Debunking the Tommy Westphall Universe's inclusion of The Facts of Life

I guess it's polite to warn that this post contains a spoiler for a TV show that has been off the air for 25 years. If you don't want to be spoiled about St. Elsewhere, you should probably not read on.

Earlier this week, I learned about the Tommy Westphall Universe. The 80s TV show St. Elsewhere ended by showing a miniature of the hospital in which the show took place inside a decorative snow globe, arguably implying that the entire series had taken place in the mind of a boy named Tommy Westphall, who was holding the snow globe at the end. The theory holds that because St. Elsewhere had a number of crossovers with other shows, if it is indeed the case that the St. Elsewhere universe was a figment of Tommy's imagination, the shows with which it crossed over must be as well. And it turns out that The Facts of Life is on the list. I had my suspicions, so I set out to understand the Tommy Westphall Universe, with the goal of proving that The Facts of Life is in fact real (I mean, obviously I know it's a fictional show, but you know what I mean) and its inclusion in the Tommy Westphall Universe is in error.

Before you continue: understand the Tommy Westphall Universe

I mentioned the bones of the theory in the intro, and you may have already reviewed the Wikipedia page linked above. If not, I'll provide a brief summary. Regardless, I encourage you to spend a little time with the Tommy Westphall Universe site. I studied the grid and key for a while and it's very interesting. No matter what other critiques I have of its methodology, it's a fascinating piece of work that, if nothing else, provides a stunning index of many major TV show crossovers, spinoffs, and internal references over the years and it's a fun ride on its own.

The television show St. Elsewhere, which ran from '82-'88, ended by showing an autistic boy named Tommy Westphall, one of the characters in the show, holding a snow globe. Inside the snow globe was the hospital that was the primary setting for the series. The boy's father, who was a doctor during the series, comes home from a blue collar job. There is some dialogue that supports an interpretation of the ending as revealing that the entire series took place in Tommy's mind. It is the most widely accepted interpretation as well as the most interesting (those two things might be related), but it is not the only explanation. Still, it is a great "if" to explore. 

Some people might say that the creators of the Tommy Westphall Universe have too much time on their hands. I would never say such a thing, because I write a Facts of Life blog.

Where the theory goes wrong

The theory assumes that an interaction between fantasy and reality necessarily pulls reality into fantasy. What I mean is, it assumes that if something that only exists within Tommy Westphall's mind references something else, then that something else must also only exist within Tommy Westphall's mind. That's not true. Tommy Westphall's imagination can include things from the real world; if I dream that I am driving to San Francisco, that doesn't mean that San Francisco only exists in my dreams.

The Universe is absolutely right that crossovers can imply that other shows are in the same (imaginary) universe, but only when those crossovers involved characters from St. Elsewhere actually interacting with characters from other shows on those other shows. Take, for example, a key crossover in the Universe: "St Elsewhere's Westphall, Craig, and Auschlander visited Cheers's bar." I don't know either show well enough to know on which it happened, but it matters, because imagination can incorporate reality. If it happened on Cheers, then Cheers is in the Westphall Universe because it means that St. Elsewhere exists from the perspective of the characters on Cheers. If it happened on St. Elsewhere, though, then all it means is that Tommy imagined stuff taking place at a place he knew about from his real world or from TV.

Another error of the methodology is that it creates links through references that aren't specific enough to warrant an implication that the shows are linked. For example, 2.A.ii.(1)(a) (I can't believe I just typed that) suggests that a link is created because "John Larroquette Show referenced Yoyodyne. Yoyodyne was also a client of Angel’s Wolfram & Hart." It just takes a trip to Wikipedia to discover that Yoyodyne is not a unique thing. It's like Springfield in The Simpsons; the fact that it's not specific is part of the joke.

So, with respect to The Facts of Life's placement on the list, the links go like this:

• The Facts of Life was a spinoff of Diff’rent Strokes.
• Hello Larry’s Larry Alder crossed over onto Diff’rent Strokes for 3 different 2-part episodes.
• Hello Larry’s characters were mentioned on Hi Honey, I’m Home!
• [Hi Honey, I'm Home! is connected to St. Elsewhere indirectly through four shows.]

As I explained above, the imaginary incorporates the real, so an imaginary world's mere mention of one of these worlds does not pull that world into the imaginary one. In other words, even if we assume that everything up to and including Hi Honey, I'm Home! exists in the Westphall Universe, Hello Larry could merely be an imaginary world's reference to something from the real one.  

So folks, rest easier knowing that our intrepid heroines are not merely figments of a fictional boy's imagination, but rather they are equally not real characters on a TV show. I know it makes me feel better.