Highways / Signs in Movies, TV Shows, and Videos

[Max Rockatansky]

In Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness much of the movie take places on Earth-838 where traffic proceeds on red and stops on green.

[roadman65]

In the opening credits to the 1970s show “Alice”, they pass under a sign that says Phoenix. The other sign says El Paso. It appears to be at a Phoenix/El Paso split, which means it has to be I-10 in Tucson at the northern end of I-19. Why Linda Lavin’s Alice, driving from New Jersey to California, is coming up from Nogales isn’t quite known.

In the 1970's sitcom Maude, you have in the opening sequence a trip from Manhattan to Tuckahoe, NY (where Maude is to have lived in that series) using the SB Westside Highway (the Empire State Building is to the left, when in reality it would be on the right if you are heading to Westchester County where Tuckahoe is located) instead of NB, using Riverside Drive to approach the George Washignton Bridge,  then crossing the George Washington Bridge (in which you do not need to do being that Westchester is on the same side of the Hudson River as Manhattan), and then some curbs along the way that are painted red (which NY State uses yellow for No Parking).  Oh and then there is the cars on one of the NY Parkways after crossing the GWB, which were 1950's models instead of 1970's models used during the show's tenor.

Talk about going between two places in a roundabout way. 

Here is the sequence and about 18 seconds in you see the old Miller's Westside Highway (which was still open at the time, and yes those vintage highway light poles were in use up to the day it was torn down) and you can see you are heading away from Tuckahoe in that footage and not towards it.

[Mr. Matté]

David Letterman doing "Small Town News" from I-78 in Union County, NJ in 1988
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvUHEw37LGc

[Max Rockatansky]

There is a Utah State Route 15 shield on a undivided four lane highways in Stranger Things episode 6.  Given the guide sign has "Salt Lake City"  as the control city it appears to be a poor attempt to stand-in for I-15. 

[kurumi]

There is a Utah State Route 15 shield on a undivided four lane highways in Stranger Things episode 6.  Given the guide sign has "Salt Lake City"  as the control city it appears to be a poor attempt to stand-in for I-15. 

They probably didn't do this, but my script would have one of the kids notice the wrong sign and deduce that they were in the parallel dimension where Dwight Eisenhower had been replaced with his robot self and the Interstate Highway System had never come into being.

[ClassicHasClass]

I'll just leave this here. Multiple movies and a lot from one TV show episode for US 395.

http://www.floodgap.com/roadgap/395/culture.html

[DJ Particle]

I'll just leave this here. Multiple movies and a lot from one TV show episode for US 395.

http://www.floodgap.com/roadgap/395/culture.html

One problem... I don't think the skyway in BTTF2 was meant to be Interstate 99.  The symbol next to the 99 designation is pretty obscured, but due to the font of the 99, it's definitely not an "I".  Another skyway was mentioned in the movie, the "C25".

If I was to make a guess, the skyway is a reroute of CA-99, and the BGS was denoting an upcoming main exit for Hyperlane Grid 4, with *its* control cities.

Back in 2015, as part of a prop I made for a "Twin Cities Edition" USA Today for "Future Day", I included this image, with my rendition of what one of those future BGSs would more realistically look like.

The light blue shield is for Hyperlane Grid 2.

[wanderer2575]

The final shot of the original Twilight Zone episode "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" (where a spacecraft crash-landed on what its crew thought was an uncharted asteroid but actually was the Nevada desert).  I'm pretty sure the signs were planted for the shot, as you can see the actual highway in the background.  (The "Nelson's Motel" sign is an in-joke; Ralph Nelson was the series' production manager.)

The episode was mostly filmed around Zabriskie Point in Death Valley National Monument (now National Park) so I'm guessing the highway shown is actually California 190, nearly 400 miles from Reno (not 97 miles as the sign indicates).

[ClassicHasClass]

I'll just leave this here. Multiple movies and a lot from one TV show episode for US 395.

http://www.floodgap.com/roadgap/395/culture.html

One problem... I don't think the skyway in BTTF2 was meant to be Interstate 99.  The symbol next to the 99 designation is pretty obscured, but due to the font of the 99, it's definitely not an "I".

No, I disagree. I think the I glyph was deliberately chosen to invoke the Interstate. (Perhaps a better argument: also consider that most movie production designers are not roadgeeks, and Interstates are all they'd probably be aware of.)

[ethanhopkin14]

I'll just leave this here. Multiple movies and a lot from one TV show episode for US 395.

http://www.floodgap.com/roadgap/395/culture.html

One problem... I don't think the skyway in BTTF2 was meant to be Interstate 99.  The symbol next to the 99 designation is pretty obscured, but due to the font of the 99, it's definitely not an "I".

No, I disagree. I think the I glyph was deliberately chosen to invoke the Interstate. (Perhaps a better argument: also consider that most movie production designers are not roadgeeks, and Interstates are all they'd probably be aware of.)

Even if it is I-99, I think this is a different system form the interstate system.  This road obviously goes to Europe so its a global Skyway.  Maybe just like XFL, the I doesn't stand for anything.  Or maybe International? 

[Max Rockatansky]

I'll just leave this here. Multiple movies and a lot from one TV show episode for US 395.

http://www.floodgap.com/roadgap/395/culture.html

One problem... I don't think the skyway in BTTF2 was meant to be Interstate 99.  The symbol next to the 99 designation is pretty obscured, but due to the font of the 99, it's definitely not an "I".

No, I disagree. I think the I glyph was deliberately chosen to invoke the Interstate. (Perhaps a better argument: also consider that most movie production designers are not roadgeeks, and Interstates are all they'd probably be aware of.)

Even if it is I-99, I think this is a different system form the interstate system.  This road obviously goes to Europe so its a global Skyway.  Maybe just like XFL, the I doesn't stand for anything.  Or maybe International?

Fair chance it's just a bastardized CA 99 reference given Hill Valley is supposedly in Northern California. 

As an aside, looking at all the evidence the location of Hill Valley just doesn't add up if you you examine all the evidence in the movies:

https://www.gribblenation.org/2019/06/where-hell-is-hill-valley-us-route-8.html?m=1

[ClassicHasClass]

Even if it is I-99, I think this is a different system form the interstate system.

Right, that's what I mean. I don't think it has anything to do with the actual I-99 either. But I think they intended it to be "an Interstate."

[interstate73]

In the latest episode of RuPaul's Drag Race, one of the judges makes a joke about living off exit 16 of the New Jersey Turnpike - which caught my attention because there is no such exit there's 16W for Route 3 and 16E for 495/Lincoln Tunnel, but no 16! (There was another reference to 14A which does exist, for Bayonne off the Newark Bay Extension)

[pderocco]

I'll just leave this here. Multiple movies and a lot from one TV show episode for US 395.

http://www.floodgap.com/roadgap/395/culture.html

In "Out of the Past", there was a scene inside Whit's elegant house at Lake Tahoe that showed its view:
https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxDyWBneNW2DpkGTIbyhppn8V3_IO2UMty
In my obsessiveness, I figured out that it would have to have been filmed from this spot:
https://goo.gl/maps/jSsVs5yCTcPa89dCA
yet there is now no trace of any house anywhere in that entire area.

[pderocco]

"My Darling Clementine" (1946) ends with this scene from Monument Valley:

This is shot roughly from here:

https://goo.gl/maps/BT31hB3kAQhPYhF5A

looking north. Today, US-163 goes from this spot a few degrees to the left, bypassing Mt Agathla. You can still see traces of the old dirt road if you zoom out on that map.

[pderocco]

Dunno if this has been mentioned in the preceding 33 pages, but this scene from Chinatown (1974)

was shot from here:

https://goo.gl/maps/JinY8gkWCPbWuNv68

looking roughly south, along CA-118 where it passes over Tujunga Creek. Today, a bit of I-210 would be visible in the distance. In the story, this was supposed to represent the "Hollenbeck Bridge" over the LA River near downtown Los Angeles.

[pderocco]

Vim Venders's "The End of Violence" (1997) had some scenes under the spectacular interchange at the south end of CA-14:

https://youtu.be/nawd54uMjDE?t=178

[XamotCGC]

The season 5 intro to One Day at a Time (70s version)  has a sign showing I70 Indianapolis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWruhl1qYCA

[DJ Particle]

I know the Mary Tyler Moore show's first season intro has some good shots of I-494 just east of US-169 (then CSAH-18), MN-65 at the Grand/11th Exit, and I-394 (then US-12) pre-Lowry Tunnel (you can see the now-non-existent exit ramp from US-12 East to Lyndale Ave).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOqC0EIc-xM

The shots as they exist now:
I-494: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.8601773,-93.3835064,3a,75y,81.2h,86.75t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1scZ_oB5n2y9GrzhOsIVJbRw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
MN-65: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9683601,-93.2694947,3a,75y,10.75h,87.69t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sypS8eOfn1bFE6tgEbAjLIQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
I-394: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Minneapolis,+MN/@44.9726365,-93.2777982,133a,35y,285.46h,78.38t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x52b333909377bbbd:0x939fc9842f7aee07!8m2!3d44.977753!4d-93.2650108

[roadman65]

I know that in Perfect Strangers, the Welcome to Chicago sign leaving ORD appears in the first season and in the remaining seasons when the long opening sequence is aired.  The short of the later seasons omits that, however its shown out of context in season one. 

Season one opener shows the two star characters traveling from their homelands to the big city.  Larry Appleton, who drove his Mustang from Madison, WI to his new home is shown passing under the I-190 Welcome sign which means to actually transit by it, you have to take a detour into O' Hare to accomplish that as no through roads lead through the airport to reach it especially if you take I-90, which is the main route from Madison to Chicago other than both US 12 & 14 that also do the trip, but none place you inside the airport to reach I-190 East.

[Rothman]

Still wondering how they went from working at an appliance store to newspaper...

[Route66Fan]

Still wondering how they went from working at an appliance store to newspaper...

Larry also worked as a photographer taking pictures for the newspaper during the first season.

SM-S102DL

[Rothman]

Still wondering how they went from working at an appliance store to newspaper...

Larry also worked as a photographer taking pictures for the newspaper during the first season.

SM-S102DL

Eh, okay. I'm just going by my memory since I haven't seen the first season since it was broadcast.  I just remember thinking, "Okay, now they're in a newspaper office.  Wonder what happened there..."

Of course, we're talking 35 years ago or so...

[ethanhopkin14]

Still wondering how they went from working at an appliance store to newspaper...

Larry also worked as a photographer taking pictures for the newspaper during the first season.

SM-S102DL

Eh, okay. I'm just going by my memory since I haven't seen the first season since it was broadcast.  I just remember thinking, "Okay, now they're in a newspaper office.  Wonder what happened there..."

Of course, we're talking 35 years ago or so...

Yeah, back when people could work in an appliance store and say, 'I want to work at a newspaper" and get the job with no formal education or training. 

[thenetwork]

Still wondering how they went from working at an appliance store to newspaper...

Larry also worked as a photographer taking pictures for the newspaper during the first season.

SM-S102DL

Eh, okay. I'm just going by my memory since I haven't seen the first season since it was broadcast.  I just remember thinking, "Okay, now they're in a newspaper office.  Wonder what happened there..."

Of course, we're talking 35 years ago or so...

Yeah, back when people could work in an appliance store and say, 'I want to work at a newspaper" and get the job with no formal education or training. 

It's sad how some of the hardest media jobs (Radio/TV/Print) to get into back then are some of the easiest today -- all you really need is a pulse.   

One of the biggest reasons why is that the pay is at or so close to minimum wage, the experienced people look elsewhere.

Over the weekend, in my town, there was a mass gathering and demonstration.  One pair of TV stations (owned by the same company) ran some PRE-RECORDED video of the event.  The particular clip ran in the top of the newscast tease, and again when the story was told in detail.

The same video clip was seen during the 5PM news on channel "A", the 5:30 news on channel "B", and both 10PM newscasts on both channels.

What was so interesting about the video clip???  In plain view, there was an "F**k _______" sign in the crowd going left to right across the screen! 

How did it slip by so many eyes when the B-roll was selected and edited?  And how come nobody caught it after the first airings at 5PM and deleted the video, or at least blur out the questionable text?

This is your future news and TV staff, who are quickly replacing the retiring veterans who actually cared about the product they put out.  Most of these on-camera people care more about their selfies on their Facebook & Twitter Feeds.