"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!

"THE RIFLEMAN" - FAKER OATS

'THE RIFLEMAN'
"Home Ranch"
After two of Oat Jackford’s cowhands burn the McCain’s house, drag Lucas, and steal his rifle, Lucas goes to hunt Jackford and his men to inform them that he and his boy are there to stay.

"The Money Gun"
Bookkeeper Asa Manning hires a professional gunman to provoke his client, a bully rancher who suspects him of embezzlement, into a gunfight.

"Trail Of Hate"
Lucas goes on a hunt for bank robbers after Mark is badly hurt while being held hostage.

From "The Rifleman Episode Guide List"

 When Lucas McCain's ranch-house was burned down by some of Oat Jackford's men, McCain went hunting for his neighboring rancher to settle the score.


The only thing was, the man he found wasn't the real Oat Jackford, even though his own cowhands believed him to be.

He was Ben Stark, a criminal passing himself off as Oat Jackford, who must have been out of North Fork on business. As for the ranch hands, Stark probably hired them, telling them that he was Oat Jackford. He then kept them out on the plains to avoid meeting anybody else in Jackford's employ or family and thereby learning the truth.

I can't say why Ben Stark was pulling this scheme, but he must have been planning to steal something large from Jackford. Maybe it was statuary, something akin to the MacCready Bust (as seen in 'Alias Smith And Jones'.) Perhaps he was going to intercept a shipment coming in on the stage, maybe it was the payroll for the real ranch hands. (And if so, he probably created a ruse to get the real Oat Jackford out of town.)

So Ben Stark needed those itinerant ranch hands to help him get it loaded onto a wagon.

The altercation with Lucas McCain would have been a kink in the plan, but he turned it to his advantage. The real Oat Jackford might have killed Lucas McCain for his insolence and for the beating Luke gave to him. But instead, the fake Oat Jackford sent those new hired hands over to build a new house for Lucas and his son. (They used building supplies bought in town and most likely charged to Oat Jackford's account.)

Nearly two years later, Ben Stark returned to North Fork with his brother and another cowhand in order to rob the bank. Lucas McCain didn't recognize him, or so it looked, but Stark must have chose Lucas as his patsy because he remembered the earlier incident.

How the real Oat Jackford reacted once he returned to North Fork was never made available for viewing by the Trueniverse audience, of course. But it must have contributed to the surly, belligerent attitude displayed by Jackford when he came into town to face down a hired gun. More than likely, he decided to keep quiet about the theft and the expenses incurred to re-build the McCain ranch house rather than be seen as a fool by the rest of the town......

The REAL Oat Jackford


BCnU!

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!

A LEVERAGED FATHER'S DAY.....

I think this will remain my favorite in-joke for the entire year. It's definitely the sweetest.....

In "The 10 Li'l Grifters Job", the 'Leverage' episode that aired over the Fourth of July weekend, everybody had to dress up as a "fictional" detective.

Sophie was Irene Adler from "A Scandal In Bohemia", a Sherlock Holmes story.

Parker was Nancy Drew.

Harrison was one of the Hardy Boys.  (Update: Originally I had him listed as Encyclopedia Brown, because that's who he thought he was.  But I've just watched that scene again and Sophie corrects him over the comm-link: he's one of the Hardy Boys.  The big "H" on his sweater should have been a give-away.)

Elliott was real-life Pinkerton agent Charlie Siringo.

But best of all?

Nate Ford (played by Timothy Hutton) was Ellery Queen.....

Timothy Hutton's father, the late Jim Hutton, played Ellery Queen in a 1970's series by the creators of 'Columbo' and 'Murder, She Wrote'.

And seeing Nate Ford in that floppy hat, the tweedy jacket, and the red sweater, it was like seeing Jim Hutton in the role once more.

So when Nate declared Ellery Queen as the greatest detective ever, I think there was more than one voice speaking......

I'll have more on these disguises later in the week....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: ISAAC NEWTON

On this date in 1687, Isaac Newton publishes Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, ushering in a tidal wave of changes in thought that would significantly accelerate the already ongoing scientific revolution by giving it tools that produced technologically valuable results, which had theretofore been otherwise unobtainable.

ISAAC NEWTON

AS SEEN IN:
'Star Trek: Voyager'

AS PLAYED BY:
Peter Dennis

ISAAC NEWTON

AS SEEN IN:
'Voyagers!'

AS PLAYED BY:
Dan Kern

From Wikipedia:
"Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica", Latin for "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", often called the Principia ("Principles"), is a work in three books by Sir Isaac Newton, first published 5 July 1687. Newton also published two further editions, in 1713 and 1726. The "Principia" states Newton's laws of motion, forming the foundation of classical mechanics, also Newton's law of universal gravitation, and a derivation of Kepler's laws of planetary motion (which Kepler first obtained empirically). The "Principia" is "justly regarded as one of the most important works in the history of science".

The French mathematical physicist Alexis Clairaut assessed it in 1747: "The famous book of "Mathematical Principles of natural Philosophy" marked the epoch of a great revolution in physics. The method followed by its illustrious author Sir Newton ... spread the light of mathematics on a science which up to then had remained in the darkness of conjectures and hypotheses." A more recent assessment has been that while acceptance of Newton's theories was not immediate, by the end of a century after publication in 1687, "no one could deny that" (out of the 'Principia') "a science had emerged that, at least in certain respects, so far exceeded anything that had ever gone before that it stood alone as the ultimate exemplar of science generally."

In formulating his physical theories, Newton developed and used mathematical methods now included in the field of calculus. But the language of calculus as we know it was largely absent from the "Principia"; Newton gave many of his proofs in a geometric form of infinitesimal calculus, based on limits of ratios of vanishing small geometric quantities. In a revised conclusion to the "Principia" (see "General Scholium"), Newton used his expression that became famous, "Hypotheses non fingo" ("I contrive no hypotheses").

Although the Toobworld Dynamic states that all TV shows should share the same fictional universe, it's not always a given. 'Star Trek: Voyager' definitely shares the same TV dimension as its precursor, 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'. So why does the Isaac Newton of 'Voyager' look different from that in 'TNG'?



ISAAC NEWTON

AS SEEN IN:
'Star Trek: The Next Generation'

AS PLAYED BY:
John Neville

A simple splainin for this: Data's poker buddy was a computer-generated hologram. It was created based on the data supplied by Data, making a copy to the best of its ability.

It gets more complicated when comparing the Isaac Newtons of 'Voyager' and 'Voyagers!', however. We can splain away the differences between them with the recastaway excuse of aging, or by claming that whenever Phineas Bogg and Jeffrey Jones travel back in Time, they're entering alternate TV dimensions and meeting variations of historical figures. And in this case at least, using both splainins would also be applicable.

BCnU!

"DOCTOR WHO" ON JULY 4TH? PARRISH THE THOUGHT!

Happy Fourth of July! Happy Independence Day!

Or as they might say elsewhere in the world, Happy Monday!

As a Toobworld contribution to the Fourth of July theme, I'd like to offer this painting by my favorite artist, Maxfield Parrish:

"With Trumpet and Drum"

With big tin trumpet and

little red drum,

Marching like soldiers,

the children come!

The piece is entitled "With Trumpet And Drum" and it is dated from 1904. It was one of eight plates by Parrish to illustrate "Poems of Childhood" by the late Eugene Field. (He died nearly a decade earlier at the age of 45.)

As you can see in the picture, there was a clear influence for the main character in the painting:

The Gallifreyan Time Lord has met famous painters in the past, most notably Vincent Van Gogh and Leonardo da Vinci, but also Michaelangelo and Gainesborough. So why not Maxfield Parrish?

I'm not offering up any splainins as to the circumstance leading to the meeting between Parrish and the Doctor. There are not enough "facts" available to make concrete connections within the reality of Toobworld.

This is more along the lines of fanficcer territory. So as a fanfic enabler, I will make a few suggestions... if you feel inspired to write about this encounter between the Doctor and Maxfield Parrish.

1]  Their adventure should take place in 1903, giving Parrish enough time to use the Eleventh Incarnation of the Doctor as the inspiration for the little drummer boy. And it should be something that might have borne a resemblance to the finished painting - only with a little boy rather than the boyish "young" Doctor.

2]  Parrish lived in New Hampshire, so the action should take place there. As with a lot of the wild areas in New England, the mountainous terrain and back country forests of New Hampshire are home to many myths, legends, and tall tales. Large lumbering giants and small devilish imp-folk can be found in the stories there. With either group, it should be easy to come up with an alien origin for their kind.

3]  Look into the actual history for New Hampshire at the turn of the 20th Century. There might be something that happened that could be given a 'Doctor Who' twist, which has always been a staple of the show.

4]  Was the event something that only the children of the area could deal with, because the adults had all been entranced by the alien adversary?

5]  And whether you use Amy Pond as his Companion, or some other young loverly who tagged along during that hiatus for the Amy & the Doctor team between "The Big Bang" and "The Impossible Astronaut", at some point in the story she should emulate at least one of the poses in other famous paintings by Maxfield Parrish.

Me, I'm partial to "Ecstasy" myself, but "Reverie" and "Hope" might also fit the bill.

If you do end up writing some 'Doctor Who' fanfic to go with this patriotic painting, please send a copy along to me. I'd love to read it!

Again, Happy Fourth of July!

BCnU!

SHERLOCK HOLMES: PHYSICAL EVIDENCE

Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes
On the left: his first appearance in "A Scandal in Bohemia"
On the right: in his last episode "The Cardboard Box"

The brilliance of Jeremy Brett's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, the official version of the role for Toobworld, could blind a viewer to the deterioration of his physical health as the various series progressed.

From Wikipedia, here's the story of what was happening outside the box:
After the death of Joan Wilson, Brett struggled with filming the third Granada series, 'The Return of Sherlock Holmes' in late 1985. On the set it was noticed that his manic episodes, his excessive changes of mood, were getting worse and eventually grief and workload became too much; he had a breakdown, was hospitalised and diagnosed manic-depressive.

Brett was given lithium tablets to fight his manic depression. He knew that he would never be cured; he had to live with his condition, look for the signs of his disorder and then deal with it. He wanted to go back to work, to play Holmes again. The first episode to be produced after his discharge was a two-hour adaptation of "The Sign of the Four". From then on the difference in Brett's appearance slowly became more noticeable as the series developed. One of the side effects of the lithium tablets was fluid retention. Brett began to look and act differently. The drugs were slowing him down; he was putting on weight and retaining water. Brett also had heart troubles. His heart was twice the normal size, he would have difficulties breathing and would need an oxygen mask on the set. "But, darlings, the show must go on", was his only comment.

During the last decade of his life, Brett was treated in hospital several times for his mental illness, and his health and appearance visibly deteriorated by the time he completed the later episodes of the Sherlock Holmes series. During his later years, he discussed the illness candidly, encouraging people to recognise its symptoms and seek help.

That certainly answers the questions about Jeremy Brett. But within the reality of Toobworld, what was happening to the state of Holmes' health?

My intent is not to make light of the situation; instead I wish to provide a splainin for the changes to Holmes' appearance by thinking inside the box. Hopefully this would also be in keeping with the "Canon", since he is the televisual embodiment of the original stories.

Although we didn't see it happen on screen, Holmes had begun conducting his experiments into the longevity benefits from the royal jelly of bees long before his retirement to Sussex.

Many Sherlockians believe he was ultimately successful and was able to extend his own life-span (to the point where some claim that Holmes is still alive today!) As with any scientific experiment, there would be many trials and errors during research. And heedless of his own physical well-being (which we know he was wont to do with the use of cocaine and morphine when bored), Holmes would have had no qualms about using himself as the test subject in his royal jelly experiments. He may have been convinced that his physical stamina (as demonstrated in "The Speckled Band") was enough to withstand any detrimental effects caused by his experimental serums.

But each new test caused physical alterations to his body - the bloating, the softening of his once finely honed features.....

Based on what we saw in those last episodes, Holmes never gave a splainin, and Dr. Watson was probably too polite to enquire. And then again, it may have happened in a scene were not privy to.

For Jeremy Brett, that physical deterioration was permanent and he died not long after completing his final story as Holmes. But for Sherlock himself, life continued after the series finale. Eventually he hit upon the right combination of the serum and probably returned to his old self again... with the guarantee of a longer life to boot.

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!

SUPER-SIX LIST: "COLUMBO" EPISODES

I'm sending this out to a fellow crossover enthusiast named Gordon. He's seen several of the ABC TV movies about 'Columbo', but he apparently is too young to have seen the original run of the series from NBC. So to help him get started (Netflix online, Gordon!), here is a Super-Six list of my favorite episodes from the series as a whole.

1] "IDENTITY CRISIS"
My all-time favorite TV series is 'The Prisoner', so just for the opportunity to see Patrick McGoohan as the guest star would have been enough. But the episode (directed by McGoohan) is full of allusions to 'The Prisoner' - visual imagery referring to "#1", the design of McGoohan's windbreaker, the phrase "Be Seeing You".... Plus McGoohan's line readings are brilliantly off-kilter - just the way he says "I know!" is a pleasure.

2] "TRY AND CATCH ME"
This mostly has to do with Ruth Gordon as a sweet but crafty Agatha Christie type. But it also has an ingenious solution to the murder, worthy of the grande dame of mysteries.

3] "DAGGER OF THE MIND"
This is the first - and best - of several episodes that played with the show's formula - Columbo in London! (There would also be Columbo on a cruise and Columbo in Mexico.) Now he was in Christie country, complete with a country manor setting, a wax museum, pubs, theatre in the West End, and a gentlemen's club which I've decided was the famed Diogenes Club from the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Peter Falk did some location shooting in London, but most of the episode was shot in California with excellent British ex-pats providing support for Richard Basehart and Honor Blackman as the hammy Shakespearean murderers - Bernard Fox, John Williams, Ronald Long, Arthur Malet, and Wilfred Hyde-White.

(Having now seen John Fraser in an episode of 'The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes', I'll have to watch "Dagger Of The Mind" again to spot him. He's prominently listed in the end credits, but I just don't remember him in the episode.)

4] "ANY OLD PORT IN A STORM"
The relationship that grows between Columbo and the murderer, Adrian Carsini, culminating in that last visit to the winery is probably the best in the series. And Donald Pleasance as Adrian is so... well, endearing, that it took me many viewings to realize just how ruthless his crime was.

5] "BY DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT"
Again, an episode with Patrick McGoohan as the muderer, and the first of his four appearances. The great thing about his murderers is that each of them looked so different from each other. A problem I always had with the repeat performances by Robert Culp and Jack Cassidy, among others, is that - great as the actors were - how come Columbo never noticed their similarities? Also, this was a nice spin on the formula in which the murderer was undone by that for which he committed the crime. In this case, it was the traditions of the school and subsequent infractions.....

6] "COLUMBO CRIED WOLF"
I'd say this was absolutely brilliant, but one thing mars it - that awful title.

This had the best capper of a revelation at the end since early episodes like "Short Fuse" and "Suitable For Framing". But best of all was the shout-out to the past - a mention of Chief Superintendent Inspector Dirk of Scotland Yard from "Dagger Of The Mind", and an uncredited appearance by Bruce Kirby. He was probably appearing as Sgt. Kramer, now promoted.

This is the only episode of the ABC run to make the list and it mostly had to do with the very inventive script by William Read Woodfield.

'Columbo' is in my top five TV series of all time*, so it was tough to limit this list to my self-proscribed "Super Six". But here's a Top Ten list of runners-up:

"Requiem For A Falling Star"
"Forgotten Lady"
"Uneasy Lies The Crown"
"Prescription: Murder"
"Negative Reaction"
"Etude In Black"
"A Stitch In Crime"
"Candidate For Crime"
"Mind Over Mayhem"
"Lovely But Lethal"

Just one more thing......

I'd watch any 'Columbo' episode over and over again, but I will admit some of them are not that strong. These would be at the bottom of the collection:

"Undercover"
"Dead Weight"
"An Old-Fashioned Murder"
"Make Me A Perfect Murder"
"Lady In Waiting"
"Ransom For A Dead Man"
"No Time To Die"
"Columbo And The Murder Of A Rock Star"
"Murder In Malibu"
"Columbo Likes The Night Life"

Sadly, that was Columbo's swan song.

BCnU.......
 
* Okay, just in case you were interested in my Top Five TV series:
'The Prisoner'
'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'
'The Dick Van Dyke Show'
'Columbo'
'Doctor Who'

PAINTING SPLAININ

AMSTERDAM [AP] -- The Van Gogh Museum said its experts now believe one of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings previously thought to be a self-portrait from 1887 actually depicts his brother, Theo.

Though the brothers resembled each other physically, scholars determined the painting represents Theo by a number of factors.

Head researcher Louis van Tilborgh compared two paintings from 1887 with similar-looking men in suits set against a blue background.

The portrait of Theo [seen on the left] shows he had rounder ears than Vincent. The other portrait shows Vincent with long, angular ears, consistent with other artists’ paintings of Vincent. That’s before he famously self-mutilated one of his ears in December 1888.

In addition, Theo’s goatee is more yellow-brown than Vincent’s dark red beard, and Theo has shaven cheeks, consistent with photographs of him from the same period, while Vincent painted himself sporting mutton-chop sideburns.

In Toobworld, however, Van Gogh presented the painting as a portrait of himself to the Doctor and Amy. There was no mention of Theo.

There are two ways this can be splained away.......

ONE - It is not Theo.

Toobworld is NOT the real world. There are so many differences - aliens, androids, and talking animals living among us; the moon has been secretly colonized for decades; countries that don't exist in the Trueniverse crowd the map; historical figures took part in adventures which never even happened here.

So maybe over in Toobworld Van Gogh always intended the painting to be of himself. And if the televersions of those art critics still tried to make the assertion that it was Theo Van Gogh, they'd just be wrong.

TWO - It is Theo.

Van Gogh was testing the Doctor and Amy; if they were such big fans of his work as they appeared, they would surely recognize it was not a self-portrait. But even though they didn't, Van Gogh seems to have let the matter drop.

Either way, both sides of the issue are covered.

BCnU!

A FLASH IN THE PUN

In writing about Boilerplate, the latest fictional character whom I'd like to see get a televersion, I mentioned a previous candidate - Harry Flashman. Flashman was the school bully in "Ton Brown's School Days", a Victorian novel by Thomas Hughes. The book has been filmed several times, and twice for television, so Harry Flashman has had his day in the cathode sun, but there was more to his life than his school days.

Not only because it was the first production broadcast, but also because its episodic form as a TV series provided the opportunity to add as much detail from the novel as possible, the 1971 TV version is the one established in Earth Prime-Time. (The later version from 2005 does boast the presence of Stephen Fry as Dr. Thomas Arnold, though. Tempting as that is, that version has to remain in the Land of Remakes.) 

Harry Flashman attacks Tom Brown

In 1969, George MacDonald Fraser published "Flashman", an historical novel purportedly based on the recently discovered papers of Harry Flashman. Over the course of twelve novels, Fraser recounted Flashman's exploits from his early twenties to advanced old age. And along the way, Flashman had adventures in which he crossed paths with many historical figures.

(As a side note, I highly recommend these books, especially if you enjoy salacious depictions of Victorian ribaldry - a lot of "rogering" goes on, which was an excellent source of... shall we say, "inspiration" to a lad in his teens. That is, so I've heard.....)

So far, none of the "Flashman" novels have been adapted for television, although the second novel, "Royal Flash", does have a home in the Cineverse as a movie starring Malcolm McDowall as Harry, with Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in support.

I think the Fraser series of novels about Harry Flashman would make for a great TV series on HBO or Showtime or even Starz, especially with the freedom provided by a premium channel to portray prurient content. (Ah, alliteration!) With the success of 'Game Of Thrones' on HBO and 'The Borgias' and 'The Tudors' on Showtime, perhaps its time to give old Flash a shot.....

I'd like to think that, even without a television series or made for TV movie already established, Harry Flashman's life in Toobworld at least follows the basic guidelines set down by Fraser for a thoroughly debauched life led by Flashman. After all, even though we might not see it take place on our TV screens, Harry Flashman's life did continue after the events of the "Tom Brown's School Days" TV series had ended. 

Harry Flashman
with Tom Brown & Scud East

So let's assume that the Rugby School bully grew up to become a lecherous, immoral coward at least similar to, if not exactly like, the Flashman depicted by Fraser. This TV Flashman would end up rogering his way through the ladies of his times, perhaps even with fictional females from other TV series. (Let's say a parlor maid or two in the Bellamy household a decade or two before we met them on screen?)

Being a bounder and a cad, Flashman would not have been morally constrained from any dalliances with married women; and he would have no qualms in leading a young lady on with false promises of betrothal, in order to bed her and rob her of her virtue. And in the course of such a pursuit, he might have proferred a false identity in order to elude being sued for breach of promise. 

From the movie "Royal Flash"
But the Toobworld Flashman would find himself in a similar situation

Let's say he did pluck a young lovely's virginity and with such skill that she acquiesced without even learning his name. But as Flashman made ready to flee the following morning, suddenly the deflowered miss might have inquired as to who he was. Caught off-guard, he may have concocted a fake name on the spot.

But what name might he have used?

The Belgian detective Hercule Poirot was faced with such a situation while investigating a murder aboard a particular train.

"'I claim no credit this time. It was not a guess. Countess Andrenyi practically told me.'

'Comment? Surely not?'

'You remember I asked her about her governess or companion? I had already decided in my mind that if Mary Debenham were mixed up in the matter, she must have figured in the household in some such capacity.'

'Yes, but the Countess Andrenyi described a totally different person.'

'Exactly. A tall, middle-aged woman with red hair - in fact, the exact opposite in every respect of Miss Debenham, so much so as to be quite remarkable. But then she had to invent a name quickly, and there it was that the unconscious association of ideas gave her away. She said Miss Freebody, you remember.'

'Yes?'

'Eh bien, you may not know it, but there is a shop in London that was called, until recently, Debenham & Freebody. With the name Debenham running in her head, the Countess clutches at another name quickly, and the first that comes is Freebody. Naturally I understood immediately.'"

Oftentimes, false identities are similar enough to the original to make them easier to remember. (This is probably why almost everybody in the Albuquerque WITSEC program usually keeps their first names - unless it's something strange and/or Amish like Yonni - and gets a last name with the same initial as their original last name.)

A similar situation may have arisen for Harry Flashman when pressed by a romantic conquest to reveal his identity.

There are two ways in which he may have gone with his reasoning to choose the name I have in mind.

ONE - thinking of other uses for his particular variation on his name, he might have thought of the phrase "Flash of lightning".

TWO - This coital quandary may have taken place after his return from the Crimean War. (Again, only if Harry Flashman's TV existence followed the same pattern as that established in the literary universe.) Thinking back on his alleged involvement in the most infamous battle, which took place in late October of 1854, Flashman might have drawn inspiration from the regiment immortalized in the poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

So whether it was "lightning" or the "Light Brigade", Flashman might have combined the key word with the last part of his own name right there on the spot and convinced her that his name was Lightman. 

An older Harry Flashman

And off he would have absconded, assured that he would never see her again.

But he may have left a little something to remember him by....

Again, this is all speculation, so why stop now?

What if some woman he rogered found herself pregnant, by this fellow named "Lightman"? O'Bviously she was never going to track him down to do right by her. But she might still have given the child the last name of its father, never knowing how false it was.

And so the family tree of Dr. Carl Lightman might have been established.........

SHOWS CITED:
'Tom Brown's School Days'
'Lie To Me'
'Agatha Christie's Poirot'
'Upstairs, Downstairs'
'In Plain Sight'

OTHER SOURCES:
"Murder On The Orient Express"
"Tom Brown's School Days"
"Flashman"
"Royal Flash"
"Flashman At The Charge"

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: THE PIED PIPER

We interrupt the look at the major figures involved in "The Last Days Of Lehman Brothers" for this Sunday edition of the Video Weekend ASOTV showcase.

On this date in 1284, the Pied Piper led 130 children out of Hamelin, Germany.....

THE PIED PIPER

AS SEEN IN:

"The Pied Piper Of Hamelin"

AS PLAYED BY:
Van Johnson

From Wikipedia:
In 1284, while the town of Hamelin was suffering from a rat infestation, a man dressed in pied clothing appeared, claiming to be a rat-catcher. He promised the townsmen a solution for their problem with the rats. The townsmen in turn promised to pay him for the removal of the rats. The man accepted, and played a musical pipe to lure the rats with a song into the Weser River, where all but one drowned. Despite his success, the people reneged on their promise and refused to pay the rat-catcher the full amount of money. The man left the town angrily, but vowed to return some time later, seeking revenge.

On Saint John and Paul's day while the inhabitants were in church, he played his pipe yet again, dressed in green, like a hunter, this time attracting the children of Hamelin. One hundred and thirty boys and girls followed him out of the town, where they were lured into a cave and never seen again. Depending on the version, at most three children remained behind. One of the children was lame and could not follow quickly enough, the second was deaf and followed the other children out of curiosity, and the last was blind and unable to see where they were going. These three informed the villagers of what had happened when they came out of church.

Other versions, but not the traditional ones, claim that the Piper lured the children into the river and let them drown like the rats, or led the children to a cave on Köppen Hill or Koppelberg Hill, outside of Hamelin, then killed them.

Another version relates that the Pied Piper hypnotized the children into following him to the top of Koppelberg Hill, where he took them to a mysterious land and had his wicked way, or a place called Koppenberg Mountain. This version states that the Piper returned the children after payment, or that he returned the children after the villagers paid several times the original amount of gold.

The story may reflect an historical event in which Hamelin lost its children. Theories have been proposed suggesting that the Pied Piper is a symbol of the children's death by plague or catastrophe. Other theories liken him to figures like Nicholas of Cologne, who lured away a great number of children on a disastrous Children's Crusade. A recent theory ties the departure of Hamelin's children to the Ostsiedlung, in which a number of Germans left their homes to colonize Eastern Europe.

The fact that the characters sing and speak in rhyme could mean that the town of Hamelin was under the sway of Mr. Sweet the demon at that time. (Mr. Sweet was seen in an episode of 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' and was a 2005 inductee into the TV Crossover Hall Of Fame.)

BCnU!

PS:
I remember seeing this TV movie when I was a kid, years after its original presentation on the old Dumont Network.  And I remember being disturbed that the crippled kid got left behind.....

OOH, LA LAW

ROSE:

"Every Sunday I watch 'la Law'."

DOROTHY:
"That's 'L.A. Law'!"
(Later)
SOPHIA:

"Very nice 'counselor'!

Just exactly how close are you to the TV when you're watching 'la Law'?"

'The Golden Girls'

With this example of a Zonk, there's no mention of the MacKenzie-Brackman law firm. So it could be that 'L.A. Law' in Toobworld was the generic title for a reality show, along the same lines as 'L.A. Ink'... only about lawyers.

That reality show could still have been about MacKenzie-Brackman, especially since some of the kids left their zip code comfort zone of 'Beverly Hills 90210' and drove by the office building where the law firm was located - and one of them mentioned that he didn't watch the show.

Three of the actors who starred in 'L.A. Law' in the Trueniverse were mentioned in connection to the show - Harry Hamlin (on 'Six Feet Under'), Jimmy Smits (on 'Married... With Children'), and Corbin Bernsen (in episodes of 'Just Shoot Me', 'Seinfeld', and 'Matlock'). But here's a possible splainin: they all appeared as themselves on the reality show called 'L.A. Law', with the law firm handling cases for them.

Another mention of interest - in 'Psych', Henry Spenser was a likely candidate to be the identical cousin of Arnold Becker. And back in 1989, Henry thought the show would be a passing fad (despite the involvement of his cousin.) With all of these mentions - even into the new millennium! -  if it is a reality show in Toobworld, it proved to have legs.

Finally, Alan Rachins appeared in an episode of 'Eli Stone' in which he was credited as a "Familiar Lawyer". Longtime visitors to Toobworld know that I don't put much stock in credits, but I think it would be safe to assume that he was actually Douglas Brackman.

But here's the thing - representing Eli at his disbarment hearing, this "familiar lawyer" was working for a law firm called McKinley-Breckman, not MacKenzie-Brackman.

It's a bit intricate, and built on sand, but here's how it might work.....

'L.A. Law' went off the air in 1994, but its last appearance in Toobworld was in 2002 with the reunion TV movie. So in that six year span, until Rachins showed up in that 'Eli Stone' episode, anything could have happened to Douglas Brackman.

It could be that he finally committed an act of sexual deviance so heinous that the partners of the firm had no choice but to convene and drum him out of the firm with a vote. Desperate to still trade on the firm's name to build up business for himself, Douglas could have incorporated himself as a law firm with fictional partners named McKinley and Breckman. (We've seen that happen before in Toobworld - 'Eisenhower & Lutz'.)

Douglas may have wanted to make the potential client think he was still affiliated with McKenzie-Brackman, hoping they weren't too familiar with the original firm's name. Eli Stone would have known the difference, but it wouldn't have mattered. He wanted the best lawyer for the situation, and probably no one knew the intricacies of office politics in a law firm better than Douglas Brackman.

Anyhoo, it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble.....

BCnU!

THE O'HARA LINE: A THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY

When 'Psych' returns for a new season, William Shatner will be making a special guest appearance in an episode - playing the father of Detective Juliet O'Hara. Frank O'Hara is a con man, long estranged from his daughter (probably because of the career path she chose.) But he comes to Santa Barbara to mend their relationship. (I wonder if this means that his character is dying?)

This would mean that he's also the father of Ewan O'Hara as well, but I don't know if John Cena is returning to reprise that role. (If I was in charge, I'd let the upcoming episode be Shatner's showcase and then bring them both back for an O'Hara family reunion - if Pops O'Hara survives his debut, that is.)

As the Toobworld caretaker, I'll be curious to see if Shatner's character mentions his own Dad; because as it stands now, I have a theory of relateeveety that says Juliet's grandfather was the chief of police in Gotham City. And that Jules chose to follow in his footsteps rather than her own father's.



I'm tempted to add Tim O'Hara, the Los Angeles Sun reporter who co-habited with an extraterrestrial humanoid during the 1960's to the family tree, but I hesitate to say that he was also a son of Chief O'Hara. It would be easier to make the claim that he was the son of Chief O'Hara's brother, thus making him Frank O'Hara's cousin. (Tim had a cousin Harvey and a great-uncle named Shamus.)

The age difference between William Shatner and Stafford Repp was a lot closer than appeared, but Repp played Chief O'Hara as somewhat older than he really was at the time.

Since the fashion sense in Gotham City was very conservative and a bit out of date, it might be possible that Frank O'Hara visited his dear old Dad at Gotham City police headquarters wearing a suit like this.....



But then again, being a con man, he may have avoided Gotham City and its Dynamic Duo crime-fighters at the cost of his relationship with his old man........

SHOWS CITED:

'Psych'

'Batman'

'My Favorite Martian'

'Star Trek'

BCnU!