Talk:Tommy Westphall

message: The actual concept is an interesting piece of cultural commentary. But the content of this article seems to be ripped-off entirely from a chapter in the book "What Were They Thinking?" which is all about television's greatest mistakes. I can't remember the author, but I remember reading a chapter devoted to this very incident.
This is one of the most hillariously idiotic concepts I have ever encountered in my life! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.111.11.69 (talk • contribs) 08:42, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  What Were They Thinking? 

message: :Another good example of a crossover being insufficient to prove a concrete link between series is the case of the programs Family Matters, Step By Step, and Full House. Steve Urkel, character from the former, guest stars on the latter two programs. This of itself does not create a contradiction; a later crossover does. John Stamos (not the character of Uncle Jesse) also guest stars on Step By Step. During his brief cameo, he mentions his role on Full House. A strange paradox is evident; Urkel's presence seems to indicate that all the three shows are in the same continuity, but Stamos's appearance as himself makes that impossible. Clearly, Step By Step and Full House cannot coexist in the same universe (since the latter is a television show in the also-fictional world of the former). This means that at least one (or possibly both) of the Steve Urkels that we see visit the programs is not from the "real" Family Matters universe, but rather an "alternate Urkel" very similar to yet distinct from his canon counterpart.
This section, while interesting, strikes me as a violation of the no original research policy unless there is a source somewhere else.  I've reverted to the previous paragraph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Croctotheface (talk • contribs) 01:47, 5 May 2006
:How about if I delete the final two sentences, where I draw the conclusion about "alternate Urkels"? I would call my conclusion the only thing that's actually "original research"; the rest is merely facts, or very basic logic to say "something's not right here". Where I could be said to have stepped over the line is afterwards trying to provide a hypothesis to explain the situation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.32.141.159 (talk • contribs) 18:41, 5 May 2006
:The very fact that the Westphall Universe is a dream proves there is no continuity problem since all three shows take place in Westphall's dream. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dogma100 (talk • contribs) 18:24, 17 November 2006
:: I don't see how this addresses the issue.  Unless you believe that "it was all a dream" explains any and every paradox by itself. Croctotheface 02:50, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not impossible, maybe  Uncle Jesse just happens to look like John Stamos who appears on a show named Full House that isn't the same show as the one we know. Come to that it's not impossible that another person be born who looks just like you, grows up to become an actor and is then cast on a show which perfectly mirrors the events of your life by coincidence alone. Not terribly likely I'll grant you, but there's no physical laws of the universe which prevent it, and in all possible universes it not only could happen, it must happen.121.73.221.187 (talk) 12:23, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

text: As a note, the section which Croc removed looks to have been added in this edit by User:66.32.211.126. In case anyone wants to claim authorship to the Family Matters/Step by Step/Full House theory. Ranze (talk) 20:30, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved section of original research 

message: Hello! "EMERGENCY!" is a spin-off of, "ADAM-12". Yet in a later episode, the firefighters are concerned about the events of an episode of, you guessed it, "ADAM-12"! That's a big goof! To cover it it up though, as a viewer, we might presume or assume that they are watching what was yet to be called a "reality show", but a documentary series, of those two police officers. "SEINFELD" established a connection to "MAD ABOUT YOU" and also later tried to contradict it by having George and Susan watching an episode of "MAD ABOUT YOU". My guess was, that as Paul Buchman is a documentarian, they were watching one of his documentaties, presumably one about his life with Jamie. However, in retrospect, if "life is nothing but a dream", as would be the case with those latter two examples, it doesn't matter. As a person who remmeber his dreams well enough, I know how strange they can be in that regard. Surely, there must be someone else out there who realizes as much too?  LeoStarDragon1 (talk) 08:39, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Emergency

message: I've nominated this article for deletion.  Please make sure to discuss deletion by returning to the article page and clicking the link to the deletion page. Sangrito 15:56, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, it survived deletion, which makes me happy, but it did not survive by much of a margin.  Now we need to clean up and improve the article.  Otherwise, I predict another afd in the not-too-distant future. --Charles 17:16, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nominated for Deletion

message: It needs to reach Featured Article status so it can go on the front page. People's ears will bleed when they try to comprehend this.Sockatume 13:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Improve this article

message: Considering the whole John Stamos/Urkel thing, this might be worth mentioning somewhere in the article: Robin Williams (as himself) once had a cameo on the show Mork & Mindy.  Figure that one out. - Ugliness Man 09:15, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  is that "nanoo" or "nanu"? 

message: Shouldn't this article mention the Dallas (TV series) episode("Blast From The Past") when Pam saw Bobby in the shower and the Seven Days episode("Déjà Vu All Over Again") where Frank sees himself back in the mental facility.  I don't have any more information on these and would like it if someone more familiar with the two added them.  A mention in the see also section is probably best. (IRMacGuyver (talk) 08:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Dallas and Seven Days

message: So... here's what I was getting at nearly two years ago when I first criticized and then nominated for deletion this undergraduate, stoner, "whoa duuuude!" conversation which is masquerading as an article:  The article is entitled "Tommy Westphall."  Tommy Westphall is a minor character in a 1980s television show who would normally be folded into the main St. Elsewhere article.  In two years, the writing was cleaned up a bit, but the content is only getting worse.
In spite of the title, the bulk, and I mean like 98% of this article is about a stunt-ending that generated a little bit of buzz, and now we have tons of people clamoring to add this odd cameo or that strange occurrence.  Seriously, folks, enough is enough.  If this article is about Tommy Westphall, let it be so.  If it's about jokes by television writers that are mistaken as attempts at serious philosophy by some of the more earnest Wikipedians, then let's drive a stake through the heart of this article and create a new one where we can dump all the multiverse theories.
The fact that people keep adding "hey what about this..." kind of junk to the article and/or discussion makes it fairly plain that this article is not about Tommy Westphall.   It's time.  Let's get rid of this article, move Tommy where he belongs and make a new article for breaches in the imaginary space-time continuum. Sangrito (talk) 06:33, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't sound like you're proposing a merger or cleanup here.  I suspect that you'd agree that there would be no article without the content you're discussing.  If this is indeed the case and you want to make a deletion argument, you should nominate it again.  No matter what we decide here, it couldn't get the article deleted.  Croctotheface (talk) 08:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  What I suggest is this:  1) Tommy Westphall merges into St. Elsewhere main article; 2) this current article goes bye-bye; and 3) something like "Keyzer Soze's list of 1980s TV Crossovers, Jokes and other Mindfucks" be created where all of this fun stuff can go live. I'm trying to see what people think about trying to impose a little bit of discipline on the article at this point, because, as we are plainly seeing, the subject matter lends itself handily to... getting out of hand.  Making a case for deletion in the discussion is just part of the process.  Sangrito (talk) 18:13, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, I think that all amounts to a deletion discussion, not a merger discussion.  The coverage that you seem to want for what's currently here would be so minimal that I really think AfD would be the place to explore it.  In truth, my primary opposition to this article in May 2006 was that the concept was not notable and that WP was being used to publicize it.  Now, I acutally think that the concept is notable because in the interim it has received significant coverage.  We could move the article to something like Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis if your issue is that the article isn't really about the character.  Croctotheface (talk) 18:30, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

text:  I agree that the article should be split into two:  put a general Tommy character reference on the St. Elsewhere page and create the Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis.  Dave 00:57, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

text: I would agree to a continuation of this article under a more fitting name, but not "Keyzer Soze's list of 1980s TV Crossovers, Jokes and other Mindfucks".  A full deletion would not be satisfactory though.(IRMacGuyver (talk) 13:40, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: No, this article should NOT add...

message: I've removed from the article (and collected below) the numerous examples of situations on other series purportedly "inspired by" the Westphall Universe idea. First of all, the Dallas reveal that the entire previous season had been a dream happened in 1986, predating the St. Elsewhere finale and thus complicating the origins of these examples. More importantly, there are no sources provided which connect these examples back to St. Elsewhere (or even Dallas for that matter), so they amount to nothing more than original research, unreferenced trivia collected to make some point.
* "Normal Again," May 2002 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, possibly "revealing" the entire series/Buffyverse to be a hallucination of a hospital-bound Buffy Summers.
*Newhart, the May 1990 final episode of which revealed the entire series to be a dream of Robert Hartley, Bob Newhart's character on the previous Bob Newhart Show.
* "Far Beyond the Stars", February 1998 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, possibly "revealing" the entire series/Star Trek universe to be a hallucination of a 1950s African American science fiction writer Benny Russell (Benjamin Sisko).
* In Season 3, Episode 7 of Newsradio, "Daydream" (November 1996), the ending is a spoof of the Tommy Westphall sequence, with Jimmy, Dave, and Lisa reprising the roles of Tommy, his father, and his mother, respectively.
* The BBC series Life on Mars (2006-2007) and Ashes to Ashes (2008-present) both feature the premise that their main characters are dreaming the events of the series in the aftermath of a fatal or near-fatal incident.
* The British TV series Crossroads also ended in 2003 on the revelation that it had all been imagined by one of the characters.
* Likewise, the Twisted Metal series of video gamess (1995-present) has had several allusions to the possibility that the events of the games are a series of hallucinations on the part of a schizophrenic homeless man (Marcus Kane) after being in an automobile accident.
* In the January 2007 episode "Labyrinth" from season six of the TV show Smallville, it was briefly suggested that the whole universe was a romantic hallucination in the mind of a mentally ill Clark Kent.
I'm preserving the info here in the event that a citation makes any of it relevant in the future. — TAnthonyTalk 17:30, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm. Shouldn't the "Newhart" section be in a seperate listing? Within "The Bob Newhart Show" it was revealed that "I Dream of Jeannie" was the dream of Bill Daily's character in the latter. But as it turns out anyway, later on, Bob's secretary becomes one of Murphy Brown's temporary secretaries. The sitcom "Murphy Brown" is connected to "Cheers" and as it is connected to "St. Elsewhere" too, then we have dreams within dreams, and they all end up just being another part of Tommy's imagination anyway. I could go on and mention the "Star Trek" connection too, but I won't for now. My point here is, I guess, what do you mean in your statement about why you removed it and saved it to here? LeoStarDragon1 (talk) 08:55, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Smallville (season 6) also has its own article. I updated the link to the season 6 section that Anthony posted because it had been renamed. Ranze (talk) 19:01, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: The original research "descendants"

message: :crossovers and coincidences, critics of the hypothesis say, are not sufficient to link separate stories in such a fundamental way. The Westphall Hypothesis does not itself explain why this technique is indeed sufficient
I would like if someone could rephrase this section, or add to it, to make this easier to understand. What is the 'fundamental way' the TV series' universes are linked via crossovers? A crossover is a much more distinct thing involving an identifiable character (as opposed to simply an actor) compared to a coincidence. The whole idea of 'sufficient' evidence to support a hypothesis really depends on what it is claiming to explain. Fundamentality itself is a subjective idea, things are not fundamental or non-fundamental, but exist in a continuum of importance, interpreted differently. Just how fundamental a claim is to the core of a series might be exaggerated here. How would Law & Order be changed here?
The whole 'Westphall Universe' is also just a label to put on what we might otherwise call an 'Elsewhere Universe', via all things which can be tied to that show by character crossovers and cameos. This reality-linking would exist regardless of whether or not someone believes Elsewhere is in Westphall's mind.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ranze (talk • contribs) 18:29, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The Westphall Hypothesis does not itself explain why this technique is indeed sufficient, nor does it provide positive evidence suggesting that the writers and producers of each show purported to be in the Westphall Universe actually intended for their shows to exist only in the dream of an autistic child.
I don't see the necessity of mentioning this. Nothing about the hypothesis says anything about producer/writer intentions. While the statement here is true, it seems completely irrelevant to mention it. I'm going to remove it unless there's a good reason for having it. Guessing about "intentions" positive or negative is pointless since we're not mind-readers. All that matters in fictional universes is the product itself and what information is in that. If producers or writers of other shows had no plans for, or even actively object to their link to the Westphall universe, that doesn't matter in the slightest in regard to being able to link them an interpret them this way.
Star Trek and co are great examples of where the universe's multiple elements are compared and conclusions drawn in contrast or supplement to probable creator intentions, especially considering the active protest or ret-conning different parts get as a result. Ranze (talk) 18:15, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Confusing statements require clarification

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Tommy Westphall. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Attempted to fix sourcing for http://unclebear.com/comments.php?id=2503_0_1_0_C
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Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 20:25, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: <Start of discussion>
I propose that Tommy Westphall be merged into "The Last One (St. Elsewhere episode)". I think that the character Tommy Westphall has no notability outside of this one episode and is even referred to as "a minor character" in the article's header. Minor characters generally aren't notable enough for their own article. SThompson (talk) 18:36, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The article deals with more than just the character itself. More importantly it also deals with the character's eponymous "Universe Hypothesis" and the effects that this Hypothesis have on correlated media — a newer subject discussed rather modestly in academia, with half a dozen publications thus far — but covered nonetheless. That being said, I would support moving the article to the St. Elsewhere page only if the information from this article along with its references supplanted entirely what was written about the last episode there, which is not as well-referenced. — SpintendoTalk 07:17, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The user account of the editor who proposed this merger SThompson (talk) was banned before a consensus could be reached. Thus, the proposal to merge is closed. — SpintendoTalk 08:01, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger proposal 

message: My most recent edit to this article included the deletion of older citations (a couple which were >10 years old) and which linked to discussion groups, blogs, obscure websites etc. These were only deleted in cases where scholarly materials and publications on the topic were located and brought to the article. These newer, more-reliable citations succeed in-place their older, weaker predacessors, which were placed at a time when this topic was new and generally unheard of in academia. Hopefully these more appropriate sources will eventually enable removal of many of the longstanding Wikipedia:Notability templates and/or Article Reliability Issues/etc. which have blighted the article for years. 
Allow me to say that in the unlikely event where I removed a source which some editors were partial to or feel ought not to have been removed, please feel free to re-add it forthwith.—SpintendoTalk 07:17, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  References Come of Age 

message: Please cite a source rather than violate WP:NOR. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:07, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pop or Papa? We won't know unless a reliable source tells us. 

message: :The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 
----
:Tommy Westphall →  – Sidestepping for now the question of whether this article should exist at all, its only notability and exclusive focus regards the shared universe theory arising from the character. The character is not notable beyond this; indeed, nothing of his fictional history in St. Elsewhere prior to its final scene is discussed. U-Mos (talk) 04:56, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: On second thought, this should be located at . So I still support a move, but not to the requested title. O.N.R. (talk) 08:08, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: No objection to this amendment. U-Mos (talk) 20:40, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 31 January 2021