THURSDAY'S THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY - THE O'CONNOR SISTERS

Tracy O’Connor was a delusional young woman who thought that she had talent as an artist and who believed that art critic Dale Kingston loved her as much as she loved him.  But all he longed for was the possession of the artwork owned by his Uncle Rudy, and he only had interest in Tracy for as long as was needed to establish his alibi in the murder of Rudy Matthews and to retrieve the supposedly stolen art which he had left in her care.  Kingston made her murder look like a traffic accident just as he made his uncle’s murder look like a burglary gone wrong.

Tracy O’Connor was only 33 when she died.

Nine years later, the audience of the Trueniverse was given the chance to meet Tracy’s identical twin sister, Gwen Kingsley, the wife of Los Angeles judge David Kingsley (a cousin to rising entertainer Hank Kingsley.)  

In her own way, Gwen was just as deluded as her late sister, thinking that her marriage was perfect.  She never had a clue that Judge Kingsley had a need to frequent hookers he picked up in North Hollywood.  Eventually he was caught, thanks to the combined efforts of private eye Barnaby Jones and LAPD detective Tom Gibson with his uncle, W.W. DiAngelo, a reporter and columnist for the Los Angeles Chronicle.

JUDGE DAVID KINGSLEY

Gwen Kingsley probably never remarried and may have reverted to her maiden name of O'Connor.  She passed away a few years ago at the age of 77.  Judge Kingsley died in prison years before.  (If I'm not mistaken, he was shanked by someone he had sentenced to a life sentence.)

I speculate enough as it is with these theories of relateeveety so I’m not going to pretend I know what was going on in her mind.  But I wonder if Gwen ever thought about the odd coincidence that both she and Tracy had their lives ruined by the men they loved, both of whom had surnames beginning with “King” and first names beginning with “Da” – Dale Kingston for Tracy, and David Kingsley for herself.

Or maybe it’s just me who is interested in onomastics…..

Another ‘Columbo’ theory of relateeveety submitted for your approval….

BCnU!

WEDNESDAY WISH-CRAFT - MR. KITTERING'S PASSING SHIP

‘COLUMBO’
“LAST SALUTE TO THE COMMODORE”

LIEUTENANT COLUMBO:
Mr. Kittering, forgive me for asking you this,but where were you the night the Commodore was killed?
MR. KITTERING, ESQ.:
Oh, poor old Otis.
Where was I? I think I was in a motel.
COLUMBO:
In a motel, sir?
KITTERING:
Yes, I'm sure I was.
Nice little motel. I can recommend it.
COLUMBO:
Where was it, sir?
KITTERING:
Sounds odd, but I couldn't quite tell you.
I could find it, I think.
It's somewhere near that new restaurant they talk about,
the Captain's Quarters.
COLUMBO:
Any witnesses?
KITTERING:
There was a young lady.
COLUMBO:
Her name, sir?
KITTERING:
Shall we say we weren't formally introduced?
Ships that pass in the night.
Not that many ships pass in my nights anymore,
I regret to say.

Almost every TV character struts across the stage as Willy Shakes once said, and then disappears forever… usually.

But for Toobworld, they’re still out there in the TV Universe.  And sometimes they come back, even years later.  Take Alan Brady, for example.  Nearly thirty years after the last episode of ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’, Carl Reiner once again played the egomaniacal showman in an episode of ‘Mad About You’.

This applies also to those TV characters who never showed up on our TV screens in the first place….  Or did they?

So in that exchange of dialogue between the characters played by Peter Falk and Wilfred Hyde-White, we have a pretty good test case: Mr. Kittering’s “passing ship” was never seen, never named. 

She was probably no street-walker, though.  Mr. Kittering was a man of class, accustomed to enjoying the finer things in life.  And that would include the women with whom he kept company.  So she could have been a high-priced call girl/”escort” who could be working independently.  Someone for whom the phrase “Lady of the Evening” was invented.

A couple of nameless call girls
('Cannon' - "The Wedding March")

But tisn’t - I mean, tain't - necessarily so*.

Kittering might have had a hankering for someone a little more down to earth, somewhat saucy.  Perhaps she could have been a bit of alright who was even outside the type of people he would have normally surrounded himself with.

At the time of the Swanson case, Mr. Kittering was at least 73 years of age, the same age as Hyde-White who played him.  I don’t think a persuasive argument could be made that he was younger, but I could be easily convinced that he was supposed to be much older.

So a woman whom he would describe as being a young lady could be forty, maybe even fifty.  So that gives us a wide range to choose from.

One last thing that went into my consideration – the guest cast for every ‘Columbo’ episode (at least in its original NBC run) was a high-caliber roster of talent.  Oscar winners, foreign movie stars, the leading lights of television.  And we’re not just talking the guest star murderers but even their victims.  Everybody in those casts was a star, highly memorable.  And I’d like to think that everybody within that corner of the TV Universe, even those we never saw like Mrs. Columbo and Kittering’s “crumpet” would have given just as indelible a performance.

That’s why I’m going to fill in this particular blankety blank with a TV character who was played by a true star and who would have been quite the dynamo in a ‘Columbo’ episode….

RITA MORENO

as

RITA CAPKOVIC

Rita Moreno appeared in three episodes as Rita Capkovic, a prostitute who was trying to turn her life around…..

‘THE ROCKFORD FILES’
“THE PAPER PALACE” (1978)
“ROSENDAHL AND GILDA STERN ARE DEAD” (1978”)
“NO FAULT AFFAIR” (1979)

During the time when neither one of them were on our TV screens, they might have seen each other plenty of times.  But by the time we saw them again, Rita had remarried and was now known as Rita Capkovic  Landale.
"THE ROCKFORD FILES:
IF IT BLEEDS... IT LEADS"

But at the time of the murder of Commodore Otis Swanson, Rita had not yet met Jim Rockford.

Rita Moreno was 45 at the time she started playing Rita Capkovic, so she would have been 42-3 when she cuddled with Kittering.  And that would be a young lady to him, worldly though she may have been.

I think I’m going to stick with that possibility……

BCnU!

* 'Columbo' fans will get that joke.

TUESDAY'S TVXOHOF UPDATE

Let’s catch up on a few members of the Television Crossover Hall of Fame and a few who are at least ⅔ on their way to membership…..

‘The Big Bang Theory’
“The D&D Vortex”

Wil Wheaton, the new host of the ‘Professor Proton’ show, hosts a weekly Dungeons & Dragons with a lot of his celebrity friends.  And they include:

• William Shatner
• Kareem Abdul Jabbar
• Kevin Smith
• Joe Manganiello

Two of them are already members of the TVXOHOF – Shatner and Kareem.  Two will be entering before the year is out and the other one is on his way to becoming eligible.

In 2004, the year-long theme was ‘Star Trek’ and Captain James T. Kirk was inducted in January of that year.  But Shatner, along with all the cast members, were inducted as well as a group for my birthday honors.

There is a special “class” of the TVXOHOF which is called “the Proto-Hall”.  In the two years before the Hall was created, I wrote lengthy pieces in my first website (Damn you, AOLPress!) about certain people in the TV Universe who were basically my first salutes to those who deserved special attention for connecting so many shows.  Many were fictional characters, but there were a few historical figures as well as contemporary celebrities.  This category included basketball legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar. 

As for the others….

Wil Wheaton is a multidimensional.  Thanks to ‘Family Guy’, the actor appeared with most of the other members of the ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ cast, voicing themselves in an adventure with Stewie Griffin.  One reason Wheaton is memorable in this was that Stewie pronounced his name as “HWil HWheaton”.  Sort of like Mr. Tudball’s pronunciation of “Mrs. HWiggins” in many sketches from ‘The Carol Burnett Show’.

But he’s also a member of the Evil Toobworld dimension thanks to these two projects:

Loki and SageKing Go to GenCon (Short) 
&  
Every Little Something by Dave (Video)

For the main Toobworld, he has his long-standing recurring role as a member of the League of Themselves on ‘The Big Bang Theory’.  But he also has an appearance as a clue-giver on an episode of ‘Jeopardy!’ in 2018. If you didn't know, 'Jeopardy!' itself will one day be part of the TVXOHOF.

And he made an appearance on ‘Bill Nye Saves The World’, starring Bill Nye who will also one day be a member of the Hall of Fame.  (Coincidentally, Nye also has made appearances as himself on ‘The Big Bang Theory’.)

Kevin Smith is a writer/director/actor best known for the movie “Clerks” and his enthusiastic interest in fandom.  He’s now been on ‘The Big Bang Theory’ twice, but also as himself in episodes of ‘Speechless’, ‘The Mindy Project’, ‘Yes, Dear’, ‘Joey’, and ‘DeGrassi: The Next Generation’.

Look for him in the Hall before the year is out.

And then there was Joe Manganiello who is best known for his role in “Magic Mike” and as the werewolf in ‘True Blood’.  He’s only just beginning his trek to TVXOHOF membership which puts him almost two-thirds of the way to full qualification.  This episode of ‘The Big Bang Theory’ puts him on more solid footing to that end.  Before this, he had his appearance with his wife, Sofia Vergara, (another future member of the Hall thanks to all of those spokeswoman roles she’s done in commercials.)  They appeared together in a commercial as “serlinguists” – talking directly to the audience in the Trueniverse – for Hulu.

But he’s also appeared in an episode of a weird project from Neil Patrick Harris – “Neil’s Puppet Dreams”.  It was a seven episode Internet series which also starred his husband David Burtka.  Here’s the IMDb description: “Neil Patrick Harris sleeps a lot, and when he dreams, he dreams in puppets.”  One day I’ll have to track that down…..

In other news....

I don't know why it took so long for me to even know about this addition to the Los Angeles Tribune collection.  I must not have been looking at the screen when it came up during the episode.

This is from the 25th anniversary special episode for 'Columbo' - "A Trace Of Murder", which addressed the latest trend in police procedural TV shows... forensic science.

The Los Angeles Tribune gained prominence with the spin-off from 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show', 'Lou Grant'.  It was also seen fleetingly in the first episode of the 'Burke's Law' revival.  There have been a few other TV shows, 'Matt Houston' among them, but I'd count those first three as the heavy-hitters for the membership.

So there’s the latest update for the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.

BCnU!

MONDAY MEMORIAL - REMEMBERING JOE DICSO

Joe Dicso: 

Five minutes to Monologue, Mr. Martin!

Steve Martin: 

Thanks, Joe! 

Joe Dicso:

I can’t ever get fired, 

I’ve got a Union job.

But somehow tonight 

it doesn’t matter 

that I’m in with the mob!
'Saturday Night Live'

On the February 16th episode of 'Saturday Night Live', the show displayed this title card before going into the cast's curtain call.

I have yet to find official notice of Dicso's passing but Facebookers in the business who knew him have been paying tribute to the long-running  stage manager.

From People:
Stage Manager Joe Dicso: 
Going into the first show there were times I thought, “We’re not going to make this.” Sometimes the performers didn’t make it to the set until after we’d started. I’d tell the control room, “Laraine’s not here,” and the director would say, “We’ll go to a close-up of Belushi. Let us know when she’s there.” And that’s what we did. There’ve been heel marks on the floor from when I grabbed people on the wrong way to their marks.  

Here are the basics of his SNL career from the IMDb:

But he didn't just serve behind the scenes.  He also got pulled into the sketches like that opening musical number the night Steve Martin returned to host in 1991 which I quoted at the top.  To me this was one of the best show openings they ever did. 

These are the episodes in which he played himself on 'Saturday Night Live'

Jim Carrey hosted Mr. Dicso's last show and brought him out for a special tribute.

Jim Carrey:
It’s Joe Dicso’s last night here, ladies and gentlemen!  He’s been here for 21 years – he’s seen it all!

Good night and may God bless.....

VIDEO WEEKEND - TUBULAR KNELLS FOR PETER TORK

From the Los Angeles Times:
Peter Tork, a guitarist who became an overnight star in the late 1960s as one of the Monkees, the made-for-television rock band that was a pop-culture sensation, has died. He was 77. 

“It is with beyond-heavy and broken hearts that we share the devastating news that our friend, mentor, teacher, and amazing soul, Peter Tork, has passed from this world,” Tork’s official Facebook account announced Thursday morning.

Inner Toob's Video Weekend would like to pay tribute to Mr. Tork.....

Good night and may God bless.....

FRIDAY'S HALL OF FAMER - BUBBA BEXLEY

For our final salute to Black History Month with our Friday Hall of Famers, I saved my favorite for last…..

BUBBA BEXLEY

From the ‘Sanford & Son’ wikia:

Bubba Bexley, along with Grady Wilson was one of Fred Sanford's two best friends on the Sanford and Son series, appearing frequently on the show throughout its run on NBC.

Bubba, who was sometimes portrayed as somewhat dim-witted, but loyal as Fred's friend, is known for his infectious belly-laugh and jovial persona. Bubba was primarily used as a straight man to set up punchlines for Fred, who often used him as the butt of his barbs. His loud greeting of "Hey Fred!" often drove Fred and Lamont crazy.

His function in several episodes is to encourage Fred into get-rich-quick schemes, as when he encourages Fred to fake having whiplash after he is hit by a white man in a Cadillac while driving the truck in the second season episode "Whiplash" (Season 2, episode #2, 1972), and Fred's scheme to get out of having to pay taxes by opening a church of "Junkists" as in the episode "Rev. Sanford" (Season 6, episode #18, 1977).

Bubba was played by Don Bexley for 43 episodes of the series, and for eight episodes of the failed spin-off series The Sanford Arms in the fall of 1977.

From Wikipedia:
Donald Thomas "Don" Bexley (March 10, 1910 - April 15, 1997) was an American actor and comedian, best known for playing Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx)'s friend Bubba Bexley on the 1970s television sitcom Sanford and Son.

Foxx sent for him to join in the NBC sitcom Sanford and Son. It was Foxx who convinced Bud Yorkin and Aaron Ruben to hire Bexley to play one of Fred G. Sanford's friends. At the time, Bexley was 62 years old and had never appeared on television before. Bexley gained international popularity for his portrayal as "Bubba" on the series, which is a very successful "rerun sitcom" even today.

Sanford and Son was an instant hit and remained in the country's top 10 programs for its entire run from 1972 to 1977. Bexley reprised Bubba in the short-lived sequel, Sanford Arms, which had many of the same characters but not Foxx and Demond Wilson.

Grady Wilson is already a member of the Television
Crossover Hall Of Fame.  Now he has Bubba to join him…..

SHOWS CITED:


Sanford and Son
1972-1977
43 episodes


Grady- Grady's Night In (1975)


Sanford Arms (1977)
8 episodes
Finally, here's an odd video I found which purportedly celebrates that which is Bubba....

Welcome to the Hall, Bubba!

FANFICCERS' FRIEND - "THE WONDER YEARS" AT THE NEW MILLENNIUM (NEARLY)

Entertainment Weekly recently posted a Twitter picture from Danica McKellar of her with her two ‘Wonder Years’ co-stars, Fred Savage and Josh Saviano.  They then compared it with a promo picture of the three of them as Kevin Arnold, Winnie Cooper, and Paul Pfeiffer from the beginning of the series’ run.

‘The Wonder Years’ began in 1988 and ran until 1993.  So there’s been 31 years between these two pictures.  But we can’t look at this picture as to what the three characters look like today, only as the actors.

The series began in 1988, but it took place twenty years earlier.

From Wikipedia:
The series depicts the social and family life of a boy in a typical American suburban middle-class family from 1968 to 1973, covering the ages of 12 through 17. Each year in the series takes place exactly 20 years before airing (1988 to 1993).

So if we look at this “current” picture as a Toobworld photo of Kevin, Winnie, and Paul, then it was taken back in 1999.  Luckily, their clothing is nondescript enough to work in any era.

So if you write fanfic about ‘The Wonder Years’, this picture could serve as inspiration for stories about the characters as the millennium approaches.

If you do write it up, let me know where I can go to read it….

BCnU!

MISSING LINKS - "OUTLANDER" & "DANIEL BOONE"

‘OUTLANDER’
“THE BIRDS AND THE BEES”

Reunited with their daughter in the past, Jamie and Claire took Brianna to the high point of Fraser’s Ridge in order to show her the magnificent view.  It made her think of Daniel Boone and she explained to her father that Boone was a famous pioneer in history – even though technically he was of the Here and Now.

I don’t think we’re going to be meeting Daniel Boone in the series.  I haven’t read the books, but I don’t think he showed up in that either.  But we’ll see.  (I know we will – maybe – be seeing American literature’s first fictional hero character, Natty Bumppo by the eighth season.  He showed up in the eighth novel.) 

I’m actually hoping we don’t get to meet Daniel Boone during the course of ‘Outlander’.  For the main Toobworld, Daniel Boone should look just like actor Fess Parker.  So I would prefer to think that Fess Parker’s portrayal of Boone is out there in the world of ‘Outlander’.

But should he eventually appear, O’Bviously played by some other actor, we can fall back on the same splainin which already had to be employed for the appearance of George Washington this season.  The difference in looks, aside from the Trueniverse splainin of recastaways, would be attributed to the perspective of the person who is viewing him.  In this case we’re seeing him from Claire’s perspective, (which is the one they stayed with for the rest of the episode, even when we were now seeing him with Jamie.)

Hopefully, Natty Bumppo does make the cut and shows up in the series!

BCnU!

TWO FOR TUESDAY - "NEGATIVE REACTION" FOR CROSSOVERS

‘COLUMBO’
“NEGATIVE REACTION”






I found two theoretical connections in this episode, one of them being an inner crossover to another ‘Columbo’ episode.

Here’s the first one, a traditional bit of conjecture….

Paul Galesko:
I had some pictures to take in a mountain area up north of the Valley. I'm a photographer, Lieutenant, on an assignment with a magazine.

We never learn what magazine commissioned the assignment.  But I’m sure Columbo looked into that to make sure that Galesko wasn’t lying to him.






But when I’m thinking of magazines in Toobworld, my go-to has always been those which were published by Howard Publications, as seen in the NBC mystery “wheel” ‘The Name Of The Game’.  



The two magazines most often mentioned in the show were Crime (edited by former FBI agent Dan Farrell) and People (where Jeff Dillon was a reporter.)  But I’m sure Glenn Howard’s empire had other magazines in play, perhaps even a nature magazine, something similar to National Geographic.  At the very least, I’m going to stick with the theory that it was published by Glenn Howard’s corporation.

Let's take a look at the other example....

Paul Galesko:
Mrs. Galesko isn't here.
She's visiting relatives.
Mrs. Moyland:
Oh? That's strange, her going off.
With the symphony opening tonight 
and her buying that new dress and all.






With this exchange of dialogue, I’m making the inner crossover.  The symphony which was having their opening that night was the Southern Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra in Los Angeles.  This was Liz Fielding’s “baby” seen in the ‘Columbo’ episode “Etude In Black”.  By the time Frances Galesko was planning to attend, Mrs. Fielding’s son-in-law Alex Benedict was no longer the maestro.  (He was incarcerated on death row, but with many years of appeals ahead of him.)

Who could have been the conductor that night?  Being the opening night, the conductor would be whoever succeeded Benedict.  Had the ‘Negative Reaction’ episode took place a year or so later, I would have suggested Mason Woodruff, the junior conductor at the Boston Symphony (seen in the series ‘Friends & Lovers’.)






Any suggestions as to who the conductor could have been?  Of course I’m looking for a conductor who was a character in some other TV show.

Two for Tuesday!

TOOBWORLD'S TRIBUTE FOR PRESIDENTS' DAY

Today marks Presidents’ Day and there’s no better member of that very exclusive club – at least this current TV season – than the Father of His Country….

My personal connection to the Father of Our Country is very tangential – my paternal grandfather was born on February 22 and so he was given the middle name of “George”.  And that was passed down for the next two generations, making me the third to carry the full true name.  (And that’s why I prefer the nickname I was given.)

In the Television Crossover Hall of Fame, George Washington is a multidimensional who was inducted as part of the Class of the Proto-Hall.  The Proto-Hall consists of all those members who were celebrated for their crossover contributions before the Hall actually existed.  (He is considered the member in the November in those years before the Hall, from circa 1990 - 1998.)

Let’s take a look at the February 22nd birthday boy….

From Wikipedia:
George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) was an American political leader, military general, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States (1789–1797). He commanded Patriot forces in the new nation's vital American Revolutionary War and led them to victory over the British. Washington also presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which established the new federal government. For his manifold leadership during the American Revolution, he has been called the "Father of His Country".

Washington succeeded a prosperous family of slaveholding planters in colonial Virginia. He had educational opportunities and launched a favourable career as a land surveyor. He then became a leader of the Virginia militia in the French and Indian War. During the Revolutionary War he was a delegate to the Continental Congress, was unanimously appointed commander-in-chief of the Army, and led an allied campaign to victory at the Siege of Yorktown ending the conflict. Once victory was in hand in 1783, he resigned as commander-in-chief.

Washington was unanimously elected President by the Electoral College in the first two national elections. He promoted and oversaw implementation of a strong, well-financed national government, but remained impartial in the fierce rivalry between subordinates Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. In the French Revolution, Washington proclaimed a policy of neutrality while sanctioning the Jay Treaty. He set enduring precedents for the office of president, including the title "President of the United States". Washington's Farewell Address was widely regarded as one of the most influential statements on republicanism.

Washington customarily owned and traded African slaves, but became troubled with the institution, and freed them in his will. He was a member of the Anglican Church and the Freemasons, and urged tolerance for all religions in his roles as general and President. Upon his death, he was eulogized as "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."  Washington has been memorialized by monuments, art, places, stamps, and currency, and he has been ranked by scholars among the four greatest American presidents.

For more on the man in the Trueniverse, click here.

There have been plenty of “televersions” for George Washington in the greater TV Universe, perhaps especially in the Tooniverse.  With so many, I feel charitable in sharing the wealth – any of the mini-series and TV movies in which he was depicted could be relegated to other TV dimensions since they have nothing to actually tie them to the main Toobworld of Earth Prime-Time.

But for every time Washington showed up in a regular TV series and interacted with their fictional characters, there is a splainin to do in order to disable the Zonks caused by recastaways.  Each of these incarnations of the First President are how they appeared to the relevant TV character’s perspective.

One time where that doesn’t apply was in the ‘Bewitched’ episode “George Washington Zapped Here.”  In that case, as with the Halloween figures summoned by Tabitha, George and Martha were brought to life out of a book in the Stephens’ home.

We gained a new portrayal of George Washington in Earth Prime-Time this season.

‘OUTLANDER’
“WILMINGTON”

Simon Harrison played Washington at the age of 36 in 1768 when he was a member of the landed gentry in Virginia and held the title of Colonel after his exploits during the French & Indian War.  Washington and his wife Martha apparently were in Wilmington, North Carolina for some reason – perhaps on business? – and was attending the opening night production of a play.  There he met the Frasers, Jamie and Clare, as well as several other tele-historical figures like Royal Governor William Tryon and Edmund Fanning, a colonial administrator in North Carolina.

Washington even got pulled into Jamie’s scheme to warn off a gang of “Regulators” who were about to walk into a trap while robbing a coach that was supposed to be carrying the excessive train revenue.  It is because of how Clare Fraser viewed him upon first espying him across the theatre lobby that locked in how Washington appeared to us in the Real World.  So even when Jamie Fraser encounters the Washingtons outside the theater on his own, we are still seeing Washington as he was first perceived by Clare.

Just another cosmic mystery of Toobworld…