"THE RIFLEMAN" - THE MISSUS AND HER BROTHER

'THE RIFLEMAN'
"The Brother-in-Law"
Johnny Gibbs, Lucas McCain’s brother-in-law, visits the McCain ranch. Gibbs, a rodeo rider wanted by the law, begins stirring up trouble.

"The Vision"
Mark comes down with typhoid after disobeying his father and drinking some polluted water. Lucas fears that his son may die, and a visitor in Mark’s dreams may be the only hope to save him.
From The Rifleman Episode Guide

Lucas McCain's late wife was Margaret McCain, and her brother Johnny was a rodeo rider wanted by the Law. After he settled his debt to society, Johnny may have started a family of his own, and his lineage may have led to Leroy Jethro Gibbs, a forensics investigator for the Navy (as seen in 'NCIS'.)

Most of Mark's memories of his mother Margaret may be based more on any pictures of her kept in the McCain home, but she seems to have a basic similarity in appearance to her brother. But when Mark had a fever dream in which his mother urged him back to the world of the living, she looked more like a "worldly" woman named Hazel who was part of a wagon train heading west.

"In case you haven't noticed,

Gibbs is a man of more questions than answers."

Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard



BCnU!

 

"THE RIFLEMAN" - S#!T CARSON

'THE RIFLEMAN'

"End Of A Young Gun"

When Will Fulton was recovering from a broken leg at the McCain ranch, he told Lucas how his parents had been killed when a man named Carson stole their farm.

If it's the man I'm thinking of, I don't think this Carson would have done the job himself. He probably had men working for him to do his dirty work. Everybody would know that they were Carson's hired thugs, but there would never be any proof to that fact. It would have been these outlaws who committed the murderous land grab, but it would have been on Carson's orders.

And who was this man named Carson?

I think he was the former Senator from Nevada, perhaps related (at least in Toobworld) to Kit Carson after whom Carson City, Nevada, was named. He was seen in the 'Bonanza' episode "The Iron Butterfly".
 Carson was a bitter, brutal man by the time he ordered his men to kill the Fultons, having lost his son in 1871 during an altercation with Hoss Cartwright over an actress. Carson served as one of the state's senators at some point between 1864 (when the state was founded) to some time after the events of "The Iron Butterfly" took place. (Although it could be he was already retired from Congress by 1871; Ben Cartwright would still have addressed him as "Senator" as a formal courtesy.)

By 1881, when Will Fulton arrived at the McCain ranch, Senator Carson was apparently  focusing his energies on building his personal wealth and his own private empire - by stealing the land of his neighbors.

BCnU!

LANDON ROLES ON "THE RIFLEMAN"

'THE RIFLEMAN'
"End Of A Young Gun"
When Mark gets caught on a mountain ledge, a young outlaw risks his life to rescue him and breaks his leg doing so.

"The Mind Reader"
A young man accused of a murder he didn’t commit is finally cleared by the accidental discovery of a “mind reader.”

We met two of Little Joe Cartwright's children in the 'Bonanza' TV movie sequels - Benj and Sara. But he may have had at least one other son many years earlier, when he was practically still a boy himself.

"Hello, Darlin'...."

At some point in 1861, when he was 19 years old, Little Joe could have had an affair with a married homesteader named Mrs. Fulton. (She may even have been his first.) Mrs. Fulton already had a son Henry (known by the nickname "Hank") by her husband; but for whatever reason, she felt the need to stray outside her marriage. And from that affair (which was more than likely just a one-night stand), she became pregnant by Little Joe but passed the child off as her husband's. (The virility of TV characters being akin to that of the Greek gods, a child would naturally have resulted from the one-night stand.)

Little Joe Cartwright (left) and Will Fulton (right)

As he got older, it would eventually become evident by his physical features that William "Will" Fulton was the son of Little Joe Cartwright. But the buffalo chips never hit the fan with any revelation of the scandal, however. When Will was still young, probably no more than fifteen, he and his half-brother Hank were left orphans after their parents were killed by a man named Carson who stole their land.

The Fulton boys turned to crime in their grief, but Will's heart was never into it. The outlaw life may have eventually led to his death, had his path never crossed with Mark McCain and his father Lucas (who was also known as 'The Rifleman'.)

(Both Lucas and Mark McCain kept journals of their life in Northfork, New Mexico, which are available on line where you can read Lucas' account of their encounter with Will Fulton.)

That episode of 'The Rifleman', "End Of A Young Gun", took place from August through September of 1881, not long after the McCains bought the Dunlap ranch. So if Will Fulton was nineteen years old as the Marshal figured, then he was born in 1862. And if he was the son of Little Joe Cartwright, he was probably conceived in 1861, when Little Joe was only nineteen himself. (Little Joe was born in 1842.)

I've looked through the 'Bonanza' episode guide to see if there was any place in which an off-screen "adventure" could have taken place in which Little Joe was able to conceive a son by Mrs. Fulton. The easiest answer would be during the show's hiatus between the second and third season, at some point between "Sam Hill" [June 3, 1961] and "The Smiler" [September 24, 1961.]

Why 1961? A prominent 'Bonanza' fan-site says that the common thinking in establishing the dateline for the show is that each season was broadcast 100 years after the "actual" events took place. So if we're looking for something that happened in 1861, it had to be found in (or between) the episodes shown in 1961. I tend to agree with that thinking.

But I did find an actual episode which definitely had pozz'bilities to be the framework in which Little Joe met and impregnated Mrs. Fulton......

From "Bonanza: Scenery Of The Ponderosa":
59.) The Gift
April 1, 1961
While crossing the desert to Yuma, Arizona, with a white stallion intended as a birthday present for Ben, Joe runs into a pack of merciless comancheros. His companion, a former comanchero, Emiliano, who raised the horse, must get he and Joe through safely. A season two highlight of the series.

While he was on the way to Yuma to make the purchase of the horse, Little Joe may have spent the night with Mr. and Mrs. Fulton and their son Hank.

(In my imagination, I see the situation develop along the same lines as seen in the movie "The Missouri Breaks" when John P. Ryan's character of Cy was going to sleep in the barn of another homesteader family, and the wife showed him out to the barn......)

Since Will Fulton voluntarily turned himself in and returned the loot stolen by Hank and his gang, he may have been given a much-reduced sentence by Judge Hanavan (perhaps influenced by Lucas McCain's testimony.) I don't think he would have been sent away to prison for any longer a time than six months. After he paid his debt to society, Fulton returned to North Fork, but he had changed his name to William "Billy" Mathis because he wanted a fresh start in life.

(I'm not sure if the shocking conditions we see in today's prisons - as depicted in a show like 'Oz' - existed back then, but a pretty boy like Will......? It must have been uncomfortable in the saddle on the ride back to North Fork.......)

Unfortunately for Will, it looks as though the lovely young Ann Bard who met him while he was recuperating at the McCain ranch couldn't wait for him to serve out his sentence. By the time we meet up with him again - as I said, now with the moniker of Billy Mathis - he was seeing the daughter of another rancher, Lucy Hallager.

Billy ended up being framed for the murder of Lucy's father, who told Billy publicly to stay away from his daughter. (Probably because of Billy's time spent in prison and riding with Hank Fulton's gang.) Things were going so badly for Billy during the trial that Lucy broke him out of the jail. (Because of incidents like this, Marshal Micah Torrance now has a bad reputation among many televisiologists. But if he was better at his job, there wouldn't have been that much for "the Rifleman" to do.)

Luckily, North Fork was visited by a traveling "mind reader" named John Barrow McBride whose "powers" were used to flush out the real killer. Billy and Lucy were then free to start new lives; and since they were never seen again in North Fork, it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that Lucy sold the family ranch to finance their future together.

I was tempted to say that Billy pursued a career in the cavalry - as seen with an unnamed Michael Landon character in an episode of 'Cheyenne', but the Toobworld timeline prohibits that. "Decision" took place back in the 1870's, as did the 'Cheyenne' series in general.

On second thought, that's probably a good thing, considering.....

One last thing:

One thing I always enjoy about the Toobworld timeline is how sometimes events are broadcast out of order. We got to meet Michael Landon's character(s) of Will Fulton/Billy Mathis a few years before he finally hit the big time with his signature role of Little Joe Cartwright on 'Bonanza'......

BCnU!

"THE RIFLEMAN" - "THE SHARPSHOOTER"

'The Rifleman'
"The Sharpshooter"

After wondering the country for four years, Lucas and Mark finally find the ranch they’d been looking for, but the ranch comes with a price, and Lucas may have to decide between the ranch and his son’s life! (9/30/58) ('Zane Grey Theatre'—3/7/58 - Season 2 — Episode #52)
- From "The Rifleman Episode Guide"

When Virgil Tippert's hand was injured in a gunfight, his days as a budding sharpshooter were over. But he would eventually be able to once again shoot a gun. So he may have devised a plan to still capitalize on what gun skills he still possessed, and yet avoid getting caught in shoot-outs against those looking to burnish their own reputations.

Virgil Tippert may have become one of the world's first professional celebrity impersonators.

Lucas and Mark McCain arrived in North Fork, New Mexico, in 1881, just in time for the annual turkey shoot contest. That year it was held in October, about 3½ months after the death of William Bonney, AKA "Billy The Kid".

From Wikipedia:
Billy the Kid, also known as William Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim and William H. Bonney (allegedly November 23, 1859 – c. July 14, 1881) was a 19th-century American frontier outlaw and gunman who participated in the Lincoln County War. According to legend, he killed 21 men, but he is generally accepted to have killed between four and nine.

Virgil Tippert bore an uncanny resemblance to Billy the Kid, at least the one who was forced to back away from a gunfight with a 'Sugarfoot' lawyer named Tom Brewster. (The evidence for the resemblance between Virgil and Billy can be found in the pilot episode of 'Sugarfoot'.)

Here's what Wikipedia had to say about those claiming to be Billy the Kid:
Legends grew over time that Billy the Kid had somehow cheated death and survived, despite eyewitness accounts of his slaying. In 2004, researchers sought to exhume the remains of Catherine Antrim, McCarty's mother, "so her DNA could be tested and compared with DNA to be taken from the body buried under the Kid's gravestone". Ultimately, the case was bogged down in the courts, "much to the delight of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who knows all too well the value of Billy as a cultural icon and a draw for tourists". Several men have claimed to be McCarty over the years, and at least two became notable because they were successful in persuading a small segment of the public.

The Billy the Kid who arrived in Blue Rock was the cousin to the town mayor, Barney Turlock*. So he may have been Billy Turlock rather than Billy McCarty/Bonney. But he still decided to take on the moniker "Billy The Kid" to embellish his reputation.

But if this Billy the Kid was able to capitalize on the name, there would be plenty of people who would think he was the real Billy the Kid. And Virgil Tippert could cash in on that by impersonating that version of the legend. (At the time of the 'Sugarfoot' pilot, there was no notice [wanted poster] out on Billy according to Tom Brewster. So he hadn't gone very far yet in establishing his notoriety.)

A Wild West show - of which there were plenty in Toobworld, including Buffalo Bill's (as seen in 'The Murdoch Mysteries') - would have gladly paid Virgil Tippert to do dramatic recreations of Billy the Kid's life.

(Dennis Hopper played Billy the Kid in 'Sugarfoot', as well as Virgil Tippert in 'The Rifleman'.)

BCnU!

* In the real world, Barney Turlock may have been inspired, at least in name, by Doc Scurlock.

From Wikipedia:
Josiah Gordon "Doc" Scurlock (January 11, 1849 – July 25, 1929) was an American Old West figure, cowboy and gunfighter. A founding member of the Regulators during the Lincoln County War in New Mexico, Scurlock rode alongside such men as Billy the Kid.

THE ANNUAL TOOBWORLD SALUTE TO TV WESTERNS - AN INTRODUCTION

As we have done since 1999, Toobworld Central is celebrating that classic TV genre, the Western, during the month of August. At one time, there was at least one Western on the air each night of the week, usually more. Nowadays, that pre-eminence is held by the police procedurals, but the Western hasn't completely died out. Attempts have been made to bring the genre back over the last two decades - 'Trinity', 'Ponderosa', 'Peacemakers', 'Legend', and HBO's under-rated 'Deadwood'. Long-form mini-series and TV movies like 'Lonesome Dove' and "Broken Trail" have proven to be well-received by both the critics and audiences alike. And this Fall, AMC - which has been mostly successful with TV series (I'm not counting you, 'The Killing'!) - will be adding 'Hell On Wheels' to the mix.

The TV Western is so beloved that producers of modern TV series try to invoke a Western motif into their shows on occasion. Examples would include 'The Brady Bunch', 'Psych', 'The Prisoner', 'One Life To Live', 'Doctor Who', 'Star Trek', and 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'. 'McCloud' was about a cowboy cop in New York City, and 'Firefly' has been described as a Western in outer space.

In 1999, we launched this Western showcase with a specific theme - 'The Lone Ranger'. In later years we had other themes like 'The Wild Wild West' (mostly with a focus on my all-time favorite TV character, Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless), 'Alias Smith And Jones', and last year I got fourteen posts out of just two episodes of 'Maverick' to cover my vacation!

This year is no different. All month long, we'll be taking episodes of 'The Rifleman' and running posts on them - some long, most of them short takes. And there was so much to work with, we didn't even get to the end of the third season (out of five). Even with skipping a few that just didn't pique our interest, there was more than enough material to fill out the month.

Tuesdays will have two thematically connected posts as our "Two For Tuesday" feature. (That will take the pressure off the "As Seen On TV" gallery, which gets harder to do in August as we're running low on historical TV Western characters. Sundays will be the extra-long essays, including out theory that 'The Rifleman' can be connected to 'Doctor Who'... theoretically, that is.

And it would be remiss of me if I didn't point this out - these Inner Toob posts would not have been possible without the fantastic fansite dedicated to 'The Rifleman' - "The Rifleman Episode Guide List".

I've been watching the series in its Saturday morning marathons on AMC (speaking of which!), but this site has great synopses in the form of reminiscences by Lucas and Mark McCain - with links to pictures of the actors playing each character and a catalogue of the flubs from each episode. This salute would have been poorer without them.

So if you're a fan of 'The Rifleman' or TV Westerns in general, or of my theories of "relateeveety", "born to re-run" suggestions and other toobish ravings from Yours Truly, I hope you'll keep checking in all month long!

BCnU!

MISSING LINKS: "TRUE BLOOD" & "THE VAMPIRE DIARIES"?

As seen in Toobworld, Charles Bunn is the United States representative for the 5th District in Virginia. (We learned that in last Sunday's episode of 'True Blood'.)

Could it be pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that Mystic Falls (from 'The Vampire Diaries') is located within the 5th District?

Just sayin', is all.....

"ALPHAS" BITS

The pilot for 'Alphas' provided several bits of trivia which could theoretically link the series about mutants (for lack of a more capsulated term) who work together in a secret government project.

1) 'CSI: NY'

This is the most blatant connection. At least one member of the NYC CSI team can be seen outside the Thompson Hotel after a man jumped to his death. It doesn't have to be any particular character from the CBS show; a lot more people would be working in that department besides the six or seven we'd see on a weekly basis.

2) The 'Law & Order' franchise

The New York Sentinel is a paper modeled on the New York Times style, a rival to the NY Ledger which is more of a tabloid paper. If I remember correctly, it shows up in the later years for the opening credits of 'Murder, She Wrote' once Jessica Fletcher moved to Manhattan, but I can't be sure on that.  However, it did appear in an episode of the series where it sported a tabloid style of its own.  (It must have been a temporary experiment to increase sales.)



3) Honda Civic commercial, "The Prize"

As far as I can tell, Crunchy-O's is a fictional cereal. (The more healthy-oriented Early Harvest may be a fiction cereal as well.) But it was used in a blipvert for the Honda Civic and the giant version of the cereal box doesn't give any indication of a manufacturer's name (Arnold's Acres?), which I think would have been verboten if there was a product placement crossover.




4) 'Lost'

And finally, one of "The Numbers" from the sequence featured in 'Lost' was displayed in the interrogation room where a Federal witness was assassinated.......

BCnU!

KIBBLES AND TOOBITS - A LOOK AT "WILFRED"

FX has a new sitcom based on an Australian show by the same name - 'Wilfred'. The premise is certainly... different - a guy named Ryan befriends a dog belonging to his sexy neighbor; but whereas everybody else sees Wilfred as the dog he should be, Ryan sees him as a rough, bong-toking Australian in a dog suit.

I have a feeling that, like 'Lost' and other shows with a strange, mysterious premise, I'll have to wait until the show finally ends its run before I can make sense of what it all means and how it can fit into the mosaic of Toobworld.

Normally, I'd just say that the American 'Wilfred' was just a remake and so had to be put down - er, dumped into the Land of Remakes. (Somebody! Help me with a name for that TV dimension!) But since the co-creator of the original series is playing 'Wilfred', just as he did in the Australian original, we could say that they both belong in Earth Prime-Time. Wilfred's the same man-dog (or whatever he is) but know living in America. Just tormenting somebody new.

Like I said, we probably won't know until the series' end, if then. But we could make a few guesses as to who - or what - Wilfred is.

1] WILFRED IS A DELUSION FOR BOTH ADAM AND RYAN
That he should look the same to both men on separate continents? Maybe they both drew inspiration from a picture book for kids or a TV-within-TV show aimed at kids with an international audience.

Do you think it strange that grown men would talk to a dog and follow its advice? Tell that to David Berkowitz....

2] WILFRED IS A DEMON
To the rest of the world, he looks to be a dog, but to the souls he torments he's a humanoid canine. Maybe he's only tormenting Ryan because he already drove Adam to suicide Down Under. When we first meet Ryan, he's making the attempt to kill himself, and that may have drawn the demon to him.

And speaking of souls.....


3] WILFRED HAS BEEN REINCARNATED AS A DOG
It's the natural transition in Toobworld - when a human dies, and they have unfinished business, they come back as a dog. (But don't tell the Minbari that!) If so, he probably died again while hanging out with Adam, only he didn't advance to the next level but instead he came back as a dog again. (We even have precedence for that, with Buck Bundy dying and being sent back from Animal Heaven as Lucky Bundy on 'Married... With Children'.)

Usually when we as the Trueniverse audience see a reincarnated dog, they look like a dog but we can hear their voice and/or thoughts - Cleo of 'The People's Choice' and 'Poochinsky', for instance. But in this case we see the human embodiment of Wilfred's soul blended with the trappings of fur.

Fur trappings. Heh heh. Heh heh.....

And the reason Ryan can see this is because he had been so near to death himself when he tried to kill himself.

4] WILFRED IS A QUANTUM LEAPER FROM THE FUTURE
There was an episode of 'Quantum Leap' where Dr. Sam Beckett leapt into the life of a chimpanzee. The same situation may have happened here, where a leaper from Sam's future, when they can specifically target a "leapee". (Why he would choose a dog on both occasions is unknown, but must be instrumental to his research project.)

Now, supposedly only children, animals, and people with "special needs" can see a leaper. So maybe there's been some damage to Ryan's brain after his suicide attempt......

5] WILFRED IS FROM THE PLANET PARENTHIA
Parenthia is a planet in the Sirius system, which is probably why Sirius is known as the Dog Star. Two of their astronauts, Alpha and Orvis, were brought to Earth by Aunt Clara's magic in an episode of 'Bewitched'. The humanoid canines were mentioned in an episode of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' and they were present at the Restaurant At The End Of The Universe in 'The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy'.

Wilfred could be observing human life on Earth in preparation for an invasion by his homeworld. His presence is masked by either a glamour device or by a magical spell cast by another practitioner of the dark arts. First he checked out life in Australia and is now living large near Venice Beach in California.

His dedication to the operation may be compromised because he's revealed his true identity to Adam and Ryan.

I've just read that last one back. It made a lot more sense when I was popping Puppy Uppers with my neighbor's dog.....

BCnU!

FORD FIESTA

In remembrance of the late Betty Ford (as well as for just the pure enjoyment of seeing these classic scenes), here are Mrs. Ford's two forays into Toobworld as herself.

First up, the first and the best -

Lou Grant and Mary Richards have gone to Washington, D.C., on a press junket for the weekend. And after two days of waiting for Lou's old contacts to reach out and invite them to parties, Mary finally bails on him to have dinner with a Congressman (played by Dabney Coleman). This is what happens when she gets back from her evening out.....

About six years later, Mrs. Ford is in Denver with her husband, former President Gerald Ford, to attend the famous Carousel Ball (which actually does exist, so it has its own televersion too!) And there they run into oil tycoon Blake Carrington.....

So her presence is what ties 'Dynasty' to 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show', and the two of them serve as the linking steps between 'Batman' and 'Phyllis', 'Rhoda', and 'Lou Grant'. (Later, nearly all of the Carringtons are wounded at the Royal wedding in Moldavia, the homeland of some antique stamps which were stolen by the Riddler. And of course, Phyllis, Rhoda, and Lou are all friends of Mayr's.)

Because it turned out that Betty Ford really had visited Lou in his hotel room, then it stands to reason that all of his visitors were actually there. Even though we didn't see them, their life during prime time must be accepted just as would be the case for whatever happened during commercial breaks, between episodes, and after cancellation.

So these are the other people who attended, and what TV shows they can link to 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show':

John Glenn - 'Frasier', and yes, even 'Name That Tune'!

Eric Sevareid - 'Taxi' and 'Call To Glory', which has a Toobworld tweak: Sevareid somehow looked the same in 1963 as he did twenty years later....

Ethel Kennedy - 'Cheers'

Hubert Humphrey - His links are all to variety shows (hosted by Dean Martin, Red Skelton, and Pat Paulsen.) But those hosts can make connections to other shows in which they appeared as themselves. For example, Dean Martin guest starred in 'Half Nelson', 'Vega$', 'The Lucy Show', and 'Make Room For Daddy', and all of them could now be added to this link.

As for 'Dynasty'? There's always 'The Colbys'.......

If only Betty Ford appeared on 'The Hollywood Squares', sitting in the seat that used to belong to Paul Lynde and Whoopi Goldberg.

Then we would have had the Betty Ford Center Square.....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: BETTY FORD

In memory of a First Lady who may have done more for the country than her husband the President did.....

BETTY FORD

AS SEEN IN:
"The Betty Ford Story"

AS PLAYED BY:
Gena Rowlands

From The New York Times:
Betty Ford, the outspoken and much-admired wife of President Gerald R. Ford who overcame alcoholism and an addiction to pills and helped found one of the best-known rehabilitation centers in the nation, died Friday in Palm Springs, Calif. She was 93.

Few first ladies have been as popular as Betty Ford, and it was her frankness and lack of pretense that made her so. Unlike many other wives of presidents, Mrs. Ford rarely hesitated to make public her views on touchy subjects. She spoke often in support of the Equal Rights Amendment, endorsed legalized abortion, discussed premarital sex and revealed that she intended to share a bed with her husband in the White House.

On Sept. 28, 1974, Mrs. Ford had a radical mastectomy after doctors discovered cancer in her right breast. Within days, 10,000 letters, more than 500 telephone calls, more than 200 telegrams and scores of floral arrangements poured into the White House and into her suite at Bethesda Naval Hospital. In the months that followed, tens of thousands of American women, inspired by Mrs. Ford’s forthrightness and courage in facing her illness, crowded into doctors’ offices and clinics for breast-cancer examinations.

Breast cancer was only one of the medical battles Mrs. Ford won. Her dependency on pills began in 1964 with a medical prescription to relieve constant pain from a neck injury and a pinched nerve. Her drinking, which became troublesome as she was faced with her husband’s frequent absences on political business, grew increasingly serious as Mr. Ford’s Congressional career advanced.

In 1978, the year after leaving the White House, her husband, children, doctors and several friends confronted her about her drinking and her abuse of pills. She refused to acknowledge that a problem existed, calling her family “a bunch of monsters,” but she eventually entered the Long Beach Naval Hospital in California for treatment.

The Betty Ford Center, dedicated on Oct. 3, 1982, was a direct result of Mrs. Ford’s victory over her alcoholism and addiction. Set on 14 acres on the campus of the Eisenhower Medical Center 11 miles southeast of Palm Springs, the center was a nonprofit venture spearheaded by Mrs. Ford and Leonard K. Firestone, an industrialist and former ambassador to Belgium who raised a major part of the money.

“It’s hard to make anyone understand what it’s like to have your name on something, to be given credit for things you haven’t done,” Mrs. Ford wrote. “I’ve been at meetings where someone turned and thanked me, and I hugged the person and said, ‘Don’t thank me, thank yourself, you’re the one who did it, with God’s help.’ From the beginning, we have wanted every patient at the center to feel, ‘I’m important here, I have some dignity.’ ”
- Enid Nemy

Betty Ford is one of the few people of the real world, like Orson Welles and Johnny Carson, who have not only been portrayed by a televersion, but have also appeared as a member of the League of Themselves in fictionalized settings. She made a phone call to Mary Richards when "Mayr" visited Washington with Lou Grant in an episode of 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'. (When Mrs. Ford identified herself as Betty Ford, Mary gave her name as Mary... Queen of Scots.)

Here's a behind-the-scenes publicity photo of Mrs. Ford filming her cameo for 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'. She and Ms. Moore didn't share the scene except by phone call, so "Mayr" might have been there to help feed her the lines to set up her dialogue.

President and Mrs. Ford, along with Henry Kissinger, attended the Carousel Ball in Denver years later, where they met members of the oil-rich Carrington Family of 'Dynasty'.

She was inducted into the TV Crossover Hall Of Fame, along with her late husband President Gerald Ford, in November, 2007.
 
Good night, and may God Bless.

BCnU.....

FOUR COLOR WORLD

Here are the first three webisodes of the 'Warehouse 13' online adventure "Of Monsters And Men". The reason why the first chapter is so long is because half of it is a Prius blipvert... and clumsily handled, unfortunately......

That comic book rack may have been in the diner where the comic book universe adventures of the a-Ha video of 'Take On Me' took place........

BCnU!

MISSING LINKS: "CHAOS" THEORY

CBS finally started burning off the last episodes of 'CHAO' this past week. Two aired on Friday and the schedule shows three more to come in the next three weeks. And then that will be it for this CIA-based series (much better than 'Covert Affairs' in my opinion), making eight episodes in all.

The action-adventure series was about a division in the CIA called the ODS, and it had a great cast - the four team members were Freddie Rodriguez, Eric Close, James Murray, and Tim Blake Nelson, with Kurtwood Smith as their slow-burn boss and Carmen Ejogo and Christina Cole providing support.

In the episode "Glory Days", a theoretical connection could be made to 'In Plain Sight', which is definitely connected to the greater TV Universe by a crossover with 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent'.

Bruce Boxleitner played Ray Bishop, the legendary spy who created the ODS. In trying to get evidence on the head of Global Intel (a rogue spy corporation), Ray ended up in the hospital. (He thought he was poisoned, but it was an angina attack brought on by the excitement of being back in the "game".)

Michael Dorset, the current head of ODS, told his mentor that two U.S. Marshals were outside his hospital room; they were ready to whisk him away into protective custody just as soon as he was discharged from the hospital.

We never got to see the two U.S. Marshals; they never got involved in the defense against the assassin sent by Global Intel. And that's why I think we can make the claim that they were Marshals Mary Shannon and Marshall Mann, stationed in Albuquerque.

Looks like they're staking out the hospital reception desk

And because the 'CHAOS' episode was broadcast months past the time it should have aired, we can place it on the Toobworld timeline before this season's premiere of 'In Plain Sight'. Long before Mary started showing signs that she had been knocked up by her ex-husband.

So once Ray Bishop got out of Washington, DC, Mary and Marshall flew him to New Mexico where he would get a new identity in the WITSEC program.

It'll be interesting to see if any future one-shot roles played by Boxleitner could be considered to be Ray Bishop in his new identity.....

Ray Bishop:
New location, new identity?



BCnU!

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!

QUANTUM WEEP

What keeps a televisiologist from getting a good night's sleep?

What would happen if a Weeping Angel touched Dr. Sam Beckett while he was living the life of a "leapee"? Would he be sent back further in Time or would that happen to the leapee? What if the Angel touched him as he was leaping out?

SHOWS CITED:
'Doctor Who'
'Quantum Leap'

BCnU!

STONE TREKKIN' ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

There's at least one "Stone Trek" cartoon to be found on YouTube and the folks behind that have taken their Flinstones meet Star Trek mash-up and applied to this old novelty song by the Firm.....

BCnU!

ECHOES: STAN LAUREL - THE LIVING WAXWORK

Stan Laurel was born 121 years ago today......

The Wax Stan Laurel with Rimmer
"Red Dwarf"

The Wax Stan Laurel (and Oliver Hardy) with Maxwell Smart
"Get Smart"

BCnU!

TOOBWORLD CELEBRATES FLAG DAY!

TOP: 'Jack Of All Trades' and 'The Tick'

BOTTOM: "The Dain Curse", 'Night Court', and 'Parks & Recreation'

TEETHING SPLAINS

A few months back, I wrote about how a murderer probably found inspiration from a book which detailed past investigations of Lt. 'Columbo'; but Patrick Jane, once famous as 'The Mentalist', used another one of Columbo's homicide cases to catch the culprit.

It wasn't the first time a Toobworld killer played copycat with another murder - three magicians attempting the same stunt over a period of three decades were all murdered in the same manner - shot dead inside a coffin in which they had been submerged at the bottom of a pool in front of witnesses. Two of those murders were investigated by the same detective (and the fact he didn't remember the details of the first case during the investigation of that third one was the basis for my argument that Captain Amos Burke was showing signs of Alzheimer's by the early 1990's.)

If a murderer was going to draw inspiration from the Past, it would be better to do so from a more O'Bscure case farther back in Time. Not that it would be successful as this next example will show, but it would at least provide a worthy, imaginative effort.

Dr. Wesley Corman, dentist to the stars, wanted to not only rid himself of his wife's lover, but make it look like she had committed the murder. And on top of all that, he wanted to use the crime to force his father-in-law into keeping him as a member of the very lucrative family practice.

Corman found the perfect means in a case investigated by Dixon Druce in turn-of-the-century London: a Brazilian heiress named Edith Dallas had been mysteriously poisoned and Druce eventually determined that the poison had been placed inside one of her teeth. All the murderer needed to do was wait for it to eventually be released once the filling wore away, which took only about a month. That deduction saved Miss Edith's sister, Beatrice Selby, who might have fallen victim to the same fate.

Although his origins are in some variation on the literary universe with stories by Mrs. L. T. Meade, "one of the most prolific of all writers of detective short stories in the 1890's" (according to W.O.G. Lofts and Derek Adley), Dixon Druce is also part of Toobworld because of an episode of 'The Rival Of Sherlock Holmes' - "Madame Sara", starring John Fraser as Druce. So for Dr. Corman to have learned about the case, it may have been written up as an historical curio for one of his dental periodicals like "Spit Sink Weekly".

Oh, wait. That's from the comic strip "Zits", so that's a different fictional universe.......

SHOWS CITED:
'The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes' - "Madame Sara"

'Columbo' - "Uneasy Lies The Crown" & "Double Exposure" & "Prescription: Murder"

'Burke's Law' - "Who Killed Merlin The Great?"

'Burke's Law II' - Who Killed Alexander The Great?"

'Blacke's Magic' - "Breathing Room"

'The Mentalist' - "Every Rose Has Its Thorn"

BCnU!