We Didn't See Michael Scott

The week before Christmas we found ourselves about 30 minutes outside of Scranton, PA and decided to make the trek into town to visit the home of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company as seen on the hit NBC show The Office. Now, I wouldn't consider myself a huge Office fan, but I do watch the show every week and I had heard that even though the show is filmed in LA, the real town of Scranton has sort of embraced their celebrity status and a had a few sites for Office fans to check out. Since none of the shows I'm ever really into reach that sort of status, I though it would be cool to check out the sights of Scranton. (Until they build an Alf Amusement Park or a Family Ties Museum in Columbus, I'll take Scranton.)

The Scranton Welcomes You sign (pictured above) is the actual prop used in the opening of the show.

We actually didn't tour much of the city of Scranton, but instead made out way to The Mall at Steamtown, which is a pretty average mall on the inside but it's inside what appears to be an old train station. The mall also has a pretty interesting parking garage where you can enter the department stores underground. In the food court (which features not only a Nathan's but also an Arthur Treacher's) there are advertisements for various local businesses including Dunder Mifflin, Inc.

The mall's center court was hosting Santa Claus. Around the giant Christmas tree were cutouts of two characters from the show, Kevin...

...and Angela.

Here we are outside the mall...

Here's the advertised Dunder Mifflin Store, which was actually only a cart...

Well played, Scranton Mall! Ok, so there is a Flintstone's Bedrock City Theme Park that I may have been to before in South Dakota, and I may have also considered taking a trip to Vermont to stay at the Inn used in the exterior shots of Newhart. But, this Office stuff was all pretty cool too!

PG-13 Flintstones Shirt...and other goodies

I'm not really a fan of taking classic cartoon characters and making suggestive merchandise with them, but seeing as how The Flintstones are near-extinct in the current pop culture landscape I couldn't help but be a bit excited when I saw this new T-shirt at Spencer's Gifts in the mall! For those of you out of the loop, the shirt actually references a song by rapper Lil' Wayne called BedRock. Among the song's other sexually charged lyrics are the line: "Call me Mr. Flintstone...I can make your bed rock." Suggestive? Yes. Obscene? I don't think so. We've all seen shirts with cartoon characters doing much worse stuff with drugs....or in the case of poor Calvin and Hobbs - relieving themselves on anything under the sun (but mostly the Ford logo.) Anywho...cool shirt! You can't blame a caveman for making a pun! The shirt isn't available yet on Spencer's website, but it can be ordered from Stylin Online.

Another really cool item I saw at the same store was this super neat Sesame Street Character Diaper Bag. I'm not sure I'm down with this new trend of slapping Cookie Monster's face on everything from keychains to beach towels and Snuggies. The music store in our mall is filled with new Cookie Monster stuff and I'm not sure punk kid out there with a blue Cookie Monster shirt is a true CM fan. My die-hard Cookie Monster fan roots run very deep! But again, who cares...this diaper bag, with the faces of other characters on the smaller pockets is totally cool...and alot more attractive than the diaper bag we carried around with Baby Elmo and Baby Big Big petting a baby elephant. (Seriously.)

So, next time you are at your local mall make sure you stop by Spencer's Gifts and pick up some great gift items. And while you're there - why not also throw into your shopping cart some novelty toilet paper, a walking cane with a rear view mirror and a horn on it, and some black light posters!

Old Malls: Harundale Mall

I love old photographs of malls. Especially when they are soaked in 1960's and 70's decor and fashion. Here's some great old pics I found online of Harundale Mall in Glen Burnie, Maryland.

I wasn't a frequent guest at this mall, but it was near my grandparent's house and then later in life I had some friends who lived near by, so I did visit the mall on more than one occasion. Harundale Mall was one of the nation's first enclosed malls and at the time of it's opening in 1958 - the only enclosed mall east of the Mississippi River. It was not a very large mall (by today's standards) but it was very grand. It had a unique layout and even when visiting it as a child in the 80's I could tell that the mall was from another era.

I remember the mall had a Horn & Horn Smogasbord Cafeteria, which were hard to come by by the time I was in high school. There was also a Polock Johnny's stand in the middle of the mall which I don't need to tell you...was some good eats!

Here's a shot of the movie theatre, which was actually a separate building in a parking lot across the street. I know I had seen a small handful of movies there but the only specific one I can remember is my mom taking my brother and I to see Back To The Future. Eventually the theatre became a second run/dollar theatre before closing. I think it's a church now!?!

I actually worked at Harundale Mall one night. One of my first jobs was with a photographer who ran the Santa Claus operations at a number of malls. I worked at a mall near my house, but one night I filled in for somebody at Harundale Mall on the night they were having Pet Photos with Santa. (I hate animals...it was an interesting night!) Another fun memory I have of the mall is the time my buddy and I were escorted out by security for trying to videotape in the mall. I didn't know you needed permission from the mall to shoot inside and I guess it didn't help matters that I was working on a school project and had a full size professional-grade TV camera with us. Ah...memories! If I remember right, we put the camera in the car and went back inside and got some Polock Johnny's.

The mall was built by James Rouse who much later went on to build the bigger and fancier Marley Station Mall right down the road from Harundale. Over time, Marley Station put Harundale and all the other malls in the area out of business. Harundale Mall hung on until 1998. The following year, Harundale Plaza debuted in the same spot as the mall with a supermarket, Outback Steak House, Hollywood Video and other boring offerings.