Models on TV and in the movies

Also in "That 70's Show": In one epiosode, the guys rig the church raffle/carnival to win all the toys; one of the toys is the most recent release of the Monogram 1/48 scale B-17.  In another, Red gets back the toy train set from his childhood.

In Ronin, the doctor who Robert De Niro and the french guy go to after De Niro's character is shot has a huge diorama depicting an attack on a Japanese castle

Home Improvement - it's mentioned once or twice that the youngest son (Mark) builds model

Star Trek TNG - Jordi builds a huge sailing ship model to present to the Captain of a starship they are scheduled to meet.

Futurama - In the episode spoofing Animal House, Dean Wormer is building a model which "Fat Bot" ends up eating. 

Couple more really obscure ones:

In Living Color (sketch comedy that ran on Fox in the early 90's) - there was one sketch where Tommy Davidson's character brings a C-130 built out of popsicle sticks to school (if I recall correctly, it was an art project), and the principal hassles him about it and ends up destroying it.

And then there used to be a math-oriented show for kids on PBS called Square One.  At the end of most shows was 5-10 minute show-within-a-show called Mathnet, a takeoff on Dragnet where the two detectives used math to solve crimes.  During one interview, the witness spends a lot of time fiddling with a pair of tweezers and ship in the bottle.  As they're leaving, one of the detectives says something like "good luck with your model" and the guy replies something like "Oh, I don't put them in... I take them out", and just at that moment finally gets the ship to come out.

The CSI episode in question, where the new diorama is inside the box yet to be opened on Grishams desk, starts in 13 minutes :D

David 

Oh and I forgot the most recent one:

Commander (before the promotion) Adama is building a large scale model of a Earth type sailing vessel, with full rig.  Several moments are spent as he uses (ghast!!) a big old clunky cheapo acid brush to "apply" either glue or paint.

 Got a whole new respect for Adama! (but I STILL think he's a Cylon!)

David

Glamdring wrote:

If my memory serves, there was a James Bond movie where the villain had a bunch of models of famous battlefields.  I'm pretty sure it was The Living Daylights.

That sounds right. It was a Timothy Dalton as 007 film.

 There's another TV moment I remember. On Star Trek: Next Generation, there is a scene where Lt. Worf is building a wooden boat model. The door chime rings, and distracted, he breaks the specific piece he is working on. Frustrated, he sweeps the mess into a desk drawer.

American Chopper: Shuttle Tribute bike. Paul Sr. and Mikey completely mess up a couple of kits.

8 Simple Rules: James Garner and David Spade are building models on the coffee table.

JoeRugby wrote:

Ashton Keuthcer movie the "Butterfly Effect", main character is in a psych hospital and his room mate is brush painting a B24, with a bunch of compleed kits hanging from he ceiling.  The builder room mate was quite disturbed!  Perhaps an illeteration for the rest of the building community in the real world (?)

LOL!  Clearly the directors of the episode knew many model builders.  Maybe this was the most accurate representation of our inner selves.  Ha-ha-ha!

Eric

Here's one for our BBC viewers.

In season 1 of The Vicar of Dibley (one of my faves!) Jim is building a "Airfix (who knew!) model of the Spaceship Enterprise on the telly, and I spilt the bottle of glue, gluing my hand to it"

Where he raises his hand up for all to see and it is quite firmly glued to the small B&W television!

I almost fell out of my chair on that one.

David

I'm suprised no one hasn't mentioned this already...

   Magnum P.I- That one guy named Higgins who is the caretaker of the estate; once in awhile you see him sitting down and messing with a scale model of the Bridge on the River Kwai.

DesertRat wrote:

I'm suprised no one hasn't mentioned this already...    Magnum P.I- That one guy named Higgins who is the caretaker of the estate; once in awhile you see him sitting down and messing with a scale model of the Bridge on the River Kwai.

That's right!  He made it all with matchsticks, and I remember the episode exactly.  I loved it when Magnum blew it up with a firecracker a couple seasons later when the two of them were having a little game of destructive one-upsmanship with each others favorite posessions.  

now i remember a few but the names of the movies i dont.  one a father character is painting a british plane (looked like 1/72) while waiting in bed for the mother figure.  dirty dozen the second mission the engineer corps made a mock up of the selected mission for the dozen.  countless military movies that show military mock ups of castles and such.  battle of the bulge the mock ups of the rocket bombs and the king tiger.  battle of britian the pilot gives his two sons models of hurricanes and me109's.  tora tora tora the sheet is pulled away to show a model of pearl harbor.

joe 

JoeRugby wrote:

Ashton Keuthcer movie the "Butterfly Effect", main character is in a psych hospital and his room mate is brush painting a B24, with a bunch of compleed kits hanging from he ceiling.  The builder room mate was quite disturbed!  Perhaps an illeteration for the rest of the building community in the real world (?)

Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Patsy points out to Arthur that the castle is "just a model."

Beeteljuice: "Nice *expletive deleted* model".

Slap Shot: The Hansons and the 1/32 scale slot cars: "They brought their *expletive deleted* toys with them."

And old mans disease hits me, The Clint Eastwood movie where they use an RC car with explosives to chase Clint through the streets. . .

Don

Well, if we're going to include movie props as models, rather than modeling per se, let's not forget Godzilla (and all the sequels) with model tanks and planes attacking Ol' Nuke Breath! Or for that matter, any of the many stop action (ray harryhjausen style) movies and the early Star Wars/Star Trek movies (Pre CG SPFX) that used models as props, many made of identifyable parts from commercial models.

BTW, the Clint Eastwood movie refered to ealier is The Dead Pool, the last in the Dirty harry series.  

Glamdring wrote:

it when Magnum blew it up with a firecracker a couple seasons later when the two of them were having a little game of destructive one-upsmanship with each others favorite posessions.

Yep! I remember that that was my favorite episode! Just something about how juvinile that was just cracked me up!

Don't get picky aj

Besides the model of the town plays a big part in the movie Beetlejuice,as well as showing Alex Baldwin working on it in a few scenes.

 Don't forget TOP GUN. . .

Don

Re, Top Gun, was that the scene where Slider has the (wooden ?) Model of the A4  in the classroom ?

"Crashed and burned huh Mav ?"

"Slider, you stink !"