Saturday, April 28, 2018



From the IMDb:
A suspicious birthday card pits Tasha on the trail of her ex, dentist Ted McClellan, being attacked by fiends. They're after dental records for a scam planned by Bolivian drug cartel US market baron Simon Pike. So VIP protects Ted, and discovers Tasha's twice ex, the Owl, is also involved.

Here's how it looked in the French Toobworld dimension:

Ted and Tasha were married for only one year, but there is some question about Ted McLellan's standing in the list of Tasha Dexter's ex-husbands.  In this episode, he's identified as her second husband; but there was an episode in the second season ("The Return of the Owl") in which he's mentioned as her third husband.  

I think we can resolve this Zonk using that IMDb description above.  Since the IMDb can be written by anybody, I assume that it was written by someone with a poor command of English.  "Tasha's twice ex, the Owl" - that must mean that he was married in two different installments, with a divorce in between.  (At least I hope so.  I'd hate to think that they were trying to say "Tasha's second ex-husband".)

So in that sense, Ted was Tasha's second husband and her third husband from a different perspective.  He's the second man to marry her and it's her third marriage.

And I think they eventually got back together.....

'V.I.P' ran from 1998 to 2002.  The Chase Sapphire Card blipverts ran around 2009.  So it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that Tasha and Ted found each other again at some point after 2002.  And based on these commercials, it appears that they are not only together but living under assumed names (whether it was because of her former job with V.I.P. or further complications from the Simon Pike investigation.)

I say this because the card shown at the end of the commercial has the last name of "Walden" embossed on it.  They seem to be living a carefree lifestyle in these commercials - fancy condo in the City, staying at a fancy hotel, enjoying a ski trip.  

But it could be that they're always on the run.  I don't know who wants to kill them, but I think The Owl is a good candidate.

Not that Chase Sapphire would want that kind of association.....


Molly Culver starred in 'V.I.P.' as Tasha Dexter and David Starzyk guest starred as Ted McLelland before they were reunited in the commercial series.

Friday, April 27, 2018


I ran my first (official) "UnScene" post on Wednesday - dealing with one of the most famous unseen TV characters, Mrs. Columbo.  Today we're running another UnScene post, another one about a 'Columbo' character.  She's pretty much a trivial figure in the grand scheme of things, but she is the inspiration for the new "UnScene" feature.


In Toobworld, Dorothea Page was a silent film actress who not only easily made the transition into the talkies of the sound era, but she became an even bigger star.  She lived in a reclusive mansion on Sunset Boulevard until the very end - which came one Sunday night in September of 1979.

According to Big George Tuddell, an LAPD detective who worked that case, there was a million dollar necklace around her neck as she lay there dead in her bed.  According to the report he related to Lt. Frank Columbo, that necklace was still around her neck when she arrived at the Haviland mortuary.  Arthur Haviland's protege in the funereal arts, Eric Prince, took possession of the body in order to prepare Ms. Page's mortal remains for eternal rest.

But according to Mr. Prince, there was no necklace with the body and he insisted that the police should inspect the premises right away to remove any taint of guilt from himself and the funeral home he was representing.

(As it turned out, Prince had taken the necklace and shoved it deep into the mouth of the corpse, down into the throat of the movie queen.  The police never thought of looking in there, so after they left, Prince cremated Ms. Page's body, knowing full well that the million dollars' worth of diamonds would survive the extreme heat.  He fenced the necklace through Edward Fenelle AKA Eddie the Fence and used this windfall to buy into his mentor's business, which was the foundation of his empire.)

Sheik Yarami in the Page mansion
(Could that be a painting of Dorothea
in one of her movie roles?)

After Ms. Page's estate was settled, Sheik Yarami, a Suari politician once allied with the First Secretary of the Suari legation, bought her Sunset Boulevard mansion.  Yarami was a movie fanatic who cast derision upon television and he considered the chance to own a piece of movie history like Dorothea Page's mansion a major coup.  (Dr. Eric Mason had nothing on the Sheik as a movie memorabilia collector!)

Erik Prince eventually was brought to justice by Lt. Columbo for the murder of gossip columnist Verity Chandler, during which Columbo also solved the case of those missing diamonds belonging to Dorothea Page.

Those are the basic facts from the 'Columbo' episode "Ashes To Ashes".  And now, let the fun begin!

Dorothea Page was discovered by director W.W. Von Reinbein, who was looking to mold a young actress into the next Viola Normandy, his previous "Trilby".  

Von Reinbein worked with Miss Normandy on the 1925 silent film "Veil Of The Desert" in two different productions.  First, with Mark LeMartin as her leading man and then - when the Toobworld timeline was revised due to Martian interference - with Valentine Rudolfo as the Sheik.  (As a young man in Suaria infatuated with the movies, Sheik Yarami would often fantasize that he was the sheik in "Veil of the Desert".)

Viola Normandy quickly tired of the director's tyrannical ways and left his employ to work with other movie directors.  The breaking point came when Von Reinbein's nephew, Albert Burkhalter, visited his uncle's sound stages during a trip to America.  Seeing the actress, long an object of desire in the young man's fantasies, was too much for Albert - he tried to force his attentions on Viola in her dressing room. 

Only the influence exerted by the Monolith Studio heads was able to quell the publicity of the assault from reaching the Los Angeles Tribune and Hollywood gossip-mongers like Letitia DeVine.  (Albert fled back to his native Germany where he fell under the sway of a charismatic Wesen demagogue who had just recently re-founded the Nazi party.....)

Needing a new star for his pictures, Von Reinbein found Dorothea working in the secretarial pool right there at Mammoth Pictures Studios.  Together they began with several movies capitalizing on the success of his earlier picture "Veil Of The Desert" - "Princess Of Zalamar", "The Emir of Elkabar", and "Barabian Dreams".

In the beginning, Dorothea specialized in "waif" roles, but as she got older she became more assured in her performances.  Working with other directors after the death of Von Reinbein (coronary while making love to Winifred Glover), she tackled more sophisticated material in such films as "Night Train To Boravia", an espionage film.  

In one of her last silent movies she portrayed Jenny Martin in a bio-pic about scientific detective Quentin Everett Deverill, which many people thought took liberties with the truth.  Little did the general public know that the movie didn't even come close to mirroring the fantastical adventures undertaken by Deverill.  And that's just the way the shadow ops group known as UNReel* wanted it.  

With the advent of sound, Dorothea Page made a smooth transition into the talkies as she had a voice which was as beautiful as the rest of her.  And unlike other actresses of the period, she lacked the vanity which prevented some of the others from graciously bowing to the inevitabilities of age.  She accepted that with the passage of Time, she could still find work once she graduated to older character roles.

One of her silent movies, "The Bad, Bad Lady" was remade as a talking picture, but with Damita Syn as the star.  (Coincidentally, the director was Z.Z. von Schnerk, who won the Ollington Award for Best Cinematogaph Film of 1931 - the same year Dorothea won the Ollington for her performance as Lady Marjorie Bellamy in a Sylver Screen Picture about the sinking of the Titanic.)

She formed her own production company and found the financing for many of her films, giving her the control she wanted over the movies she made.  But that independence was challenged when she was working on "Pleasure Domes" and it nearly drove her out of the business.  The movie was being directed by a man named Ronstadt with whom she had worked in the past and with whom she had once had a romantic relationship.

But Mammoth Pictures Studios panicked with the cost overruns and took the project away from Ronstadt, hiring a young director named Cortland Evans to take over the completion of the film.  

Evans had only just turned 30 and Miss Page  was doubtful of his abilities.  However, "Pleasure Domes" was well-received by the critics and more importantly by the audience.  She would re-team with Cortland Evans on two more movies - "Mansions In The Dust" (the last movie which Barbara Jean Trenton would ever make), and the ill-fated anti-war film "Flanders Fields".  (It was advocating peace and might have succeeded if they finished it.  Unfortunately the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor during production so it was quietly shelved for decades.)

During the Great Depression, she even appeared in a few escapist movie musicals like the notorious "Daddy's Boy" from 1938.  (Luckily her scenes as the mother didn't survive.)  And she shocked her fans when her character was revealed to be the murderer in the first sound adaptation of "Death In Havana", the Inspector Lucerne novel by Abigail Mitchell.  (Mitchell''s first published novel back in 1916 was the basis of a silent movie, but Page was not involved in that production despite her friendship with Zeta Theta Beta sorority sister Abigail.)  

The audience was not shocked that she played the killer, but that the murderer in the novel was a different character altogether.  Despite the long-standing friendship they shared, the unauthorized revision to the script caused a rift between Page and Mitchell.  It would be decades before they finally reconciled.  (Which was sad, as there had always been those rumors about how close their friendship really was.)

Dorothea Page was not averse to the option of playing the bad girl in the movies.  In the 1930s Saturday serial "Bride Of Chaotica", she played the high camp Queen Arachnia battling the heroic Captain Proton.  

Related image
Centuries after the original movie serial.
which starred Dorothea Page,
Starfleet Captain Janeway played
Queen Arachnia in the Voyager holodeck.

She also produced and starred in a series of Westerns for Monolith Studios, based on the character Nicodemus Legend.  They were adapted from the dime novels by Ernest Pratt, but she switched Legend's gender to female, playing the role as Nicodemia Legend.  (Unlike the earlier case with Abigail Mitchell, there was no protest from Pratt... as the dime novelist had been dead for some time.)  

Among her co-stars in these Westerns were Chaps Callahan and ten year old Sam Garrett - who would grow up to star in his own TV Western, 'Jed Clayton, U.S. Marshal'.

Matronly roles became her standard after World War II (making her the Toobworld counterpart to Myrna Loy.)  And when television became more popular, Dorothea Page recognized the impact the new medium would have and so she threw herself into the work.  She wasn't going to withdraw into the life of a recluse as her fellow actress Barbara Jean Trenton did.  

She took on roles in many early TV series, running the gamut from sitcoms to Westerns.  (She played the mother of Rance McGrew in one episode of his Western and recurred as the nosey neighbor in 'The Cooper Clan'.)  She even appeared on the children's show 'Mr. Peanut' with Wally Walter, and on an Easter-themed special presentation of 'Alan Brady Presents'.

Dorothea Page eventually did retire due to health issues but she didn't seclude herself in her Sunset Boulevard mansion.  She would often throw parties for her friends among the old guard of Hollywood like Baxter Kellogg, Nora Chandler, and director Cortland Evans.

Dorothea never married, but she was never lacking for lovers.  Perhaps the great love she lost was military intelligence officer Richard Hannay, whom she met through Quentin E. Deverill while making that semi-biographical movie about Deverill.  Unfortunately, the demands of his crusade against the German machinations leading to war prevented Hannay from exposing her to the risks of being with him.  She left England soon after finishing that film and never returned.

She often had short, meaningless affairs with many of her leading men, but she usually tossed them aside in favor of the younger co-stars - Racy Tracy Rattigan, Stephen Collins (No, not that one.  That one is still alive.  This one was murdered.) and Rocky Rhodes.  She did like her young men...

But those rumors about her and Irwin Kroner, who played her grandson "Little Corky Carter", were just that - sick, disgusting rumors.  He was only ten when he was a star and washed up by the time he was eleven!  You perverts!

As was the case with Alistair Cooke in the Real World and Lupe Velez in both the Real World and Toobworld, Dorothea Page will sadly be mostly remembered for the circumstances of her death.  I only hope this conjectural mythography will serve as a better memorial than for her being remembered for having a million dollars worth of diamonds shoved down her throat before cremation.

There is only one thing left to address with this salute to Dorothea Page.  As with everyone in Toobworld, she needs somebody to have portrayed her in order to give her a "life" in television - even if she never actually showed up onscreen.  (There are plenty of TV characters we only know from photographs seen during the course of an episode.)

Some people are represented in Toobworld by their Real World counterparts playing themselves.  But most TV characters have been embodied by actors portraying them. 

In this case, I ended up choosing Lillian Gish to be the actress who could have brought the character of Dorothea Page to life on TV; mostly in flashbacks from her early years in the silent films yet right up to her final days on her deathbed.


  • 'Columbo'
  • 'My Favorite Martian'
  • 'Hogan's Heroes'
  • 'Grimm'
  • 'Lou Grant'
  • 'The Adventures Of Superman'
  • 'The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.'
  • 'The Avengers'
  • 'Perry Mason'
  • 'Danger Man'
  • 'Q.E.D.'
  • 'Hannay'
  • 'The Beverly Hillbillies'
  • 'The Monkees'
  • 'Murder, She Wrote'
  • 'Doctor Who'
  • 'The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt'
  • 'Veronica Mars'
  • 'Legend'
  • 'Star Trek: Voyager'
  • 'The Twilight Zone'
  • 'Monk'
  • 'On The Air'
  • 'The Dick Van Dyke 'Show'
  • 'Marcus Welby, M.D.'
  • '77 Sunset Strip'
  • 'Family Affair'
  • 'The Hero'
  • 'Barney Miller'
    'Burke's Law'
  • 'The Avengers'
  • 'Hannay'
  • 'Upstairs, Downstairs'
  • 'The Lot'
  • 'Frasier'
  • 'Masterpiece Theater'
  • 'The Adventures Of Fu Manchu'
* Regular visitors to my blog will know about UNReel.  They were an off-shoot of UNIT which financed works of fiction, whether it be books, movies, TV shows, even musicals and comic strips, to disguise the actual exploits of certain individuals in the world.  This was done either to cover up their crimes (as was the case with Fu Manchu) or to allow the heroes and adventurers to continue in their work without disturbance from interlopers.  Better for all concerned if they were treated as being fictional by the general public.

Thursday, April 26, 2018


We have a theory of relateeveety which connects 'M*A*S*H' to 'Columbo'.

From the Monster M*A*S*H wiki:

Captain "Ugly" John Black was portrayed by John Orchard in the TV series. The character on the television show was an anesthesiologist from Australia, often depicted wearing an Australian Slouch hat. [In the book, he was an American who had "trained in the States with McIntyre." In the film, he is an American (as he can be seen wearing the insignia of a U.S. Army Captain), but his background is not discussed.] 

In the TV series, Ugly John was present only in the first season. He began as a significant supporting member of the cast, often engaged in poker games with Hawkeye and Trapper, but by the end of the season he was rarely seen outside brief O.R. scenes. 


For Toobworld purposes, we're following the usual practice - that a TV character would be the same age as the actor playing the role.  Therefore, Dr. John Black was born circa 1907 and was in his mid-40s when he served overseas during the Korean Conflict.

In 1928, the wife of "Ugly John" gave birth to his son, whom they named Charles Black.  While his father was serving as a doctor in South Korea, Charles emigrated to England to seek his future.  He may have gone there to attend university, but eventually he joined the Metropolitan Police.  He was assigned to be a constable in one of the outer suburbs of London, an area that was mostly countryside.


This was where Sir Roger Havisham made his home on a resplendent estate.  But on the night when Sir Roger was found dead at the foot of the staircase, Charlie Black was assigned to oversee the situation.  Detective Chief Superintendent Durk, distantly related to the  , theatrical impresario via marriage, arrived on the scene with his American guest, Lt. Columbo, and caught Constable Charlie Black in flagrante with Sir Roger's maid.

About a year after the Havisham murder investigation was solved by the American detective, Dr. John Black passed away back in Australia at the age of 66.  Charlie Black returned to his homeland in order to bury his father and settle the family's affairs. 

But he soon returned to Great Britain.  I like to think he married that maid and - despite his slack attitude towards his job - he advanced in the Met to his level of ability.  Granted, it may not have been too high up the chain of command, but he at least didn't screw things up too much.  Hopefully....

Eventually he retired, perhaps in the early 1990s, but didn't have long to enjoy his leisure years as he passed away in 1995.

Know of any current British TV characters by the last name of "Black" in their early 40s, whose parents are never mentioned or seen?  Then we might be able to claim Ol' Charlie Black might be known as "Daddy" to them.

Such a common surname, we might be able to expand the lineage of these characters in either direction.


Wednesday, April 25, 2018


Today we're using the semi-regular feature "Wish-Craft Wednesday" to launch a new feature - "The UnScene".

There are plenty of TV characters out there in Toobworld beyond those we actually see on the screen.  After all, every TV character had parents; some had siblings and cousins, co-workers and next-door neighbors; they had ancestors going back centuries.  And some of those characters we know by name even if they are never seen:

  • Dr. Lars Lindstrom ('The Mary Tyler Moore Show' and technically 'Phyllis')
  • Maris Crane ('Frasier')
  • Otis the Elevator Operator ('The Mary Tyler Moore Show')
  • Enid Kelso ('Scrubs')
  • Stan Walker ('Will & Grace')
  • Mrs. Bloom ('The Goldbergs'*)

  • Charlie Townsend ('Charlie's Angels')
  • Mrs. Wolowitz ('The Big Bang Theory')
  • POTUS ('Veep')
  • Tino ('My So-Called Life')
  • The Gooch ('Diff'rent Strokes')
At least two of those characters we never saw, but we did hear them - Mrs. Wolowitz and Charlie Townsend.

And then there are the "UnScene" whom we see, but only partially - a hand, the feet, the backside; sometimes their faces are seen but they're hidden - Vera with a pie, Carlton in a gorilla mask.

  • Carlton the Doorman ('Rhoda')
  • Vera Kreitzer Peterson ('Cheers')
  • J. Beresford Tipton ('The Millionaire')
  • The Ugly Naked Guy ('Friends')
  • Robin Masters ('Magnum P.I.')

And we heard the voices of at least three of those - Carlton, Vera, and Tipton.  (I think Masters hired Orson Welles to provide his voice as a substitute for his own.)

You may have noticed one glaring omission of an UnScene - Mrs. Columbo.  Then again, you might have thought - but we did end up seeing her.  She even had her own show!

But that woman wasn't the wife of the Lt. Frank Columbo of Earth Prime-Time, despite the presence of Dog and Columbo's car.  Her show was set in some alternate Toobworld.  She was the wife of some other Columbo, perhaps still played by Peter Falk.  Or maybe not. 

I doubt she was married to the Lt. Columbo from the Pilot Universe.  He was born circa 1919 while she was born circa 1955.  May-December marriages with an age difference of 36 years like that have been seen in the Real World as well as in Toobworld, and that's not even as great an age difference as seen in some TV shows.  But I just don't see Mulgrew's Rose being married to Freed's Columbo.

As you may have noticed, I called that Mrs. Columbo "Rose".  Although not often heard in the episodes, during the first season that was her first name.  But by the second half of the first season she was "Kate Columbo" and then she was finally "Kate Callahan" in the second season when the series underwent a title change to 'Kate Loves A Mystery'.

I think we have three different TV dimensions involved here.  

First there was the Toobworld in which she was named Rose and married to that world's Lt. Columbo.  

Halfway through the first season, she was now known as Kate Columbo, not Rose Columbo.  She was from a second TV dimension where she had a different first name and she had divorced Columbo.  

When Kate divorced that Columbo, she dropped that name and went back to her maiden name.  As for Jenny, Kate went to court and changed her daughter's name from Columbo to her own name, Callahan. 

Finally, in a third TV dimension when the show was now 'Kate Loves A Mystery', she was Kate Callahan, never having married anyone named Columbo.  However, her ex-husband (Mr. Callahan) was the same man as the Columbo in those other two dimensions.  He would have to be in order to provide his fair share of the DNA which created Jenny Callahan (Jenny Columbo in those other dimensions.) 

He must have been adopted in all three dimensions.  In two of them, he was adopted by a family named Columbo.  In Earth Prime-Time, he was adopted by the Callahans.

I think that husband died, perhaps in the line of duty, maybe an accident.  My only reasoning for that is that I'd want one of those three sets of mother and daughter to have been happy, even if only for a short time.

Confusing, ain't it?  Sorry about that, Chief.

It's Kate and Jenny Callahan who are allowed to be members of Earth Prime-Time, unlike Rose and Jenny Columbo or Kate Callahan Columbo and Jenny Columbo Callahan.

All of the episodes in that second season share the same TV dimension as the Lt. Columbo we all know and love - the main Toobworld - because there was no longer any attempt to connect the two shows together. 

That first season was split between the other two dimensions.

We can't be certain as to what happened to Kate Callahan after the series concluded, but suppositions could be made about the future of little Jenny Callahan.  She studied the violin and when she grew up she became a professional violinist. 

And we saw her practicing her passion and profession in two different series: 'Transparent' ("Kina Hora") and 'Dharma & Greg' ("Without Reservations".) Lili Haydn is listed in the credits for both episodes as merely "Violinist", so why couldn't it be that she was Jenny Callahan?

One day she may even be a Birthday Honors List inductee into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.

Just one more thing....

As for the Mrs. Columbo of Earth Prime-Time, she remains an UnScene and will be to the end of Prime-Time, I'm afraid.  But based on the way Columbo would speak of her, and with acknowledgement of the wishes of the men who created her, Richard Levinson and William Link (who pictured Maureen Stapleton in the role), I've always thought Sada Thompson would have been the perfect Better Half for the Rumpled One.

But of course, we'll never know.....

We will have a new "UnScene" post on Friday, and that will be about another UnScene character from 'Columbo'.


* And by "The Goldbergs", I mean the original series, the brain-child of Gertrude Berg, you amnesiac millennials!

Tuesday, April 24, 2018


From one of the Facebook pages dedicated to 'Murdoch Mysteries':

Lisa Dornell

I love finding Murdoch bloopers. My favorite is in the episode "Monsieur Murdoch." When William and that dishy French detective find the body they both make the sign of the cross. Only the French guy crosses wrong.

Another TV character who noticeably makes the Sign of the Cross in reverse is Charlie Pace just before he died in 'Lost'.  

The TV Universe is a visual medium with the lives of its inhabitants sometimes controlled by unseen Powers That Be.  These "deities" can manipulate Time, causing characters to move at increased speeds, or slow them down and even freeze them in place.  Sometimes the color of the surroundings and the people could be drained away, perhaps leaving only one item left with color.

And as we saw with the astronauts Gart, Forbes, and Harrington, they could be blinked out of existence.

So since it is a visual medium with "deities" manipulating it, perhaps it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that both Charlie Pace and Marcel Guillaume were reversed in place by one of those Powers That Be - so that now it only looked like they were blessing themselves in reverse.

Too far-fetched?  Yeah... you're probably right.  More than likely Charlie opened himself up to Faith at the end of his life, but didn't have the basic rudimentary knowledge in performing the traditional gestures.  As for Monsieur Gulliaume, perhaps he was just bonding with Detective Murdoch, showing deference by copying the Sign of the Cross without realizing that he was doing it wrong.



Marcel Guillaume is a French police inspector hired by Monsieur Poirier to find his missing daughter Monique in Season 4. 

From Wikipedia:
The character of Maigret was invented, but after the first few novels was influenced by Chief Inspector Marcel Guillaume, said to be the greatest French detective of his day, who became a long-time friend of Simenon.

From The Murdoch Mysteries Wiki:
Marcel Guillaume was a real life police chief in Paris, France. He was renowned as an ace investigator solving many high profile cases during his time with the police, and was the inspiration for Georges Simenon's main character, Inspector Maigret. Considerably more famous in France, Guillaume led investigations into Parisian cases including the Bonnet gang, the murderer Landru, Violette Nozière, the Mestorino murder, and the assassination of French president Paul Dormer.  

We have another example similar to those of Shakespeare, Twain, Conan Doyle, and Christie - George Simenon may have created a fictional character named Jules Maigret in the Real World, but in Toobworld he was writing about an actual person.  So Simenon was more like a Boswell, a Dr. Watson, chronicling a biography from the cases investigated by the televersion of Maigret.

However, should it ever come up, Simenon flavored his stories about Maigret by giving him attributes that could be ascribed to Marcel Guillaume.  So Guillaume and Maigret were both real in Toobworld.


Monday, April 23, 2018


From Variety:



None of Troyer's characters are eligible for inclusion in the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.  But as a member of the League of Themselves, Verne Troyer can be inducted in memoriam. 

There were a few appearances in TV shows which aren't explicitly designated as being Troyer as himself.  But as they weren't actually named, we're going to say that they were Troyer.

First, the major appearances as himself:

'Shasta McNasty' 
- Pilot (1999)
- Little Dude (1999)
... Himself 

- Hat Hair (2013)
... Himself

"Trailer Park Boys: Drunk, High & Unemployed"

O'Bservation: This is a Netflix movie, based on the TV show. 

And then we have these two appearances, no more than cameos, in which I'm going to assume Troyer was playing himself.

- "My Drama Queen" (2003)
... "Small Man at Bar" (uncredited)

J.D. (Dr. John Dorian) told Troyer to stop eyeballing his girlfriend Jamie.  When she suggested it was the bigger and more muscular guy behind the diminutive actor, J.D. insisted it was definitely Troyer. 

- "The Quick and the Dead" (1999) 
... Director

And with that last one, I have no problem believing that Troyer's televersion was one of those actors who branched out to become a director.  

Good night and may God bless.  I'm sorry you finally had one battle impossible to overcome.