Anderson’s Claim to Fame!
Did you know that Anderson Business Technology’s historic building in Old Pasadena has been featured in many motion pictures and television series?
Still from “Live Wire” — Click to Enlarge
In the movie, “Live Wire” (1992), our city of Pasadena is portrayed as Washington D.C. At 0:8:52, Colorado Blvd. is shown with our company building “Anderson Typewriter Company” in the background. The palm trees that line our sidewalks had their branches wired tightly and false branches were added to make them appear as trees found in Washington DC. When the helicopter landed on Colorado Blvd. in the movie, it caused these false branches to blow off the trees, revealing the palm trees and making it necessary for the production company to chop down these palm trees altogether. These destroyed palm trees that line our store front were replaced after the filming of this movie.
Still from “Little Rascals” — Click to Enlarge
In the 1994 “Little Rascals – The Movie” (0:29:29) the gang lines up in front of our historic building, enters into the bank next door and applies for their loan to rebuild their burned down club house.
In the Barnaby Jones television episode, “Catch Me If You Can”, our showroom was filmed as the detectives enter to inquire about the various typewriters that their suspect could have used to type notes to the police. The Barnaby Jones film crew was here all day during our open business hours for only seconds of finished film!
Anderson’s antique typewriters have also been cast in such movies as “Geronimo” using late 1800 typewriters, the “Charlie’s Angels” television series, and Quinn Martin’s television pilot, “The Deputy“. In June of 2003, one of Anderson’s old Royal typewriters was used by the California Philharmonic Orchestra as the featured percussion instrument in its presentation of Leroy Anderson’s “The Typewriter” song.
Motion Picture Office Equipment Blunders
Did you know that blunders were made in major motion pictures using office equipment?
Still from “Air Force One” — Click to Enlarge
One such blunder occurs when Harrison Ford sends a fax to communicate with the ground in the motion picture, “Air Force One“, (1:21:39). It is portrayed as being “received” face up in the scanning or sending tray (not the proper receiving tray) on a Xerox 7042.
Another blunder occurred in the motion picture, “Saving Private Ryan“, (0:12:25) when a gray manual typewriter is shown being taken off of a landing barge during the landing of Allied troops during the D-Day in France. This gray model was not produced until after the war. It should have been a black model instead.
Bob Hope’s Typewriter Delivery
Over the years we have had many interesting incidents involving our customers. One of the most memorable happened in the 1940s when our Glendale Store Manager, Bill Crill, delivered back Bob Hope’s typewriter which had just been repaired.
After taking the typewriter into Mr. Hope’s Toluca Lake home, Bill started out the driveway and just before driving out of the big gates, he heard a noise in the back of the delivery truck. He turned around and discovered a small boy had crawled into the truck while the typewriter was being taken into the house. The small boy turned out to be Bob Hope’s son, discovered just in time to avoid a possible “kidnapping” charge.
Bill Crill was our oldest living employee. He died in 2005 at his home in Pasadena, just shy of his 108th birthday.