MIKE RUGNETTA: Here's a fan theory--
a certain portion of television history
took place almost entirely inside the brain
of a young autistic boy.
OK, so first things first.
A couple of days ago we released a version
of this video that was wrong.
My understanding of the Tommy Westfall Universe Hypothesis
was just completely incorrect.
If you would like to watch that video for academic purposes,
you can click here-- ding-- or you can
find a link in the description.
We are going to turn off comments on that video.
If you did write a comment we saved it,
we put in a paste bin.
There's also a link to that paste in the doobly doo.
OK.
Now, onto a version of this video
that is hopefully correct.
For the next several weeks here on "Idea Channel"
we're going to be doing something
a little bit different.
Every other week instead of taking
a piece of popular culture and smashing it up
against some academic or critical theory
to see what happens, we're going to talk
about fan theories, speculations about the ways
some of our favorite pieces of media
may work, even if it doesn't really
appear that way on the surface.
We're going to five of them.
We're going to talk about "Harry Potter," "Pokemon,"
"Star Wars," probably dip at least
a little bit into "Final Fantasy," "Legend of Zelda,"
and a few others.
The first fan theory we're going to talk about right
now is really, I think, something special.
It's a little old, so it's going to take some explaining,
but I think it's important because it's
paradigmatic of fan theories.
It hits all of the fan theory high notes.
It's called the Tommy Westphall Universe or the Tommy Westphall
Universe Hypothesis and it states
that over 400 television shows and counting all take place
in the same universe.
The theory is defended thusly.
In 1988 the American television show "St. Elsewhere"
ended its broadcast run.
A sort of dark comedic medical dramedy
set in a hospital, the end of its final episode
can be read to suggest that the entire series took place
inside the brain of a minor character, a young autistic boy
named Tommy Westphall.
In a post titled "Six Degrees of St. Elsewhere,
comic writer Dwayne McDuffie explains
that this could mean most, if not nearly all,
of television had taken, was taking,
and would continue to take place in Tommy's brain.
He writes, "If "St. Elsewhere" played by the rules of comics,
either they wouldn't have been allowed to do it or they would
have precipitated a crisis in TV Land far bloodier the DC
Comics' crisis on Infinite Earths.
Why?
Because crossover wise "St. Elsewhere"
is the Kevin Bacon of TV shows," end quote.
How so?
Well, if Tommy imagined nearly everything about "St.
Elsewhere," including the people,
and those people show up on other programs,
doesn't it stand to reason that those programs are also
imagined by Tommy Westphall?
This theory says yup.
Now, what you might say is, OK, sure,
but how many people-- meaning characters,
not actors-- are going to show up in other TV shows?
How many crossovers could there possibly be?
I hope you are watching this in your car,
but parked safe and completely stationary just so
that you can literally buckle in.
One central and a very important crossover
takes place when Alfre Woodard, who plays "St. Elsewhere's" Dr.
Roxanne Turner, repriced that role in a 1998 episode
of "Homicide: Life on the Street" titled "Marcy."
This means that if the fictional Dr.
Turner is a complete Westphall fabrication
and she shows up on "Homicide," then
"Homicide" must also, by extension,
be a Westphall fabrication.
But OK, hold on.
Because "Homicide,"-- and much of television--
draws from its surroundings from the past and present of its
medium, as well as others, Tommy Wetsphall becomes not unlike
the breadcrumb trail or contrast medium making visible
the extreme intertextuality of popular primetime TV.
Once "Homicide" is part of the Tommy Westphall Universe,
every character crossing from it to other shows
draws those shows into the Westphall Universe,
even if the characters crossing over
aren't in "St. Elsewhere" to begin with.
Characters crossing from those shows
to a third circle of shows then draw more characters
into the universe and the process
continues until the complex of TV we normally
think of as being comprised of many discrete fictional
universes separated by show title
is laid out as one continuous fictional landscape.
Whoa, unbelievable.
MIKE RUGNETTA: And as you might imagine, that landscape is big.
Just to take you down one pathway, source
here, Elliot Carlin from "Newhart"
visits the psych in "St. Elsewhere."
Larry, Darryl, and Darryl, also from "Newhart" squat
in Coach Hayden's cabin.
Coach and Drew Carey, as well as Ellen "Grace Under Fire"
all end up together in Las Vegas during a crossover block.
Mimi from "The Drew Carey Show" appears in "The Hughleys,"
Darryl Hughley and Nikki Parker from "The Parkers"
cross over onto each other's shows.
"The Parkers" is a spin-off of "Moesha,"
whose Niecy and Hakeem go to the prom in "Clueless,"
whose main character, Cher, was visited by "Sabrina,
the Teenage Witch."
From "Newhart" to "Sabrina," all in Tommy's mind.
But it doesn't stop at just characters.
Oh, no, no.
Props work, too.
For example, John Munch from "Homicide"-- which, remember,
is part of the Westphall Universe of Dr. Turner--
questions the lone gunman from the "X Files."
The "X Files" Cancer Man smokes Morley cigarettes.
Morley Cigarettes have been in 24 "American Horror Story,"
"The Americans," "Breaking Bad," "Frazier," "Orange
is the New Black," "Shamless," "That '70s Show,"
"Up All Night," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer,"
and as you may have guessed, many, many other shows.
The ending of "St. Elsewhere" with its snow globe
and slow zoom and exposition suggesting
Tommy has imagined six whole seasons of television,
and perhaps countless others, provides the final piece
for a puzzle many television fans would
like to solve generally-- how can we
imagine all or much of the media we love being somehow related,
somehow intertwined, capable of interacting?
Is there a pathway between Mulder and Spike/ what
if someone on "The John Laroquette Show"
influenced history in such a way that it made certain portions
of "Star Trek" possible.
In the way that it's fun to see public figures you like
interacting with one another on social media,
it's fun to consider how your favorite fictional universes
may intersect or interact.
Heck, it's a whole genre of fan fiction.
It's even an incredibly popular video game.
But the point, I don't think, is that the Tommy Westphall
Universe Hypothesis or any other fan
theory, for that matter, is correct,
is 100% and totally verifiable and we've
figured out a secret thing that's actually
true about television and-- whoopah--
bow well before its deductive completeness.
The point is that fan theories provide
new ways to think with and at our favorite pieces of media
and culture.
Fan theories try to determine what new or exciting situation
can be reasonably wrung out of a story based
on what's already there.
A good fan theory rearranges or reinterprets but doesn't
recreate and append.
They allow us new ways to consider well-known, often
discussed popular, and/or beloved media,
and they almost always meet whatever
that media is on its own terms.
This approach has its pros and its cons,
but most importantly it's fun.
For me fan theories are kind of like critical thinking popcorn.
This is why I wanted to start with Tommy Westphall.
Are there people out there who believe unequivocally
that the Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis proves
beyond a shadow of a doubt that over 400 television
shows really and truly do exist in exactly the same universe,
that instead of it being a symptom of intertextuality
resulting from purposeful cleverness, sure,
but also practical convenience, actual accident,
and literal coincidence it proves
a fundamental characteristic of "Caroline in the City"
and "The Wire?"
Is that they could in fact be happening a mere train
ride from one another inside a young boy's brain?
Maybe.
And if so, that's awesome.
But even Dwayne McDuffie himself followed his proclamation that
quote, "The last five minutes of "St. Elsewhere"
is the only television show ever,
everything else is a daydream" with an admission that quote,
"obsessive cross-series continuity is silly."
He was making a point about comic books,
and maybe fixating on that kind of thing
is a silly but also novel, and-- as Movie Bob points out--
both fun and something you can go deep on.
Fan theories, maybe Tommy Westphall chief amongst them,
are a way to reconsider stories and universes
that you love, maybe to sharpen your thinking bits, maybe
to gain a little bit more insight into parts
of the story not captured on the page or by the camera
or maybe because you really honestly do
believe that "Calvin and Hobbes" is a prequel to "Fight Club."
If you don't know about that one,
you've got to go Google it.
It's very convincing.
What do you guys think?
What role do fan theories play in popular culture
and do you think the Tommy Westphall Universe
Hypothesis holds up at all?
Let us know in the comments and I will respond to some of them
in next week's comment response video.
In this week's comment response video
we talk about your thoughts regarding
trigger warnings in classrooms.
If you want to watch that you can click right here
or find a link in the doobly do.
We do we also have one bit of very exciting news.
"Idea Channel" finally has-- hold on one second-- t-shirts.
It was designed by my friend Andrea, aka Art Sparrow, who
is a very talented illustrator.
Really, really excited that we got to work with her.
So I'll put some links to her work in the description
as well, as well as a link to the DFTBA.com store
where you can buy this "Idea Channel" shirt.
It is the only thing that we have available right now.
We're working on a couple of other t-shirt designs as well
as some other fun stuff, trying figure out
how to get like stickers and various
and sundry other things.
But yeah, the merch train is finally
leaving the station, which is vary exciting.
Choo choo, this week's episode was brought you
by the very hard work of these context crossing
fictional characters.
We have a Facebook, and IRC, and a Subreddit.
Come hang out.
And the tweet of the week comes from Nick Stoler,
who points us towards an article about conveying
and experiencing existential dread via Super Mario maker.
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MIKE RUGNETTA: Yeah.
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