FANFICCIN' AROUND

I'm one of those people who give aid and comfort to fanfic writers. I don't write it myself, and don't like most of what I've read of it, but it doesn't give me the agita that seems to plague others. (Especially a certain writer-producer, but he's busy in NYC working on a tele-play, so maybe this will slip his notice....)

My favorite suggestion is to use pictures from old movies to highlight TV fanfic; pictures of those same actors in situations their TV roles might not otherwise find themselves. Even better is when they share the picture with actors from other TV shows, and that way you can cobble together a great crossover story using the picture as inspiration.

My favorite example of this is Ray Collins and William Conrad in "The Racket". Sure, they were playing a corrupt judge and a corrupt cop, but why can't it be said that it was also a picture of them as Lt. Tragg of 'Perry Mason' and Frank 'Cannon', respectively?

So anyway, I got an email this morning from fellow Iddiot Ray Brizzi:

"Hey, I saw another variation on your concept the other day… One of the last scenes in 'Days of Wine and Roses' has Jack Lemmon having the DT’s with Jack Klugman consoling him. The old Felix and the new Oscar in one scene!!!!"

To be more specific, the movie Felix and the TV Oscar (and the first one at that).

There are many different universes based on the creative output of Mankind - based on movies, TV shows, song lyrics, probably even based on greeting card poems and dirty limericks.

L. Sprague DeCamp and Fletcher Pratt wrote about a universe of legends and myth in their "Incompleat Enchanter" stories; Marvin Kaye dealt with Victorian literature in "The Magic Umbrella"; and Craig Stanley Gardner dealt with B-movies in his "Cineverse" novels.

My particular purview is the TV Universe - TV Land, Toobworld, Cathodia. But sometimes there are encroachments into some of those other universes.

But to have the movie version of Felix Unger meeting the televersion of Oscar Madison - that's a seismic mix-up of cosmic proportions.

So that just means it would make for a great sci-fi story!

By "tripping the rift" between their respective universes, characters could end up meeting themselves or characters similar to the ones they knew back in their own worlds. So Jack Klugman's Oscar and Jack Lemmon's Felix, based on that particular frame grab, would have to work together to find their way back to their homeworlds.

It could all be due to a faulty Stargate, and the SG-1 teams from both the movies and the TV series have to team up to get it working properly again. James Caan's Detective Sikes and Eric Pierpoint's George Francisco have to become partners to maintain some semblance of law and order. And everybody eventually ends up in Mel's Diner in Phoenix, where both Mels look exactly the same and the movie Flo looks exactly like the TV Belle.

I'm just sayin' is all. Just tossing the idea out there. Whether anybody wants to run with it, that's up to them.

That's right, fanfic haters. I'm a stinker.

BCnU!
Tele-Toby