Airplane!, (1980)
- Thread starter DLD
- Start date
Mitch Gross
Veteran
I once said that to Robert Hays. He was nice enough not to slap me.
Back in the spring of 1990, our electronics store in West LA received a visit from an old customer, Lloyd Bridges. Jeff never came in himself and always handled purchases via his assistants but Lloyd lived closer to us, in Beverly Hills. LB was very sweet but, lo and behold, in real life he was a lot closer to Captain McCroskey, who picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue. This was roughly the conversation with the salesperson.
LB - Hello, it seems like the right time to pick up a new TV.
S - What size would you be looking for?
LB - Well, a I got a twenty inch set right now and would like to replace it with something bigger.
S - Is your set a table top or a console?
LB - It's inside a cabinet.
S - And would you happen to know the cabinet dimensions?
LB - Yes, I wrote them down. 26" wide and 20" tall. Can I fit a 26" in there?
S - No, the 26" sets are 22 inches high.
LB - Darn. can we cut the top two inches off?
S. Not unless you want to start a fire.
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I wasn't the salesperson but I happened to be standing very close to them and overheard most of the dialog. And Lloyd was one hundred percent serious. He wanted to slice off the top two inches off the set. Otherwise, he'd have to get a new cabinet or find a suitable way to fill the opening.
LB - Hello, it seems like the right time to pick up a new TV.
S - What size would you be looking for?
LB - Well, a I got a twenty inch set right now and would like to replace it with something bigger.
S - Is your set a table top or a console?
LB - It's inside a cabinet.
S - And would you happen to know the cabinet dimensions?
LB - Yes, I wrote them down. 26" wide and 20" tall. Can I fit a 26" in there?
S - No, the 26" sets are 22 inches high.
LB - Darn. can we cut the top two inches off?
S. Not unless you want to start a fire.
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I wasn't the salesperson but I happened to be standing very close to them and overheard most of the dialog. And Lloyd was one hundred percent serious. He wanted to slice off the top two inches off the set. Otherwise, he'd have to get a new cabinet or find a suitable way to fill the opening.
CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
DLD, your story above reminds me of this beloved scene from Diner:
"Diner" was a great film. The customer with Daniel Stern was actually "nice", even if curmudgeonly. Normally, a TV salesperson wants to "step up" a visitor into a more profitable model but with a path backwards if someone is really dead set on something. Obviously, with more time - on a big screen/rear projection TV, it wasn't rare to spend a couple of hours with a buyer - you resort to the usual pitches, In this case, one might have said, "Everyone is buying color these days. It's the hippest, trendiest thing. Your kids will love you for it." + all the other BS.
Side note (I had to look it up for a different group) - the first color TV RCA CT-100 was $1,000 in 1954. An average car was $2,000.
Mitch Gross
Veteran
A fun aside here, Ralph Tabakin was a family friend of Barry Levinson. He had an odd way of speaking and a unique appearance that Levinson got a kick out of, so in every movie he directed Levinson cast the guy in small roles. My personal favorite is his performance as the principal in Avalon, as it speaks to my pedantic heart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj_c2UfMSks