CLIP JOINT

Aaron Echolls is a movie star who lived in Neptune, California - at least in the TV series 'Veronica Mars'.

In one episode of the series, Amelia was watching an old movie of his in a motel room. It was a toga flick, a cheesy actioner very loosely based on Greek mythology.

As an amazing "coincidence", action movie superstar Reese Hardin also made a blood-and-sand epic from which clips were seen during the run of the TV series 'Movie Stars'. And those scenes looked suspiciously similar to the one shown in 'Veronica Mars'.

And to make it a trifecta, both movies are carbon copies of a motion picture that was made here in the Real World back in 1981 - "Clash Of The Titans". This all-star salute to the stop-motion wizardry of the legendary Ray Harryhausen introduced a young actor as its leading man by the name of Harry Hamlin.

And gee, wouldn't you know it? Harry Hamlin could pass as the twin brother to both Reese Hardin and Aaron Echolls. So forget about twins - they're triplets!

Toobworld is full of fictional movies, which we know mostly just by their titles: "Blood Orgy Of The Amazon" ('Laverne & Shirley'), "The Monster That Devoured Cleveland" ('Dobie Gillis'), or "Planet Of The D-Cups" ('Married... With Children').

But sometimes a scene from one of these fictional movies needs to be shown for a particular plot point. If it's too particular, I suppose they have to actually film it, as was the case with an old Nora Chandler movie in the 'Columbo' episode "Requiem For A Fallling Star".

But otherwise, it's been the general rule to use a movie that features somebody who might be in the cast for that TV show. For instance, Grace Wheeler was a former song-and-dance star of Hollywood's Golden Age of musicals, partnerered with Ned Diamond in the 'Columbo' episode "Forgotten Lady". And the movie that played a pivotal role in the Lieutenant's investigation was her classic "Walking My Baby Back Home".

The clips shown came from an actual movie by that name which starred Janet Leigh... who played the role of Grace Wheeler.

Incidentally, the Greek mythology movie made by Reese Hardin in 'Movie Stars' was also entitled "Clash Of The Titans" as was the film from which the clips came. Both "Titans" and "Walking My Baby" serve to illustrate the Real World echoes to be found in Toobworld.

Another example comes from "Method Actor", an episode of the 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' remake from the mid-1980s. Paul Dano was a former movie superstar who was now teaching film courses in college since the roles weren't exactly coming his way anymore.

And for one particular class, he showed a very emotional scene from an old movie of his, which showed him about to be executed for desertion in the Army.

That fictional film clip actually came from a TV movie that really helped to make Martin Sheen more of a household name - "The Execution Of Private Slovik". And how 'bout that? Martin Sheen looked exactly like Paul Dano! Who'd-a thunk it?

The reason I'm bringing up these examples of real movies substituting for fictional ones is because of a scene from the April 3rd episode of 'Desperate Housewives'. In it, Bree Van De Camp's son is watching TV and we can clearly see that it's a chase scene through a jungle.

And it features Evangeline Lilly as Kate in the pilot episode of 'Lost'.

Andrew Van De Camp should not be watching 'Lost' in Toobworld. 'Desperate Housewives' and 'Lost' should exist within the same TV Universe.

So in order to protect the integrity of the dimensional structure, we're going to say that the scene Andrew was watching was some other flick that by an amazing coincidence happened to look just like that scene from 'Lost'.

And since a transcript of that episode makes no mention of what exactly Andrew is watching, that's the position we're going to stick with. As far as we're concerned, Evangeline Lilly was either appearing as herself or some other fictional character in a movie that eerily mirrored what happened on the island of 'Lost'.

Not that anybody back in the outside world has any clue about that.... yet.

Or do they.......?

DUM DUM DUM!

BCnU!
Tele-Toby