drawing with four points each. Roland ultimately lost out to Soo's superior wisdom in the tense final standoff.

Roland appeared in the fourth episode of the second series of ‘Ashes to Ashes’. This appearance was anachronistic, as the show is set in 1982 whereas Roland did not debut until the following year.

On 11 February 2010, whilst making an appearance on BBC's ‘The One Show’ to answer a question about how children's programmes have changed over the years, Roland Rat spent so much time joking about the presenters (Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley) that Adrian ended the interview before he answered the question.
I could be wrong about what delineates a TV series the UK, but from the Wikipedia entry above, it looks as though Roland have at least thirteen entries to his qualifications.

So welcome aboard another sinking ship, Roland!  Enjoy your stay in the Hall and have fun hanging around with the other puppet members… no strings attached.

Sorry about that….

MONDAY MEMORIAL TVXOHOF TRIBUTE - JERRY HUBBARD

It has been some time since the Television Crossover Hall of Fame has conducted a Monday Memorial TVXOHOF Tribute.  To be honest, I’d rather not ever have one again.  But that’s not the way of the world.

And after such a hiatus, we have now two memorial tributes to cover.  (The other will be presented next week so that both TV characters get their proper due.)

This week we remember….

JERRY HUBBARD

From the Guardian:
The American comedy actor Fred Willard, who has died aged 86, never took top billing on screen, but he found his niche as a scene-stealer in the mockumentaries of Christopher Guest, among others, usually playing characters invested with authority who prove to be inept, clueless or simply unintentionally funny.

His breakthrough came with ‘Fernwood Tonight’ (1977), a satire on talk shows, when he played Jerry Hubbard, sidekick to Martin Mull’s smarmy host, Barth Gimble, giving a taste of what was to come.  

In 1968, Willard married Mary Lovell, a playwright, who died in 2018. He is survived by their daughter, Hope.

• Frederick Charles Willard, actor, born 18 September 1933; died 15 May 2020

From Wikipedia:
[Fred] Willard achieved wider fame in 1977 and '78 as Martin Mull's sidekick and announcer Jerry Hubbard on the ‘Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman’ spinoffs ‘Fernwood 2 Night’, ‘Forever Fernwood’, and ‘America 2-Night’, which parodied the nighttime talk shows of the day.  

‘Fernwood 2 Night’ (or ‘Fernwood Tonight’) is a comedic television program that was broadcast weeknights from July 1977 to September 1977. It was created by Norman Lear and produced by Alan Thicke as a spin-off/summer replacement from Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. It was a parody talk show, hosted by Barth Gimble (Martin Mull) and sidekick/announcer Jerry Hubbard (Fred Willard), complete with a stage band, "Happy Kyne and the Mirthmakers" (featuring Frank De Vol as the dour "Happy" Kyne, and Tommy Tedesco as one of the guitarists). Barth was purportedly the twin brother of Garth Gimble from ‘Mary Hartman’.

Like ‘Mary Hartman’, ‘Fernwood 2 Night’ was set in the fictional small town of Fernwood, Ohio. The show satirized real talk shows as well as the sort of fare one might expect from locally produced, small-town, midwestern American television programming. Well-known actors usually appeared playing characters or a contrivance had to be written for the celebrity to appear as themselves. (In one episode, Tom Waits's tour bus happened to break down in Fernwood.)

After one season of ‘Fernwood’, the producers revamped the show for 1978 as ‘America 2-Night’. In this second version, Barth and Jerry's show moved from Fernwood to Southern California (specifically, the fictional city of "Alta Coma, the unfinished furniture capital of the world!") and was broadcast nationally on the fictional UBS network (presumably a reference to the film Network), whose slogan was "We put U before the BS". The change to a Southern California setting made it more plausible for real-life celebrities to appear on the program as themselves.

In 2001, Mull and Willard reprised their roles in a stage appearance and retrospective at the US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado.

Reruns of ‘Fernwood/America 2-Night’ were broadcast on Nick at Nite from 1990 to 1993 and TV Land in 2002 as part of their "TV Land Kitschen" block, also hosted by Mull and Willard.
(O’Bservation: If I’m not mistaken, they appeared in character.)

Here are the TV series in which Jerry Hubbard provided some off-kilter whimsy to the World of the Toob:

JERRY HUBBARD
1977
Fernwood 2night
44 episodes

1977
Forever Fernwood

1978
America 2-Night
65 episodes

Welcome to the Hall, Jerry!  You’ll find other talk show sidekicks here to pal around with… like Regis Philbin and Ed McMahon


….

SPAMMER SLAMMIN'

Just wanted to share a message meant for a particular spammer who's been afflicting my posts since February of this year.  I'm sure he'll be seeing it soon....

In keeping with the tenets of the TV Universe,

Bleep you, Gary.

FRIDAY HALL OF FAMER TV SHOW (MAY 29, 2020) - 'I LOVE LUCY"

As we’ve been doing all year, each month’s last Friday Hall of Famer is a TV series from Earth Prime (our world) which has a counterpart in Earth Prime-Time (Toobworld.)  And as we always celebrate the ladies during the month of May, there was only one obvious choice for this inaugural induction as our May TV Show….

I LOVE LUCY

From Wikipedia:
“I Love Lucy” is an American multinational television sitcom that originally ran on CBS from October 15, 1951 to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes spanning six seasons (including the 'lost' original pilot and Christmas episode). The show starred Lucille Ball, her real-life husband Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. It followed the life of Lucy Ricardo (Ball), a young middle-class housewife in New York City, who either concocted plans with her best friends (Vance & Frawley) to appear alongside her bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo (Arnaz) in his nightclub, or tried numerous schemes to mingle with, or be a part of show business.

After the series ended in 1957, a modified version continued for three more seasons with 13 one-hour specials; it ran from 1957 to 1960. It was first known as “The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show’ and later in reruns as “The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour”.

“I Love Lucy” became the most-watched show in the United States in four of its six seasons, and it was the first to end its run at the top of the Nielsen ratings (an accomplishment later matched only by “The Andy Griffith Show” in 1968 and “Seinfeld” in 1998). As of 2011, episodes of the show have been syndicated in dozens of languages across the world and remain popular with an American audience of 40 million each year. A colorized version of its Christmas episode attracted more than 8 million viewers when CBS aired it in prime time in 2013, 62 years after the show premiered; CBS has aired two to three colorized episodes each year since then, once at Christmas and again in the spring.

The show, which was the first scripted television program to be shot on 35mm film in front of a studio audience, by cinematographer Karl Freund, won five Emmy Awards and received numerous nominations and honors. It was the first show ever to feature an ensemble cast. It is often regarded as one of the greatest and most influential sitcoms in history. In 2012, it was voted the 'Best TV Show of All Time' in a survey conducted by ABC News and People magazine.

Originally set in an apartment building in New York City, “I Love Lucy” centers on Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball) and her singer/bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz), along with their best friends and landlords Fred Mertz (William Frawley) and Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance). During the second season, Lucy and Ricky have a son named Ricky Ricardo Jr. ("Little Ricky"), whose birth was timed to coincide with Ball's real-life birth of her son Desi Arnaz Jr.

Within the “reality” of the TV Universe, ‘I Love Lucy’ is a TV show based on the life of a “real” person.  To be honest, Lucy’s life would probably never have been considered by a TV producer for adaptation into a series had she not been married to Ricky Ricardo.  (In fact, that’s probably how that TV producer in Toobworld learned about her – he must have already known the Cuban bandleader.)

To qualify for the Television Crossover Hall of Fame, the candidate for membership must appear or be mentioned in three separate TV shows.  By that criteria, ‘I Love Lucy’ surely must be the most over-qualified inductee ever!  (Or at the very least, tied with ‘Star Trek’.)

I’m not going to list all of the TV series which confirm that ‘I Love Lucy’ was a TV show within the TV Universe.  (Doing that for ‘Star Trek’ back in January was a killer and I doubt anybody reads those lists throughtly.)

But here’s a sampling:

Our Miss Brooks, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, December Bride, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Andy Griffith Show, Mr. Ed, Green Acres, The Bob Newhart Show, Rhoda, Sanford and Son, MASH, Lou Grant, Mork & Mindy, Knots Landing, St. Elsewhere, The A-Team, Miami Vice, ER, Charles In Charge, Webster, Cheers, The Golden Girls, The Charmings, Murphy Brown, China Beach, Columbo, Wings, Designing Women, Seinfeld (even though he claimed that he never saw it), Roseanne, Married… With Children, The Nanny, Homicide: Life On The Street, Third Rock From The Sun, Babylon 5!, The Outer Limits, Hope Island, Brimstone, The Sopranos, Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Queer As Folk, Gilmore Girls, Star Trek: Enterprise, Stargate: Infinity, Oz, The West Wing, NCIS, Veronica Mars, Parks and Recreation, Mad Men, Californication, The Newsroom, Shameless, Orange Is The New Black, The Good Wife, Mom, This Is Us, The Goldbergs, Days Of Our Lives

I left out a lot of shows that just compared their own characters to combinations of Lucy, Ricky, Fred, or Ethel.  I didn’t bother with a lot of shows which just quoted the standards, like “Hi Lucy, I’m home!” or “You got some splainin to do!”

I also excluded series which take place in Skitlandia, the Tooniverse, and several alternate Toobworlds. (Although how could I resist ‘The West Wing’?)

This past season, the biggest and best reference to ‘I Love Lucy’ belonged to ‘Will & Grace’ in an episode leading up to the second go-round at a series finale.

So here’s to ‘I Love Lucy’!  By being a member of the TVXOHOF, it is now a recognized TV series in both the real world and Toobworld.  No longer will it be considered a Zonk if it’s mentioned in some way.

‘I Love Lucy’ has no longer got some splainin to do.

Hi, ‘I Love Lucy’!  You’re Home!

FRIDAY HALL OF FAMERS, 05/22/2020 - HELEN CRUMP TAYLOR

Today we’re inducting the last of the May Queens into the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.  (For the last week of May, the Friday Hall of Famer will be the Toobworld televersion of the TV show which showcased one of Toobworld’s greatest queens.)

But for this Friday, we’re taking a trip down to Mayberry, North Carolina.  For a small country town, Mayberry certainly has racked up quite a few members of the Hall; this will mark the  seventh.  As Melissa Steadman once said, “Seven – it would be a mythic number.”

HELEN CRUMP TAYLOR

Edited from Wikipedia:
Helen Crump is a fictional dramatic character on the American television program ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ (1960–1968). Helen made her debut in the third-season episode "Andy Discovers America" (1963). Helen was a schoolteacher and became main character Sheriff Andy Taylor's girlfriend. Helen also appeared in TAGS spinoff, ‘Mayberry R.F.D.’ (1968–1971), and in the TAGS reunion telemovie, “Return to Mayberry” (1986). Helen was portrayed by Aneta Corsaut.

Helen Crump hails from Kansas and attended college in Kansas City. She majored in journalism. Helen takes up residence in Mayberry and is employed as an elementary schoolteacher. Her uncle, Edward, and her young niece, Cynthia, visit her in Mayberry.

Unlike other Mayberry women, Helen has no special skills in the kitchen. She enjoys picnicking, and, in one episode, directs the high school's senior play. An independent, self-sufficient, professional single woman, Helen is a wise and thoughtful character, but at times can be abrupt.  [She] serves on most occasions as the voice of reason on the show.

In the third-season episode, "Andy Discovers America" (1963), Opie and his classmates take a dislike to their new teacher Helen Crump (whom they call "old lady Crump"). The boys complain about her history assignments. After Andy gives Opie some advice about his own experience with school (which Opie misconstrues into thinking he doesn't have to do his history schoolwork), Helen appears at the courthouse and, acting on her assumptions based on Opie's misinterpretation of his father's advice, proceeds to give Andy a piece of her mind on his interference in her domain.

Andy is dumbfounded but finds a way to get the boys excited about their history assignments. Helen is astonished but pleased with the change in Opie and his pals. When she learns Andy played a part in the turnabout, she thanks him and the two become friends.

At the end of the episode, Andy shows his attraction to Helen by offering to walk her home and attempting to rid himself of Barney Fife who wants to discuss history with Helen.

Andy and Helen have many pleasant social outings: they attend dances, picnic at Myers Lake, and double date with others (usually Barney Fife and Thelma Lou).

In "Helen, the Authoress", Helen has written a book and uses her evenings to rewrite the manuscript before its publication by a Richmond firm.

In the first episode of ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ spinoff, ‘Mayberry R.F.D.’, Andy and Helen married. The episode gave CBS the highest ratings for a new TV series debut for the decade.

The couple moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, but returned to Mayberry at a later date on ‘Mayberry R.F.D.’ to christen their newborn son, Andrew Samuel Taylor.

In 1986, Andy and Helen made appearances in the reunion telemovie “Return to Mayberry”. In the telemovie, Andy has recently retired from the United States Postal Inspection Service in Cleveland and returns to Mayberry to see Opie and his wife become first-time parents. In a continuity error, Opie's half-brother, who would have been a teenager then, wasn't mentioned at all.

Here are Helen’s three separate appearances which qualify her for membership in the TVXOHOF:

1963-1968
The Andy Griffith Show
66 episodes

Mayberry R.F.D.
- Andy's Baby (1969)
- Andy and Helen Get Married (1968)

1986
Return to Mayberry (TV Movie)

Welcome to the Hall, Mrs. Taylor!  You’ll find your husband and stepson and other friends from Mayberry ready to welcome you.

Sorry about Andy Jr. not making the cut….

MONDAY MUSINGS: THE PANDEMIC'S FUTURE IN TOOBWORLD

The pandemic brought an early end to many TV series this season; many came close to completing their storylines.  But with shows foregoing the last two episodes and cobbling together new conclusions from existing footage (‘The Flash’) – or in the case of ‘Blacklist’, resorting to animation to complete an arc.

It’s made me wonder what will happen when TV shows do come back with a new season, hopefully in the Fall.  Will they all acknowledge what happened this Spring? After all, there were shows twenty years ago which never made any indication that the 9/11 attacks happened.

(I’m not sure if it was ever addressed when ‘100 Centre Street’ returned for a second season in October of 2001.  I can understand if those episodes produced before September couldn’t shoehorn even just a reference to the tragedy, obviously.  But it wasn’t cancelled until March of 2002; Team Toobworld, let me know – did they ever acknowledge what happened just a few blocks away?)

With warnings that there will be a resurgence of Covid-19 in the Fall, coupled with flu season ramping up, will we be seeing Life in the Otto household of Norwalk, Ct.  putting on face masks before the kids head off to school on ‘American Housewife’?  Will ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’ have to grapple with the prospect of prison being a possible death sentence for the suspects they bring in? Would it lead to arguments that it doesn’t matter?

But there are current shows out there which won’t have to deal with the spectra of the coronavirus… because they all take place in the Past.

Here is my Super Six List of my favorite current TV shows which will remain unaffected by COVID-19 within their “reality”….

1] YOUNG SHELDON
2] OUTLANDER
3] MURDOCH MYSTERIES
4] ENDEAVOUR
5] FATHER BROWN
6] THE GOLDBERGS/SCHOOLED

I would have liked to have included ‘Doctor Who’ in this list, but then the Time Lord doesn’t just travel back in Time; the Doctor visits the Future as well as the Present Time.  Will they be addressing the pandemic when the series eventually returns?

I’m not considering TV shows which are set in the Far Future, like ‘Doctor Who’ sometimes is.  Like everybody else, I’m hoping we’ll eventual be free of this coronavirus.  But people in the Future will have lost family members, friends, occupations to COVID-19.

And now I’m wondering how they’ll address the pandemic in their past.  They can’t very well claim that it was eradicated; it might be with us in some form forever.

No doubt about it – it will be an interesting TV season come the Fall!