BUCKAROO'S ODYSSEY

In order to get through the WGA strike, I've got a backlog of series on "MacDivver", my DVR - 'Torchwood', 'Damages', specials on TV's Funniest Commercials, Jackie Gleason, and Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of "As You Like It".

But I'm also doing full series through Netflix. I started the 'Cadfael' mysteries last night, and finished 'Odyssey 5' on Thursday. So if you suddenly see an influx of televisiological posts based on one particular series, that's why.

So let's start with what could be considered an in-joke by mere viewing mortals from 'Odyssey 5'........

This is what I wrote up for TV columnist David Bianculli, who collects these in-jokes which he calls "Extras":

In the episode "The Trouble With Harry", the Odyssey 5 crew had to deal with an inept "Sentient" who called himself Harry Mudd. As they bothered to explain where he got that name, I don't consider that an in-joke for 'Star Trek'.

But at one point, Harry turned to the team leader, Chuck Taggart, and said "As a rock and roll physicist once said, 'No matter where you go, there you are.'"

That's a quote by Buckaroo Banzai from the movie 'The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai'. And the best part of all is that Dr. Banzai was played by Peter Weller... who also played Chuck Taggart in 'Odyssey 5'.

Buckaroo Banzai is one of those characters whom I always believed would be perfect for Toobworld. Of course, I'd only want Peter Weller to play him, so he'd have to be showing his age by now. (O'Bviously there must be some actor out there who could capture those same qualities as Weller did, and with the piercing baby blues, so I wouldn't be too inflexible on that position.)

There was some talk a few years ago about a proposed pilot which would have starred Dean Cain as Dr. Banzai. Not bad, but not quite there......

However, based on that comment made by Harry Mudd, we know now that within the framework of the TV Universe, Buckaroo Banzai does indeed exist on Earth Prime-Time, even across the Eighth Dimension!

Within the reality of Toobworld, what Harry Mudd said was not an in-joke. It's only an in-joke to the viewing audience.

"As a rock and roll physicist once said, 'No matter where you go, there you are.'"

There's no mention of any movie in that quotation; no observation that Commander Taggart looked amazingly similar to Buckaroo. As a Sentient "bottom-feeder", maybe Harry did download into himself plenty of old TV shows and movies, but I think in this case he was talking about Buckaroo Banzai the actual man - and the quote is one of his most famous and probably showed up in bootleg video from one of his concerts.

Therefore it doesn't matter if a TV show version of "The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai" ever comes to fruition or not; he's already on Toobworld.

Again, don't get me started about the Harry Mudd appellation. I've splained in the past that the official Toobworld Central position is that somebody came back through Time - or sent back the information - with all of the details about Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets and passed on the knowledge to the televersion of Gene Roddenberry. Why? Probably to give the human race a kick-start in preparing for what lay ahead in the future.

No Zonk there.

BCnU!
Toby OB