Busy For Fun Blogs: Theories of Relateeveety

Showing posts with label Theories of Relateeveety. Show all posts

Showing posts with label Theories of Relateeveety. Show all posts

FLASHMAN-LIGHTMAN-CARTWRIGHT

Dr. Cal Lightman may have sown his own wild oats while at university, to such an extent that he might not even have realized that Emily is not his only child.

It's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that while Cal was studying for his doctorate, he used his abilities to read people's body language and micro-expressions in order to score with women. Lots of women. And if Harry Flashman was his ancestor, it could be that Lightman followed in his footsteps and had sex with even the willing married women he met in the pubs.

One of these women may have been Mrs. Cartwright. And as one would expect in Toobworld, so redolent in soap opera conventions, she may have become pregnant by Lightman. Rather than cause trouble for herself, however, she probably passed the child off as being her husband Terry's.

As the boy, whom they named Jay, grew older, his resemblance to Lightman (diffused by the genetic additions of his Mum) became noticeable. They shared similar facial expressions - there was a time when Dr. Lightman was on the stand in a court case, and his snarky grin looked just like Jay's.

Terry Cartwright may have suspected that Jay was not his own, but it doesn't seem likely that he confronted Mrs. Cartwright about it. However, it may splain why he treated Jay so horribly in front of his friends, making fun of his deficiencies in the lower realms of anatomy, as it were.....

With Jay Cartwright's obsession with sex, it could be that the trait was a dominant one in the Flashman-Lightman family tree.......

SHOWS CITED:

'Lie To Me'

'The In-Betweeners'

'Tom Brown's School Days'

BCnU!

A FLASH IN THE PUN

In writing about Boilerplate, the latest fictional character whom I'd like to see get a televersion, I mentioned a previous candidate - Harry Flashman. Flashman was the school bully in "Ton Brown's School Days", a Victorian novel by Thomas Hughes. The book has been filmed several times, and twice for television, so Harry Flashman has had his day in the cathode sun, but there was more to his life than his school days.

Not only because it was the first production broadcast, but also because its episodic form as a TV series provided the opportunity to add as much detail from the novel as possible, the 1971 TV version is the one established in Earth Prime-Time. (The later version from 2005 does boast the presence of Stephen Fry as Dr. Thomas Arnold, though. Tempting as that is, that version has to remain in the Land of Remakes.)

Harry Flashman attacks Tom Brown

In 1969, George MacDonald Fraser published "Flashman", an historical novel purportedly based on the recently discovered papers of Harry Flashman. Over the course of twelve novels, Fraser recounted Flashman's exploits from his early twenties to advanced old age. And along the way, Flashman had adventures in which he crossed paths with many historical figures.

(As a side note, I highly recommend these books, especially if you enjoy salacious depictions of Victorian ribaldry - a lot of "rogering" goes on, which was an excellent source of... shall we say, "inspiration" to a lad in his teens. That is, so I've heard.....)

So far, none of the "Flashman" novels have been adapted for television, although the second novel, "Royal Flash", does have a home in the Cineverse as a movie starring Malcolm McDowall as Harry, with Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in support.

I think the Fraser series of novels about Harry Flashman would make for a great TV series on HBO or Showtime or even Starz, especially with the freedom provided by a premium channel to portray prurient content. (Ah, alliteration!) With the success of 'Game Of Thrones' on HBO and 'The Borgias' and 'The Tudors' on Showtime, perhaps its time to give old Flash a shot.....

I'd like to think that, even without a television series or made for TV movie already established, Harry Flashman's life in Toobworld at least follows the basic guidelines set down by Fraser for a thoroughly debauched life led by Flashman. After all, even though we might not see it take place on our TV screens, Harry Flashman's life did continue after the events of the "Tom Brown's School Days" TV series had ended.

Harry Flashman
with Tom Brown & Scud East

So let's assume that the Rugby School bully grew up to become a lecherous, immoral coward at least similar to, if not exactly like, the Flashman depicted by Fraser. This TV Flashman would end up rogering his way through the ladies of his times, perhaps even with fictional females from other TV series. (Let's say a parlor maid or two in the Bellamy household a decade or two before we met them on screen?)

Being a bounder and a cad, Flashman would not have been morally constrained from any dalliances with married women; and he would have no qualms in leading a young lady on with false promises of betrothal, in order to bed her and rob her of her virtue. And in the course of such a pursuit, he might have proferred a false identity in order to elude being sued for breach of promise.

From the movie "Royal Flash"
But the Toobworld Flashman would find himself in a similar situation

Let's say he did pluck a young lovely's virginity and with such skill that she acquiesced without even learning his name. But as Flashman made ready to flee the following morning, suddenly the deflowered miss might have inquired as to who he was. Caught off-guard, he may have concocted a fake name on the spot.

But what name might he have used?

The Belgian detective Hercule Poirot was faced with such a situation while investigating a murder aboard a particular train.

"'I claim no credit this time. It was not a guess. Countess Andrenyi practically told me.'

'Comment? Surely not?'

'You remember I asked her about her governess or companion? I had already decided in my mind that if Mary Debenham were mixed up in the matter, she must have figured in the household in some such capacity.'

'Yes, but the Countess Andrenyi described a totally different person.'

'Exactly. A tall, middle-aged woman with red hair - in fact, the exact opposite in every respect of Miss Debenham, so much so as to be quite remarkable. But then she had to invent a name quickly, and there it was that the unconscious association of ideas gave her away. She said Miss Freebody, you remember.'

'Yes?'

'Eh bien, you may not know it, but there is a shop in London that was called, until recently, Debenham & Freebody. With the name Debenham running in her head, the Countess clutches at another name quickly, and the first that comes is Freebody. Naturally I understood immediately.'"

Oftentimes, false identities are similar enough to the original to make them easier to remember. (This is probably why almost everybody in the Albuquerque WITSEC program usually keeps their first names - unless it's something strange and/or Amish like Yonni - and gets a last name with the same initial as their original last name.)

A similar situation may have arisen for Harry Flashman when pressed by a romantic conquest to reveal his identity.

There are two ways in which he may have gone with his reasoning to choose the name I have in mind.

ONE - thinking of other uses for his particular variation on his name, he might have thought of the phrase "Flash of lightning".

TWO - This coital quandary may have taken place after his return from the Crimean War. (Again, only if Harry Flashman's TV existence followed the same pattern as that established in the literary universe.) Thinking back on his alleged involvement in the most infamous battle, which took place in late October of 1854, Flashman might have drawn inspiration from the regiment immortalized in the poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

So whether it was "lightning" or the "Light Brigade", Flashman might have combined the key word with the last part of his own name right there on the spot and convinced her that his name was Lightman.

An older Harry Flashman

And off he would have absconded, assured that he would never see her again.

But he may have left a little something to remember him by....

Again, this is all speculation, so why stop now?

What if some woman he rogered found herself pregnant, by this fellow named "Lightman"? O'Bviously she was never going to track him down to do right by her. But she might still have given the child the last name of its father, never knowing how false it was.

And so the family tree of Dr. Carl Lightman might have been established.........

SHOWS CITED:
'Tom Brown's School Days'
'Lie To Me'
'Agatha Christie's Poirot'
'Upstairs, Downstairs'
'In Plain Sight'

OTHER SOURCES:
"Murder On The Orient Express"
"Tom Brown's School Days"
"Flashman"
"Royal Flash"
"Flashman At The Charge"

BCnU!

OOH, LA LAW

ROSE:

"Every Sunday I watch 'la Law'."

DOROTHY:
"That's 'L.A. Law'!"
(Later)
SOPHIA:

"Very nice 'counselor'!

Just exactly how close are you to the TV when you're watching 'la Law'?"

'The Golden Girls'

With this example of a Zonk, there's no mention of the MacKenzie-Brackman law firm. So it could be that 'L.A. Law' in Toobworld was the generic title for a reality show, along the same lines as 'L.A. Ink'... only about lawyers.

That reality show could still have been about MacKenzie-Brackman, especially since some of the kids left their zip code comfort zone of 'Beverly Hills 90210' and drove by the office building where the law firm was located - and one of them mentioned that he didn't watch the show.

Three of the actors who starred in 'L.A. Law' in the Trueniverse were mentioned in connection to the show - Harry Hamlin (on 'Six Feet Under'), Jimmy Smits (on 'Married... With Children'), and Corbin Bernsen (in episodes of 'Just Shoot Me', 'Seinfeld', and 'Matlock'). But here's a possible splainin: they all appeared as themselves on the reality show called 'L.A. Law', with the law firm handling cases for them.

Another mention of interest - in 'Psych', Henry Spenser was a likely candidate to be the identical cousin of Arnold Becker. And back in 1989, Henry thought the show would be a passing fad (despite the involvement of his cousin.) With all of these mentions - even into the new millennium! - if it is a reality show in Toobworld, it proved to have legs.

Finally, Alan Rachins appeared in an episode of 'Eli Stone' in which he was credited as a "Familiar Lawyer". Longtime visitors to Toobworld know that I don't put much stock in credits, but I think it would be safe to assume that he was actually Douglas Brackman.

But here's the thing - representing Eli at his disbarment hearing, this "familiar lawyer" was working for a law firm called McKinley-Breckman, not MacKenzie-Brackman.

It's a bit intricate, and built on sand, but here's how it might work.....

'L.A. Law' went off the air in 1994, but its last appearance in Toobworld was in 2002 with the reunion TV movie. So in that six year span, until Rachins showed up in that 'Eli Stone' episode, anything could have happened to Douglas Brackman.

It could be that he finally committed an act of sexual deviance so heinous that the partners of the firm had no choice but to convene and drum him out of the firm with a vote. Desperate to still trade on the firm's name to build up business for himself, Douglas could have incorporated himself as a law firm with fictional partners named McKinley and Breckman. (We've seen that happen before in Toobworld - 'Eisenhower & Lutz'.)

Douglas may have wanted to make the potential client think he was still affiliated with McKenzie-Brackman, hoping they weren't too familiar with the original firm's name. Eli Stone would have known the difference, but it wouldn't have mattered. He wanted the best lawyer for the situation, and probably no one knew the intricacies of office politics in a law firm better than Douglas Brackman.

Anyhoo, it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble.....

BCnU!

THE O'HARA LINE: A THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY

When 'Psych' returns for a new season, William Shatner will be making a special guest appearance in an episode - playing the father of Detective Juliet O'Hara. Frank O'Hara is a con man, long estranged from his daughter (probably because of the career path she chose.) But he comes to Santa Barbara to mend their relationship. (I wonder if this means that his character is dying?)

This would mean that he's also the father of Ewan O'Hara as well, but I don't know if John Cena is returning to reprise that role. (If I was in charge, I'd let the upcoming episode be Shatner's showcase and then bring them both back for an O'Hara family reunion - if Pops O'Hara survives his debut, that is.)

As the Toobworld caretaker, I'll be curious to see if Shatner's character mentions his own Dad; because as it stands now, I have a theory of relateeveety that says Juliet's grandfather was the chief of police in Gotham City. And that Jules chose to follow in his footsteps rather than her own father's.

I'm tempted to add Tim O'Hara, the Los Angeles Sun reporter who co-habited with an extraterrestrial humanoid during the 1960's to the family tree, but I hesitate to say that he was also a son of Chief O'Hara. It would be easier to make the claim that he was the son of Chief O'Hara's brother, thus making him Frank O'Hara's cousin. (Tim had a cousin Harvey and a great-uncle named Shamus.)

The age difference between William Shatner and Stafford Repp was a lot closer than appeared, but Repp played Chief O'Hara as somewhat older than he really was at the time.

Since the fashion sense in Gotham City was very conservative and a bit out of date, it might be possible that Frank O'Hara visited his dear old Dad at Gotham City police headquarters wearing a suit like this.....

But then again, being a con man, he may have avoided Gotham City and its Dynamic Duo crime-fighters at the cost of his relationship with his old man........

SHOWS CITED:

'Psych'

'Batman'

'My Favorite Martian'

'Star Trek'

BCnU!

FRIDAY MUG SHOT REVEALED: MARKING BOLAM

So the answer to Friday's Mug-Shot challenge was James Bolam, which Heartbeatoz of Australia posted within twenty minutes after it went up. Pretty impressive.....

Bolam was seen as Roberts in a 1971 episode of 'The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes' ("The Case Of The Dixon Torpedo"), which featured Jonathan Pryde as the rival of Holmes as an investigator.

Roberts worked for the inventor F. Graham Dixon, but at the same time he was working as a spy, stealing the plans for the Dixon torpedo and passing them off to a man named "Hunter" (or "Jaeger" in the man's original German tongue.)

Jaeger was an intermediary for the Russian spy agency of the time.

Although Roberts quickly changed his ways and helped set a trap for Jaeger, it's likely he went to jail. If so, he may have left behind a baby daughter (although he was likely not married, if you catch my drift. Nudge nudge. Wink wink.). That little girl could have grown up to marry a respectable man by the name of Halford and had a son named John. But throughout his life, John Halford would be known as "Jack".

Jack Halford became a police detective, retiring after his wife Mary was killed in a hit-and-run "accident". He later accepted an offer by the daughter of an old colleague to join her new team of retired detectives; they would investigate unsolved and closed cases (UCOS). It was during that new chapter of his life that Jack discovered that his wife's killer was a local gangster who had long been one of Jack's adversaries.

So that's the theory of relateeveety - Roberts is Jack Halford's grandfather. Of course, it could that Jack Halford's grandparent was instead Maggie Roberts, Roberts' sister, who got him his job by being fast and loose with her charms on Old Man Dixon.

If so, she could also have given birth to a son, named Halford after his father, and he'd grow up to be Jack's Dad. Either way, the family tele-genetics would be strong enough to repeat from grand-uncle or grandfather to Jack Halford.

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: WINTON DEAN

Happy Father's Day!

WINTON DEAN

AS SEEN IN:"James Dean: Race With Destiny"
AS PLAYED BY:Joseph Campanella

From the web site "Find A Grave":
Father of legendary actor, James Byron Dean. Mr. Dean was a native of Fairmount, Indiana, where he was born on January 17, 1907, a son of Charles and Emma Woolen Dean. His principal life's work was that of a dental technician. At the time of his death, he resided in Marion, Indiana, and he returned to the spiritual realm on February 21, 1995.

BCnU!

FRIDAY MUG SHOT - JUNE 17th

Here's the Friday Mug-Shot. This actor is seen in a turn of the 20th Century mystery in which he was a rather seedy corporate/industrial spy. It will be a Toobworld theory of relateeveety that his grandson will restore honor to the family name by joining the police force, even serving after his retirement.

That should be enough of a clue. Tell me the name of the actor, and what show he's best known for today.....

I'll let you know Monday and spell out the entire theory about his look-alike grandson.....

BCnU!

Addendum:

Turns out that I missed James Bolam's birthday by a day with this post. Pure serendipiteevee that I chose him over a few other options I had. Well, once again my brother is in good company for being born on the 16th of June.....

THE ALICIA LINE: A THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY

The Toobworld concept is basically a fantasy universe with mythological overtones and many of the trappings of Fantasy. Wizards, dragons, quests, enchanted/enchanting maidens, and objects imbued with great power all have their counterparts in the TV Universe.

This post, while a theory of relateeveety, will take a look at one such fairy tale aspect - the evil stepmother and the absence of the princess' real mother.....

'Flying Blind' was a FOX sitcom that ran for only one season (1992-93) and will be chiefly remembered for bringing Tea Leoni to national prominence. (She certainly caught my attention!)

Leoni played a mysterious free spirit named Alicia caught up in an affair with a tightly-wound recent college graduate named Neil Barash, whose mannerisms suggested that he worshipped
at the altar of Woody Allen. (Not sure the Catholic imagery works in a Woody Allen analogy though....)

And by "mysterious", I mean we never learned very much about Alicia, not even her last name. We got to meet her father, a spy and adventurer who may have fathered children in the South Seas, but we never even learned his name at all; he was just "Daddy" to Alicia (and "Sir" to Neil).

Alicia would talk about her mother, but the woman sounded like a horrid witch, as bad as - if not worse than! - the mother of the 'Absolutely Fabulous' Patsy Stone.

Here's a good example - when Alicia finally came downstairs ready for her high school prom, she found that her mother had already seduced Alicia's prom date, and she was rolling a cocktail onion across his stomach with her tongue.

By the time 'Flying Blind' took place, Alicia's Dad must have divorced that harridan because he mentioned that he had a girl-friend when he showed up and Alicia didn't treat the news as though he was cheating on her mother.

For Toobworld's purposes, I don't think that woman was actually Alicia's mother; rather, she was Alicia's evil step-mother, who had been in Alicia's life for so long that it just made things simpler for Alicia to refer to her as "Mother" whenever she mentioned her.

She may not even have remembered her true mother, whom I believe passed away when Alicia was only a few years old. And I have a candidate for Alicia's birth mother, as well as a theory about her family tree that would bring in not only 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' but also 'The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes' as well.

Here are two online descriptions of the episode from 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' entitled "Escape From Venice":
ONE

A smiling, happy and relaxed Lee Crane, looking oh so dashing in a white tux, steps into a Venetian gondola with a very pretty girl. But romance is the last thing on the couple's mind. Crane has gone undercover in Venice to pick up a secret code from another agent -- the seemingly innocent girl in the white veil. However, unbeknownst to Crane and Alicia, the enemy is on to them. The girl is viciously murdered, Crane is severely wounded, framed for the murder, and is now a hunted man. Now the only person on earth who knows the code, Crane must stay alive long enough for Nelson to effect a rescue.

TWO

Crane and Alicia, a female agent, are in a gondola in Venice, Italy. She sings Crane a song with lots of LaLas. Then he sings it--it is a message which will decode Dr. Leonetti's tapes which explain a defense against the ultimate weapon. Leonetti, Crane calls Seaview and tells them, is dead. His body was fished out from under a canal--and they are calling it suicide. A young sandy haired man is in the radio shack aboard Seaview, not Sparks. If the song is put through the computer, sonically, it will decode the tapes. As Alicia begins to sing it over the radio to Seaview--the gondolier, an enemy agent, stabs her in the back through the curtain. She gives Crane the key and address to the safe house and dies. Crane fights the killer but falls overboard in the fight. The killer calls for help in Italian.

It will be my contention that the late and lovely spy named Alicia was the mother of Alicia from 'Flying Blind'.

'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' took place in the early 1970's, even though it was broadcast a decade earlier. If we do a bit of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey juggling, Alicia would have been about five years old when her mother was murdered on that gondola.

Alicia's Dad in the late 1960's

I think Alicia's Dad met that agent named Alicia during the course of an undercover operation and they fell in love. Whether or not they got married, I don't know; but I'd like to think that their relationship resulted in the birth of a daughter which "Dad" insisted on naming after his wife (although it may have been that he was following a tradition from the maternal side of his wife's family).

After Alicia was murdered in Venice, a distraught "Dad" may have unwisely married a woman simply to give his baby daughter a maternal influence. He had no clue at the time that she would turn out to be the stereotypical evil stepmother.

Regarding the naming of Alicia after her mother, it's possible that this was a family tradition handed down through the generations along the maternal branch of her family tree. I don't know if they would all prove to be free spirits and adventuresses, but it just might be that one of them was singular enough back in the late 1800's to have a ship named after her:

"The cutter Alicia, which sailed one spring morning into a small patch of mist from where she never again emerged, nor was anything further ever heard of herself and her crew."

Dr. Watson mentioned this case of Sherlock Holmes in the "Thor Bridge" story, which had to have occurred before October 1899. (Although "The Problem Of Thor Bridge" was adapted for the series starring Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke, we hear no mention of this case which never received a full report from Holmes' Boswell. Then again, it may still lay unread in a safe deposit box near Charing Cross.....)

As usual with my theories of relateeveety, I can't prove any of this. But as it's unlikely 'Flying Blind' will ever be revived (Forget about Brett's Holmes and 'Voyage'!), then it can't really be disproved either.

Since 'Flying Blind' was canceled after only one season, I have no idea if Neil and Alicia are still together twenty years later. But as with most fairy tales, I'd like to think they lived happily ever after........

BCnU!

McBAIN!!!! (A THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY)

Pinky Pinkston was the heir to her father's fortunes via the Pink Chip Stamps Factory. But she wasn't the only daughter of Pincus (Pinchas?) Pinkston - as a result of an affair he had with another woman, the elder Pinkston was the father of a young woman named Lisa who was Pinky's identical half-sister. (A closer genetic possibility than an identical cousin, you have to admit!)

Lisa may have been disowned by her father, rebuffed by her half-sister, and so in retaliation she turned to a life of crime. In alliance with Jervis Tetch, AKA the Mad Hatter, Lisa helped kidnap the various members of the jury who put Tetch away in Gotham State Prison......

(Diane McBain played both roles.)

BCnU - same Toob-time, same Toob-channel!

ONE O'BRIEN LINE

Since it's my birthday today, I thought it was a good time to put the spotlight on one of the four main branches of the televersion of my family. Although I don't think my televersion is descended from this particular branch......

May O'Brien was an Irish prostitute working in one of the seedier districts in London during the late 1800's. She was accused of the murder of one of her sister doxies; but luckily for her, Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke was able to discover the true murderer.

It's possible that in the course of her sordid profession, May O'Brien got pregnant - not just once, but perhaps at least twice. Rather than visit some back-alley butcher to terminate the pregnancies, she may have given birth to a boy who would carry on the family name. Ultimately, down through the

generations in Toobworld, May O'Brien's branch of the family tree (certainly not mine!) would lead to Miles Edward O'Brien, Chief Engineer of the Deep Space Nine space station.

If May O'Brien had another child, it could have been a girl... and born before she got into trouble with the Law. If so, this daughter could have grown up to become the personal maid to Lady Grantham of Downton Abbey.

SHOWS CITED:
'The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes' - "A Message From The Deep Sea"

'Star Trek - Deep Space Nine'

'Star Trek - The Next Generation'

'Star Trek' - "The Trouble With Tribbles"

'Downton Abbey'

BCnU!

ART OF THE DALZIELS

In 1932, Lord Peter Wimsey and his valet Bunter were in Scotland on holiday when they assisted the police in a case dubbed "The Five Red Herrings". Among the policemen involved was Sgt. Dalziel (which is pronounced somewhat like "Dee-el").

It's the Toobworld Central theory of relateeveety that he was the grandfather of Yorkshire Detective Superintendant Andy Dalziel, as seen in the series 'Dalziel & Pascoe'. (From Wikipedia: Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel is described by the actor who portrays him [Warren Clarke] as 'a perfect pig', who is politically incorrect and often insensitive. He likes to do things in the old fashioned way.)

It's standard procedure in Toobworld Central to use an actor's birth year as the same for the character he plays - unless otherwise stated by the script or by the time period in which the character appears. Therefore, Andy Dalziel was probably born circa 1947, just as Warren

Clarke was.

By 1932, Sgt Dalziel could have had a son nearly old enough himself to soon get married and perhaps then move to Yorkshire. For some reason, the name of Andy Dalziel's father is engraved on a memorial in Sheffield. It may have had something to do with World War Two.

Of course, the scripts for the 'Dalziel And Pascoe' series could bleep this all up. Andy's father could have shown up, looking nothing like the actor who played the Sergeant; mention might have been made as to his profession. But it would have to be something from the TV series that would derail this theory. Whatever happened in the novels doesn't apply, even though it's the stated intention of the author.

What happens in the novels is part of the literary universe only, and that's more the purview of Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague DeCamp of the "Incompleat Enchanter" series. Toobworld is the TV Universe and never the twain should meet. (Especially since the novels apparently have a sci-fi bent not seen in the series - or so I'm informed by Wikipedia.)

And based on the liberties taken in most TV adaptations from their bookish sources, they never have that much in common anyway. (For a good example, read "At Bertram's Hotel" by Agatha Christie, and then watch the second TV adaptation of the stories, featuring Geraldine McEwan as Miss Jane Marple.......)

I suppose by extension through the connection to Lord Peter Wimsy, this theory of relateeveety could be considered a minor part of the Wold Newton Universe as well. But I'll leave that up to Win Scott Eckert to decide; the WNU is his bailiwick and he does a fantastic job in maintaining it. (Far better than I do with Toobworld!)

BCnU!

MEMORIAL DAY: REMEMBERING SGT. "CHIP" SAUNDERS

SGT. "CHIP" SAUNDERS

It's my opinion, but I'm pretty sure it's held by a lot of people, that Sgt. Saunders was the best TV soldier to come out of World War II in Toobworld, perhaps the best TV soldier no matter the war or conflict. Over a five year span in Trueniverse time (but the span of one year only within their own reality), we followed Saunders and the men of King Company through France once they landed during the Normandy invasion of D-Day.

On this Memorial Day, I wanted to honor his memory with a collection of YouTube clips culled from the TV series 'Combat!' (Along with actor Vic Morrow and the other regular actors from the series, keep an eye out for stars like James Caan, Jack Lord, Bill Bixby, Richard Basehart, and Eddie Albert.)

I'd like to think that "Chip" Saunders (Not many dared to call him "Chip" to his face!) survived the War. But as he was born arround 1911, I doubt he'd still be alive today. It could be that after the War, he settled down... perhaps in California, somewhere around Orange County. And there, in 'The O.C.', he would eventually have a grandson named after him... but that kid wouldn't be half the man his grandfather was....

Artwork by Ralph Max

VINCENT PRICE AT 100

Well, I totally missed out on celebrating Vincent Price's 100th birthday yesterday, but it's never too late.

Bill Hader (Thanks, Ivan!) does a fun impression of the Master of Horror as he hosted various TV specials in Skitlandia. You can easily find several of them at least mentioned in blog posts if you do a search for "Vincent Price".

But I'd like to once again bring up one of my favorite theories of relateeveety, which dealt with Vincent Price's most eggstreme TV character......

It's also one of the Toobworld hypotheticals that another alien [who was] involved in that blast {and survived} had been a Conehead from Remulac. This Conehead, whether it was a male or a female somehow fit into the human society during the early stages of Soviet Russia and even fathered a half-human hybrid child who grew up to become an arch-villain in Gotham City.... Egghead.

Egghead would have been born in Russia several years after his Remulac parental unit crashed in Tunguska; probably in 1911, the same birth year as the actor who portrayed him - Vincent Price.

And that would make Egghead 100 years old as well.

Who knows? Maybe due to his genetic background, he could still be alive in Toobworld!

So here's to you, Mr. Price. In your memory I doff my cap. Thank you for all the great movies and TV shows to which you contributed.....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: HORATIO BOTTOMLEY

HORATIO BOTTOMLEY

AS SEEN IN:
'The Edwardians'

AS PLAYED BY:
Timothy West

TV DIMENSION:
Earth Prime-Time

From Wikipedia:
Horatio William Bottomley (23 March 1860 – 26 May 1933) was a British financier, swindler, journalist, newspaper proprietor, populist politician and Member of Parliament (MP).

In 1888, he founded the Financial Times and was its first Chairman as a means of puffing his projects. In 1908 he was charged with conspiracy to defraud but the chaos of his record systems produced a hung jury and instead he was forced into bankruptcy in 1912, forcing him out of Parliament. (He entered the Parliament as the Liberal MP for Hackney South in 1906, was re-elected in 1910, and thrown out for bankruptcy in 1912.)

In 1906 he established the patriotic journal John Bull. John Bull was originally strongly anti-Serbian but by 15 August 1914 Bottomley had reversed its position and supported the war effort. Bottomley argued that Germany "must be wiped off the map of Europe", with her colonies and navy divided between Britain and France. He also attacked the Kaiser and Germans (called "Germhuns") generally and those living in Britain: "As I have said elsewhere you cannot naturalize an unnatural beast—a human abortion—a hellish fiend. But you can exterminate it".

Bottomley advocated the confiscation of all German property, the internment of all Germans and the requirement of naturalized Germans to wear a distinctive badge. Bottomley also campaigned to get the Kaiser's banner removed from St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.

Bottomley also strongly attacked that section of the Labour Party which opposed the war, and argued that Keir Hardie and Ramsay MacDonald should be court-martialled for high treason. MacDonald responded to these attacks by claiming Bottomley to be of "doubtful parentage, who had lived all his life on the threshold of jail". Bottomley retaliated by producing a facsimile of MacDonald's birth certificate which showed he was illegitimate.

Although it is illegal for servicemen to send complaints to the press, Bottomley set up a column in John Bull where servicemen were encouraged to send an account of their grievances, upon which a company which advertised in the paper would send a parcel to them. The government thought about prosecuting Bottomley for this but they did not bring proceedings against him because they saw the usefulness of such a "safety valve". Within six months of the Great War one serious journalist wrote that "next to Kitchener the most influential man today is Mr. Horatio Bottomley".

In 1915 Bottomley wrote articles for the Sunday Pictorial, with their success making him "the most famous journalist in Britain" through a mixture of "down-to-earth religiosity, patriotism and Radicalism".

Bottomley created the "John Bull Victory Bond Club" (a forerunner of Premium Bonds), purportedly as a mechanism for small savers to lend money to the Government, receiving prizes rather than interest; again a combination of fraud and mismanagement sank the scheme in 1921. He was charged with fraud, perjury and false accounting. In 1922, Bottomley was convicted of fraudulent conversion of shareholders' funds, sentenced to seven years jail and expelled from Parliament.

He was released from gaol in 1927 and, after parading himself around seedy music-halls in a mawkish one-man show, died in penury on 26 May 1933.

But he was irredeemably, utterly, psychotically corrupt. He built a string of other businesses on nothing more than fresh air: but there were always useful and distinguished idiots on the board, so he could tell the shareholders' meeting: "I would love to pay you a dividend, but my directors won't let me."
Matthew Engel in The Guardian, Tuesday 30 November 1999

Bottomley's resemblance to contemporary King Edward VII could lead to salacious supposition about Prince Albert, at least as far as Toobworld is concerned....

Horatio Bottomley died on this date 78 years ago today.

BCnU!

THEORIES OF RELATEEVEETY: YO, ADRIAN!!!!

One of my theories of relateeveety offered a link between 'My Boys' and 'Doctor Who', based on the extended family tree for two characters played by O.T. Fagbenle.

It looks like I may be able to expand that theoretical connection to now include 'Happy Endings'.

First off, an easy one - both 'Happy Endings' and 'My Boys' take place in Chicago.

Dez was the British-born husband of Wendy, Brendon's ex-girlfriend, and he owned a trendy a bar. But since we saw him last, and since 'My Boys' sadly was cancelled, what's he been up to? Just because the show was over, as everybody should know about Toobworld by now, that doesn't mean his life was over as well.

I think we can make the claim that the character played by O.T. Fagbenle on 'Happy Endings' was Dez from 'My Boys'.

Considering Adrian was single, gay, and working for the Chicago Bears, that's gonna take a whole lotta splainin to do......

First off, his name:
It could be that his full name was Desmond Adrian or Adrian Desmond.... whatever his last name may have been. Or maybe one of those two names was his actual last name, probably Desmond. And "Dez" was a nickname. Once he came out of the closet and broke up with Wendy, he decided to re-invent himself. Going by his first name of "Adrian" was the first step.

As to his sexual orientation:
Perhaps he could no longer live a lie and confessed all to Wendy. This would probably lead to her breaking up with him, forcing him to live with his bartender friend (whom we met in the 'Happy Endings' episode.)

And for his change in occupation:
Since we saw his character in 2008, a lot could have happened in three years besides the new lifestyle. In the divorce settlement, maybe Wendy got custody of that trendy bar, leaving Dez - er, Adrian - without a source of income.

It could have led to a whole new episode of 'My Boys' where, of all people, Brendan took pity on the guy who landed his ex. Maybe Brando coaxed P.J. and Mike to pull a few strings, call in a few favors, and land the guy a job for one of the Windy City's sports teams. And to complicate matters, as sitcom plots should, he ended up getting a job that Mike would have wanted.

And eventually, it would all lead to Adrian meeting Max and asking him out for a date......

It's not as twisty a piece of pretzel logic as it could have been, and jackLord knows I've sometimes put my back out trying to splain things away. So as far these two one-shot characters are concerned, where's the harm in thinking they're one and the same?

And please - don't question how it would still lead to Adrian "Dez" Desmond being the ancestor for "Other Dave". Gays can have kids too, ya know.

SHOWS CITED:
'Happy Endings' - "The Girl With The David Tattoo"

'My Boys' - "The Shirt Contest"

'Doctor Who' - "Silence In The Library"/"Forest Of The Dead"

BCnU!

A TASTE OF BLACK OIL VENOM

In the Facebook page for the TV Crossover Universe (Link to the left for the blog, Me Hearties!), Robert Wronski, Jr. and several of our like-minded comrades discussed the possibility that the entity which was the malevolent Spiderman suit symbiote known as "Venom" was actually the living, sentient Black Oil from 'The X-Files'.

Here's a couple of excerpts:

Gordon Long:
There's also the Black Oil, a living entity itself, which might be similar to the inhibition-releasing virus from "The Naked Time" ('Trek TOS') and revisited in 'TNG' ("The Naked Now").

Ivan Ronald Schablotski:
I'll point out for the sake of being pointy that a theory exists linking the Purity (black oil) alien virus to the Venom alien symbiote, especially the way it is depicted in the movie SPIDER-MAN 3.

It was an interesting discussion in which unfortunately I could not partake. The TVCU draws on several sources besides TV, as does the Toobworld concept - like certain movies and online content. But they also use comic books and consider the character as a whole. With Toobworld, the Cineverse is a separate realm; there are exceptions, but the "Spiderman" franchise is not one of them. Its Spiderman is not the same as the TV Spiderman.

So far Venom has only been seen in the universes of movies and comic books. Back in the 1970's, Venom wasn't even in the comic books when Spiderman was in his crime-fighting glory on Earth Prime-Time.

As for the Black Oil, it may have been living and lurking on Toobworld since the Dawn of Time; it may have arrived with the aliens known as the Silence of recent 'Doctor Who' fame, or even earlier - with Scaroth or even in the clutch of Racnoss eggs planted at the core of the planet......

So it could be that the Black Oil-created Venom was in a Spiderman adventure not seen on TV back in the 1970's, about a decade before it was created for the comic books. If so, it has to be an off-screen adventure and could very well be the reason why Spidey stopped appearing on our TV screens. (Within the "reality" of Toobworld, of course. 'Twas ratings killed the series.)

I just can't claim that this crossover between 'The Amazing Spiderman' and 'The X-Files' actually did take place, because then I'm veering definitively into fanfic territory. (My splainins and theories of relateeveety have always been just tenuous possibilities.)

Still, it's a great theory and I extend kudos to whoever first came up with the idea. I just wish I could use it.....

BCnU!

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