"Miniatures gets Mention in Sunday paper" Topic

In the Sunday strip of Shermans Lagoon, the main character speaks about the Battle of the Bulge being re-enacted in miniature. Woo Hoo, free advertising for the hobby.

It would be interested to see what other Media has mentions in wargaming. Off hand I can only think of a 1960-170 s Callan with Edward Woodward who played Napoleonics.

The only other reference was an advert where the Guy is painting soldiers and a woman in a bath falls through his ceiling in front of her (cant remember what the advert was for though!)

Wasn't there a James Bond movie where the villain had some sort of gaming table, complete with sound, illumination and all? I think it was Gert Froebe, but I'm not sure about the title.

the bond film was timothy dalton's living daylights.

There was a big ACW battle in a Wesley Snipes film, can't for the life of me remember the name of the film, but he had it all set up in his flat.
There was also a TV series in the 1970;s that had Peter Gilder doing games, I remember Waterloo and I think Gettysburg.

There was the scene in Ronin where Robert De Niro gets a speech from Michael Lonsdale (Hugo Drax from Moonraker) who is putting together a miniature representation of the 47 Ronin in his den.

"There was a big ACW battle in a Wesley Snipes film…"

Murder at 1600

If I remember correctly it was the First Battle of Bull Run.

"the bond film was timothy dalton's living daylights."

I know, I supplied the La Haye Sainte buildings for the table to Little Lead Soldiers; my invoice is still outstanding…

Rudi

An episode of "Magnum P.I." had Higgins as a member of a local Napoleonic society. He had a large layout with 25mm figs, if I recall correctly. Magnum picked up a figure and asked "Is this the little general?" Higgins replied "That is General Kutuzov and I'd appreciate it if you would put him down."

O'Brien and Dr. Basheer reenacted the Alamo on Deep Space Nine. Worf made the comment of the doctor being a child and playing with children's toys.

An episode from Columbo (don't know which one) in which the time needed to set up a gigantic wargame table is the clue for solving the murder.

Gene Hackman as manager of an pharmacy in the movie "All Night long" starts an affair with the wife of a gamer who spend most of his free time wargaming and ignoring his wife. Guy has a spare room and is shown gaming WW2 on a sand table with all his buddies while Hackman romances his wife.

Bill Amend's comic strip "Foxtrot" regularly has the youngest son, Jason, and his best friend playing with miniatures or playing roleplaying games.

Depressing that the hobby is still seen as something to be ridiculed.

None of these references sound like ridicule to me – even the Star Trek one is probably supposed to make you smile at Worf's lack of understanding as much as at Bashir's juvenility.

I caught the very end of the Columbo episode mentioned by Willie B. The camera scanned some Yankee soldiers (I believe they were 54mm), before stopping at a miniature figure of a smiling Columbo, which was placed among them.

YES the Columbo episode was cool and very complimentary. Beetlejuice had a miniature village.
Band of Brothers had sand tables.

O'Brien and Dr. Basheer reenacted the Alamo on Deep Space Nine. Worf made the comment of the doctor being a child and playing with children's toys.

As I recall, they used to run holo deck simulations of the Alamo. In the last episode, Bashir enters the holo deck with dax( the second dax), she asks if they are going to the ALamo, "no" replies Bashir, "a little place called Thermoplylae"

There was a film whose title I can't recall in which Peter O'toole plays a british Officer who has a huge Bunker Hill set up with little cannons that actually shoot.

Did anybody mention the scene in Stripes where John Laroquette is playing with his miniatures?..not complimentary to the hobby but quite hilarious -- and I'm sure not too far off from the way most you guys play with your toys…

-CH

Peter O'Toole plays a british Officer who has a huge Bunker Hill set up with little cannons that actually shoot.

I think that's from Great Catherine with O'Toole's character at the court of Catherine the Great.

One of the U.S. hospital shows [E.R.?] had Bob Newhart guest as a man dying of cancer IIRC and he was painting figures at his hospital bedside.

And now there's a movie that I can't recall in any way because I saw it as a child in the 1970s (maybe it was made for TV and not a theatrical release), that had one of the characters smoking a cigar in his basement talking with another character while he moved 54mm [?] WW2 figures around on a sand-table. I think the actor was Maclean Stevenson.

Zeus' (Laurence Olivier) collection in Clash of the Titans was pretty impressive! He had every person on the planet --great shelving for display, and that gaming table was pretty nice! And they must have been 120 mm --huge!

Still, there was a lot of painting to do -- I think he just had a brown basecoat on everththing..

-CH

This thread is amazing. Thread bump if anyone has any recent wargaming spots in media.?

Kevin Spacey (Frank Underwood in "House of Cards") spent time painting figures and showing off his ACW diorama in several scenes.

Back when I was in Minnesota a local interest magazine, I think it was called Minnesota Monthly or something like that, did a full length article, with photos, of a very fictitious, renaissance game between the owner of the local shop and myself. I believe we were doing ECW at the time, I had the Roundheads and my friend the Cavaliers. Good game and a decent article but in retrospect I suspect that they were busy clucking their tongues disapprovingly at these two war mongering nerds who don't even know proper history.