Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Scotty, I'm a director for the morning show (for the past 5 years). So you may not know me nearly as well as you do John, Tierney, Rusty, or Julie, but you've certainly seen me work. Also contributing to this entry is Doug (Douggie Fresh as known to Fike). Doug is the man in charge of the audio on the morning show, so he gets a cool hip-hop sounding knick-name since he's the one mixing all the sounds you hear coming out of your TV.

Have you ever wondered where they get all the equipment to fill out the background of sci-fi/fantasy/techno-thriller type shows?
A recent example is the Energizer Bunny commercial now running. Let me set the scene for you. It's late at night at the power station, the custodian is mopping the floors. There's a cup of coffee on the edge of a desk. As you've guessed he knocks it over onto a console with many buttons and levers that sends of shower of sparks into the air, thus blacking out an entire metropolitan area. That console is called an on-air switcher. It's the same piece of equipment used in the station to put all your favorite shows and commercials on the air. It has nothing to do with power stations at all. Though pouring coffee all over one tends to make chief engineers explode.
A more famous example would be from Star Wars. Do you remember the first time the Death Star was fired? The officer all in black with the protective helmet pulls down a lever that sends a massive beam of destructive energy streaking (*not the naked kind) through space towards the defenseless planet minding its own business. That lever is attached to a piece of equipment I use every day. It's called a production switcher. That particular model is The GVG 400. We used to have one here in this very station. Now we have a much bigger, nicer, more powerful sony version that looks like it could land space shuttles. The same model is also used by ABC, CNN, ESPN and several other major networks.
Your on the Starship Enterprise, you've just been beamed aboard and you notice the Transporter officer adjusting several controls. He could be beaming in someone else...or, he could be turning up the volume on his stereo. Yes, those are actually audio controls from an audio mixer used in recording studios, or even your own home stereo.
These are just a few examples from commercials, TV shows, and movies of how our everyday equipment in a local TV station is used to make your entertainment experiences extraordinary.
Every morning I get to start my day by walking into the control room. The lights are dim, it's quiet, and the room is lit by the romantic glow of the thousands of buttons strewn through out the room. Don't you wish you could start your day like that?

We find it amusing when we see things like this. Let us know what what you've seen used in movies, TV shows etc, that were not being used for their intended purpose.