I love inside jokes, whether it's Tony Shalhoub's Monk running into his old Wings co-star Tim Daly on a plane and saying he's never heard of the show to other sly references in this manner. I think the funniest inside joke I ever remember, because it was just so darn obscure, was a scene in Norman Lear's twisted soap Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Tom Hartman (Greg Mullavey) is at a bar, about to meet Mae, played by Salome Jens, who he'll later have an affair with. Playing in the background was a song I found intensely familiar--then realized in a flash it was an instrumental version of the theme song to a syrupy television movie Mullavey had appeared in the year before, Having Babies. I always wondered how many other viewers got the joke.

Of course the best source for any inside jokes was an episode of St. Elsewhere; each story was riddled with references to pop music lyrics and titles, old television series, movies, you name it.

Anyway, a few years ago, they did a makeover on the little orphan Annie story that began way back in the 1920s and started publishing a strip again. They had Annie completely changed at one point and people objected, so, although she's not in that red dress anymore and in jeans and a sweater instead, she still has curly, vaguely red hair, and those blank eyes. (The story goes that the artists originally gave the new Annie pupils. They finally changed it back after complaints from the readers: "She looks funny!")

I don't usually read "Annie," but I read something this morning that made me go track the strip down. Annie has been on a plane flight to Canada. The plane caught fire (not sure if this ia terrorist thing or what), landed in a Canadian lake, and Annie got clear, but was under cover when rescue copters surveyed the surrounding area. Now she's lost in the woods and apparently had lost her memory. This morning she took a drink of water from a mountain pool and saw her reflection. She is amazed to find out she's just a little girl for, as she exclaims, "I feel 80 years old!"

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 1:13:00 PM

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