Not on the scale that Hollywood uses them!
That’s why in real-life they talk about their nefarious plans in a crowded restaurants (according to the movies).
And “So I Married an Axe Murderer” lampooned this. I hadn’t seen it in years, but here goes:
Police Chief: [noticing Tony is depressed] Tony? I don’t want to intrude, but you seem a little down.
Tony Giardino: Well, Captain, it’s about my job.
Police Chief: Ah.
[sits down with Tony]
Tony Giardino: I’m having doubts about being a cop. You know, it’s not like how it is on TV. All I do all day is fill out forms and paperwork. I mean, this is what I do.
Police Chief: [contemplates] It’s a point well taken, Tony. But you must understand, although it’s not exciting, it’s a very important part of our work.
Tony Giardino: Yeah, but in all my times as a cop, I’ve never gotten to, like, chase a guy across a crowded city square. I’ve never… I’ve never hung on to that part of a helicopter. You know that part? Underneath the thing that it lands? Do you, do you know that part?
Police Chief: Yes, I know that part.
Tony Giardino: I’ve never hung onto that. I’ve never even commandeered a vehicle.
Police Chief: Now that sounds like a lot of fun.
Tony Giardino: And that’s the other thing. You’re too nice.
Police Chief: I’m too nice?
Tony Giardino: Yeah, you’re too nice. Why can’t you be like the Captain on “Starsky and Hutch”? You know, when you come in, and you haul me into your office, and you bawl me out because you’re sick and tired of defending my screwball antics to the Commissioner? Why cant you do that?
Police Chief: Well, the truth of the matter is, I don’t report to a Commissioner. I report to a committee. Some of whom are appointed, some elected, and the rest co-opted on a bi-annual basis. It’s a quorum, so to speak.
Tony Giardino: A quorum?
Police Chief: Yeah.
Tony Giardino: Captain, when I joined the police force, I thought I was going to be Serpico. But instead, I’m like… Fish from Barney Miller.
Police Chief: Hey. Somebody needs a hug!
I had a long conversation with someone I didn’t know was my colleague’s twin brother. He mostly just nodded and said yes. Probably used to it.
Do amusement parks still have a “Tunnel of Love”? Did they ever have one? These mostly showed up in cartoons.
Yes. Back at the beginning of the 20th century there was a “dark ride” called The Old Mill that was common in amusement parks. Basivally the Tunnel of Love, even if not called that.
In 1906 Herbert Horton Pattee patented a ride he called Love’s Journey. It was a very high tech Tunnel of Love – not just a boat ride through a dark tunnel, but a ride that switched from a boat to a suspended swing, moved through decorated "grottoes with different themes, could be controlled to move an individual ride car sideways (thus throwing the couple together), and, at the end, dumped confetti on their heads. It was attended by little girls dressed in cupid outfits. After installing the ride himself and observing it, Pattee got onto the ride with a girl he was smitten by, and within six months they were married.
(This is a shameless plug for my book Lost Wonderland, where I tell this story in detail. It’s all true. Nine months after they were married they had a son. Years later they got divorced in a spectacular case that made headlines for days and involved an international celebrity. )
Was that the same guy as this H.H. Patee ? In some of his movies he was credited as Herbert Pattee, and in one film, he was credited as Herbert Horton Patee.
Nope, 'fraid not.
My Pattee was born in 1866 and died in 1936 (yours was born in 1893; In 1906 he would have been 13 years old, a little young to be inventing and patenting, not to mention marrying).
Like your Pattee, though, he was an actor – he had starred on Broadway* before quitting to become an inventor of furniture, then of amusement park rides. he had, appropriately, a roller coaster of a career with many ups and downs, and was married and divorced twice.
He was never in the movies, so he’s not in the iMDB, but he is in the Internet Broadway Database. This seems to be him, but with only one “t” in his name
Interesting. I wonder if they were related, or if mine was trying to cash in on yours’ fame?
Not necessarily either of those. One of the problems I had when doing research is that names, including ones that you wouldn’t think of as common, were actually attached to more than one person in the same place at the same time. “Herbert H. Pattee” is just one example. Then there was John Joseph Higgins, the guy ultimately responsible for founding the park. It turns out that there was another John J. Higgins of about the same age running around Boston at the same time. Only he was a lawyer and politician. But every time I turned up the name in a newspaper account I’d have to check to be sure with John J. Higgins it was.
And there were three different Floyd C. Thompsons of the same age running around the Northeast. One of them played the same role to Wonderland that C.V. wood did to Disneyland, but I find that even contemporary records often confused the three of them. They don’t appear to have been related to each other. Nor to the LaMarcus A. Thompson who invented the Scenic Railway. Nor to the Frederic Thompson who co-founded the major Coney Island attraction Luna Park
It’s really insane. You wouldn’t think there would be so many coincidences. I mean, what are the odds that you’d have two different action-adventure movie stars named Harrison Ford, who weren’t related to each other?
Assuming the full title is Lost Wonderland: The Brief and Brilliant Life of Boston’s Million Dollar Amusement Park I now have a Kindle copy. 
There is a YouTube channel, Defunctland, that used to be about closed rides at Disneyland and Disneyworld but now has branched out to cover other parks, a coaster company or two, and even children’s TV programs – they have an excellent one on Jim Henson. I could have sworn there was one on Wonderland but alas, apparently not.
I hadn’t heard of this, but it looks fascinating ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVo63lbKHjC04KqYhwSZ_Pg )
I’m glad they didn’t cover Wonderland – it gave me a chance to do it. I was able to uncover lots of sources and details that hadn’t been mentioned before, including finding what appears to be the only contemporary map of the park.
I just did a sort-of commercial for the book, where I visit the site as it appears today and show images from color postcards. It’s one of the “Boston Book Bites” that’s supposed to feature at this year’s Boston Book Fair.
Disclaimer: I haven’t read any of the thread. But I noticed something in a few TV shows recently and remembered that there was a SDMB thread entitled: “What is extremely common in TV or movies but almost never happens in real life?” So here I am seeking wisdom…
Here’s the setup:
Someone walks up to a group of people and by way of greeting says only the first names of the people standing there, maybe with a nod at each one. Like this: “Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo.” And that’s it. No hi, hello, howareya, just the names. Then he starts talking to whoever he came to see.
And the same thing happens when the conversation is over. The person wraps up whatever he has to say, and by way of leave-taking, once again says “Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo,” and turns and walks away.
It happens with just two people, too, but usually with two people who are not good friends but a bit antagonistic, like the cop and the D.A., or the husband and the wife’s lawyer. “Bob,” with a curt nod. And the reply, “Ralph.” With no other words
Do people in real life do this? I’ve never done this. I’ll at least say, “Hi” or “Good morning” or something. Not just the person’s name.
Fading out and dissolving.
This thread reminds me of watching a “making of” DVD of the Lord of the Rings (hours of which was included in the extended box set which I no longer own), when Sean Astin and Elijah Wood tell an anecdote on themselves in an interview. It’s about the scene in Minas Morgul where Samwise finds Frodo in the tower. They realized that there was supposed to be no sunlight in the scene, yet the floor is lit with shafts of light. So they go to a camera operator or somebody and say excitedly, “Where’s the light coming from?” The guy looks at them oddly and finally says, “Same place the music comes from.”
I’ve always wondered where the hell the light behind the buildings in The Hateful Eight was coming from, and how the inside of such a rickety shack as Minnie’s could be so brightly lit and warm when there’s a Rocky Mountain blizzard raging outside.
Come to think of it, such shacks in Westerns are always brightly lit and warm. Anyone who’s ever done Living History knows they aren’t in real life.
Cite?
Hilarious! Thanks.
Oddly my Cop friends used to say Barney Miller was the most realistic cop show on TV.
Not to mention gunfights. Now, those do not come into the category of “almost never happens in real life”. But they are by no means common. Most Police officers will go around 8 years before they fire their gun in a gun fight, IIRC.
Disneyland has plenty of “dark rides”, although none are the classic old time “Tunnel of love” versions.
Another favorite. Whenever I am in a bar and I see two guys across the room get into a fistfight, I have never had the urge to punch the guy nearest me for no reason and neither has everyone else in the bar. On TV, a single fight in a bar always causes a room full of strangers to all start beating on each other.