Top 5 at the CRC Car Show

Previously:

Top 5 at the Banjo Museum  - -  Top 5 at the Harryhausen Exhibit

Top 5 at the Oklahoma History Center  - -  Top 5 at the Museum of Osteology

Every year the Canadian River Cruisers hold the Food & Shelter Car Show in Norman.    The annual event raises money for the charity "Food & Shelter" in Norman which, as you can probably guess, provides food & shelter to those in need.  Tons of classic and custom cars line up in Andrews Park to compete and show off.  I don't know exactly how car shows are judged but I know what I like...therefore it's time for another top 5 List!

5.  1980 Pontiac Trans Am

As soon as the mustache grows in I'm totally getting one of these sweet rides.  For a guy of a certain age (my age) the Trans Am was the ultimate "cool car."  That eagle emblazoned on the hood only encourages the well-worn urge to hop in and be a blocker for my old truck-drivin' buddy as we bootleg hooch across the country.

4.  1941 Chevy Pickup

I don't know anything about the owners of these vehicles but I'm just about positive that the guy that owns this beauty is constantly hauling wooden crates of apples from an orchard to a farmers market.  I'm look at it...that's gotta be the deal, right?

3.  Hazzard County Sheriff's Cruiser 

This was one of the few novelty cars there and, just like the Trans Am, appeals directly to my demographic.  If you're too young to remember the Dukes of Hazzard then you missed out on some southern fried hijinks and car chases aplenty.  This justice machine would have been driven by Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane or one his capable deputies.

2. 1933 Ford Coupe 

Take your pick: mobsters, Rockefellers, Rocketeers, and any other type of pulp heroes and villains would feel right at home in this fancy-pants ride.  I don't know if this car won anything at the show but I voted it "Most Likely to be at Home on Turner Classic Movies."

1.  1970 Ford Fairlane 

Look at this thing.  Just look it it...a work of art!  This isn't the same model that the Griswold family used for their legendary vacation but if I was thinking of taking the tribe across country this is the automobile I'd want...old school swagger combined with an "I don't care" attitude...

Well there you have it!  My somewhat arbitrary pics for the latest event I stumbled into.  But at least money was raised for a good cause and the turtle wax manufactures rest easy.

Sight at the Museum

Previously: 

Where the Red Fern Grew  - -  Thunderstruck  - -  Bringing Up Bobby

Ryan Bellgardt is a prolific Oklahoma filmmaker whose work ranges from horror to scifi and now family films.  His latest work, The Adventures of Jurassic Pet, falls into the "kid makes a cute monster/alien/creature friend and goes on an adventure to help/save it" genre.  Like his other movies, Bellgardt filmed in Oklahoma and it's a lot of fun to try to track down the locations that make it on screen.

It usually involves spotting a street sign or a familiar building exterior or some other kind of landmark to figure out where a scene was shot.  But there were a couple of scenes in this movie that were easy to ID since they take place in one of the best museums in the state.

The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, on the OU campus, has an impressive amount of interactive features, cultural artifacts and historical items on display as well as frequent traveling exhibits.  But the biggest draw might be the colossal amount of fossils and dinosaur skeletons.  It's one of the best places in the state to take a gander at the remains of some of the behemoths that stomped around the Sooner state all those years ago.

The amount of fossil casts and skeletons really give the place a "museumy feel" for lack of a better term.  It's the perfect kind of visual shorthand that location scouts look for when they want a setting that is instantly recognizable for what it is.  In this case, the dinosaur museum looks like a dinosaur museum so it's a perfect place to film a scene that takes place in a dinosaur museum.

The museum appears in a couple of different scenes.  Towards the beginning of the film our hero Chris is on a field trip at Sam Noble with his class.  As the field trip progresses through the museum, several of their best specimens get some screen time.  Young Chris speculates on the possibility of dinosaurs being alive and well in the present while his teacher seems to become enamored with the tour guide.

The plot of the film involves Chris finding a magic (I think) dinosaur egg which quickly hatches into a baby dinosaur who quickly grows through adolescence into adulthood in about a day.  During that process the two chase after each other and run away from a bad guy scientist all over town.  Their adventures take them back to the museum for some dino-hijinks.

Fortunately no fossils were destroyed in the melee and the fun continued to several other locations.  If you've got kids that love dinosaurs (or just like checking out Oklahoma productions) you can see it for yourself on various streaming platforms or find a copy in your local Redbox.  There's already a sequel in the works so hopefully it won't be too long before before another Oklahoma museum gets the star treatment.