ALL THE STUFF I LEARNED FROM TV/MOVIES

[Long Cut]

Here's another James Bond Rule:

There is NO situation you can possibly get into that your car or watches' various gimmicks and gadgets can't get you out of.

[Long Cut]

Oh, and one of my favorites:

You need never have to worry about cold-bloodedly killing the Bad Guy. Just mutter,"you're not worth it", and turn your back. Then you can shoot him as he pulls out one last weapon.

[Shooter 2.5]

The "Hero" enters a friendly bar where people are enjoying a peaceful Saturday Night and leave with dozens of patrons suffering multiple life threatening injuries and thousands of dollars worth of damage to the establishment.

[Corin Stormhands]

You can take that line about everyday NYers living in multimillion dollar lofts and readily extrapolate that nearly everyone of TV lives in housing that only a few can afford.

Heh...my example of that is The Waltons.

In the middle of the depression, this "poor" Virginia family had their own business, their own truck, their own horse and lived in a five-bedroom house with indoor plumbing.

Don't get me started on their "Virginia" mountains...

[wardaddy]

They had their own "mountain" too.

I agree....I hate when LaLaLand passes off "somewhere within 100 miles of LA" as the Appalachins.

[Overtaxed]

How about in "Some Like It Hot" where they tried to pass off Miami with California mountains in the background.

[Squantos]

When "Rambo" was the Teeee Veeee hero of the moment I was tasked by my unit to set up some of our EOD gear, tools , chutes and robotics as a display at an Air Show . I added all our toys to include a few M60's to our static display.

As we had way to many blank rounds in our bunker my NCOIC said it was OK to fire the 60's as a demonstration. I took about 12 of the 20MM cans of blanks and rigged two M60's with "our" blank adapters.

We would take off the flash supressor and pound a empty piece of brass with a reamed out primer flash hole into the muzzle of our spare barrels we had designated as "blank training barrels only" and then replaced the flash supressor. Worked better than the clamp on blank adapters and looked the part also.

I let all those wannabe heros and kids (age 8-80) try and shoot the M60 like Rambo did in the movie...............It was a hoot !

Stay Safe !

[Poohbah]

Every nuclear warhead in the US arsenal is fitted with a limited-try Permissive Action Link device designed to prevent unauthorized or inadvertent use of the weapon. After three tries with the wrong code (out of 1 trillion combinations), the warhead will disable itself.

The PAL is the product of the nation's best and brightest engineers, and has been rigorously tested.

Unfortunately, the PAL can be disabled with a penknife, some Crazy Glue, and a stun gun.

[Long Cut]

Oh, hey, and one from M*A*S*H*...

- You can operate a still, drink constantly, belittle, disobey, and conduct practical jokes bordering on physical assault against superior officers up to the General level and totally skate if you are a doctor.

- You can, at will, refuse to wear a proper uniform right up to wearing women's clothing, and no one will care.

- You can make all kinds of salacious comments and advances toward female nurses, including those of superior rank, and they'll do nothing.

[Long Cut]

Do you know they don't even use blanks all that much anymore? They digitize in the muzzle flashes.

Watch closely...you'll see weapons "fire" even when the slides are locked back. They save the blanks for close-ups.

Not surprising, really. It stops the habit of blank-only weapons have of breaking down, causing expensive retakes. Considering the notoriously bad safety habits of actors, it's probably safer, too. Some have been killed playing grabass with blank guns. One idiot a few years back actually died when, jokingly, he put a blank loaded .44 Magnum to his head and fired.

[Squantos]

I don't do movies.........:o) That Idiot was Bruce Lees young'n I believe. I remember that............

Stay Safe !

[Long Cut]

Nope. His name was John Erik-Hexum, a TV actor, I believe. He was one of those good-looking guys in their early 20's playing a 'Nam vet back in the late 80's. It actually happened off-camera. After that, the prop-gun rental service, Stembridge Gun Rentals, instituted a policy of immediatly collecting up the weapons between takes, and safety training for the actors using their guns. They also started using rubber "dummy guns" in any take that did not require shooting.

Brandon Lee was killed accidently when he, during filming, got in front of a blank machine-gun burst at close range. He was, I believe, hit multiple times and died at the scene.

The story of Stembridge Gun Rentals goes back almost a hundred years in pictures. Their collection of Blank-only guns is a sight to behold. Someday, I hope someone there writes a book...it'd be a hoot to read all the stories they must have. Also, they still have weapons used in the '20s and '30s by the classic stars of the time. They all still work, too.

[jonalvy44]

Love it! Please post this at www.PABAAH.com All of our members will love it!

[Chancellor Palpatine]

The Dukes of Hazzard being the best example of it.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

I just even had a funnier notion - if you get the Henry Fonda classic "The Longest Day", all those Bulge battles look like they take place anywhere BUT Belgium and the Ardennes.

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

There's a nice, long, categorized list of movie cliches here.

For example, under 'Bars/Drinking', they have:

• Every time some guy walks into a bar, usually the hero, he gets into a fight. Usually right under a BUDWEISER sign (see "product placement"). Likelihood of fight increases if country music is playing in the background.
• Movie heroes in a bar will either order strong alcoholic drinks and swallow them down like iced tea or will ask for milk. The latter will always provoke sarcastic remarks and a fight will ensue.
• When men drink whiskey, it is always in a shot glass, and they always drink it in one gulp. If they are wimps, they will gasp for air, then have a coughing fit. If they are macho, they will wince briefly, flashing clenched teeth.
• A cup of black coffee/splash of cold water in face is enough to render the most inebriated person stone cold sober in a split second (see several thousand westerns, and "Peter's Friends.")
• Only men are alcoholics. Any hopeless alcoholic can quit drinking when faced with an important challenge. The instant the alcoholic stops drinking, all his faculties return and he faces no annoying withdrawals.

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

Brandon Lee has to be one of the few people to die in a life-imitates-art way on the set of a movie. The movie was "The Crow". From Snopes.com (full story here):

"According to newspaper and magazine accounts, the scene in question was staged early in the morning of March 31, 1993, in Wilmington, North Carolina. The scene was the death of Lee's character, Eric Draven, at the hands of street thugs, and was a pivotal plot element to the movie. Lee was to walk in through a door carrying a bag of groceries. Actor Michael Massee, who played Funboy, fired a revolver loaded with blanks at Lee. To complete the illusion, a small explosive charge was to go off in the grocery bag. Unfortunately, a fragment of a dummy bullet, used earlier in close-up shots, was lodged in the barrel, and the blank charge propelled the fragment into Lee's side, fatally wounding him."

[Petronski]

The protagonist can always find parking directly in front of the main entrance of his destination.