Thank you all for your encouraging replies to my latest update! However, before I post my customary responses, I have a
very special announcement...
Since
e of pi has been very helpful to me in assisting with the writing process of several recent updates, and since I have experience writing for the timeline that
he writes along with his co-author
truth is life,
Eyes Turned Skywards, I've inquired as to whether he might be interested in making his own formal contribution to
my timeline. He suggested asking all of you if
you might be interested in
reading such an update, and that's exactly what I'll do. What are
your thoughts on the matter, dear readers?
Also, my sincerest thanks to those of you who are experienced with this topic for your constructive criticisms on this latest update! I have taken them to heart and tweaked the post accordingly (as some of you have already noticed), so if I do not respond to specific concerns as I'm replying to all of you, that is likely the reason.
Or I'm just keeping yet another secret from all of you
---
Yes, but will you give Jonathan Winters a vehicle too?
That's quite benevolent of you, asking for me to find a home for the "Cousin Oliver" (a term which obviously does not exist ITTL, of course) of
Mork & Mindy.
I know I'm a bit late here, but I really loved the update!
Thank you, vultan
Well, this just goes to show how out of the loop I am...
Now we'll just have to see as to how the
rest of the
Argo story will play out ITTL...
Thanks! I've heard of these boards before, but wasn't keen on the political alts. And I'm a long term Trek fan.
Well, I aim to please. It always astounds me how much what I
thought was a quirky, peculiar timeline idea has appealed to so many people.
Mr Teufel said:
I've been thinking on this. 'Mork' was one of Robin's original acts, wasn't he? Then I see no reason he wouldn't do Mork skits on TRPS.
Mork from Ork was created for
Happy Days as part of a take-off on the 1960s sitcom
My Favorite Martian (and yes, this
was after Fonzie jumped the shark). The whole affair was a one-off, intended as
just a dream of Richie's, but the character's popularity inspired the producers to create a spinoff revolving around the Mork character. Now, that said, Williams improvised every step of the way, including during his audition. I could certainly see Williams creating a character who has many similar mannerisms to Mork, though he wouldn't actually be a space alien from the planet Ork. He'd just be a weird character (and hard to differentiate from his many
other weird characters).
You mentioned that the Religious Right encompassed significant portions of the OTL Religious Right. Does that mean they don't form a Moral Majority alliance with other social conservative forces, like, say, the (mostly-Catholic, mostly-integration-neutral) pro-life movement? I just really don't see the Catholic Church aligning with a party more explicit in its roots to the white backlash, especially in the 70s.
Well, we're going to be covering this to an extent in later updates, but you are correct that the Roman Catholic Church would
not support the AIP - there are
way too many non-European Catholics, even in the United States, for that to happen. (
Individual Catholics might support the AIP, of course.)
As you so often do, you've managed to take a wide range of material, and knit it together very well. As a longtime fan of the American version from before I could read, I note that Seseme Street made the crossing of the Pond--an interesting reminder that cultural cross-contamination is not just one-way.
Thank you, e of pi! And yes, though Great Britain may be a gigantic aircraft carrier, it is
not an impregnable fortress
Good update, I'm glad you were able to use some of the ideas I gave you.
And thank you for sharing them with me! They were most helpful.
Thande said:
I'm not sure about the name Sesame Square...depends if they wanted a direct association with the US version or not, and whether they wanted to sound exotic (which it does to our ears).
The name
Sesame is standard to all international co-productions of the program IOTL, probably for branding reasons. Therefore, I suspect that the Children's Television Workshop would insist upon its use. (Interestingly, there has been a
Sesame Square IOTL... though in
Nigeria, as recently as 2010.)
Thande said:
Re the point about Captain Peacock's war career or lack thereof, I always found it strangely ironic that his actor went on to play the role of Frank "Truly" Truelove on Last of the Summer Wine, who replaced Brian Wilde's Foggy Dewhirst -- the reason being that Foggy's schtick had also been being a supposed war veteran constantly boasting about his experiences while actually having been in a non-combat role.
I assume it must have been part of the stigma around non-combatants that existed at the time - despite how valuable logistics and support roles were (and are) in warfare.
Now that was a very full and extremely intriguing update.
Thank you for the compliment, Nigel!
NCW8 said:
Brilliant ! That might even result in an increase of popularity for the Prince.
Indeed it might - and note also the year in which he made this appearance. Quite a big one for the Royal Family.
NCW8 said:
Interesting. Does the early success of the original series in the US mean that there won't be any attempts at American adaptions ? From what I've heard, these haven't been particularly successful.
You are correct - no proper stateside "remake" of
Fawlty Towers has ever caught on IOTL, though
certainly not for lack of trying.
NCW8 said:
How about the other Pythons ? Hopefully Palin and Jones still produce Ripping Yarns ITTL - maybe they even get the funding to complete the second season.
Hmmm, looks like they need two more episodes to do it. All right, consider it done. You're lucky that I happen to be a fan of their primary director, who would move across the Pond in the 1980s IOTL and become the primary director of one of the greatest sitcoms ever made. (One which, fittingly enough, saw a subpar
British remake produced - along with apparently abominable Dutch, Spanish, and Greek adaptations.) Jones also gets a pass because of
Blazing Dragons, which I recall from my childhood.
NCW8 said:
Great ! I wonder if ITTL, Nation will introduce the Daleks into Blake’s 7. It was something that he considered at the end of the second season OTL.
I'm sure that he'll consider the possibility, as he did IOTL.
I forgot to mention that in a bit of a tragic coincidence,
John Ammonds died last week.
Thank you for bringing that to our attention, Thande - I hereby dedicate this past update to his memory. In honour of "the one that got away"
Thank you, Steve!
stevep said:
I definitely wanted to give the impression that they were handling Prince Charles with "kid gloves", so to speak - a compromise
insisted upon by the Court of St. James's in exchange for having him appear at all. To be fair, Prince Charles
himself would probably be more willing to go along with their usual routine.
I actually liked the update, Brainbin. Nice job.
Thank you, Dan!
Dan1988 said:
Though - let me say this - the way you described
To The Manor Born leaves it WAY open for a potential version made in Canada, though based not on class humour but (since this is Canada we're talking about) based on something akin to
Bon Cop, Bad Cop, at least in the beginning. Who knows, it would serve as a genuine CBC/Radio-Canada production by bridging the English and French units together and might prove to be a hit.
That's an
intriguing conceit. Although I wonder how it could be directly
translated (har, har) to the Canadian geopolitical situation. Might we be looking at an Anglo-Quebecer widow with a sizeable estate in the once-predominantly English-speaking Eastern Townships, seeing her land bought out by a
nouveau riche Quebecois entrepreneur? (Hey, look at that! Four French words at once.) Or the other way round, with the widow on a
French-Canadian owned estate in the rapidly shrinking Francophone section of Eastern
Ontario seeing
her land bought out by a
nouveau riche Anglo who wants a house in the country? Or perhaps something else entirely?
Nice to see that Fawlty Towers is longer ITTL, albeit by only 4 episodes, but still. Perhaps there will be one more season, in 1978 or 1979. I know you're not John Cleese, but do you have any plot ideas Brainbin that could be used for a hypothetical third series?
If I did, I'd like to think I would be making a
lot more money as a writer than I am at present
A very fun update, Brainbin!
Thank you, Andrew!
Andrew T said:
I wonder how the early globalization of culture will play out ITTL. I really enjoy how you've had cultural and technological trends converge here in a way that makes perfect sense.
Actually, that's the funny thing - I've
maybe accelerated globalization of popular culture by a couple of years (with shows like
Doctor Who, Monty Python's Flying Circus, and
Fawlty Towers achieving some measure of popularity only slightly ahead of schedule). One thing I wanted to illustrate with that sweeping introduction (and everyone please note how they seem to be going farther and farther back each time) is that globalization of the media has been a very
long and
gradual process. In this age of the internet and instant gratification, it's sometimes hard to remember that, given how much faster and shorter everything seems now than it did before.
Andrew T said:
Which also suggests that John Cleese's semi-iconic "French knight" character would probably be cut from the film. How you feel about this is directly proportional to the number of times you've quoted the "...your mother was a hamster..." speech in public.
A sound observation. The setting is this film is probably contemporary with that of
Clovis, the first King of the
Franks, long before even Charlemagne, let alone Hugh Capet.
Andrew T said:
Okay, I'll bite: why Ross Perot?
Very funny
But no, if it were Perot, I would have mentioned the ears, too
Cleese is exaggerating; he's basically inviting us to imagine a Yosemite Sam type.
Andrew T said:
I legitimately laughed out loud at that one -- and then skipped to the endnotes to see how closely it was adapted from OTL. I can totally envision Eric Idle writing (and saying) it.
Thank you very much! I thought it sounded perfectly Pythonesque, and I'm glad that you agree.
Andrew T said:
A damned shame. I guess you're not writing a utopia, either.
No, I'm not, and I think you'll find that I've been saying that
long before you have
Andrew T said:
Still: there's no doubt that Life of Brian would fail to pass muster with American investors in Ronald Reagan's 1970s!
Especially since what eventually became
Life of Brian IOTL was originally conceived as being far more incisive than what it became in pre-production; it was only
then that the Pythons decided to depict the character and teachings of Jesus with respect and dignity. Their pitch to investors ITTL was therefore much "meaner" than the OTL film.
Andrew T said:
Given the wide range of overlap, I wonder how this will affect TTL's analogue to Newhart, if there is such a thing. IOTL, I don't think Fawlty Towers crossed the pond until long after Newhart was a success.
Actually, that sort of got me thinking: I know you had The Bob Newhart Show proceed roughly as per OTL, which would suggest that Newhart is proceeding apace. But I wonder if Newhart's famously deadpan comic shtick might suffer ITTL by comparison to the earlier success of more ... energetic ... comics like Robin Williams.
The funny (har, har) thing about Newhart is that he
never seems to have gone out of style IOTL. And another of my readers sagely observed that you can judge the true worth of a comedian in how he is treated by his peers - few are held in higher regard than Bob Newhart. And really, I don't think I can possibly make comedy in the 1970s and 1980s ITTL any more anarchic or exuberant than it was IOTL. Now, there
is the very valid question about
Newhart, which ran for eight years IOTL and kept him in the spotlight all through the 1980s. In fact,
Newhart was the last great sitcom produced by MTM Productions IOTL - but that studio does not exist ITTL. Paramount would have to green-light
Newhart instead. In 1982. So we'll obviously have to revisit the studio at that time to see whether they'd be willing and/or able to do so.
Andrew T said:
I just want to point out that you foreshadowed this event
more than a thousand posts ago, which has to be some sort of AH.com milestone! (For the record, the discussion can be found way back on pages 77-78.) Surely there must be some Turtledove category for which we can nominate this event in 2013!
Has it really been a thousand posts?
Well, you know what they say: an elephant never forgets.
Heh, good point! I wonder what joke they would use for HRH...was there some well-known dispossessed monarch at the time they could have used as the basis of a riff? (Haile Selassie?)
We'll be finding out about the ultimate fate of the
Nəgusä Nägäst in due time, as it happens!
Thande said:
It's impressive but there have been similar examples of long range foreshadowing in other TLs: Decades of Darkness, Fear Loathing and Gumbo, my own LTTW, etc. Probably the first time it has been done for a cultural TL though...
Well, thank you, Thande, for measuring my timeline against some of the finest in the history of this board, which I shall choose to interpret as a compliment
I try to put those out every now and again, yes
The Professor said:
Sad that you killed
Life of Brian - tis my favourite of their films - but you rescued
Holy Grail from it's mire
And a few more Fawlty Towers eps and you saved Blake 7.
Very much a mixed bag, it's true - and I wouldn't have it any other way.
The Professor said:
Glad that Jim Dale is doing so well as the Doctor. He was rather typecast as a CarryOn OTL and this is a good role for him.
To be honest, I'm not personally all that familiar with Dale - in fact, I first became aware of him as the narrator for the American
Harry Potter audiobooks. (I've never actually
listened to them - I just know that he is.) Apparently he has Hermione say "Harry" in a very annoying fashion. He took that gig and later moved on to become the narrator for a short-lived "quirky" series called
Pushing Daisies, which I have also never seen. Anyway, to make a long story short (too late), you're welcome.
Thank you, Unknown! And I love when people tell me that they love it
Unknown said:
I would like seeing a sequel to this (especially since I'd like to see how you handle advances in technology after 1986), but if you don't, I understand why.
To be honest, that's one of the things that would most interest
me about writing past 1986 as well, if I ever decide to so.
Unknown said:
Thank you, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.
And I
also hope to have the
next update ready within the next couple of days! In fact, my motivation is yet another race against the OTL clock...