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'

SUPER-SIX LIST: LIFE GOES ON

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

From 'Mannix' to 'Diagnosis Murder'

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

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

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

From 'Batman' to 'The Monkees'



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

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

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

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

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

BCnU!

THE SUPER SIX LIST: MEETING YOUR "MAKER"

Because of the news about Donald Trump dropping out of the 2012 Presidential race, and the appearance by the real Lindsey Buckingham on this past week's edition of 'Saturday Night Live', I came up with this Super Six List......

SIX CELEBRITY IMPERSONATORS WHO MET THE REAL VERSIONS

ON 'SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE'

1] MARK ZUCKERBERG
When Jesse Eisenberg, who played Zuckerberg in the movie "The Social Network", hosted 'Saturday Night Live', Zuckerberg left the backstage area where he had been watching with Lorne Michaels to "confront" the actor on stage. Then we got a triple play when they were joined by Andy Samberg as his televersion of Zuckerberg.

2] LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM
Every time SNL does the sketch about the BET show "What's Up With That?", they always have two celebrities playing themselves as the guests with Bill Hader as Buckingham for the third guest. Whether the other celebrities ever get to say something or not, Hader's Buckingham has never had the chance to say even one word. But this week, even as Hader sat there on the panel with musical guest Paul Simon and Chris Colfer of 'Glee', the real Buckingham came out and jammed during the "What's Up With That" continuous theme song.

And even after all of that, Hader's televersion still didn't get to speak!

3] JANET RENO
As Will Ferrell ran out the clock on his tenure with 'Saturday Night Live', he appeared one last time as former Attorney General Janet Reno, hosting "Janet Reno's House Party." But suddenly the wall caved in behind him and out stepped the League of Themselves member to confront him about his portrayal. And fashion disaster alert - they both wore the same dress!

4] ALEX TREBEK
In a similar fashion, Ferrell hosted one last installment of "Celebrity Jeopardy" (at least until he came back to host) as the game show host, only to be confronted by Trebek as well. I think if Trebek was really bleeped off about anything to do with the portrayal, it would have been the fact that Ferrell never put any effort into the impression.

Real Alex Trebek: And so this was Final Jeopardy. And what a ride it has been, from Burt Reynolds to Minnie Driver, but boy, oh boy, those celebrities did not know the right answers to any of your questions.

Alex Trebek: No, they did not. They were very stupid.

Real Alex Trebek: You got that right.

Sean Connery: Well, well, two Trebeks. I feel like I'm in a Raisin Bran commercial: "two scoops of fruit".

Real Alex Trebek: Back off, Connery. I don't have to take that from you.

Sean Connery: I guess it's true, old married couples do start to look alike.

Alex Trebek: Okay, please. From all of us to all of you, good night.

Real Alex Trebek: Good night.

5] MICHAEL J. FOX
With these last two entries, there was a slight variation. When Michael J. Fox hosted SNL, there was a great sketch called "America's Most Wanted: Former Child Stars". Fox played Danny Bonaduce while David Spade imitated him, which he had done several times in the past. If you get the chance to see the sketch, you'll notice Fox has a hard time keeping a straight face as Spade goes through his histrionics after being shot. "Mallory......!"

6] DONALD TRUMP
Last and certainly least, Donald Trump played a simple man who was a Donald Trump look-alike in a take-off on Mark Twain's "The Prince And The Pauper", with Darrell Hammond once again playing the Hair. (Two weeks ago, Hammond returned to SNL one more time in order to play Trump in an "Undeclared Republican Candidates Debate".)

BCnU!

SUPER-SIX LIST: SILENCE WILL FALL - IN OTHER TV SHOWS

With so many of the Silence inhabiting the Earth (at least until July of 1969), then they must be present in every single TV show that ever was, including the foreign-made series.

Here's a Super Six List of some of the more O'Bvious (to me) choices.....

1] 'Fringe'
Check out the post about the Silence and the Observers.

2] 'The X-Files'
I'll bet there was a Silent monitoring Mulder and Scully, as well as Deep Throat and others, for a long time.....

3] 'The Invaders'
We could use the Silence as the splainin as to why the Invaders are no longer a threat among us.

4] 'The Adventures Of Superman'
I don't think even the Last Son of Krypton would be immune to their power. And they'd want to keep an eye on him until he died back in the early 60's.....

5] 'The Wild, Wild West'
They've been around since the dawn of Man, so out of all the TV Westerns, this would be the most logical place to find them.

6] 'The Governor And J.J.'
No, really! There had to be at least one Silent monitoring every important political figure in the world, so there must have been one stationed in the governor's mansion even in this sitcom. In 'Benson' as well, most likely. (But not in 'The West Wing' - that's a different TV dimension and may or may not have an infestation of the Silence....)

BCnU!

A ROYAL WEDDING SUPER SIX GUEST LIST

I just wanted to share this picture of the Royal Wedding that was provided by Bob of the Facebook group "The High Council of Time Lords"......

I would have expected to see the Third Incarnation of the Doctor make an appearance in the congregation - that is, once he had control over the TARDIS again. After all, he was always dressed for such an occasion!

The Royal Wedding may well be the best reality TV for the year, certainly the most uplifting. And as it was with Charles and Diana, the wedding between William and Kate could one day be dramatized for a TV movie. (Let's hope that it won't be for the same reasons, however.)

Even if it isn't, there may well be some TV characters in the near future who will claim to have attended the ceremony in Westminster Abbey, along with Elton John and Victoria Beckham.

That sort of thing happens all the time in Toobworld, but usually in connection to tragic events. Even with catalogued lists of victims from the sinking of the Titanic, collapse of the World Trade Center, and the Oklahoma City bombing, fictional characters have been added to the rolls in Toobworld.

At least this would be a joyous occasion......

Here is a "Super Six List" of some other TV characters whom I think may have been in attendance at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge......

1] King Victor of Svardia ('Mission: Impossible')

When seen on TV, he was a boy king; he'd be in his mid-fifties now.

2] King Charles of Caronia ('Get Smart')

If he's still alive, and if he hadn't abdicated in favor of his first-born.....

3] The King of Suaria ('Columbo')
More than likely, he's a king in exile - if he wasn't executed by rebel forces......

4] Bruce Wayne ('Batman')
His charity foundations may have worked with some of the late Princess Diana's pet projects.....

5] Chief Superintendent Inspector Dirk of Scotland Yard ('Columbo')
He wouldn't have been there as a guest, but rather he came out of retirement to act as an advisor on the security detail.

6] Mickey Stone & Albert Stroller ('Hustle')
But even with all of the heightened security, these two con men could have made it in - Mickey could pass himself off as an African dignitary, and Albert as an old family friend of the Middletons - just so long as he avoided them in the congregation.

BCnU!

THE SUPER SIX LIST: JOSIE'S KNOB

When I saw Joan Chen was the guest star in a 'Fringe' episode a few weeks ago, my heart gave a little skip - but not because of the pozz'bilities for a connection to 'Twin Peaks'. (I already had that covered when Walter said that he was friends with Dr. Jacoby.)

It was simply because it had been far too long since I had seen her.

So no, I didn't start spinning splainins for her characters in 'Fringe' and 'Twin Peaks', but it did get me thinking about Josie Packard and her strange fate in the town of Twin Peaks.

In case you don't remember, Josie's physical form died, but her spirit was transferred into the knob on the small bureau by the side of the bed. This would become her own personal hell.

Since that occurred in 1991, what has since happened to the soul of Josie Packard? Is she trapped in the knob still? If not, wha' hoppint, as Ricky Ricardo would say.

Here are a few options:

1) She's still trapped in the knob.

2) A spiritualist released her soul to go to her final fate. (I'm thinking maybe defrocked priest John 'Strange'.)

3) The bureau was burned which extinguished her soul.

4) Josie's spirit was transferred to another vessel. (If this was the movie universe, maybe she got "back in de bowl"....)

5) Someone attuned to the spiritual plane touched the knob and became the host to her soul.

Pretty close to a Super Six List right there, but I did come up with a Super Six List connected to the theory that she was still trapped in the bureau:

SIX ORGANIZATIONS WHO WOULD WANT JOSIE'S KNOB*

(This is contingent on the premise that eventually the Great Northern Lodge would want to get rid of the bureau because of it being the locus for unusual occurrences in their hotel, and that they didn't just trash or burn it.)

Here are my six candidates for those who might have tried to gain possession of the possessed bureau. And as always, I cheated at the end......
1) CURIOUS GOODS, 'FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH'
Curious Goods used to be Vendredi Antiques, owned by Lewis Vendredi. He made a pact with the Devil to sell the accursed inventory which would spread the Devil's evil far and wide. But when he finally reneged on the deal and lost his soul, it was then up to his old friend Jack Marshak, Vendredi's niece Micki Foster, and her cousin Ryan Dallion to retrieve those items.

They could easily have mistaken the possessed bureau for one of those damned objects and brought it back to the Curious Goods store. (This would have happened at least two years after the 'Friday The Thirteenth' series ended. So we have to assume all three of those characters were still alive by late 1991.)
2) THE CANDLEWICK INN, 'HARPER'S ISLAND'
When a hotel decides to get rid of furniture, it could just toss it out if its badly damaged, or it might try to recoup some of its original cost by selling it off - to consignment shops, antique dealers, collectors, or maybe even to another hotel.

An inn like the one on nearby Harper's Island might have been interested in any cast-offs from the Great Northern to heighten their outdoors-y theme in some of the rooms. But the tortured aura of Josie Packard's doomed soul would have proven to be a deadly influence on a youngster who spent summers on the island......
3) 'WAREHOUSE 13'
This is the archive of strange items that are either imbued with mysterious powers, or even have lives of their own. Its curator, Artie Nielsen, calls it America's attic.

Not understanding the reason why, the WH13 agents would have collected the bureau - or at the very least, it's knob - once their detection system picked up on the source of the disturbance. This means that the agents involved would not have been Mika and Pete, who didn't join the Warehouse team until two years ago.
4) THE METROPOLITAN PUBLIC LIBRARY, "THE LIBRARIAN" TRILOGY
The Metropolitan would be the biggest rival to Warehouse 13 for the acquisition of magical artifacts. (And with items in its collection like the Holy Grail, Excalibur (above, right), and Pandora's Box, Chief Librarian Judson would have dispatched the current Librarian (probably Edward Wilde) to retrieve it before the WH13 agents got their mitts on it.

And since Wilde bore an "uncanny resemblance" to FBI Agent Dale Cooper, he probably just bluffed the Great Northern Hotel staff into surrendering the bureau as "evidence".
5) THE TORCHWOOD INSTITUTE, 'TORCHWOOD' ('DOCTOR WHO')
Torchwood would be a major rival to both Warehouse 13 and the Metropolitan Public Library for collecting items, although their interest would lie more with alien technology. After all, their motto is: "If it's alien, it's ours." But they might have assumed the bureau was alien in origin, and like their rivals, national boundaries would not be seen as an impediment in reaching their target.

The way I'd play it out in Toobworld, it would not have been until the end of the 1990's before Torchwood would have become aware of the bureau's existence. And it would have been Torchwood Three, based in Cardiff, who would have been mobilized to bring it back to the Institute. But the presence of the bureau - and Josie's damned spirit - in the close quarters of the "Hub" would have traumatized the psyches of the team members. It would finally be team leader Alex Hopkins who would snap, killing all of the other agents of Torchwood Three on New Year's Eve, 1999.

Alien artifacts remained at the various sub-stations only long enough to be shipped to Torchwood One in the Canary Wharf area of London. So eventually Jack Harkness, who "survived" the New Year's massacre, would have shipped that bureau on to the main facility's storage area. And there it would have been destroyed as collateral damage in the battle of Canary Wharf between the Daleks and the Cybermen.

Finally.....

6) OPTIONS FROM 'DOCTOR WHO'
Yeah, I guess I'm always going to go to the Who well.....

'Doctor Who' serves as an umbrella for three options that appeared in the series. (Torchwood got its own entry because it was spun off to its own show.)
A] THE TARDIS
With the Doctor, he could have discovered the true nature of that bureau while on a trip to the Pacific Northwest (maybe while he was visiting the town of 'Eureka'?). The Time Lord would have then decided it would be safer to store it in the TARDIS (as he did the globe containing the three Carrionite witches) until he could properly dispose of it and/or free Josie Packard's soul.
B] U.N.I.T.
The Unified Intelligence Task-force (formerly the United Nations Intelligence Task-force) has its own warehouse of the alien and the bizarre, which was seen in an episode of the spin-off 'The Sarah Jane Adventures'. Since UNIT is international in scope, they would have no problem in superceding local authorities to O'Btain that bureau.
C] HENRY VAN STATTEN'S UNDERGROUND ARCHIVE IN UTAH
As with almost all of the options I've come up with, Van Statten's main interest lay in the alien ("Lay in" the alien. Heh heh. Heh heh....) But as with the others, he may have made a bid for that bureau as well. However, if he did acquire it, then Josie's soul would probably be doomed for eternity since the underground chambers will be flooded with cement in 2012.

So that's my Super Six List (Plus) on what could have happened to the bureau that contained the soul of Josie Packard. There could have been even more pozz'bilities - like former FBI agent Fox Mulder who used to work 'The X-Files' (and who had a doppelganger DEA agent helping Cooper in Twin Peaks back in the early '90's - Thanks, Sean!), the aforementioned John 'Strange', the NID in cooperation with the 'Stargate SG-1' project, and private collectors looking for items that might have come from 'The Lost Room'.

I do have one final O'Bservation - I don't think we can assume that Joan Chen's character of Reiko in 'Fringe' was the "Over There" counterpart to Josie Packard of the main Toobworld. Born in Hong Kong, it's like her name wasn't originally Josie, but it would have been a Chinese name. Reiko is Japanese in origin. Of course, she might have even been playing the long game about her nationality with Old Man Andrew Packard when he met and married her in Hong Kong so that it would be difficult for him to check her background if he got suspicious. At any rate, whether Reiko and Josie are dimensional counterparts or not is beside the point. It could be that Reiko does have a marriage to Andrew Packard in her background.

But O'Bviously, the "Over There" Josie didn't die and get knobbed up.....

BCnU!

* Yeah, I could have typed "Six Organizations Who Would Want Josie's Bureau", but where's the sport in that? Know what I mean? Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink......

SUPER SIX LIST: RECYCLED TV NAMES

I've long had a fascination for names. I think it goes back to my introduction to "The Hobbit" which served as a gateway to a lifetime love of Fantasy. Even now I'm always on the lookout for the interesting names that leap up to my notice during the course of my job - Christian Beers, Cricket Hunter, Cliff Walker.....

Television is a world of Fantasy; that's always been the basis for the Toobworld Dynamic. And there have been names over the decades that sometimes sound as though they originated in some alternate realm: "Horatio Caine", "Bret Maverick", "Theo Kojak", "Beaver Cleaver", "Fox Mulder", "Simka Gravas", "Endora".....

But for the most part, the names in the registry of Toobworld are plain and simple, much like those to be found in a small town phone book in the Midwest of the real world. People with names like Richards, Taylor, Williams, Rockford, Campbell.

Even so, a common name will summon great TV memories which later writers might want to invoke by using that name again in a different show. So here's a Super Six List of "Recycled TV Character Names"....

1] SHERIFF ANDY TAYLOR
('The Andy Griffith Show' > 'The X-Files' - "Home") The name just wasn't enough; Andy Taylor had the same occupation as the original in Mayberry, North Carolina. He even had a deputy named Barney, although his last name was Paster. (But when Agent Mulder was introduced to the deputy, he jumped in with "Fife" as his guess for Barney's last name.)

That Sheriff Andy Taylor and Deputy Barney Fife might be known in another TV show isn't a Zonk. Whenever it happens, it's never a reference to 'The Andy Griffith Show', but to the movie that was made in Mayberry back in 1961, which brought fame to all of the townfolk.

2] LARRY TATE
('Bewitched' > 'thirtySOMETHING' - "Closing The Circle") If I remember this correctly, the second Larry Tate himself pointed out how strange was it that he should be in advertising with a name like "Larry Tate". I'm hoping the show "Bewitched" wasn't mentioned, so that instead we can make the claim that everybody in the advertising game knew the legend from McMann & Tate......

3] ROBERT McCALLISTER
('Jack & Bobby' > 'Brothers & Sisters') In this case, one or even both of these TV series belong in an alternate TV dimension. While it was set in the present day, 'Jack & Bobby' could exist in the main Toobworld. But eventually there was a rift which sent its timeline off on its own.

The late Robert McCallister of 'Brothers & Sisters' in its contemporary timeline was far older than the boy in 'Jack & Bobby', but he had aspirations for the White House as well. Not that it mattered - not only did his character die between these last two seasons, but a female governor in California when most shows in Earth Prime-Time acknowledge Schwarzenegger as holding that office sends 'Brothers & Sisters' off to an alternate timeline - at least until cancellation when we can invoke the 'Primeval' reboot.

4] WILTON PARMENTER
('F Troop' > 'The New Gidget') It might have been nice to claim that the Wilton Parmenter played by Richard Paul was descended from "The Scourge Of The West" (and of course, from his eventual wife, Jane Angelica Thrift). But because it's the original 'Gidget' series that belongs in Earth Prime-Time, 'The New Gidget' resides in the TV dimension for TV remakes. That theory of relateeveety could still be valid, however - why shouldn't that TV dimension have its own 'F Troop'?

5] TOM CORBETT
('Tom Corbett, Space Cadet' > 'The Courtship Of Eddie's Father') Technically, the listing of these two shows should be reversed, if looked at from the perspective of the Toobworld timeline. 'The Courtship Of Eddie's Father" was contemporary to its broadcast - the 1960's - while 'Tom Corbett, Space Cadet' took place at some point in the far future (but probably before the classic 'Star Trek' series took place, but after 'Enterprise'.)

It's a Toobworld Central theory of relateeveety that magazine publisher Tom Corbett's son Eddie was the progenitor of the family tree that led to his father's namesake at the Space Academy.

There was another Tom Corbett in an episode of the Australian soap opera 'Neighbours', by the way.....

6] NUMBER SIX
('The Prisoner' > 'Battlestar Galactica') There's no connection between these two. 'Battlestar Galactica' belongs in the remake universe, or even - because it took place so long before the true development of humankind on Earth - even in some alternate TV dimension like those that house 'The West Wing', or '24', or maybe even the new 'Sherlock'.

As for 'The Prisoner', that was his designation within "The Village". Toobworld Central will always argue that his real name was John Drake (of 'Danger Man').

But what better choice to fill the Number 6 spot on the list?

Still, we have just one more that we couldn't resist sharing.....

LASSIE
('Lassie' > 'Psych') "Lassie" is the nickname foisted upon Santa Barbara police detective Carlton Lassiter by "psychic" consultant Shawn Spencer. Yes, I think it's meant to be a reference to the famous dog, but it's not a Zonk. Instead, it's a reference to the classic movie of the 1940's.

Do you know of any other TV character names that have been recycled? If so, send them along my way!

BCnU!

THE SUPER SIX LIST: "THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW" CONNECTIONS

'The Andy Griffith Show' recently celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, and we're still celebrating here at Toobworld Central. In honor of this milestone, Inner Toob presents a Super Six List of six other TV shows with connections to 'The Andy Griffith Show' - some legitimate, some hypothetical.

1) 'Make Room For Daddy'
This is where it all started. On a family trip back north through North Carolina, Danny Williams got caught in Mayberry's speed trap. Because of his famed Lebanese temper, Danny ended up in the jail cell where he got a first-hand look at how Mayberry operated.

Only thing was, Aunt Bea wasn't Aunt Bea. Frances Bavier played an elderly widow who only looked like Aunt Bea. It could be that Aunt Bea's father (probably Andy Taylor's grandfather), taking a page from that scoundrel Seth Taylor's playbook, was tomcattin' around town back in the day. And as a result, he fathered another daughter out of wedlock. She grew up looking exactly like Aunt Bea, but folks in Mayberry were too polite to point that out.

2) 'Gomer Pyle, USMC' & 'Mayberry RFD'
Okay, we're cheating here, listing two shows instead of one - the heirs to the legacy, the spin-off and the sequel.

Gomer Pyle left Wally's Service Station to join the Marines in the first one; while 'Mayberry RFD' switched the focus to a local farmer who became a member of the town council. Most of the townsfolk from 'The Andy Griffith Show' were still around, and even Aunt Bea remained as a housekeeper for Sam Jones and his son Mike* for a time. In fact, Sam started dating Howard Sprague's ex-flame, Millie.

(She was Millie Hutchins when she dated Howard back on 'The Andy Griffith Show', and almost married him. But she was Millie Swanson when she started dating Sam Jones. Between those appearances, she did get married to a man called Swanson, who could have been related to Henrietta Swanson and her daughter Darlene. Either Millie was divorced or widowed not long after.)

Gomer Pyle, on the other hand, was pretty much on his own at Camp Henderson in California, but he did get visits from Andy, Opie, and Aunt Bea.
3) 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'
This connection is actually via 'Gomer Pyle, USMC' and is the first of our hypotheticals...... For Ted Baxter, it all started at a 5,000 watt radio station in Fresno, California, which must have been the city closest to Camp Henderson. Only he was using a stage name for his radio gig - "Don Mills". As Don Mills, Ted Baxter interviewed Gomer Pyle because of a heroic deed he allegedly performed. (In reality, it was Sgt. Carter who was "The Would-Be Hero".)
4) 'Fringe'
Inner Toob actually covered the story of Deputy Warren Ferguson's son earlier this year.....

5) 'The Twilight Zone' - "Hocus Pocus And Frisby"
Mr. Frisby lived in Pitchville Flats, in an extremely rural area of North Carolina, but probably not too far from Mayberry and Mt. Pilot. At least it was probably close enough for Floyd Lawson's father to visit another woman in that town, because Floyd had an identical twin named Mitchell (Mitchell Lawson?) who liked to hang around Frisby's general store and listen to Somerset Frisby spin his tall tales - even if he didn't believe them.

(Toobworld bloodlines are strong, so it could be that Floyd and Mitchell don't have the same father, but instead can trace their ancestry back to the area's first Indian agent, Daniel Lawson.)

6) 'Star Trek' - "Mira"
Those aliens who visited Mr. Frisby (and unsuccessfully tried to kidnap him) were so taken with the architecture of Mayberry that they recreated it on the planet FGC-347601 III. (By the time we got to see it, it was already at least 300 years old.)
Ya'll come back now, y'hear?

Oops.... wrong show.....

BCnU!

* AKA Mike The Idiot Boy as he's known in "Mayberry Mondays", a weekly feature by my blogging buddy down South, Ivan of "Thrilling Days Of Yesteryear" fame. (The link for which is to the left....)