First off, if you [...]]]> Time to change gears to another one of my interests, though somewhat related: Doctor Who. I have loved Doctor Who for as long as Holmes and Watson (about 25 years now).  And as with Holmes, I have enjoyed watching what fans did with the Doctor, both the original and newer series.

First off, if you haven’t already seen it, check out the Sherlock/Doctor Who crossover video, “A Study in Time” that I posted earlier. Totally brilliant!

Doctor Who – Tenth Doctor Tribute – Fireflies

There are a bunch of videos using Owl City’s Fireflies song to clips of the Doctor.  This one and the nest one are my favorites.  This one is a shortened version of the song, but still fun to watch.  Stars the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) and his various companions.

Doctor Who – Fireflies

Most of the fanvids that used Fireflies used the Tenth and (since it aired) Eleventh Doctors.  A few brave souls man one using almost all the Docs, such as this one:

CSI: Gallifrey (DW/CSI Miami Parody)

I don’t care for any of the CSI shows, but have seen enough to ROFL whenever I watch this video.

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• My Favorite Sherlock Holmes videos – part 5
• The Doctor is younger than me!
• BBC’s Sherlock, season 1, reairing on PBS
• My Favoite Sherlock Holmes videos – part 6
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Sherlock Holmes – The Dancing Men 1/6

Skip to 2:53 in the video [...]]]> The Reenactments
It is fun to see how people re-enact scenes from a Holmes production. Below are live and animated re-enacted scenes both from the Granada series and BBC’s Sherlock. I include the original scene and same scene, redone:

The Dancing Men

Sherlock Holmes – The Dancing Men 1/6

Skip to 2:53 in the video to watch Watson’s astonishment as Holmes makes an “absurdly simple” deduction about him.  Ends at 5:47. Or you can watch the whole episode if you wish (I recommend that! One of the best episodes of the series!)

Sherlock Holmes The Dancing Men (Jeremy Brett) Cartoon

An adorable cartoon version, using the audio from the above episode.  Animation has a nice folkart quality to it.  I posted in the comments section that it reminded me of the 1990s cartoon, Dr. Katz (without the shaking).  And I always laugh at Watson’s confused face.

The Resident Patient

The Resident Patient part 6

You only need to skip to :19 to get to the scene.  If you watch from the beginning, you’d be spoiled somewhat since this segment is near the end and Watson narrates what happened to the villains after the mystery had been solved.  The scene in the sitting room is not in the original story, but incredibly charming and, as far as character goes, it’s very canonical. The song Holmes is playing on his violin is Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, 3rd movement.

The Resident Patient

Take one YouTuber (in this case, dalek42), have him play both Watson and Holmes well, and you have a great little tribute to the show!  While the Watson angle is a bit dark, his timing is very good.  I love how his Holmes rolls the “r” in “What’s wrong?”.  And the smily face on the bedroom door!  Just thinking of Holmes having a smily face on his door is hilarious…..

The Great Game

….Which brings me to Sherlock shooting a smiley face into his wall.  This is from BBC’s Sherlock, the third episode “The Great Game”.  The argument that Sherlock and John have here (in the show, they call each other by there first name rather than their last) is from the canon: Holmes not liking what Watson had published about their first case is from the second story, “Sign of Four”, and the solar system is from the very first story, “A Study in Scarlet”. Along with Holmes shooting into the wall, from The Musgrave Ritual, though in the story he shoots nota smiley face, but the letters V R, standing for Victoria Regina (another name for Queen Victoria).

Although I was not able to find the whole scene in one video, I found three short ones that has almost the whole thing (minus a second or two):

Sherlock “Bored” Scene Recreation

These guys usually do videos based on Doctor Who (both original stories and also hilarious impersonations), but after a number of requests, they redid the above scene (minus the head-in-the-fridge bit):

For those curious, below is the original solar system argument:

My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

“You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.”

“To forget it!”

“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”

“But the Solar System!” I protested.

“What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”

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• Sherlock Holmes fan music videos, part 2
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Since restarting this blog, there has been a new Sherlock Holmes series, called, simply. Sherlock (Original, right? LOL!). I will post my review of it here (I have it posted somewhere else at the moment). But I wanted to show some brilliant fanvids here.

A Study in Time

Oh My Gosh! [...]]]> On a roll now!

Since restarting this blog, there has been a new Sherlock Holmes series, called, simply. Sherlock (Original, right? LOL!). I will post my review of it here (I have it posted somewhere else at the moment). But I wanted to show some brilliant fanvids here.

A Study in Time

Oh My Gosh! This video just blew me away. It’s done like a BBC trailer for a show (even has the BBC One logo on the bottom), combining Sherlock and Doctor Who (BTW, both shows are written and (in the case of Sherlock) created by (Steven Moffat (head DW writer) and Mark Gatiss). Unfortunately, Moffat has said that he will never combine the two on one show though I think he should for charity like Big Nose Day or Children in Need. Anyway….

Short explanation of the Sherlock show. Holmes (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) and Watson (Martin Freeman) are brought up in present day instead of Victorian England. If you haven’t seen it, please do yourself a favor and watch it! Acting, writing, sets, etc., top notch!  The song is Cracking the Code by PostHaste Music.

Sherlock Holmes: The Boys Are Back

I found out about this video from the Baker Street Blog (a great blog to find out news from the world of Holmes and Watson) a while back.  This includes 5 different sets of Holmes-Watson teams: Rathbone-Bruce, Brett-Burke, Basil-Dawson (from Disney’s Great Mouse Detective movie), Downey-Law, and Cumberbatch-Freeman. Note that in different clips Holmes is playing the violin during the guitar solo…. nice touch!

Sherlock – ‘tick, Tick BOOM’

A short one.  And loud music.  Probably will attract attention if you play it with people around.  Tick Tick Boom by The Hives.

Sherlock – Life in Technicolour

Life in Tecnicolour ii is one of the best songs by Coldplay, so put together with one of the beat teams of Holmes & Watson, it’s hard to not like it .  But it’s a short video , still brilliant though.

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• My Favoite Sherlock Holmes videos – part 6
• Some of my favorite Sherlock Holmes fan videos
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• Best Doctor Who fan videos – part 1

One thing I have become a fan of are fan-made music videos.  To keep in line with my last [...]]]> In my last (regular) post, I talked about the official video for “Discombobulate”, the main theme for the recent Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr. (Hans was robbed of an Oscar! Shame on the Academy!!)

One thing I have become a fan of are fan-made music videos.  To keep in line with my last couple posts, I list below some of my favorite Holmes related ones:

Sherlock Holmes Symphony

First up is a great medley of Holmes from various films, TV, and animation (even some anime!) done to The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony. Opens with scene from CSI’s “Who Shot Sherlock?” episode (which happened to air on what would have been, if he existed, Sherlock’s 150th birthday), along with scenes (not listed in order) from Jeremy Brett (but of course!), Star Trek: The Next Genereation (loved the “Elementary, My Dear Data” episode!), The Simpsons, Daffy Duck & Porky Pig, Michael Pennington (from the very enjoyable TV movie “Return of Sherlock Holmes” where Holmes wakes up in 1980s England by Watson’s great granddaughter), Peter Cushing, Ronald Howard (an overlooked actor. Played the Great Sleuth back in the 50s on TV. Minus having blond hair, he made a great Holmes!) Basil Rathbone (another “but of course!”), shot of Laurel & Hardy wearing deerstalkers, Buster Keaton (from his masterpiece “Sherlock Jr”), and many others.

Read My Mind (Holmes & Watson)

Last night I found this great video. From the title I was afraid it was going to be another slash vid, but it turned to be really really good. I watched it numerous times in a row, even getting a little choked up. Stars fast clips from the Granada series with Jeremy Brett, David Burke, and Edward Hardwicke. And with a sweet ending! The song is “Read my Mind” by The Killers. Great video on a greater friendship:

Sherlock Holmes, “Tubthumping”

Next is a very good vid taken from scenes of the Robert Downey Jr. movie. What makes this vid really interesting is that it was made before the DVD/Blu-Ray release. Clips were taken from already released scenes on the ‘net and trailers. Song is the 90s hit “TubThumping” by Chumbawamba:

Sherlock Holmes Featurette (Brett & Downey Jr>

This one combines both Brett’s and Downey’s Holmes with the song “All the Strange Strange Creatures” from the new Doctor Who series (season 3). One of the best songs from the new series (IMHO, of course). Anyway, it’s a very good combination! I’ll later post my favorite Doctor Who fan vids.

Sherlock Holmes video – Rocky Road to Dublin

And in honor of today being St. Patrick’s Day, below is also from the recent Sherlock Holmes movie. “Rocky Road to Dublin” by the Dubliners. While the song was in the movie, it’s not on the soundtrack (whose brilliant idea was that?)

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Basil Rathbone (left) and Nigel Bruce play the crime fighting dou

detective and and his trusty companion.  We were reading Hound of the Baskervilles (considered by many fans to be the best of the Holmes stories) and watched the [...]]]> I have to thank my 8th grade English teacher for introducing me to the great

Basil Rathbone (left) and Nigel Bruce play the crime fighting dou

detective and and his trusty companion.  We were reading Hound of the Baskervilles (considered by many fans to be the best of the Holmes stories) and watched the 1939 film version starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce  it in class.  We had an assignment of pretending to be a news reporter covering the murder.

I’ve never cared too much for mysteries. It was usually someone gets killed (kind of a downer). Detective investigates and usually solves case. Killer is usually hateful/jealous/mean streaked.  Then justice is done.

But the characters of Holmes and Watson really got my curiosity.  Holmes was stand-offish and not social. He could tell you where you came from and what you do for a living within the first second of meeting you.  But he was not a romantic, but rather preferred facts when dealing with people… or rather, people’s cases.  Along with his cocaine addictions, violin playing, and pipe smoking.

Watson was loyal.  Ready to help his friend when needed. And wrote about the cases that he and Holmes took on.  Handy with a revolver.  If Holmes asked him to go off and do something, Watson went without question.

I happened to mention about the story to my mom, telling her that I thought it was really interesting and not hard to follow the decades old story.  So when I graduated the grade, my parents gave me a book that had several stories in it (most of the Holmes stories were short stories), including Hound.  The book had the original illustrations by Sidney Paget, which were originally with the stories when they were originally published.  Considered to have cemented the “look” of Holmes to the public.

I read those stories. Inhaled them is a better way of putting it.  The stories were also out of the ordinary.  Some were murders, though the cause of death no always easy: an animal in self defense or the victim died out of terror or a guilty conscious.  Or perhaps faked their own death.  Or something was stolen.  In addition to that,  I watched more of the Rathbone/Bruce movies on the local tv channel. I believe it was every Sunday afternoon.  Rathbone was my Holmes.

Until…

Jeremy Brett as Holmes (left) , Rosalie Williams as Mrs. Hudson (center) and David Burke as Watson standing in front of the infamous 221B residence

I saw Jeremy Brett and David Burke.

Oh. My. Gosh!!!

(that’s right, I said gosh. Deal with it! )

The performances of those two men really shot the characters out of a canon and onto the small screen.  Brett’s portrayal was spot on. He set a very high standard of how someone should play Holmes. And Burke’s Watson as well as Edward Hardwicke’s Watson was much more faithful to the Watson that Conan Doyle wrote about.  And the rest of the cast: Rosalie Williams who played their landlady Mrs. Hudson, Colin Jeavons as Inspector Lestrade, and a bunch of others who appeared looking like what I had pictured in my head when I first read the stories.

And shooting it out of a canon can be taken another way… it was almost 100% Canon (canon – meaning the original stories).  The stories were as close to word-for-word as one could fit into less than a 60 minute program.  Costumes were beautiful. Sets were marvelous.  The Baker Street residence was not too ornate.  Everything was so… well…. perfect! (Except for the last few episodes. Production got lazy, and Brett’s health got worse and passed away in September 1995 :’( ).

Even when I watch them now, they do not look like they are 25 years old.  I

Brett again as Holmes, and Edward Hardwicke picking up the role of Watson

am picky when it comes to period films and if there is too much 1980s in something that is supposed to be 1880s, then I’m not happy.  But this was, as I already said, perfect.

A few years later I became a huge fan of Charlie Chaplin.  And to my delight, one of Chaplin’s early acting childhood gigs was that of Billy the Pageboy in the Sherlock Holmes play written by William Gillette.  There were two men who played Holmes for the play, Gillette and H A Saintsbury, and Chaplin worked with both of them, commenting in “My Autobiography” that he thought Saintsbury was the better Holmes.  Many years later when he was making Limelight, he brought on Nigel Bruce to play Mr Postant, largely due to his Watson role.  Which is another reason why I have kept the name Calvero for so many years… it connects some of my favorites together .

And speaking of the Holmes/Chaplin crossover, there is the “Sherlock Holmes” movie to be released later this year starring Robert Downey, Jr. who playrf Charlie in the 1992 film “Chaplin”.  Loved him in that!  And now he’s playing Holmes.  While I can’t think of anyone better to play Chaplin than him, it will be real tough to even equal Brett’s Holmes.  But he can do a very good British accent (he did a couple different ones in Chaplin).  Jude Law has a very very good look for Watson (He also had a small part in the Granada series, “The Disappearance of Lady Carfax”).

The trailer looks good:

I’ll just have to put Brett’s image to the side when I go to see the new movie.

Related Posts:

• My Favoite Sherlock Holmes videos – part 6
• My Favorite Sherlock Holmes videos – part 5
• My favorite Holmes videos – volume 4