SUPER-SIX LIST: LIFE GOES ON

With Ted Buckland, formerly of 'Scrubs', showing up in Hawaii on the season finale of 'Cougar Town', we got yet another affirmation of one of the basic tenets of Toobworld - just because a TV show may be cancelled, that doesn't mean the lives of its characters have ended. Usually they continue, but out of sight of the audience from the Trueniverse. Occasionally, however, they reappear in a totally different show where we can get reacquainted with them and catch up on what they've been doing during those days of their lives.

So here's a Super Six List of TV characters who reappeared in other shows - for the most part, these shows had no connection to their previous home series.

1] DETECTIVE JOHN MUNCH
From 'Homicide: Life On The Street' to 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'



There was a crossover history between H:LOTS and the mothership of the L&O franchise, and on a personal level it turned out that NYPD Detective Jerry Briscoe once dated one of the Munchkin's wives. When the Baltimore series ended, Munch was dumped by his current wife and he decided to retire from the force there and move to New York City, where he got a job with the SVU.

John Munch is the Crossover King of Toobworld, having also appeared in 'The X-Files', 'The Beat', 'The Wire', working undercover on 'Arrested Development' and in the Tooniverse thanks to 'The Simpsons'.

2] ALAN BRADY
From 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' to 'Mad About You'

There was a span of over thirty years between the show biz legend's appearances in the main Toobworld. (We prefer to ignore his foray into the Tooniverse.) But the years had not diminished his acerbic megalomania. Thanks to Paul Buchman hiring him to narrate a documentary on TV comedy, we learned about some of the salacious details in his Catskills past, as well as getting confirmation about Milton Berle's... talents. ("It's true....!")

3] KOR, KOLOTH, & KANG
From 'Star Trek' to 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'



The first three Klingons in the 'Star Trek' franchise, these three Ancients reunited with Dax, their Trill blood-brother (now symbiotically housed in Jadzia) to exact revenge on an alien villain who murdered their god-child. Although they were successful, two of the three didn't make it; that's all I'm sayin'.

The time span between their appearances was about the same as that of Alan Brady's - in real time, that is. In Toobworld time, over eighty years passed before we saw them again. And it then took an episode of 'Enterprise' to splain why they looked differently from their original appearances.

4] CINNAMON CARTER, JOE MANNIX, & BEN MATLOCK
From 'Mission: Impossible' to 'Diagnosis Murder'

From 'Mannix' to 'Diagnosis Murder'

From 'Matlock' to 'Diagnosis Murder'
In its framework as a medical drama, 'Diagnosis Murder' was mostly a murder mystery. And thanks to writers like Lee Goldberg, there were some crossovers with other TV series. When the father of one of Dr. Sloan's team turned out to be a spy and in trouble, they consulted with Cinnamon who had long since retired from service with the IMF. When private eye Joe Mannix had to re-investigate an old case from his own series, he turned to his personal physician to help tie up the loose ends. (Mark Sloan treated Mannix for all those gun shots and conks to the head. One thing you don't want to see in Toobworld - the shaved head of Joe Mannix!)

And finally, Ben Matlock reluctantly traveled to California from Georgia for Mark Sloan's help,even though the doctor once gave him bad financial advice (which led to Matlock always wearing those cheap suits and noshing on hot dogs.) Within the Toobworld reality, I found it strange that Matlock never noticed Dr. Mark Sloan's resemblance to a judge he knew who had committed a murder......

5] COLONEL WILHELM KLINK & THE PENGUIN
From 'Hogan's Heroes' to 'Batman'

From 'Batman' to 'The Monkees'



There's no connection between these two, really, save that they were both cameos outside their expected venues which eventually connect to each other. Klink showed up in the 1960's in a building which the dynamic duo was scaling. Since he looked no older than he did when he was incompetently in charge of a POW camp more than twenty years before, it's the Toobworld Central theory that he served as the guinea pig for the suspended animation process that was later used to freeze the Fuehrer (as seen in 'The Adventures of Fu Manchu' and 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.')

As for the Penguin, it looks as though he once again escaped from the Gotham Penitentiary and then traveled to Hollywood for a bit of relaxation before once again attempting a crime spree in Gotham City.

6] CAPTAIN KANGAROO
From 'The Captain Kangaroo Show' to 'Day By Day' and 'Murphy Brown'

His own show was no longer entertaining the small fry in the morning - too much advertising revenue could be made instead from talk shows and to hell with the kids! But the Captain still was able to serve as an ambassador at large for their concerns across the country. (Even if his noble intentions were twisted for Murphy Brown's own needs.)

I had to draw the line at some point or it wouldn't have been a Super Six List.  And even then, I cheated with the entry for Colonel Klink and the Penguin, maybe even with the Klingons.  But I could also have added in Sarah Jane Smith, from 'Doctor Who' to 'K-9 And Company' to 'The Sarah Jane Adventures'.  But 'Doctor Who' gets a lot of coverage in this blog so I thought it best to give a showcase to the others.

BCnU!