CROSSING OVER DOWN UNDER

A couple of months ago I wrote about the 'Little Britain' characters of Lou & Andy, played by David Walliams and Matt Lucas, appearing on the Australian soap opera 'Neighbours'.

Well, they finally made their appearance June 14th, and you can see their scene by clicking here.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, technically these are not the Lou & Andy as seen in 'Little Britain' when judged on the Toobworld scale. These are their televersions from Earth Prime-Time, while the originals exist in the sketch comedy dimension which I refer to as "Skitlandia".

Too many discrepancies lie in wait within comedy sketches to ever fit them comfortably into the main Toobworld. (For instance, when they spoof existing TV shows and a member of the sketch show's cast plays the role instead of the original actor.) And with 'Little Britain', one of the biggest discrepancies is the character of the Prime Minister, who is NOT Tony Blair as he should be in the main Toobworld (as well as in real life... for the moment, anyway).

So this appearance by Lou and Andy on 'Neighbours' can't count as a true crossover, but that's okay. This way we can find them in two planes of existence in the TV Universe. It's the same situation for characters like the Nordge repairman (played by Dan Ackroyd on 'Saturday Night Live' and 'The Nanny'), and Father Guido Sarducci (from 'Saturday Night Live', 'Blossom', 'Married... With Children', 'Great Performances', and 'It's Garry Shandling's Show' and portrayed by Don Novello).

(When the original actor plays his or her character in a sketch comedy show - like the appearance by Vinnie Barbarino and Lenny & Squiggy in a "Tarantino-directed" skit about 'Welcome Back, Kotter' on 'Saturday Night Live', then we get the same situation in reverse.)

And based on what I've been reading from various commenters for the YouTube videos, not many people enjoy mixing their genres of Television. They don't like it when you get chocolate in their peanut butter - or in this case, sketch comedy characters in their prime time soap.

But for the most part, it's all one for Toobworld Central.

BCnU!
Toby OB