A SIGH FOR HELP

I don't know what's going on......

All the icons for the 70 members of Team Toobworld no longer show up on my blog. And when I check the page elements in the design section of the blog's dashboard, all I get is a message saying that the page can't be displayed.

First my counter no longer appeared and its numbers remain frozen, and now this.

It's not like I tinkered with anything. I try to do as little as possible with the maintenance on the site. I post, and that's about it.....

Any suggestions?

Toby O'B

HAIL RUKOVIA!

With its penultimate episode (of a much too short life of five episodes before cancellation), 'CHAOS' gave Toobworld a parting gift: the nation of Rukovia was added to the atlas.

Rukovia appears to be Eastern European, slowly and painfully throwing off the chains of tyranny with free elections. It may have once been under Soviet domination and can probably be counted among the satellite nations in the UCR.

It was never stated as to what "UCR" stood for in "The Play", an episode of 'Mission: Impossible', but it could have been "United Communist Republics", a small off-shoot of the USSR.

Here are a few other nations that could have been part of such a confederation:

Argonia ('The Adventures Of Superman')

Boldavia ('Night Court')

Boravia ('Danger Man')

Drublegratz ('The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.')

Povia ('Mission: Impossible')

Tavilia ('The Amazing Spiderman')

Zemenia ('Monk')

Adding Zemenia as one of the possibilities is like waving a red cape at a charging bull. I have a reader who is incensed by the whole idea of the fictional country of Zemenia as seen on TV. Somehow she (at least I think the commenter is female) sees that episode of 'Monk' as an insult to her own people.....

I'm glad I can keep Toobworld separate from the real world.

Well, I have to go now. I need to clean out the tray in my talking toaster-oven.....

BCnU!

FRIDAY MUG SHOT REVEALED: MARKING BOLAM

So the answer to Friday's Mug-Shot challenge was James Bolam, which Heartbeatoz of Australia posted within twenty minutes after it went up. Pretty impressive.....

Bolam was seen as Roberts in a 1971 episode of 'The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes' ("The Case Of The Dixon Torpedo"), which featured Jonathan Pryde as the rival of Holmes as an investigator.

Roberts worked for the inventor F. Graham Dixon, but at the same time he was working as a spy, stealing the plans for the Dixon torpedo and passing them off to a man named "Hunter" (or "Jaeger" in the man's original German tongue.)

Jaeger was an intermediary for the Russian spy agency of the time.

Although Roberts quickly changed his ways and helped set a trap for Jaeger, it's likely he went to jail. If so, he may have left behind a baby daughter (although he was likely not married, if you catch my drift. Nudge nudge. Wink wink.). That little girl could have grown up to marry a respectable man by the name of Halford and had a son named John. But throughout his life, John Halford would be known as "Jack".

Jack Halford became a police detective, retiring after his wife Mary was killed in a hit-and-run "accident". He later accepted an offer by the daughter of an old colleague to join her new team of retired detectives; they would investigate unsolved and closed cases (UCOS). It was during that new chapter of his life that Jack discovered that his wife's killer was a local gangster who had long been one of Jack's adversaries.

So that's the theory of relateeveety - Roberts is Jack Halford's grandfather. Of course, it could that Jack Halford's grandparent was instead Maggie Roberts, Roberts' sister, who got him his job by being fast and loose with her charms on Old Man Dixon.

If so, she could also have given birth to a son, named Halford after his father, and he'd grow up to be Jack's Dad. Either way, the family tele-genetics would be strong enough to repeat from grand-uncle or grandfather to Jack Halford.

BCnU!

FRIDAY MUG SHOT - JUNE 17th

Here's the Friday Mug-Shot.  This actor is seen in a turn of the 20th Century mystery in which he was a rather seedy corporate/industrial spy.  It will be a Toobworld theory of relateeveety that his grandson will restore honor to the family name by joining the police force, even serving after his retirement.

That should be enough of a clue.  Tell me the name of the actor, and what show he's best known for today.....

I'll let you know Monday and spell out the entire theory about his look-alike grandson.....

BCnU!

Addendum:

Turns out that I missed James Bolam's birthday by a day with this post.  Pure serendipiteevee that I chose him over a few other options I had.  Well, once again my brother is in good company for being born on the 16th of June.....

SKED ALERT - "GAME OF THRONES" (THE PENULTIMATE EPISODE)

I didn't get any notice this week from the PR people of HBO about clips and stills from Episode 9 of 'Game Of Thrones' which airs tonight on the premium network. I hope I didn't insult them in any way with my previous posts on the show. 'Game Of Thrones' is easily my favorite series of 2011 and it will figure heavily in the Toobits Awards at the end of the year.

It could be that my theories of how the land of Westeros called the planet Mondas home had something to do with that. Or more likely, the series is doing so well by now that they don't need to have bloggers like me trumpet its arrival.

No matter. HBO does have the preview video up on YouTube:





The episode is called "Baelor".......

Episode 9 of 'Game of Thrones' premieres tonight on HBO at 9 PM, EDT.

And if the show follows the HBO tradition, the first season finale will be pre-empted next week.....

BCnU!

EASTER EGG HUNT UPDATE

I got a response to my post about NBC's Easter Egg promotion for the movie "Hop":

I realize that it's been a while, but I just watched 'Perfect Couples' on DVR and found the egg. I had to watch twice, too. It's near the end of the episode, when Vance goes to get a cowboy hat. It is yellow and is on the right side of the screen, on a shelf of hats, and appears to be propping a hat up.

And sure enough, Anonymous was right:

I realize now why I didn't find it even after watching it twice.

I watched the wrong episode.

I didn't bother recording the episode that night; I had given up on the series after two viewings. And I didn't get around to checking it out on Hulu for a week.

Therefore, instead of watching "Perfect Lies", I watched "Perfect Exes" from March 31.

D'Ohhhhh!

BCnU!

"RHAPSODY IN RED"

During the latest episode of 'The Mentalist', Patrick Jane and the CBI team investigated the murder of the first violinist for a symphony orchestra in northern California. The same piece of classical music was used throughout the episode and it was finally performed at the end by Jane (on cello) and some of the orchestra members in a smooth jazz version.

I knew the song only from its use in PDQ Bach's "Unbegun Symphony" but never knew the original source. So I turned to fellow Iddiot (Iddiette?) Ruth Singleton, no slouch in the symphony orchestra department to help me identify the piece.

And she came through quickly with the info I was looking for!





I'll never remember the name of the piece; I'll have to be satisfied with just remembering it was Tchaikovsky.....

As a thank you, I'd like to give Ruth's orchestra a little plug. She's a member of the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra and they'll be performing at Symphony Space in NYC on Thursday June 2 at 8 PM.

The Symphony Space is on Broadway at 95th Street. If you're interested in tickets ($20.00, $14.00 for seniors and students), the box office number is 212-864-5400. Or you can reach them online at http://www.symphonyspace.org/ .

This will be the NASO's 35th anniversary gala and here's the line-up for the upcoming show:

BRAHMS Symphony No. 3
GRIEG Peer Gynt Suite No. 2
GRIEG In the Hall of the Mountain King
BIZET Carmen Suite No. 2

I'm pretty sure I'll be there.....

Thank you, Ruth!

BCnU!

WU WHO

From Pat Coleman, a member of Team Toobworld:

Ugly Betty's Suzuki St. Pierre ( ABC ) just crossed over to Rules of Engagement ( CBS ).

Suzuki didn't give his name. but the actor's clothing, hair and mannerisms were him.

So I caught the episode on cbs.com and sure enough - there he was as the manager of a restaurant who offered the young couple champagne and cake because he thought they were in a proposal.

Suzuki St. Pierre was the alter-ego of Bryan Wu, a serious journalist. So.....

What if he finally got called on the carpet for trying to pass himself off as somebody he's not? With the profession in dire straits these days, journalists have to keep themselves on the straight and narrow.

If he did lose his job as Suzuki St. Pierre and then couldn't find employ under his own identity, perhaps Bryan Wu took the job as restaurant manager in order to keep the roof over his head.....

Yeah, it's a theoretical connection and wouldn't pass muster in strictly maintained TV Universe sites, but it works perfectly for the Toobworld concept.

Thanks, Pat!

SIGNS OF SILENCE

By July of 1969, there would have been millions of the Silence around. The Doctor gave them a chance to run, but where could they have gone? They had no spaceships, and no need of them - the human population had no clue up until that point in Time that the Silence were even among them.

So even though the humans were given a post-hypnotic suggestion to kill the Silence on sight, there may be still millions of the aliens on Earth Prime-Time.

That means they're still out there, in every TV show we watch, and have watched since 1949 (farther back for the British). And that includes the Westerns, the sitcoms, the medical and courtroom dramas, cop shows, the historical dramas from the Greeks and Romans through the Shakespearean age into the Victorian age and on throughout the 20th Century.

So... anytime a character turns around quickly for seemingly no reason in those earlier shows, they may have just seen a Silent. And in any TV series in which a character not only spins around but also fires a gun at something they thought they saw, then we can assume that they just shot and probably killed one of the Silence.

If you can think of any good examples, let me know!

BCnU!

EASTER EGG HUNT

I realize Easter was over a week ago - shut up.

Anyhoo......

NBC ran a promotional tie-in to not only Easter (which doesn't pay the bills) but also to the new movie "Hop" (which does). Over the course of the Thursday night comedies, on the eve before the movie's premiere, each sitcom had an Easter Egg "hidden" in the episode. Apparently there were prizes if you could find them all......

Out of the six episodes, I only found four of them. I watched 'Perfect Couples' and 'Outsourced' twice and never found their Easter Eggs.

But here are the four that I found.....

'COMMUNITY'

It was behind the "Pulp Fiction" briefcase on the table, glowing with the same golden light that emanated from inside the case in the movie.

'PARKS & RECREATION'

It's there on the bureau at the bed&breakfast, given its own spotlight from the lamp to make sure we saw it. But not all the shows made it that easy to find.

'THE OFFICE'

The Easter Egg was on the far end of Oscar's table (stage right, audience left), a dull purple dye job that made it harder to spot.

'30 ROCK'

This time it was placed in the background, on Jonathan's desk in the outer office.......

But there may have been a ringer egg earlier at Devon Banks' apartment.  That looks like an egg to me on the coffee table in the background.....

If you actually watched the NBC Thursday night line-up that week in order to find the Easter Eggs, please get in touch with me and let me know where they were in 'Outsourced' and 'Perfect Couples'. Thanks!

By the way, just in case you were wondering, I don't consider these to be links between the four series.  I realize I play fast and loose with Toobworld connections, so many of them theoretical, but this is too weak a reason to connect four.......

BCnU!

IN SEARCH OF... "HOTEL RESCUE" & "HOTEL INSPECTOR"

A friend of mine is looking for a few British TV shows on DVD (playable in an American DVD player, that is) or at the very least, a reliable bit torrent site that might have the shows available for download.

He's looking for 'Hotel Rescue' with Susan Watson and 'Hotel Inspector' with Alex Polizzi.

I realize this may be an impossible request; I had a hard time just finding some decent video clips to illustrate what he wanted!

Here are some highlights from 'Hotel Inspector' showing Alex Polizzi in action. I think you'll figure out why a lot of guys tune in....

Trust me. That is NOT why my friend wants the show.....

If you know of any way he can get his hands on these two series, as many seasons as possible for each, feel free to contact me here at Toobworld Central......

BCnU!

THE BOY WHO BLOGGED "WOLF"

One of my Facebook friends sought my help in tracking down a pretty obscure (It's obscure if I never heard of it!) TV series or an episode from an anthology series. Since her description didn't ring my chimes, I decided to turn to Team Toobworld for help.

Here's what she could offer:

Back in either the late 70's or very early 80's when after-school-specials were big, I saw something that I want to get my hands on. I am not sure if it was an after-school-special per se, but it was on after school.

It was about a boy that could do out-of-body experiences. At one point he went into the body of a wolf and saw and smelled what the wolf could see. I don't remember anything else abou it though.

The show did a great job of showing that the wolf could hardly see the boy standing there even though he was wearing a checkered shirt.

I have searched before and not had any luck. I looked in the after-school-special sets but it is not there as far as I can tell (although I haven't look at any recent sets)

Your mission, should you decide to take it, is to find a copy of that scene in the woods with the boy and the wolf, good luck.

I get the feeling that finding the scene would be next to impossible, save by bit torrents or bootlegs, but if anybody could help me track down what show this might have come from, it would be a big help!

[She says it was a one-shot story, so I guess that excludes 'Lucan' from 1977-78........]


Thanks!

ALL APOLOGIES

I apologize for the look of the blog posts for Monday. No matter what I try, the text all clumps together; I've lost control of the formatting.

I don't know if this is happening to other Bloggers or just to me - I've used two different computer systems (now three) trying to fix it but to no avail.

And so far I don't see it mentioned as a problem in the Help Center.

If you're using the Blogger system and having the same problem, let me know.....

BCnU!

If this runs true to form, every sentence should be clumped together now.....

UPDATE: It may all be fixed now.  It could have been tied in to the new "preview" feature.

AS SEEN ON TV: ELIZABETH TAYLOR

One last ASOTV tribute to Elizabeth Taylor... for now.....

ELIZABETH TAYLOR

AS SEEN IN:
'30 Rock'

AS PLAYED BY:
Rachel Dratch

TV DIMENSION:
Earth Prime-Time/ZonkTV(?)
No official name yet
It's the world that also treats our TV shows as TV shows.
But it may be absorbed into Earth Prime-Time if Toobworld Central just surrenders to the concept that every TV show has a televersion in the TV Universe.

Let me know what you think......

From Wikipedia:
In November 2004, she announced that she had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure, a progressive condition in which the heart is too weak to pump sufficient blood throughout the body, particularly to the lower extremities: the ankles and feet. She broke her back five times, had both her hips replaced, survived a benign brain tumor operation and skin cancer, and faced life-threatening bouts with pneumonia twice, one of which (1961), resulted in an emergency tracheotomy. Towards the end of her life she was reclusive and sometimes failed to make scheduled appearances due to illness or other personal reasons. She used a wheelchair and when asked about it stated that she had osteoporosis and was born with scoliosis.

On 5 December 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and California First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Taylor into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.

Taylor started designing jewels for The Elizabeth Collection, creating fine jewelry with elegance and flair. The Elizabeth Taylor collection by Piranesi is sold at Christie's. She also launched three perfumes, "Passion", "White Diamonds", and "Black Pearls", which, together, earn an estimated US$200 million in annual sales. In fall 2006, Taylor celebrated the 15th anniversary of her White Diamonds perfume, one of the top 10 best selling fragrances for more than the past decade.

Taylor devoted much time and energy to AIDS-related charities and fundraising. She helped start the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) after the death of her former costar and friend, Rock Hudson. She also created her own AIDS foundation, the Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation (ETAF). By 1999, she had helped to raise an estimated US$50 million to fight the disease.

In 2006, Taylor commissioned a 37-foot (11 m) "Care Van" equipped with examination tables and X Ray equipment and also donated US$40,000 to the New Orleans Aids task force, a charity designed for the New Orleans population with AIDS and HIV. The donation of the van was made by the Elizabeth Taylor HIV/AIDS Foundation and Macy's.
Taylor was married eight times to seven husbands:

Conrad "Nicky" Hilton (May 6, 1950 – January 29, 1951) (divorced)
Michael Wilding (February 21, 1952 – January 26, 1957) (divorced)
Michael Todd (February 2, 1957 – March 22, 1958) (widowed)
Eddie Fisher (May 12, 1959 – March 6, 1964) (divorced)
Richard Burton (March 15, 1964 – June 26, 1974) (divorced)
Richard Burton (October 10, 1975 – July 29, 1976) (divorced)
John Warner (December 4, 1976 – November 7, 1982) (divorced)
Larry Fortensky (October 6, 1991 – October 31, 1996) (divorced)

The press closely followed Burton and Taylor's relationship before, during, and after their 10 years of marriage, due to great public interest in the combination of "the most famous film star in the world and the man many believed to be the finest classical actor of his generation." They remarried in 1974, 16 months after their first divorce, in a mud hut in Botswana, but soon separated and divorced in 1976. Burton disagreed with others about Taylor's famed beauty, saying that calling her "the most beautiful woman in the world is absolute nonsense. She has wonderful eyes, but she has a double chin and an overdeveloped chest, and she’s rather short in the leg."

Children

With Wilding (two sons):

Michael Howard Wilding (born 1953)

Christopher Edward Wilding (born 1955)

With Todd (one daughter):

Elizabeth Frances "Liza" Todd (born 1957)

With Burton (one daughter):

Maria Burton (born 1961; adopted 1964)

In 1971, Taylor became a grandmother at the age of 39. At the time of her death she was survived by her four children, ten grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Hidden as she is in the shadows, and IF '30 Rock' is returned to the fold of Earth Prime-Time, one could argue that this is the same Elizabeth Taylor who played herself in most other sitcoms. That same argument could also be made for an episode of 'The Martin Short Show' in which her voice could be heard on the Shorts' baby monitor.

BCnU!

WHITE DIAMONDS TELEFFLUVIA

Mark Evanier wrote a piece about the cruel jokes that were made about Elizabeth Taylor during her lifetime and it did give me pause, mainly because I'm featuring one of those videos next weekend. And I have to admit that my favorite Joan Rivers joke was about Ms. Taylor's problems with her weight back in the 1980's, and the 'SNL' Weekend News Update interview with "Ms. Taylor" after her choking scare is a show highlight.

But at the same time, these sketches do serve as part of her television legacy, portraying the cultural perception of her at the time - in much the same way political cartoons should be included in an examination of a President's standing during his lifetime, before History has a chance to air-brush the details.
~
I always say television is a teaching tool and I learned something about Elizabeth Taylor on 'Good Morning, America' the day after she died: She did NOT like to be called "Liz". I've used that in the past here at Inner Toob, and also the nickname "La Liz" (which was used in her TVXOHOF post headline - see below). But from now on, it'll always be Elizabeth, no familiarity in addressing her story.
~
I'm glad Ms. Taylor was inducted into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame back in May of 2009, as one of the Queens of May for that year. (Being the tenth anniversary for the Hall, there was a special celebration by inducting four new members each month.)

Here's the blog post for the occasion.....
~
She also appeared in a previous "As Seen On TV" showcase as the Wild West gambling queen Poker Alice.
~
This week's episode of 'Castle' (cleverly titled "One Life To Lose") gave Toobworld two new additions to the retinue of TV shows on TV. One was an old telenovela called 'Chiquitas' and the other was the show where most of the suspects came from - 'Temptation Lane'.
~
While watching my copy of the first year of 'N.Y.P.D.' episodes, the numbers from 'Lost' popped up with the ID number for one of the squad cars - #234. It's a combination of 23 and 4, in much the same way the Oceanic Airways flight number was #815 - 8 and 15.
~
While watching those episodes of 'N.Y.P.D.', I kept an eye out for actors in small roles who would later hit it big, or at least become better known. Among them - Tony Musante, Roy Scheider, Vincent Gardenia, Charles Grodin.... But I never expected to see somebody I actually knew!
That's Frank Nastasi, whom some of you may remember as Soupy Sales' sidekick on his old show. I worked with him in two Off-Off-Broadway shows for the old Meat & Potatoes Theatre Company. We'd all sit around backstage and imitate his style of "speech" for White Fang and Black Tooth, but in iambic pentameter.....

Sadly, he passed away about six years ago....
~
While watching a couple of episodes of 'Vengeance Unlimited' for a future story about James Coburn, I saw another guy I used to know: That's Fred Sanders, who's shown up in a couple of series and whose brother is Jay O. Sanders. Fred was the director of the shows we put on at the Thomaston Opera House back in the summer of 1977 - "A Little Night Music", "Company", "Little Mary Sunshine", and "Two Gentlemen Of Verona" (the musical).
~
It was Nick Lowe's birthday on Thursday. You can see a performance of his on the TV show 'Countdown' here. (Embedding was disabled.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md7lfg181HI

Apparently, the Doctor wasn't the only one who plundered the Riddler's wardrobe. (Thanks to Dan Aloi for pointing that out!)
~
FX has canceled 'Lights Out' after only one season. I'm not surprised. I think I'm in the majority of the viewing public who has no interest in anything connected to boxing, no matter how ancillary it was to the main storyline.
~
But here's what I consider great news! 'Fringe' has been renewed for a fourth season. It's O'Bvious that my whining about it the other day paid off! LOL

BCnU

FACE TIME

Just as a tease for a story coming up next week.....
Do you recognize the actor with Frank Converse in this picture?

BCnU!

LOCATION SHOTS: ON 12th & HUDSON.....

Continuing with the contributions made by members of Team Toobworld, Vincent Audette sent along these two locations that link a lot of shows set in New York City:

I'm watching 'Blue Bloods' - "Hall of Mirrors" on CBS who try to stop a terrorist attack in NYC. The Reagans are family of cops, Tom Selleck plays the police commish and his sons (Will Estes and Donnie Wahlberg) both work in the 12th Precinct. First, This precinct is the home of TV's 'McCloud', 'Barney Miller', 'The Unusuals', 'Can't Hurry Love', 'Castle' and 'The Beat'.

Secondly, in tonight's episode the suspect is an engineering student at Hudson University. A fictional college used in all of the 'Law & Order' franchise and was mentioned in 'Without A Trace' and 'Tru Calling'.
With Hudson University, we can add 'The Cosby Show' and 'DeGrassi: The Next Generation' as two more shows with connections to that seat of learning. And those four shows, along with all of the 'Law & Order' dramas, share the same TV dimension: Earth Prime-Time, the main Toobworld.

It gets trickier with the 12th Precinct. Of the shows mentioned by Vince, these are the ones that exist in the main Toobworld:

'McCloud'
'Barney Miller'
'The Unusuals'
'Can't Hurry Love'
'The Beat'

'The Beat', although it only lasted a few episodes is a key addition to the Toobworld Dynamic, as it's one of the shows in which Detective John Munch appeared over the years. And it was on UPN, so it adds to his list of many networks as well.

With the end of 'Barney Miller', the original station house was closed down to become a museum dedicated to former police commissioner Teddy Roosevelt. So a new location was chosen which is what we saw each week in 'The Unusuals'. (I wish that show was still on the air.) But with 'Castle' and 'Blue Bloods', each of them had to be relegated to other TV dimensions. And they couldn't share one either. This is because both shows have different mayors for New York City who have appeared in episodes. I've stated in the past that the main Toobworld shares the same mayor as the NYC to be found in the Trueniverse. Currently, that's Mike Bloomberg. He's portrayed himself in episodes of '30 Rock', 'Law & Order', and in a Christmas TV movie with the Muppets. But for 'Blue Bloods', the mayor is named Russo and he's played by Bruce Altman as something of a thorn in the side of Commissioner Reagan. On 'Castle', he's a black man named Bill. Had Bill Thompson won the election vs. Bloomberg in 2009, we could have said that the series was set in the very near future and was not synchronous with the timeline of the real world. ('Castle' debuted in March of 2009.)

Mayor Bill has not been seen since the one episode in which he appeared, but we have to assume he is still the mayor. It's through his friendship that mystery novelist Richard Castle is allowed to tag along with Detective Kate Beckett and her team. Once Bill is no longer the mayor, Castle will probably be outtadere. If the 'Primeval' temporal reboot also takes place in these two TV dimensions, we could consider them brought back into line with the timeline of Earth Prime-Time. But we'd only do that once the series have been cancelled. (That way, no more pesky fictional mayors can show up to ruin it all.) As is the case with a series like 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' with its fictional president, we in the Trueniverse audience will only be able to see the original timeline when watching reruns. But everything in those affected episodes will have been re-adjusted, so that Rick Castle had been friends with Mike Bloomberg, whose police commissioner would then be Frank Reagan.

Sorry, Ray Kelly - you don't have any presence in the main Toobworld.....

One last point - Hudson University also showed up in an episode of 'Castle' - That's where the frame grab came from! - as did the New York Ledger newspaper. So once we can realign the world of 'Castle' with that of Toobworld, it will fit in nicely in a world populated by so many 'Law & Order' spin-offs.

Thank you, Vince, for getting the ball rolling, which allowed me to be so long-winded on the topic. Others may not be so appreciative because of that......

BCnU!

CHARLIE'S BEAVER

I'm getting a lot of help in the last few days from members of Team Toobworld with suggestions for connections between various TV shows. Here's one from "Arclight":

I hope it's okay to respond to an old post like this but it reminded me of something very cool I caught on TV a long time ago. I was at my mom's and "Leave It To Beaver" was on. Specifically this episode:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0630337/

Note the dream girl's name: Ginny Townsend. That's not why I'm writing. I'm writing because in the episode when June calls up information, she asks for the number of a Mrs. Charles Townsend.

(It's nice to see that serendipiteevee works for other people as well. Either that, or my own powers in that regard are far-reaching, making sure that others stumble upon these discoveries by "chance" to pass along to me.)

Arclight's message was in response to the blog post "A Townsend Family Reunion", specifically to this line, quoted from a 'Charlie's Angels' website:

"He was once married but confessed to not be the monogamous type, and it is never indicated whether or not he has any legitimate children."

So it could be that instead of making paternity guesses for any of those other TV characters I listed, we may actually narrow it down to being Ginny in Mayfield - with the added bonus of learning who his previous wife was.

This could be Charlie Townsend and his wife with their daughter Ginny... and a son as well!

Charlie lived in California, with his detective agency in the Los Angeles area. But the Cleavers and all the people they knew are located in the town of Mayfield. The location for Mayfield was never nailed down in the series, but a blog dedicated to 'Leave It To Beaver' made a convincing suggestion that it should be in Ohio:

I have often thought that Ohio makes the most sense for the location of Mayfield, although the show was not very consistent in giving hints as to where Mayfield is located. However, in "Beaver Makes a Loan" from Season 3, the drug store is hanging Kent State banners! That seems rather strange for a drug store not in Ohio!
I'm willing to accept Ohio as the location for Mayfield. (The picture above is from that episode, "Beaver Makes A Loan".....)

The distance between both states can be reconciled. Mrs. Townsend probably met Charlie while they were in college in California. But when the marriage went bust (as might be depicted below), she moved back home to her native Ohio, taking Ginny with her. Thank you, Arclight, for that theory of relateeveety discovery!

BCnU!

Toobworld note: The pictures of John Forsythe, allegedly as Charlie and his "family", come from the movie "The Glass Web". O'Bviously, they're looking at somebody else..... Here's who got cropped out:

LEAVE IT TO LEVIN (PART TWO)

Sean Lee Levin went the extra metron and found more information about Dr. Jacoby of 'Twin Peaks' in the IMDb forums. It was submitted by an "Evedammit" back in 2005 and it supplies yet another TV show connection to the David Lynch/Mark Frost cult classic.

He played Dr. Jacoby on 'Twin Peaks' in `90 and he also played a Dr. Jacoby on 'General Hospital' a few years later- anybody here watch it then & remember it? His Dr. Jacoby on G.H. was a sociopath who did some awful things to the Emily character {who was then being portrayed by Russ's real-life daughter Amber}.

Was it just a coincidence of the names or was the character of Dr. Jacoby being continued on in another show for quirkiness's sake? And if it WAS supposed to be the same Dr. Jacoby, was it explained how his G.H. era Dr. Jacoby devolved into such a twisted character from the merely weird Dr. Jacoby on 'Twin Peaks'?
Sean's suggestion in his note to me seems to be the best pozz'ble splainin: that the second Dr. Jacoby who showed up in Port Charles, NY, in 2000 must be the evil twin of Dr. Lawrence Jacoby.

Of course, it's also pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that it IS Lawrence Jacoby and - like FBI Agent Dale Cooper before him - he's possessed by an evil spirit brought back from the Black Lodge in that other dimension.

In fact, it could be the same evil spirit that previously possessed Cooper, sliding into one host after another.

Or it could be Redjac....... Either way, it would appear that by 2011, Dr. Jacoby was free of the evil spirit. Otherwise why would he bother to send Walter Bishop those 3D specs?

And where could that evil spirit be by now? Maybe providing commentary and analysis on Fox News.....

How's Annie Coulter? How's Annie Coulter? How's Annie Coulter?

As always, thanks, Sean!

SHOWS CITED:
'Twin Peaks'
'General Hospital'
'Fringe'
'Star Trek'
'Battlestar Galactica' (Trust me, it's in there.)

BCnU!

LEAVE IT TO LEVIN (PART ONE)

Team Toobworld to the rescue!

In yesterday's post about the connection between 'Fringe' and 'Twin Peaks', I stated that there were no actual connections to 'Twin Peaks' made in the homage episode of 'Psych' entitled "Dual Spires". But fellow Wold Newton enthusiast and FB friend Sean Lee Levin set me straight on that:

The 'Psych' episode did have what could be interpreted as a solid connection to the series: at the beginning, Shawn tells Gus that he just read online that a woman in Washington invented noiseless drape runners in the early '90s, a clear reference to Nadine Hurley.

He's right. I can't believe that slipped me by. But at the same time, I'm a lot like Detective Lassiter when it comes to what Shawn says - I just brush it off as nonsense talk. (That's a picture of Nadine with her noiseless drape runner prototype to the left.....)

You can find Sean's (not Shawn's) blog listed in my blog-roll to the left - "Diary Of A Madman".....

Thanks, Sean!

BCnU!

PS:

This is Inner Toob post number 6,000!