Unknown Facts • Murder Most Foul

Date: 02/25/2004
From: SynthIA

• Recall317 wins this German chocolate labeled "Rainbowkolorbar!"
• PhantomDennis wins "An Arli$$ Chri$tma$!"
• JTHeyman wins Holly Hunter in "Home for the Holidays!"
• sliderules wins Jolly Hunter in "The Twelve Days of Slidemas!"
• ThomasMalthus wins the heartwarming Christmas issue of "Maxim!"

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Welcome to Unknown Facts, the show where you're invited to make something up about today's episode! You can stay within the story...

SYNTHIA: When Arturo says he hasn't worn a uniform in thirty years, he's referring to his rarely spoken-of role as a Klingon in an early "Star Trek."

...or go behind the scenes:

BLINKER: You know why JRD was *really* fired? Peck couldn't come up with any more excuses to stab him in the neck and turn him into a gibbering, mumbling idiot. And without that, what good was he anyway?

You can even try to plausibly explain why Wade opens the vortex two storeys up. Yeah, good luck.

___________________________
Synthetic Intelligence Avatar #385D

Did you know ...

Date: 02/26/2004
From: JTHeyman

'Lo. .

... Sabrina Lloyd lobbied for the "Wade opens the vortex two stories up" bit in a (as it turns out) futile attempt to prevent Jerry O'Connell from jumping through the vortex with his pants around his ankles ... Jerry still pulled his <ahem> little pranks but, after our heroes Slid off the edge of a cliff in a recent episode, Vortex-location ceased to be an important concern.

~ JTHeyman
"Wade Wells Lives!"

Duck!

Date: 02/26/2004
From: PhantomDennis

The original title was to be "Murder Most Fowl" a homage to one of David Peckinpah's all-time Favorite Movie, "Howard the Duck".

You see Peckinpah was so intigued with the premise of a planet where Ducks instead of men evolved into the dominant species, that he wanted incorporate into the show.

He had befriend the Hyuck's (the Producers of Howard the Duck) and had learned that they had been so sure the Howard would be a runaway hit that they had already invested in costumes for the sequel "Howard the Duck 2: Return to Duck World". So Peckinpah had a cheap source of costumes.

Problems arose when litigation was threatened not by Marvel but by Disney. (Possibly because the original Murder Victim was supposed a Wealthy Scotsman named Barnaby Cratchit who had a Nephew that was a hot-tempered sailor, and three grandnephew that were scouts.) But what killed the concept was that Fox didn't want to the show to rip off "flop" movies.

"Look," explained the executive, "the whole point of Sliders is so that people who are to cheap to go to the theaters can see Blockbuster movies for free. That's what our audience wants. Believe me, no one wants to see Howard the freaking Duck!"

So Peckinpah was forced back to the drawing board. However he realized he had a goldern opportunity. Because every Sci-Fi Show about Jack the Ripper (STAR TREK, BABYLON 5, THE LOST WORLD, TIMECOP, TRACKER, etc.) So that's he wrote instead.

Some scenes from the Lost script for "Murder Most Fowl"

Arturo: This world diverged from our reality long before humanity came into existence.

Quinn: It's important we don't get trapped here.

Wade: Because we'd stuck on a world we never made.
-
Wade meets her "double" Wade Duck.

Wade Duck: Oh panic! A hairless monkey who sort of looks and sounds like me.
--
WD reacts to the fact that Arturo has fallen into the hands of Dr. Pollard.

WD: Not Pollard. He's a howl.

Wade: A howl?

WD: You know a howl? An imcompetent doctor. What to you call them on your world?

Wade: Oh, we call them quacks. Oops.

Show within a show within a show within

Date: 02/26/2004
From: Recall317

a show within a show within a show....

Though it didn't make it out of the initial brainstorm, Scott Miller proposed that the fantasy world be an episode of Sliders where Arturo would be led to believe he's Maximillian Arturo, a professor lost between dimensions. Whether or not this was a clever ruse by Miller to trick the new production team into writing a more traditional episode or a complete lack of ideas on his part is unclear to this day.

R317

FACT!

Date: 02/26/2004
From: sliderules

BT is not a low carb food!

Here's something you don't discover everyday:

Did you know that Professor Arturo was originally going to be tricked into believing he was a detective similar to Inspector Gadget? Wade was going to be Penny, while the dog would be none other than Quinn Mallory! Of course, all of this was scrapped when they realized their effects budget couldn't cover "all of that leg stetching action."

Be glad we didn't have to see "Budbudubuh...OOH OOH!" as it was originally titled.

~sliderules
"I'LL GET YOU GADGET!"

If Moriarty only knew....

Date: 03/11/2004
From: MissingSliderRyan

BT would you like Lt. Broccoli to help you with that?

Peck: My idea was to make Wade one of those Can Can dancers. Oh baby... that would have been great except that she hurt her ankle in the practice session so we had to change that. Still should have had some Can Can dancers. Maybe next time.

MSR

Original URL http://bboard.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/545/4067734
Nominated by Blinker