The show:

The real place:

I haven’t been to many of the popular bagel establishments in NYC to compare, so I can’t say for certain if they are the best in the city or not. I will say it was very good and served very fresh. It’s also very likely the first Bagel place I’ve been to with a Zagat plaque on the wall.

This may be a new holiday tradition.

The particular episode in question is Season 9 Episode 166 “The Strike”.

If you make a donation, I suggest “The Human Fund”.

Seinfeld

I’m borderline obsessed with Seinfeld, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Seinfeld starring Jerry Seinfeld aired on NBC from 1989 – 1998. Needless to say this is one of the first I found. Seinfeld’s actual apartment exterior is in LA, not New York. Notably if you pan around a little bit you’ll see palm trees you’d never find in New York. It’s actually somewhat bizarre:

Monks Cafe is also real, though in real life it’s Tom’s Restaurant. Google has it a little washed out, but you can tell what it is:

The famous “Soup Nazi” is no longer there, but there’s now a chain of stores operating around. This is the famous location in New York where it all started:

Roseanne

Rosanne ran on ABC from 1988 to 1997 featuring Roseanne Connor played by Rosanne Barr living in fictional blue-collar Lanford, Illinois. The real house is in Evansville, Indiana. It still looks almost identical:

Family Matters

Family Matters aired ABC from 1989 – 1997 as part of TGIF and CBS for 1997 – 1998. The famous Winslow house is actually located in Chicago. I’m not sure if the building to the left was there when the show aired. I don’t recall it being there:

Perfect Strangers

Perfect Strangers aired on ABC 1986-1993 mostly during TGIF. Here’s Larry & Balki’s apartment exterior from Perfect Strangers (TV) from the 2nd season until they moved into the house:

Here’s the Chicago Chronicle where they worked. I’m pretty sure these are the doors used for the revolving door bit at the end of the intro:

Brady Bunch

The Brady Bunch aired from 1969 – 1974 on ABC. Here’s the famous Brady Bunch house. Despite the changes the owners have made to deter tourists from gawking and even crossing onto the property, it’s obviously the Brady house (more about the history of the house can be found here):

Full House

Full House aired from 1987 – 1995 on ABC mainly during TGIF. The Tanners lived on 1882 Girard Street in San Francisco, CA. Many mistakenly think that the tanner residence is depicted in the intro, when in fact that’s actually them having a picnic in the park across from the famous Painted Ladies.

The actual house used is another San Francisco house:

Friends

Friends aired on NBC from 1994 – 2004 featuring a group of friends who somehow managed to afford a rather large apartment in NYC despite struggling financially:

Malcolm in the Middle

Malcom in the Middle aired on Fox from 2000 – 2006. Interestingly the house looks much nicer in real life than it did on the show:

Happy Days

Happy Days was an iconic show that aired from 1974 – 1984. The house is a little obscured by trees, but still recognizable. I can hear the The Fonz’s motorcycle from here:

All in the Family

All in the Family ran on CBS from 1971 – 1979 then was continued as Archie Bunker’s Place from 1979 – 1983. Here’s the house from the original All in the Family:

The Jeffersons

The Jeffersons was a spin-off of All In The Family that aired on CBS from 1975 – 1985. Here’s their Upper East Side apartment:

The Cosby Show

The Cosby Show aired on NBC from 1984 – 1992 starring Bill Cosby. The actual house is in lower Manhattan. Cosby is said to have insisted that the show be taped in New York and was taped at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens:

Who’s the Boss

Who’s the Boss ran on ABC from 1984 to 1992. It actually debuted on the same day as The Cosby Show. I even managed to get the house at about the same angle you’d remember it in the intro:

Cheers

Cheers ran on NBC from 1982 – 1993. The Bull & Finch Pub became famous because of the show:

The Wonder Years

The Wonder Years aired from 1988 – 1993 on ABC. There’s no street view available yet, but the house is visible on Google Maps:

Married With Children

Married with children aired on Fox from 1987 – 1992 featuring Ed O’Neil as shoe salesman Al Bundy. My research strongly suggests the house with the black roof on the right is the house:

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air aired on NBC from 1990 – 1996 starring Will Smith. No street view for this one either but you can make out the house from the satellite view pretty well:

The Love Boat

The Love Boat aired on ABC from 1977 – 1986. The ship mostly used was the Pacific Princess, now MS Pacific. And yes, she’s still afloat:

Leave it to Beaver

Leave it to Beaver aired on CBS then ABC from 1957 – 1963. Leave it to Beaver is actually an interesting story. The Pine Street house is on the Universal set and still exists.

For the Leave it to Beaver movie, they built another Pine Street house. This and the Munster house are now part of Wisteria Lane on ABC’s Desperate Housewives. In fact several of those houses were in movies or TV shows.

Growing Pains

Growing Pains aired on ABC from 1985 – 1992. The house shown in the Growing Pains opening credits is actually on the WB backlot from what I understand, and was re purposed for Gilmore Girls.

The Partridge Family, Dennis The Menace, Bewitched, Friends Fountain

The Warner Brothers Ranch has a bunch of pretty cool homes and artifacts including the Friends Fountain. You can see them from overhead. Mouse over to see what’s what.

Ghostbusters

This is a movie not a sitcom, but I’m still listing it because it’s awesome. The Ghostbusters firehouse:

This blog post took way longer to compile than I even thought it would. Hope you enjoyed it.

For those who need some background, they can read my previous post from 2006.

Hopefully we can get bug 394616 fixed so Firefox doesn’t mark Festivus as a misspelled word. It’s getting annoying (I know I can add the word, but I periodically clean things up and that goes away). That said, a spell checker’s ability to correct my amazingly wrong spelling of Hanukkah is amazing. No matter how badly I misspell it, and I can assure you I do a great job of it, Firefox always knows what I want. If you haven’t tried that before, give it a go. Someone told me a long time ago Hanukkah is one of the best words to test the abilities of a spell checker with. This is true either because spell spell checkers require skill to fix it, or because it’s so easy to misspell. Next time you need to review spell checkers, this is a test you can use. you’re welcome.

While I’m on the topic of holidays, here’s a Christmas message from a monkey as the queen typically does. It’s pretty well done for a YouTube video.

Amusingly, Seinfeld for it’s entire run had a Mac in his TV apartment. Early on it looked like an SE/30 but later on it was a 20th Anniversary Mac. I’ve yet to find a full list of the Mac’s he owned, but I don’t think it’s a very long list. 3 or 4. Maybe I’ll compile it myself.

He was also in a special Think Different ad that was shown during the series finale (you can find it here).

Computerworld has a pretty funny blog post about it.

I wonder if Drew Carey will be next? He had a series of Mac’s up to the iMac G4 at work. Sarah Jessica Parker’s character Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City also was a big Mac user featuring a PowerBook on the show.

Photo: Alan Light

Ironically I deposited my last Google check Saturday. Today I ironically saw that Google checks are bouncing. I’m curious if I’m going to hear from the bank in a day or two regarding that check. Sounds like accounts payable had a little goof up. I’m not sure how large this problem is, but I’m pretty sure it will be corrected ASAP.

Just in case anyone was wondering, I made the Festivus Pole in this post using Inkscape, which did a pretty good job at making it easy enough for even me to do silly little work, and I’m far from an artist. It even lets me output svg, though I uploaded a png since not all browsers support svg at this point. Thankfully I didn’t have to draw any tinsel, but as we all know, that’s not allowed, since it’s distracting.

For those who are interested in the real thing, there is a video about a company who makes Festivus Poles.

As usual the web has quite a few things out there about this amazing holiday. Just search Google News this time of year, or check Wikipedia’s Festivus article.

There is even a new book on the holiday: Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us.

Frank Costanza: Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way.
Cosmo Kramer: What happened to the doll?
Frank Costanza: It was destroyed. But out of that a new holiday was born: a Festivus for the rest of us!
Cosmo Kramer: That must’ve been some kind of doll.
Frank Costanza: She was.

This year, there is quite a bit of media coverage this yet. Yea!

Unfortunately no stores seem to have any commercials that mention it. Perhaps it’s time that change?