THE TOMMY UNIVERSE

 What is the most expansive fictional universe ever created?

The Tommy Westphall Universe. A long time ago, in a fabled era known as the ’80s, there was a TV show called St. Elsewhere. It was about a run down teaching hospital named St. Eligius in Boston and the doctors who worked there. Dr. Donald Westphall was the Director of Medicine, a widower he was raising his two children by himself. One of those children was his autistic son Tommy. Tommy only appeared in fifteen episodes of the series. St. Elsewhere ran for six seasons, and won eleven Emmys, but all anyone cares about today is its final episode. In the final scene of the final episode, it is revealed that the building of St. Eligius is inside a snow globe being held by Tommy Westphall. And his father, who is definitely not a doctor, comes in and says the following:

"I don't understand this autism thing, Pop. Here's my son, I talk to him, I don't even know if he can hear me. He sits there, all day long, in his own world, staring at that toy. What's he thinking about?"

The entire six seasons of St. Elsewhere were, in fact, a child’s daydream while looking at a snow globe.

So here’s where things start to get a little complicated. The St. Elsewhere character Dr. Roxanne Turner was in an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street where she was accused of murder. But… if Dr. Turner was just a creation of Tommy… how could she possibly be on Homicide? …Unless Homicide was also a day dream of Tommy. There is an episode of St. Elsewhere where the doctors of St. Eligius decide to go out for a few drinks at a local Boston bar. That bar happens to be Cheers, the titular bar from the sitcom Cheers. So all of Cheers, and Frasier, and Frasier again are products of Tommy’s imagination.

Detective John Munch was a character played by Richard Belzer who starred on Homicide: Life on the Street, which we know never existed. After the cancelation of Homicide, the character was moved Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. Detective Munch also appears in the shows The Wire, The X-Files, and Arrested Development. Law and Order: SVU has also crossed over with all the Chicago TV show franchise. and Detective Munch has also appeared in The Simpons which has had a crossover with Family Guy, which has had a crossover with American Dad and other Cartoon shows which I can't remember right now. So all those shows had to be the creation of Tommy Westphall.

Cheers spun off Frasier, which crossed over with Caroline in the City, which crossed over with Friends, which shared a character with Mad About You, which crossed over with Seinfeld. In a few centuries the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer will be Star Trek, but its distant past (sorry, spoilers) is the reboot of Battlestar Galactica. Doctor Who is canonically taking place in the same universe as I Love Lucy, Hannah Montana, Grey’s Anatomy, and All My Children.

And all of it is the creation of one child, which probably explains the continuity errors. Such as no one acknowledging the zombie outbreak in Georgia in The Walking Dead, which is happening at the exact same time as It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Arrow.

If you map everything out, there are at least 419 shows which are all in the same continuity with each other, and all are canonically the creation of Tommy Westphall.

The first person to propose the Tommy Westphall Universe was legendary writer Dwayne McDuffie. Which was in a blog post criticizing comic book continuity. It was about just how silly it was to try to fit vast and mutually incoherent works all into the same rigid continuity. But you know… he was kind of onto something with that whole Tommy Westphall stuff.

They did all crossover with each other.

By the way, the Collector in Guardians of the Galaxy has Tobias Fünke on his ship, which means Tommy Westphall is responsible for the MCU.