Now that Action Sherlock Brain Theater has been running on this website for well over two years now, we're starting to learn some surprising things about our cast and crew. What you ask? Well, for starters, this apparently wasn't the first medium for Action Sherlock Brain Theater. If you were wandering through www.youtube.com this week, you might already have discovered this for yourself.

What we now know as a three-panel photo comic, apparently had an incarnation has a black-and-white fifties kiddie show. Like any artistic endeavor, a certain amount of evolution had to take place. Why does Action Sherlock currently converse only in thought balloons? Up until now, I was always sure that the thought balloons were because it was Action Sherlock BRAIN Theater, but after seeing this clip from the 1950s kiddie show version, I'm not so sure. Action Sherlock's voice might not get used much for a very good reason. Take a listen yourself and see.

Practically unintelligible, isn't it? After much research and audio forensics, we've actually created a transcript of the Action Sherlock clip on YouTube, and it goes as follows:

WATSON: Holmes, have any clients called today?

HOLMES: No, Watson, but while we wait, let’s watch a cartoon!

(Moriarty cartoon runs)

WATSON: That was a pretty bad cartoon, Holmes.

HOLMES: Well, we’re in the Victorian era, Watson, what do you expe . . .

The video then cuts off, even before Holmes finishes his line. Apparently the ravages of time were not kind to this remnant of Action Sherlock Brain Theater, circa 1950s.

Were there other video incarnations of Action Sherlock prior to his debut on the world-wide web? Only time will tell. Sherlockiana, as we become fully immersed in this new century, has all kinds of surprises for us.

Your humble correspondent,

Brad Keefauver