AS SEEN ON TV: ABE LINCOLN'S GHOST

Having just watched 'Lost' only a few hours ago (We didn't start until 2:30 am!), I thought it might be fun to salute a President who manifested himself as a ghost - like Charlie and Ana Lucia and Libby.....

Continuing our salute to the Presidents of the United States, or at least to their tele-versions, today we have the 16th President Abraham Lincoln.

In the last few days we've seen a few of our presidents as they looked earlier in their lives - Jackson, John Adams, Teddy Roosevelt. But today we're looking at Lincoln as he appeared after he was president. And in his case, since he went right from being president to being dead, we see him here in the Afterlife - courtesy of "The Passersby" episode of 'The Twilight Zone'.

When it comes to the official portrait of Lincoln, we've chosen actor Ford Rainey to represent him as he appeared as Lincoln in three different TV productions. Many of the other Lincolns, especially those in TV movies (and especially so from 'The Secret Files Of Desmond Pfeiffer'!), would be relegated to alternate Toobworld dimensions. But we could accept this ethereal emanaton of the Great Emancipator because a spirit can alter its appearance. And even though in this case the change was slight, it was still enough to alter the way he looked in Life. (This will be the reasoning I use to splain away the recastaway Annie between the pilot and the first episode of the new British series 'Being Human'.)

This wasn't the only time that the ghost of Abraham Lincoln has shown up in Toobworld. Paired up with George Washington, he often shows up in car commercials around Presidents' Day. (But as for his appearance in the current blipvert for a bank with Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa? That's just some poor delusional guy who thinks he's Lincoln that the talk show hosts are exploiting for their morning show.)

Here's another classic appearance by Abe Lincoln's Ghost, from the opening monologue in a 'Saturday Night Live' which was hosted by Tom Hanks.

Tom collapsed on stage due to a knee injury and his spirit left his body to explore the backstage area. There Tom Hanks met Abraham Lincoln, who told Tom that he wasn't dead; he was just an incredible pussy.

BCnU!

Toby O'B

My thanks to my good friend NYMarkie, who donated his collection of 'Twilight Zone' DVDs to the Toobworld Central library. Because of that, I was able to get a much better frame grab
from this episode than is usally found from the internet.