But I have somehow got sucked up into still more Charles In Charge nonsense. Particularly with the discovery that Charles did not have, in the canon of the show, a known last name. That’s right, he was just Charles Lastname. Both Wikipedia and the Internet Movie Database speculate that this was so that viewers who weren’t paying close attention would think that he was the same guy as Chachi from Happy Days and Joanie Loves Chachi, just after he dumped Joanie and started going to college in a different decade.
And now I know what you’re thinking: wait, we don’t know Charles In Charge’s last name … we don’t know Lieutenant Columbo’s first name … do we have a match here? No, of course we don’t. Come on. Charles In Charge was 19-ish in the mid-80s when his show came on. He had to have been born before 1970 and if he were, then absolutely at some point Columbo would have deployed some anecdote about his son against Patrick McGoohan. That’s just how stories work. Let’s not be silly about things, now.
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Are you sure his full name wasn’t Charles N. Charge?
It’s right there in the title!
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I am not at all sure, no, but I was wondering if he might be some relationship to Charles Cheese, you know, the mouse.
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Not sure about that, but I happen to know he’s the one you mentioned who sends Mgr Winchester Charles Chips through that time gate along with Radar’s 1960 comic books and Hershey bars with UPC symbols. and Hawkeye’s blue Adidas sneakers.
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It’s Alley Oop, isn’t it? I just knew the new take on him was going to cause all sorts of mischief.
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