I just found something really cool that I had to share with the TWOP community.

Any avid TV watcher or historian of the medium is familiar with the the series finale of St. Elsewhere, wherein the whole show was revealed to take place entirely within the mind of an autistic child named Tommy Westphall. Now that was weird enough, but someone noticed that St. Elsewhere has had crossovers with a number of television series, which would imply that they too were part of the Westphall Multiverse. After diligent research, he has concluded that as many as 164 different television series are linked into the Westphall Multiverse, spanning from 1951
(basically the dawn of television) to the present. You can see the page here

Wow, that's pretty cool and a testament to the the never-give-up, never-go-outside attitude that made American television viewing what it is today.

You .. just blew my mind

I'm pretty sure it's incomplete too. I think Chicago Hope or Picket Fences, which are on the grid, crossed over with some of the Boston DEK shows (Ally McBeal, The Practice, Boston Public, and Boston Legal) , which themselves are all in the same universe. If not, DEK can rectify it with a crossover on Boston Legal. He seems like the adventuresome sort.

Excellent. I'd been considering creating a thread along these lines called "Different Shows, Same Universe". But you beat me to the punch. St. Elsewhere was an obvious choice (having crossed over even with Cheers. However, we also have Magnum, P.I. being referenced as taking place in the same continuity, as Hawaii Five-0 IIRC, which means that that Sanford and Son, which also did a Five-0 crossover, would be in Magnum's universe.

I'm going to change the title so that we can talk about the "show universe" concept beyond Tommy.

Magnum P.I. also had crossovers with Simon & Simon, as well as Murder She Wrote, so add them to that Universe.
However, in a Quantum Leap episode Sam makes reference to a Magnum episode on TV, so that has to take place in a different Universe.

Actually, The Simpsons has to be added into the Tommy'verse, because they did an episode where Homer ended up in the Cheers bar!

How does the grid work? I mean, I get how Mad About You and Friends are in the same universe (Ursula on both shows), but is there a spreadsheet explaning the grid? I mean how on Earth are The Nanny and Everybody Loves Raymond in the same universe? And what direct link do The Jefferson's and Fresh Prince share? Besides the Movin' on Up motif and equally kick-ass theme songs, natch.


I always got confused thinking about the Just the 10 of us and Growing Pains Universe. They used a lot of the same bit part actors and it didn't make sense that they too traveled to Eureka!

On the page, they have something else to download called The Key, which is a Word doc or plain text doc that is supposed to clarify the relationships in the grid. I'm still reading through it.

I read the key....


Who knew? I swear to god this has got to be part of the reverse vampire conspiracy!!!!!!!!!!

That's fully weird, but cool.
Also what's this conspiracy? I haven't heard of it but it sounds cool.

Looking over the key, I'm not sure about the inclusion of Hi Honey I'm Home and anything that only links via it. As I recall, the guest appearances on that show (where the links occur) knew that they were TV show characters and not "real". Therefore, it's either not a real link as far as the multiverse theory goes, or it's the secondary hub where all the rest of TV can link in.

On an episode of The Nanny Fran attends her high school reunion and we find out Ray attended high school with her.



The Jeffersons (and the Drummonds) try to buy the mansion on the last episode of Fresh Prince.

Isn't Scrubs is directly linked to St Elesewere? I thought I remember an episodes where all the doctors where their.

There's another website about this, with the different "universes" grouped together at the bottom of the page. The writer is pretty funny, too.

Sort of, but not exactly. Scrubs had on four of the actors from St. Elsewhere. They were all doctors, but never gave their names that I recall, and I think one of the guys didn't actually play a doctor on St. Elsewhere. Iffy, at best.

I don't recall that Picket Fences or Chicago Hope ever crossed over with Kelly's Boston shows directly. It would have been great to have a CH person show up on Ally McBeal and eye Cage suspiciously, noting that they used to have a lawyer at their hospital who looked just like him...

Of course, you can't really count out universe overlap simply because of actor overlap. Shows often do it within their own itty bitty universe, like Jerry Orbach appearing as a lawyer on Law & Order before he became Lennie (not to mention their frequent recycling of guest actors). I guess we have to assume that there are a lot of doppelgangers out there.

I've always thought that these 'universes' depended heavily on the writer/creator of shows. Like the X-Files-Millennium-Lone Gunmen universe (not sure about Harsh Realm) that were all from Chris Carter. Same for Ally McBeal-The Practice-Boston Legal universe coming from David E Kelley. (I would've love a meeting between Jack McCoy and Bobby Donnell) and the obvious buffyverse and its spinoffs. Although some writers have resisted that (Like J.J. Abrams)

Few universes are from different writers. And some are born for cheap rating stunts, so my guess is few TV universes occur naturally.

I'm just looking forward to the Vh1 special explaining all this -- hosted by Stephen Hawking.

"And...when...YOU watch...this SCENE carefully...you see...the reference...TO Charles...IN Charge...."

Stephen Hawking reminds me....The Simpsons did an X-Files crossover. However, they also crossed over with King of the Hill in a throwaway gag. Which means that Millenium and The Lone Gunmen were also in the same universe. Which in turn means....

My God. Dale is right.

I just can't believe that Star Trek is connected to freaking Team Knight Rider, of all things. Maybe one day we'll see Glark's "Sci-Fi and Action Adventure Shows" banner come to our TV sets?

It's from the Simpsons. All the kids in Springfield were trying to figure out why the parents were sending them out to play all the time and what they were up to. Grandpa Simpson was selling all the adults some kind of love potion that made everyone...um...amorous. Milhouse (I think) posed the theory that they were taken over by reverse vampires that come out during the day and sleep at night. Naturally, Lisa thought it was ridiculous but all the other kids were on board. I think that's it, I haven't seen that episode in awhile.

One of my favorite cancelled-by-evil-mean-Fox-too-soon shows Strange Luck, the main character Chance Harper (D.B. Sweeney) is told by his long-lost brother if he's ever in trouble to contact an FBI buddy of the brother's...Fox Mulder. Blasted Fox cancelled Strange Luck and I never *sob* got to enjoy Chance and Fox onscreen together.

Buffy tried to (subtly) acknowledge this with the whole Cecily/Halfrek deal, but handled it in such a way that they ended up confusing everyone instead -- was Cecily the human who eventually became Halfrek, or was she a persona Halfrek used? No conclusive evidence either way.

I haven't had time to peruse the websites mentioned fully, but do they mention what happens when a show references another show (e.g., Passions and Buffy)? Does that remove the show from the other's universe? Can we have contradictory universes when two shows occupy the same universe as another, but the third references the first? Does this cause a fork in the TV space/time continuum, with alternate TV universes coexisting?

That's a good question. For example, in Independence Day, there is a reference to The X-Files, but in the XF movie, Mulder pees on an ID4 poster.

I couldn't get the actual grid to download, but I looked over this thread and the key and wow! I have a headache. I started thinking about it. The key says that they didn't include cartoons, but listed a few that would be affected as would others I assume. It also didn't include real people crossovers like ET, Cops, Alex Trebek, et al. But if you think about inlcuding those shows, that connects all of us into the circle. Which means that we are all part of this kid's dream. And the kid was thought up by a writer, who is one of us. And...oh gosh, my eyes have just gone cross.

Heh. This could easily be the best thread ever.

Hawaii and ER:

One of the stars (the character on the show) on Hawaii mentioned that he had just transferred (moved) from Chicago (Sharif Atkins). The actor moved from a Chicago set show to a Hawaii set show. Since the actor played a different character on the two shows, then that means that ER and Hawaii can never be part of the same universe (unless they pull a Catch Me If You Can (Frank Abagnale Jr.) con-man plot).

Friends and ER

I did not see it mentioned in this thread, but George Clooney and Noah Wyle appeared as doctors on Friends, but they (I believe) were NYC doctors, and not the characters from ER. So, those two shows wouldn't be in the same universe.

I mention these two, because 1) the show (Hawaii) made a point of the issue, or 2) the actors were playing similar characters. Which is why I did not mention ER and Top Gun.

By this logic, then several episodes of Law and Order couldn't have taken place in the same universe as the rest of the episodes, because the same actor guest-starred as different characters on separate occasions. In the case of same actor, different character, we might as well just assume that there are two or more people in that particular universe that look remarkably similar.

Ok, I can buy that. There is that saying, that there is someone out there that looks just like you.

I overlooked this remark (and didn't understand the Buffy one).
Ok, I'll look for connections instead of separations (disconnections, or whatever).

It's all explainable inside the universe because, to the extent it's on the grid, it's all within an autistic boy's head, so there are a finite number of faces that can be created by the imagination. It also explains potential logical inconsistencies like why people disappear for no good reason.

And Stephen Hawking once guest-starred on The Simpsons--as himself! Which I think could probably be used to prove that this universe does not exist.

You know, this whole thread sounds like a good idea for a Pixel Challenge.

Which creates kind of a paradox, because Stephen Hawking also guested on Futurama as himself. Futurama is in the universe where The Simpsons is the show it is in our universe, animated and fictional.

Wow, we're geeks.

And Homer visited "our" world (4-d). So . . .

And Stephen Hawking guest starred on Star Trek TNG as himself - the only person to ever do so!



And then 20 years later he'll host another special explaining why he was all wrong about it.

So. Fucking. Cool. Fran Drescher and Ray Romano actually DID attend high school together too! I know, because Hillcrest High is down the block from me! This made my day, for some odd reason :)


So wrong. Yet SO funny!

Yeah, but in a Treehouse of Horror. That's not really canon...

I thought I had watched a lot of TV. I was so VERY wrong. I haven't paid as much attention as I thought. Man, it's all connected.

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Actually St. Elsewhere has at least twice been contradictory within itself about its connections to two other series:

- On a relatively early episode, patients were watching The White Shadow (we saw the credits and everything, and it seemed a typical self-pimp as the two shows had the same producers/creators). Yet in later years one of the orderlies turned out to be Warren Coolidge from TWS, and he talked about how his basketball career never worked out so he moved to Boston. So TWS was both "real" and "fictional" within St. E.

- When the David Morse character was walking around Boston (rare location shoot -- mostly they filmed in LA) his infant son after his wife's death, they passed by the exterior of the Cheers bar location, which was decked out with flags and signs for the tourist trade pointing out its fame, and he "asked" the baby, "Want to go where everybody knows your name?" But several seasons later, several of the regulars stopped by the fictional Cheers and hung out for a quarter hour with (as I remember) Carla, Norm, and Cliff. Again, first fictional and then real.

The second site linked to is the one I already knew about, and it seems to be fairly careful about establishing links, but I don't think it mentions these self-contraditions. (And I don't want to make too much of them, because I find the overall topic great fun.)

This "One Big Universe" theory could explain something I've always found interesting about sitcoms -- how everytime a "parent" of one of the characters makes an appearance, it turns out to be someone from another, often "classic" sitcom or television show:

On Friends, Rachel's mom was Marlo Thomas (That Girl), and Chandler's mom was Morgan Fairchild.

On Mad About You, Jamie's parents were Carroll O'Connor and Carol Burnett (later in the series, anyway).

On Drew Carey, wasn't his mom Mrs. Cunningham from Happy Days (I'm going to remember the actress' name as soon as I hit "add reply).

And isn't Cloris Leachman one of the grandparents on "Malcolm in the Middle?"

Marion Ross


I remember an episode of Roseanne that had several famous mothers....

The "Sitcom Moms Welcome Wagon" visits Roseanne.

'The Wonder Years', (Alley Mills) Norma Arnold
'The Jefferson's', (Isobel Sanford) Louise Jefferson
'Leave It To Beaver', (Barbara billingsley) June Cleaver
'Lassie', (June Lockhart) Ruth Martin
'Please Don't Eat The Daisies' (Pat Crowley) Joan Nash

I'm pretty sure Chicago Hope and Picket Fences were already dead or dying around the time those last 4 came along.

Speaking of which, I think Early Edition crossed over with Chicago Hope at some point in the second season.

I don't think that famous sitcom stars playing the parents of characters on other shows counts as "same universe" unless they're playing the same characters as on the first show. Though Drew Carey gets reference points for constantly referring to Drew's mom Mrs. Carey as "Mre. C", which was what the Fonz called Mrs. Cunningham.

I don't doubt it, but it's not impossible for the characters on CH or PF to appear later, despite the cancelation of their shows. Now that I think about it, it's probably just that DEK reused the actors, but not the characters. He does that a lot. For example, I think Kathy Baker has been in Chicago Hope, Ally McBeal, The Practice, and Boston Public, in addition to Picket Fences.

The crossover I'd like to see, to make the link, is Don Cheadle reprising his Picket Fences character on Boston Legal.

Ha! Don't even mention the ABC Soaps! When Skye Chandler moved from All My Children to General Hospital, has she ever said anything about Sonny Corinthos looking exactly like some guy named Nico Kelly who used to live in Pine Valley? Or Heather Webber bearing a remarkable resemblence to Janet Green? When Skye met Heather, I half-expected her to run up & hug her & call her Janet ;-)

And if you go over to Llanview & visit OLTL, did anyone ever notice that Roxy Balsam looks a heckuva lot like a woman named Georgina who lived there about 20 years ago (same actress playing 2 unrelated characters on the same show.) Not to mention she could be a twin of Delia Reid Ryan Ryan Coleridge.

And I could swear I saw a big blond guy named Bobby Warner wandering around Port Charles, calling himself Rafe Something-or-Other -- but of course, when Bobby moved back to Pine Valley a few months ago, he was a little weaselly-lookin' black-haired guy, who looks nothing like his big blond father Cliff nor his big blond son, Sammy Grey!

Of course, I will think of lots more once I post this!

Some shows have botched this--a few years ago, some "Boston Public" characters showed up on "The Practice", indicating they existed in the same universe.

But a few weeks later, a "Practice" character was WATCHING "Boston Public" on TV, virtually negating the crossover.

*Or was it the other way around as far the shows go? In any event, it DID happen.

The Angel episode "Harm's Way" began with a Wolfram & Hart infomercial and within the infomercial, the announcer said Wolfram & Hart had "branches that reach right into the heart of every major corporation, including Yoyodyne, Weyland-Yutani, and News Corp."

Now that's a crossover.

BondGirl, yeah, I remember that--it was some witness on The Practice who said something like "I had to go catch Boston Public on TV". Maybe in the DEK world, there's some other show about a public high school that's different from "our" Boston Public.

Ah, it's covered here.

The very idea that Buckaroo Banzai and Angel co-exist in the same universe makes this utterly geeky fanboy salivate beyond belief.

I want Sports Night and West Wing to take place in the same universe, but there would have to be a lot of fanwanking, due to Jeremy/Will, Monica/Donna, Gordon/Pundit Guy, Bobbi/Laurie, Charlie's Nannny/Ellie, and the fact that Josh Lyman seems to have been created from the character notes labeled "Dan Rydell". Still, I would like to believe that whenever President Bartlet watches girls' softball, he's watching it on CSC. Quo Vadimus. Whatever.