The Fontanaverse

I had forgotten that St. Elsewhere was entirely imagined by an autistic child. But a hat tip to JC (not Jesus Christ, as far as I know) who pointed out the Fontanaverse. Be aware that some doubt the Fontanaverse, but regardless it's an interesting exercise in TV history.

Which gets me thinking: is the "it was all a dream" explanation fair? I can only think of a few examples. First, Dallas, where Victoria Principal dreams an entire season at the end of which Patrick Duffy dies. To be honest, I've had this same dream, only instead of a huge family living in a mansion north of Dallas, I imagine Suzanne Somers crushing him to death with her thighs. But then I wake up, and realize that that would be far too entertaining to be on television. At any rate, it'd piss me off if I really committed to a show only to learn that I had invested a year in stories that didn't actually tie together. That's the whole point of serials, people. The stories interweave and interconnect. Leaving one story off of the narrative thread is forgivable, but to throw away a whole season is just cruel. TV minus coherency equals Family Guy (and that's not a compliment).

And the only other one that comes to mind is Newhart. Here, we have something different where the story world is internally consistent and fully connected. Even better, it connects to a previous show, The Bob Newhart Show, via Suzanne Pleshette. It was unexpected and funny, so I'll give it a pass.

A few sidenotes on Newhart - I always thought it was strange that Bob Newhart did The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart, and Bob, yet in none of those was there a character named "Newhart". (In fairness, his name on Bob was in fact Bob). Additionally, David Mirkin was the creator of the Newhart show. You might remember him from such shows as The Simpsons(during it's golden years in the mid-90s) and The Many Aquatic Loves of Troy McClure, which I just made up.