Is Tommy Westphall God? St. Elsewhere and the Television Crossover Universe

This was the 10th blog post I wrote for the Television Crossover Universe, and it was a tribute to the Westphalians, a group who have been tracking television crossovers for years under the assumption that a shared reality of television shows exists within the mind of Tommy Westphall.  

This was posted originally on February 7, 2011, less than a month into the creation of this blog, and was the 10th post, which means I was producing posts pretty quickly early on.  Of course, that was before I was working on writing books and had other posts to constantly update.  But it's still impressive considering at the time I was in the final semester of college, I was on an academic competitive team, I was a teaching assistant, an intern, and a ghost hunter.  

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Update:  Continuing on my quest to keep my blogs current.  This one might not have much to update, but we'll see.

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In the final scene of the series ST. ELSEWHERE, it's revealed that the entire series was actually imagined by autistic child Tommy Westphall looking into a snow globe.  It's been theorized then that the entire reality of the show was imagined by Tommy.  Because of the nature of crossovers and shared realities, that would place the entire TV Crossover Universe inside the mind of Tommy, making him God.

But first, there is a God in the TVCU.  He even appeared on ST. ELSEWHERE.  So is Tommy the creator of God?  I say no. 

A few weeks ago I covered Freddy Krueger.  In WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE, we learned that Freddy Krueger of the TVCU was the creation of Wes Craven of Earth-Prime.  That would mean that Wes Craven created the TVCU.  How can they both be the Gods of this reality.  They aren't.

Both live on Earth-Prime.  As I've said in other blogs, everything that's fictional is real somewhere else in the multiverse.  People who are "creative", as in writers and artists, are actually not creative at all.  They are a special type of psychic, who view events and read the thoughts of people from other realities in the past, present, or future.  However, they can't know they are psychic, since they never see these events come to pass.  They don't see them come to pass, since the events aren't happening in their reality, but in another reality.

And more than one person in more than one reality can see the same events.  Wes Craven of our world also envisioned Fred Krueger, and he also envisioned the events of NEW NIGHTMARE.

So Tommy Westphall of Earth-Prime had a psychic flash of the events of the series St. Elsewhere.

Now onto the crossover chronology for St. Elsewhere...



1968 to 1971--JULIA--From Toby O'Brien:  I think the Dr. Chegley from 'St. Elsewhere' was actually shown and played by a different actor (Lloyd Nolan having died). I think we can consider them to be father and son, however.



1982 to 1993--CHEERS--In one episode, Sam Malone directs his employees to send sick customers to St. Elegius Hospital.

January 1983--ST. ELSEWHERE--"Rain"--Dr. Fiscus relays a story to Dr. Morrison involving an incident that happened once to some doctors he knows, Doctors Kildare and Casey. Dr. James Kildare is a fictional American medical doctor character, originally created in the 1930s by the author Frederick Schiller Faust under the pen name Max Brand. Shortly after the character's first appearance in a magazine story, Paramount Pictures used the story and character as the basis for the 1937 film Internes Can't Take Money. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) subsequently acquired the rights and featured Kildare as the primary character in a series of American theatrical films in the late 1930s and early 1940s, several of which were co-written by Faust (as Max Brand), who also continued to write magazine stories and novels about the character until the early 1940s. The Kildare character was later featured in an early 1950s radio series, a 1960s television series, a comic book and comic strip based on the 1960s TV show, and a short-lived second 1970s television series. Ben Casey is an American medical drama series which ran on ABC from 1961 to 1966. Neurosurgeon Joseph Ransohoff was a medical consultant for the show and may have influenced the personality of the title character.



October 1983--CHEERS--"Little Sister, Don't Cha"--Carla Tortelli mentions having had her latest baby at St. Elegius Hospital.



May 1984--ST. ELSEWHERE--"Hello, Goodbye"--Warren Coolidge (formerly of THE WHITE SHADOW) becomes a regular character on ST. ELSEWHERE.

March 1985--ST. ELSEWHERE--"Cheers"--The staff of St. Elegius Hospital go have a few drinks at CHEERS.



December 1985--ST. ELSEWHERE--"Santa Claus is Dead"--Dr. (Captain) B.J. Hunnicut (MASH) is mentioned in one episode.  Santa appears.



March 1987--DEGRASSI JUNIOR HIGH--"Nothing to Fear"--St Elsewhere’s Dr Wesphall is paged twice on Degrassi Junior High.  LD's father is in the hospital and Dr. Westphall is paged on the hospital intercom



February 1988--DEGRASSI JUNIOR HIGH--"Sealed with a Kiss"--"Dr Donald Westphall" is paged, loud and clear, over the hospital intercom when Heather & Erica go in for a mono test



November 1988--ST. ELSEWHERE--"Close Encounters"--Dr. Robert Hartley's patient Elliot Carlin (BOB NEWHART SHOW) appears.  The character actually appears in several episodes of St. Elsewhere, confirming the connection to the Bob Newhart Show.  Oh, one extra note.  In the final episode of St. Elsewhere, it turns out the whole series was just a daydream of an autistic child.  So in the world of Westphalians, Newhart and its crossovers are a dream of Dr. Hartley, but his world is a fantasy of a child.  Wow.  See my St. Elsewhere blog (entitled "Is Tommy Westphal God?" for more on that.



1989--TATTINGER'S/NICK AND HILLARY--A character whose last name is Axelrod bemoans the dath of his cousin Elliot from Boston.  This would be Dr. Elliot Axelrod of St. Elegius Hospital.

November 1991--THE BOB NEWHART SHOW 19TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL--Following Bob Hartley's very realistic dream about another life as inn keeper Dick Loudon in Vermont, Bob confides his dream to his friend, airline pilot Howard Borden.  Howard reveals he had a similar dream where he was an astronaut for five seasons.  (We then get a cut to a clip from I DREAM OF JEANNIE).  Perhaps Larry and Major Roger Healey were also separated at birth.  Note too that this episode follows directly from the Newhart final episode, and in one scene of this special, Bob sees three repairmen that are Larry, Darryl and Daryl, residents of the small town where Dick's inn is.  This could in one sense be made to imply that Bob had already met them, and they creeped into his subconscious dream.  However, I think that it really means that the two shows are in the same reality, and that some time had actually passed between that final episode and this special, and after the Japanese had bought the town in Vermont, those three migrated south to become repairmen.  (The special does air more than a year after the last Newhart aired, so even though it's implied it happened immediately after, there is some evidence that there was a passage of time.)  **I do get the arguments that Newhart isn't in the same reality.  That it was a dream.  And I get my evidence to the contrary is weak.  But I have very strong evidence that I Dream of Jeannie and the Bob Newhart Show coexist, and when I do my Jeannie blog, that will be made clearer.  But briefly, Jeannie crosses with Bewitched and Scooby, and I've already done blogs on them, which you can check out for further confirmation.  And if Jeannie was more than just a dream, then it makes sense that so was Newhart.  And Newhart does connect with with Drew Carey, that connects with Home Improvement, which connects to Toy Story, which is confirmed in the TVCU and there's a blog you can check out for that. And of course The Bob Newhart Show's connection to St. Elsewhere can allow me to redirect you to my St. Elsewhere blog for further cementing of that into the TVCU.

1994 to 2000--CHICAGO HOPE--Dr. Kathryn Austin is shown to have won the Cushing Left Anterior Descending Artery Award.  Dr. Mark Craig of St. Elegius is a previous recipient.  Also, Dr. Austin mentions that her mentor is Dr. David Domedion, who had previously appeared on ST. ELSEWHERE.



1994 to 2009--ER--Toby O'B said... It could be that Eric Laneuville's unnamed character in an episode of 'ER' was supposed to be Luther from 'St. Elsewhere'

October 1995--ER--"Do One, Teach One, Kill One"--Toby O'Brien commented previously:  It could be that Eric Laneuville's unnamed character in an episode of 'ER' was supposed to be Luther from 'St. Elsewhere'

1997 to 2003--OZ--The Weiget Medical Corporation, previously seen on ST. ELSEWHERE, appears on OZ.  Additionally, a psycho nurse at the prison had previously worked at St. Elegius Hospital.



March 1998--HOMICIDE:  LIFE ON THE STREET--"Mercy"--Dr. Roxanne Turner from ST. ELSEWHERE appears.  Dr. Erhlich is mentioned in another episode.



2000--HOMICIDE:  THE MOVIE--Dr. Erhlick appears.

2000 to 2004--BOSTON PUBLIC--Billy Deegan's mother receives a pension from St Elsewhere's St. Eligius Hospital 

2001 to 2007--CROSSING JORDAN--One episode features a priest from St. Elegius Church.  Both this series and ST. ELSEWHERE take place in Boston, so it's most likely that the church and the hospital are near each other and possible financially connected as some churches and hospitals are.

December 2002--PROVIDENCE--"The Eleventh Hour"--Someone suggests to Dr. Sidney Hansen that she seek employment at St. Elegius Hospital.



2004--METHOD AND RED--St Elsewhere’s Warren Coolidge appeared on an episode of Method & Red

February 2005--LAW & ORDER--"The Sixth Man"--This story features the New York Empires basketball team, which must have ties to the New York Empires baseball team from CLUBHOUSE.  An additional link is that the victim is sent to Manhattan General, which was the setting of KAY O'BRIEN, SURGEON.  The main character of that show was referenced on St. Elsewhere as having transferred from St. Eligeus to Manhattan General.  Manhattan General also appeared in THE NAKED CITY and THE VELVET TOUCH.

May 2011--COUGAR TOWN--"Something Good Coming"--Abed is seen having lunch in the background of an outdoor restaurant.  In COMMUNITY episode "Critical Film Studies", Abed tells how he visited the set of the show COUGAR TOWN, though later he admits is was made up.  So this is not him being an extra on that show.  Of course, there is still the fact that Cougar Town is a show on TV with Courtney Cox, yet the events of the show are also real.  Likely Courtney Cox does star in a show called Cougar Town that is much different and not related at all to the show we watch (or don't watch, apparently) on our TV.  Following this scene, the cast go to Hawaii for a two parter, in which they run into Ted Buckley, former attorney at Sacred Heart, who left and fled to Hawaii after his girl Gooch ran off with Hooch.  Note that the characters on Cougar Town also frequent Coffee Bucks,a coffee shop (fictional to us, real on the TVCU) which originated on Scrubs.  One slight complication is that Scrubs is also been shown to be a TV show on Cougar Town, but of course as I've said often, I always have away to explain away these "zonks".  In this case, it's probable that indeed a show did get made about the staff of Sacred Heart, likely without permission.  In fact, it was hinted on Scrubs that Grey's Anatomy may have also been a rip-off of the lives of the staff of Sacred Hearts, which of course leads to the complication that Grey's Anatomy was recently crossed into the TVCU via a cross with St. Elsewhere.

May 2012--GREY'S ANATOMY--"Let the Bad Times Roll"--Dr. Mark Craig is conducting a surgical exam.



Late March 2014--THE SOUL MAN--"All the Way Live"--From Thomas Holbrook:  Interesting. Just saw an episode of TvLand's The Soul Man that has a brief crossover with Hot In Cleveland via Betty White's character Elka. (It also had a billion other people who could have been playing characters from other shows but weren't.) With Betty White they clearly ID'd her as Elka. Martin Lawrence guest stars (not as Martin), looks over and goes, "Hey, is that Betty White!" Extra weird is this sort of joke was done before with Betty White. She appeared on St Elsewhere as a character unique to that show. Another character on St Elsewhere is delusional and thinks he is Mary Richards from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, looks at her and says, "Sue Anne Niven!"



St. Elsewhere was a pretty cutting edge show.  It had Denzel Washington for crying out loud.  When it originally aired, I was too young to appreciate it.  Besides which, it was on at 10PM and my bedtime was at 9PM.  I do remember one specific episode that I got to watch that has remained in my head to this day.  Dr. Wayne Fiscus meets God.  God appears in the episode to look like Fiscus.  They are both played by Howie Mandel.  God says that he appears differently to different people based on what is easiest for the person to comprehend or deal with.  Even as a little kid, I really appreciated that, and that's the whole basis for the different representations of God within the TVCU.  And this appearance furthers my notion that Tommy Westphall is not God.

**I do get the arguments that Newhart isn't in the same reality.  That it was a dream.  And I get my evidence to the contrary is weak.  But I have very strong evidence that I Dream of Jeannie and the Bob Newhart Show coexist, and when I do my Jeannie blog, that will be made clearer.  But briefly, Jeannie crosses with Bewitched and Scooby, and I've already done blogs on them, which you can check out for further confirmation.  And if Jeannie was more than just a dream, then it makes sense that so was Newhart.  And Newhart does connect with with Drew Carey, that connects with Home Improvement, which connects to Toy Story, which is confirmed in the TVCU and there's a blog you can check out for that. And of course The Bob Newhart Show's connection to St. Elsewhere can allow me to redirect you to my St. Elsewhere blog for further cementing of that into the TVCU.