ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Tommy Westphall

Okay kiddo, imagine we're talking about a character named Tommy Westphall. He's a boy who lives in a world inside his own head. When you and I watch TV shows, we know that they're made up stories and not really happening. But Tommy doesn't know that. To him, these TV shows are all real and are happening in his world inside his head.

Now, Tommy watches a lot of different TV shows and sometimes these different shows will have characters from other shows make an appearance. It's like when your favorite movie characters have cameos in another movie. But here's the tricky part - sometimes these characters from different shows are all appearing together in the same show inside Tommy's head. And sometimes THAT show will have characters from other shows in it too!

This creates what's called the "Tommy Westphall universe" - it's like a big web of all these different TV shows and characters that are connected through their appearances inside Tommy's head. It's like a big game of connect the dots. And since there are so many different TV shows involved, it's like a HUGE web of dots!

The reason people talk about the Tommy Westphall universe is because it's kind of mind-bending if you think about it. All these different TV shows are connected in a way that we never would have realized without Tommy's perspective. And it's not just a few shows - it's hundreds of them! It's like Tommy made his own little TV universe without even realizing it. Pretty neat, huh?