One of our favorite shows these days is a rare network piece called “Madam Secretary.” Well written and acted, one of the principal characters is the Chief of Staff named Russell. Russell is a type A politician with a heart condition that needs to relax. Following a conversation with another character who urges him to find what he liked doing as a boy, he talks about modeling, particularly WWII planes his favorite of which was the Corsair. He actually gives a pretty cogent argument on why he enjoyed modeling so much. At the end of the show we see him in his basement carefully setting out his work board and tools then unwrapping a kit, the old Revell Corsair. His new way of beating the stress of being Chief of Staff to the President of the United States. As good an endorsement for our affliction as I’ve seen.
Thats great! You definitely don’t see much in the way of scale models on tv. Used to be, you’d see one or two old birds on tv hanging from a kids ceiling but not anymore.
That was fun to see! Especially how it was presented - Russell the Control Freak lays out all his tools, opens the kit and gets a smile as he smells the plastic - I can certainly relate to that moment.
My wife took notice of how similar my love of the hobby is to how it was portrayed; nothing fancy, just a way to relax and blow off stress. Kudos to the writers and producers of the show!
Mike
Yes! Saw that- meant to post something yesterday but was too busy.
That sounds pretty neat.
I didn’t see it but thanks for posting and for the well-done explanation of how it was presented.
Though I don’t have an important job of any sort, I do have stress and your telling sort of reminds me of one of the reasons I came back to the hobby.
I’ll have to check that out. Man…I don’t know how anybody could relax when building a vintage Revell Corsair kit though. I built one of those things fairly recently and thought I was going to pull my hair out. lol
I haven’t seen that since Shannon Doherty all those years back…
So true! The first time I attempted that kit I failed miserably. I bought the same kit and tried again about a year later when I had more expieriance, lol.
in case any of you are interested, there is an old thread about modeling as shown in TV & Movies
http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/general_discussion/f/9/t/75671.aspx?page=1
some good stuff
This same series, “Madam Secretary” had another episode where Elizabeth‘s husband, Henry McCord, played by Tim Daly, bought the Revell Visible V8 model and after assembling had problems getting it to run. Finally got it running at the end of the episode. Someone involved with that series is definitely a scale modeling advocate. Pretty cool!
DavidK
If you watch “Hawaii 5-0”, there are usually a few shots of Cmdr. McGarrets office from different angles showing quite a collection of ship models.
Jim [cptn]
That is pretty cool. Maybe it will spark some interest in people.
Finishing up a “Nostalgia build” of the Revell 1/32 Corsair. Oh those were the days…
Revell 1/32 Corsair by Jack Lynch, on Flickr
Revell 1/32 Corsair by Jack Lynch, on Flickr
The wife watches the show and I recall Tim Daly building the see thru Revell V-8 engine during one certain episode. Another show was Last Man Standing where Tim Allen has several die cast classic cars and several model tanks. I never did see him build the tanks but he had several.
Edit: DavidK beat me to it!
I immediately thought of Rodney Dangrfield in Easy Money…“There’s a Messerschmitt in the kitchen, clean it up will ya Rose?”
I remember when John Cash put out an album featuring mostly train songs. No surprise considering he was a model railroader.