Tuesday, April 1, 2014

"THE STORY OF O'B"




Most crossoverists and televisiologists became enthusiasts in their field due to their own experiences watching hours upon hours of TV.   I, on the other hand, was born over there in "Earth Prime-Time", only to find myself trapped here on Earth Prime.  Meanwhile the real Toby O'Brien - a mild-mannered auditor - was sent back in my place.  For a long time, I feared the worst - that my doppelganger had died at the hands of my enemies.  From my own perspective, the Truth was even worse....


In my secret identity, I was once feared by the criminal underworld in my home dimension, known to them as the Monitaur.  (In Earth Prime-Time, my police contact was Detective Munch - as it should have been for one such as myself dedicated to keeping the TV Universe cohesive.)  I used to be known as Big Top (aka Tobio the Clown) when I first started out - that was back when I had joined the Do-Gooders League.

THE DO-GOODERS LEAGUE
(Me as Big Top, White Collar in between the Hammer Twins Sledge & Lillie,
Pink Lady, the Horse Doctor [By day a surgeon, by night a stallion!]
And in front: reformed cat burglar once known as Thatgirl, now Newgirl)

But that's an old tale, too oft repeated - how it all started when I was a citizen of Joyville, Connecticut; that I visited the Ranger Station as a child with my family; that I went to hockey games (where I once witnessed an act of manslaughter on the ice!); and shared vacation memories with David Letterman. 


Over here in the Real World, my counterpart was also known by another name, the Night Oddity.  But he had no super powers nor any heroic aspirations.  It was just a play on his job title of "Night Auditor." 

What might not be known would be my latest misadventure - that one disasterous trip with a Time Lord.  This happened back in January when I finally got the dream of a lifetime - I stowed away aboard a TARDIS... which proved to be a very costly and nearly fatal mistake.  

TELEPATHIC CAT
With the Doctor & with me

See, it wasn't the TARDIS stolen by the Gallifreyan known as the Doctor - whom I met through my former partner, Sandifer AKA Telepathic Cat.  (Close friends get to call him T.C., providing it's with dignity.)  Sandifer and the Doctor first met when the Time Lord picked him up in the wild, wild West and brought Sandifer forward to the dawn of the new Millennium.


SANDIFER AND KWAI CHIANG CAINE

Sandifer introduced me to the Doctor's Sixth Incarnation back when I still lived in Toobworld. But instead of calling for help from him, I hitched a lift with the Time and Relative Dimensions In Space vehicle used by the Doctor's foe, the Rani.

I should have known better.  I never did have any luck in crossing dimensions.  Not only was I sent packing to Earth Prime, but I once had trouble in BookWorld as well......

MY LIFE IN BOOKWORLD
(To be found in "The Time Traveler's Handbook")

It wasn't a long trip - just a quick jaunt forward in Time to this coming July, and through the dimensional vortex to TV-NYC.  When I overheard that temporal tart talk about how she was going to travel across the dimensional vortex back to Toobworld, I knew I had to go along somehow.  I dearly wanted to return to Earth Prime-Time, so that I could once more say "Hi Honey, I'm Home!" to the family I left behind.....

Unfortunately, we landed in TV-NYC at the height of the second shark-infested maelstrom known as "Sharknado" and I was barely able to escape with my life.  I did however suffer some severe damage, but luckily the scientists of OSI were able to rebuild me with fully operational bionics before I returned to Earth Prime......

BEFORE THE BIONIC UPGRADE

And sadly, I had to return to this mundane world.  I tried to go back to my own home just outside the City in Mockingbird Heights, but I found that the Toby O'B from the Trueniverse had made himself at home in my old life.  My 2.5 kids (Literally - don't ask.) and my occasional wife (We were separated at the time.) saw him as me.  He had even reconnected with my mistress! (Vicky is an old college friend who once worked as a Trans-Allied stewardess.)  

VICKY BRADFORD & ME

At least Tobias Prime is able to give them the fully functioning father they once had.  And one free of threats from such past enemies from the Crime-Time Syndicate as Flatscreen (my evil twin), Doctor Dramatization, Spinoff and Marty, Hi-Def Khan IV, Sea Span, Count Lafftrackula, Fox Noose, and the stripper assassin who calls herself Scrubbing Troubles.  


HEADCASE & ME
My mentor and conscience

And if they do, then I have allies left behind there who can watch out for them.  Strangely enough, I have found that they are nothing more than TV characters played over there by the actor friends of the original Toby - Shirley Jordan, Mary Cadorette, Dan Lauria, Fred Sanders, John O'Creagh, and Ray Amell (all of his "Atmosphere People" could be the same time traveler!)

THE GRAY TRAVELER
A man of mystery who would sometimes magically appear
And offer me advice and aid during a crisis

Once I had my new bionics, I sought out the Rani.  She was still in Central Park where she first arrived; her TARDIS disguised as a statue of Mayor Randall Winston.  Even though I stowed away, I blamed her for my travails.  With revenge in my heart, I lashed out with my Monitaur powers (which don't seem to work on Earth Prime) and caused grievous injury.  It wasn't fatal, but bad enough to trigger another regeneration.  (You may have read about her "death" just the other day back here in the Real World, although she was mourned under an alias as a British actress.  I have no clue who she might resemble now....)

THE RANI

Even though Earth Prime-Time is the dimension of my birth, I was deported by the Sitcom Relocation Program back to Earth Prime.  That's the final indignity - that a former crime-fighter known as the Monitaur should be considered a sitcommie!

Oh well.....  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Maybe some day I'll tell you tales about Telepathic Cat and how he helped solve the murder of author Daphne Wallace but was too late to save a rare Shakespeare manuscript from fire.....

 

BCnU!

1 comment:

Jim Peyton said...

Brilliant work Holmes...but what about the sausage?