First up:
LIFE BEGINS AT EIGHTY
Today is Hugh Hefner's 80th birthday. He claims 80 is the new 40, and he's got the three blonde girl-friends to prove it!
Someday Hef will be inducted into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame for all of his many appearances in TV shows as himself. Just like Jack Benny, he has created this character and actually lives it 24-7; he's been living it for nearly the last fifty years, and I DO call that living!
His most recent appearances as the fictionalized televersion of Hef have been in 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' and 'Entourage', but he's also been in such varied programs as the private eye series 'Buddy Faro' and the classic sitcom 'The Odd Couple'. And he's also hosted his own series - 'Playboy After Dark' - as well as hosted an episode of 'Saturday Night Live'.
You know, if I was Hefner, I'd skip the celebrations with the three blonde girl-friends. "I'm frakkin' eighty years old!" I'd crow. "I can have you three bimbos any day of the week! I want something special! Bring me a Korean girl with red pubic hair! And who's missing a limb!"
I think a voice-over by Billy Crudup would work nicely at the end: "Getting what you really want for your 80th birthday.... Priceless."
Happy b'day, Hef!
ZONK!
The official website for 'Lost' is called "The Fuselage", sometimes known as "The 'Lage".
After this week's episode aired, "lostgirl40" posted the following question:
(Thu Apr 6 03:45:03 2006)
"Ok, what about the comment Sawyer made to Kate about going to find Timmy (maybe not the right name) down the well? What in the world does that mean?"
That, my little Lostaway, is known here in Toobworld Central as a "Zonk!". It's what happens when one TV show makes a reference to another TV show as a TV show, even though both should be existing in the same dimension.
Specifically, Sawyer was cracking wise about the TV show 'Lassie', in which Lassie would always go running for help because Timmy had mired himself in some predicament. If he wasn't falling down a well, he was trapped in a cave by coyotes. And in a great spoof of the show which was done in a lottery commercial (I think), Timmy even fell in with circus folk.
On 'Lost', Sawyer is the worst when it comes to destroying the illusion that all is connected in the TV Universe. When it comes to pop culture references in the nicknames he dispenses, Sawyer usually depends on a person's physical/ethnic attributes - "Freckles" for Kate, "Mamacita" for Claire, "Limey Runt" for Charlie, "DeepDish" for Hurley, "Sticks" for Shannon, and "Captain Falafel" for Sayid.
But every so often he Zonk!s away with an apt appellation, like "Tattoo" for Walt, or "Dr. Quinn" and "Hoss" for Jack. I suppose the title of "Dr. Do-Right" for Jack counts as well, if it was inspired by the cartoon character of Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties.
At times Sawyer has also drawn from the movies, calling Jin "Mr. Miyagi" after Pat Morita's character in "The Karate Kid"; or using "Short Round" on Walt, which came from the second Indiana Jones movie ("The Temple Of Doom").
Technically, the "Short Round" sobriquet could also be considered part of the TV Universe, thanks to 'The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles'. (But I'm not sure about 'Mr. Miyagi'.)
And his most constant epithets happened while he was teamed up in the raft project with Michael and Jin, referring to them as "Han and Chewie".
Of course, this is a tip of the hat to the dynamic duo from the first three, original 'Star Wars' films. But as they also exist in Toobworld, thanks to George Lucas' personal nightmare known as "The Star Wars Holiday Special", the couplet is also a Zonk!.
I'm not particularly worried about such discrepancies, when it comes to 'Lost' - not even when Boone made mention of the fate of the "red shirts" on 'Star Trek'. That's because I need to find out the final mystery behind this "Mysterious Island" before I can make a proper ruling. For all I know, the island is giving them all the power to be tele-cognizant (the ability to recognize one is living inside a TV show).
RECASTAWAYS
from writer/producer Ken Levine:
"Phyllis Coates or Noel Neill? Who was the best Lois Lane? For fifty years now people have been debating this issue. Very sad people.
Personally, I’d have to go with Noel. The deciding factor for any true fan is which one would you like to see kidnapped in your basement? I think Phyllis would scream and threaten that Superman will get me. Noel would compliment me on the new fake wood paneling."
This argument really doesn't matter to the true televisiologists (who are also very sad people), in the same way it doesn't matter about who was the better Darrin, Dick York or Dick Sargent. In the end, both of them are the same character. But for one reason or another, their physical appearances have been changed within the show's inner reality.
Darrin's metamorphosis was triggered by a sexually bored wife who also happened to be a witch. As for Lois Lane, it must have happened between episodes, in a story we never saw broadcast on 'The Adventures of Superman'. Perhaps, instead of the countless petty crooks he faced in Metropolis week after week, Superman finally had to fight against Mr. Mxyzptlk - only we didn't get to watch it.
Using the powers he controls from the 19th Dimension, Dimension Z, Mr. Mxyzptlk probably transformed Lois Lane's features just to play with Superman's head. By the time we saw the results of the transformation, the imp had been banished back to his homeworld by being tricked into saying his name backwards, and everybody in Metropolis had become accustomed to seeing Miss Lane with her new features.
WISH-CRAFT
from Bill at "So Quoted":
"How 'Lost' will end: They'll all wake up in Bob Newhart's bed when Bobby walk's out of the shower holding a snowglobe. If none of that makes any sense then you're too young to be reading this OR you don't watch enough TV."
This of course is ludicrous. No matter how many characters get bumped off, there will always be too many survivors by the end of 'Lost'. So there's no way they could all fit into the bed of Dr. Hartley.
Oh, wait. Bill said "Bob Newhart's bed". Well, that's different. Never mind.
But he was right about one thing - if you didn't understand that, you don't watch enough TV, and what the bleep are you doing here?
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE
Gene Pitney, the singer and songwriter known for 1960s hits such as "Town Without Pity" and "24 Hours from Tulsa," was found dead at the Hilton Hotel in Cardiff, Wales.
There was no immediate word on the cause of death for the 65 year old singer. South Wales police said that the death was not being treated as suspicious.
But just in case, maybe the South Wales police should call in the 'Torchwood' team to investigate, just to make sure.......
SKITS-OID MAN
This is from a FOX press release from a few years ago:
"For ten years, 'A Minute with Stan Hooper' has closed each episode of 'Newsline', America's highest rated newsmagazine. In his 'Minute' segments, Stan Hooper (Norm MacDonald) has been telling real stories of real people that make up the fabric of America.
But now Stan is making his 'Minute' more honest. He no longer wants to comment on life from a studio in midtown Manhattan. He wants to live in the vanishing America he has been talking about for a decade - a place where ordinary people enjoy life's simple pleasures, where people have never heard of cappuccino. So, Stan and his wife Molly are moving to Waterford Falls, Wisconsin. Stan thinks this small town they passed through on their honeymoon 15 years ago is the embodiment of the old-fashioned values and idyllic lifestyle he has been championing in his "Minute" reports."
As it turned out, Waterford Falls, Wisconsin, was nothing like a Norman Rockwell painting. Instead, it was one of those off-beat little communities you find in TV shows, like Cicely, Alaska, and Fernwood, Ohio, and Dr. Hartley's dream world of Stratford, Vermont.
And don't forget the champeen of them all - Hooterville!
Norm MacDonald's character of Stan Hooper exists in another TV dimension as well as in Earth Prime-Time. He's to be found in the world of sketch comedy, where musical comedy variety shows hold sway. And his life there... eh, it's not that great.
On the November 11th, 1995 edition of 'Saturday Night Live', which was hosted by Quentin Tarantino, Stan Hooper was a former bum who made a fortune as the reigning champ on a TV game show called 'Clara Turley's Bible Challenge'. What his holier than thou rival contestants and the show's host didn't realize was that he was lying and cheating to win....
Even though Stan's next appearance was just a few months later, on February 26, 1996, in an episode hosted by super-model Elle MacPherson, it was set at least five years after his last time on the show.
Stan had been in a coma for five years. He used to live in his parents' basement and had a really crappy, dull job. When he found out that he was married, at first he was ecstatic because he thought the beautiful and sexy Monique was his wife.
Turns out she was his sister. His wife Gwendolyn was a frumpy, frazzle-haired, haggard little troll in a ratty house-coat.
According to the crawl over the screen, the experience motivated Stan to become a Congressman where he fought for legislation to make it okay for coma victims to have sex with their sisters.
On the way to fulfilling that goal, Stan took a job as a sketch artist. But as he admitted on 'Seattle Today' during the April 13, 1996, edition of 'Saturday Night Live', he wasn't very good at it.......
It's been ten years since these sketches first appeared on 'Saturday Night Live'. But I only recognized their significance last night at work, when I caught one on an old repeat while I was in the lunch room. Should Norm MacDonald ever appear in some other show using the name of "Stan Hooper" for his character, I'd say he would qualify to join the TV Crossover Hall of Fame - on the Birthday Honors list, of course. Finally.....
THE LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES
Today's topic: Why I prefer the character to the actor.....
LeBlanc-ity Blank
Buh-Baio
Tinky-Delinquy
BCnU!
Tele-Toby
Seen on a subway poster for the Polytechnic University:
"I connect the stuff between the dots."
That's what I do here at Inner Toob!
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