Imaginary Worlds - Inside the Snow Globe

Episode Date: January 14, 2016

Tom Fontana is a TV writer and producer who worked on St. Elsewhere in the 1980s. The show was a pretty straightforward hospital drama, but Fontana had a mischievous streak -- and a soft spot for crossovers. So when he came up with a trick ending to the show, revealing the entire series had been the fantasy of an autistic boy named Tommy Westphall peering into his snow globe, Fontana had no idea that episode would lead to a unified theory of television. With Keith Gow, Tom Fontana, Bill Lobley and Robb Pruitt. A version of this piece first aired on PRIs Studio 360.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Malinsky, and this is Tom Fontana. In the 1980s, he was a writer and a producer on a hospital drama called Saint Elsewhere. You know, the show was always on the brink of being canceled. Our first season, there were 100 TV shows on the air. There were only three networks, And we were 99th in the ratings. But the show was critically acclaimed and the top brass at NBC liked it. So they managed to eke out six seasons. Rather than do what a lot of people do, which is, oh my God, we're going to get

canceled. Let's make it more palatable for the audience. We went out of our way to make it as unpalatable as we possibly could. And Tom was particularly fond of crossovers. I was a big, when I was young, I was a big Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Petticoat Junction fan. And I determined that the only one of the characters that had been on all three series was Irene Ryan, who played Granny. I've come to take care of Betty Jo Jones. We've got a baby specialist coming to Beverly Hills. That is me.

You're a Beverly Hills doctor? I'd appreciate it if you kept the Beverly Hills part to yourself. So a character from the Bob Newhart show would pop up as a patient at St. Allegis, the hospital in St. Elsewhere. Or he staged a crossover with Cheers, which is a sitcom, but they filmed their episode like a drama. So when Carla talks trash with the doctors from St. Allegius, there's no laugh track, and it's totally weird. Hey, hey, everybody! These two butchers work at St. Elsewhere!

Welcome to Cheers, Drs. Jekyll and Hyde. Who recommended this? I overheard Erlich talking about it. You'd figure. The writers also used to keep a list of every crazy scenario that they would love to do for the finale. So when the show was finally canceled, Tom Fontana grabbed that list off the wall and brought it into a meeting with executive producer Bruce Paltrow. And this was his first idea. Two of the doctors are having a deep conversation in their office, which they often do. Suddenly, there was a flash, a mushroom cloud, and the two of them went,

oh my God. And then the show ended. Very 1980s. Bruce Paltrow was not buying it. So here's Tom's next pitch. Two of the doctors are having a deep conversation in their office, as they often do. And one of them says, I have a secret that's been weighing on me. And I have to confess it right now. I was the second gunman in Dallas the day that Kennedy died. And he then opens the drawer, pulls out a gun, and he goes, now that I've told you, I have to kill you. Bruce Paltrow was not amused. So Tom was like, okay, how about this?

Two doctors are having a deep conversation in their office, as they often do. It's snowing outside. We pan back to reveal that the entire hospital is made of plaster, and it's inside a snow globe, which is being held by Tommy, the mute autistic son of Dr. Westfall. He's one of the main characters. But we learn that in the real world, Westfall's not a doctor, he's a construction worker. And another doctor from St. Elsewhere is actually his father, who stays home taking care of Tommy.

Hi, Pop, how you doing? Good. How was your day up on the building? Well, we finally topped off the 22nd story. How's he been? Did he give you any trouble? He's been sitting there ever since you left this morning, just like he does every day. A world of his own.

Careful with that, son. So this means that the entire series of St. Elsewhere has just been a fantasy in the mind of this mysterious boy with a snow globe. And Bruce said, Well, it's not the worst one. Go ahead and write it. I don't understand this autism thing, Pop. Here's my son. I talk to him. I don't even know if he can hear me.

He sits there all day long in his own world, staring at that toy. The response in the mail was about 50-50. Half of our audience hated, hated, like wanted to come to the MTM lot and burn us to the ground. And the other half thought it was a fitting part of the show. Either way, it was all supposed to end right there. Trick ending, nothing more. But Tom Fontana couldn't stop with the crossovers. He went on to produce Homicide Life on the Street,

and he brought over two doctors from St. Elsewhere, even after that show had been off the air for like 12 years. He even staged a crossover with Chicago Hope, which was on CBS. And he purposely didn't show those scenes to the executives at NBC. So the next Monday after the show aired, Warren Littlefield, who was head of NBC at the time, called me up and goes, you are a bad, bad boy. And he found a partner in crime, the actor Richard Belzer, who played Detective John Munch on Homicide. He was like,

well, let's see. I could be on all the Law & Order shows, this is before he went over to Law & Order. And bit by bit, he just he would get, they would say you know, we want you to be in this and he'd go, well, I have to play Munch. So, Munch talked to the lone gunman on the X-Files.

Detective Munch, Baltimore Homicide. Did they find her? And a good evening to you. He orders a drink at a bar on the wire. Rodney, you can't press a regular for a whole tab. It just isn't done. And he teaches a class in arrested development. We supply the glitter, glue, the crepe paper, and the ready-made template pages for you to decorate and fill out with my favorite birthday,

foreign bank statements, and of course, family secrets. This did not go unnoticed. Keith Gow is a playwright in Melbourne, Australia, and he and his friends were talking about this at a pub one night. And they started wondering, does this mean that Arrested Development and The Wire exist in the same universe? And if you can trace all these shows back to St. Elsewhere, does that mean that all of these shows were dreamed up by Tommy Westfall, the autistic kid with a snow globe? And we started just sort of collating a list of shows. And the further we got into it, the more connections we seemed to find.

So they made a grid of the Tommy Westphal universe, which spanned hundreds of shows and put it online. And people wrote in from around the world pointing out that Tom Fontana was not the only person fond of crossovers. A lot of TV writers love The X-Files. And as kind of an homage to that show, they like to incorporate the names of fake brands or companies that appeared on The X-Files. And I think the big one that broke it open was the Morley cigarettes that the smoking man on X-Files smoked suddenly started popping up in other shows. So Spike on Buffy smoked Morley cigarettes as an homage to the X-Files.

The Tommy Westphal theory didn't really go viral until 2002. Fall Theory didn't really go viral until 2002. The late comic book writer Dwayne McDuffie wrote a post complaining that his boss at DC was putting way too much pressure on him to link his characters to other comic books, which is funny because it's something that DC and Marvel are doing way, way, way more now. I mean, the hot buzzword in Hollywood is having a shared universe. hot buzzword in Hollywood is having a shared universe. But back in 2002, McDuffie was using Tommy Westfall as an example to prove that a shared universe was ridiculous. And it's fascinating the objections that I hear about it sometimes. I don't understand why people take it so seriously. I mean, you can object all you like, but it's just a bit of fun finding the connections. Like, I don't literally think it makes sense that the X-Files and Homicide exist in the same universe.

No, but they could exist in a multiverse. And if you think this thing has gotten weird, it gets even weirder here. Tommy Westphal theory actually mirrors real scientific theories by physicists who think that our universe may be one of many. Now, scientists don't know if these parallel universes have nearly identical versions of us. I mean, maybe the laws of physics are so crazy over there that if we crossed over to another universe, we'd just burst into flames. over to another universe which is burst into flames. But the latest mathematical models definitely indicate that parallel universes are probably real. And some scientists think that tiny particles might be able to break through the membranes that separate these universes. And the Tommy Westfall multiverse works in the same way, except those traveling particles

are Detective John Munch or morally cigarettes. Oh, I was stunned. Tom Fontana was also proud of the fact that Tommy is at the center of this phenomenon. I think it sort of adds a whole other layer to the to the idea of what the what an autistic person can or cannot do in a very bizarre kind of way, you know what I mean? Because it says people have imaginations regardless of what their conditions are. The human mind is an extraordinary thing.

And he thinks having these porous borders is good for creativity. He saw it firsthand when Homicide and Law and Order swapped cast and crew. What it ultimately does in my mind is enhances the storytelling because somehow it frees you to go to a place where you wouldn't normally have gone within the the restrictions of your own genre or your own tv series you have a show like say sleepy hollow which is a combination of all sorts of different things which i don't think you could have had 20 years ago because 20 years ago you either had your cop show or you had your family drama. And now you can have

something like Sleepy Hollow, which is a time travel procedural fantasy. And Sleepy Hollow staged a crossover with Bones, which is a very down to earth FBI show. I actually still have the snow globe upstairs. Really? Yeah. So at this point, Tom went up to the second floor of his office, and he came back with the snow globe, the one that Tommy held in that final scene. It was so much bigger than I imagined, like the details and the little plaster hospital inside the glass were kind of amazing. That's an amazing memento. Yeah. Wow. That's so cool. It's an amazing memento. Yeah. Wow.

That's so cool. And as I kept staring into the snow globe, I started thinking. So Tommy dreams up St. Elsewhere. Two doctors from St. Elsewhere appear at Homicide. Munch crosses over from Homicide to the X-Files. The Laureate rental car company from the X-Files shows up on Veronica Mars. Veronica Mars has a boyfriend who works on This American Life, where she meets Ira Glass, who plays himself.

Hi. Hi. You must be the girlfriend who we have heard so much about and never seen. I am. I was on This American Life years ago. This guy named Eric Molenski told her about this strangely and unexpectedly fierce argument that he had gotten into. That means that half the shows and podcasts out there are actually all part of Tommy Westphal's imagination. Including me. Hey, Pop. How you doing? Me. Hey, Pop. How you doing?

Good. How was your day up on the building? Well, we finally topped off the 452nd story. How's he been? Giving you any trouble? Tommy? He's been sitting there since you left this morning. Just like he does every day, staring at that snow globe. You know it changes what's inside.

Yesterday it was a hospital. Today there's a skeleton key in the sky. It says imaginary worlds or something. I don't understand this autism thing, Pop. He's my son. I talk to him. I don't even know if he can hear me. He sits there all day in his own world, staring at that toy. You got a text.

Oh, it's that detective again, Munch. That's the third time this week. He keeps popping up, doesn't he? That's it this week. Special thanks to Tom Fontana, Keith Gow, Rob Pruitt, and Bill Lobley. Ooh, you got a text. Oh, it's that detective again, Munch. F*** him. Maybe you should block his calls. What's that mean?

I don't know. I think you take a building block and you throw it at the phone or something. You can like the show on Facebook. I tweet at emolinski. The show's website is imaginaryworldspodcast.org.