help me tie my rec room together.

December 13, 2010 8:11 AM

I want to decorate a rec room in my basement with prints and other items that have been featured in movies and TV shows. I’m not looking for promotional things or other advertisements, but prints that are well known from those movies. Someone should see it and go “Hey!! That’s the thing from that movie! Where did you get that?”

Some examples of what I’m looking for:

• The poster of Nixon bowling from The Big Lebowski
• The famous “Dogs Playing Poker” that has been in a number of shows. (I already have this one)
• The “Hipster Doofus” print of Kramer from Seinfeld (a bit dated by now, though)
• The “Zero Gravity Toilet” instructions from 2001: A Space Odyssey

Other items will work as long as they’re something you might find in a rec room, not just a prop. The “major award” leg lamp from A Christmas Story would work, since I can use it as a lamp, but a laser gun from Star Wars would not fit as that’s just a prop. The Red Swingline from Office Space probably wouldn’t work. It’s useful, but it’s not something you’d find in a rec room.

These things should have been featured exactly the same way in the show or movie. A poster advertising Gobius Industries (Arrested Development), while funny, isn’t something that was ever on the show. On the other hand, having a copy of The Man Inside Me on my bookshelf would work. Make sense?

It should also be something easily recognizable by a casual fan. Only the biggest Lebowski fans would recognize The Dude’s rug, no matter how well it ties the room together.

What else is there?

posted by bondcliff to sports, hobbies, & recreation (35 answers total)

How about the Miguel Calderon paintings from The Royal Tenenbaums?
posted by heatvision at 8:19 AM on December 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

Statuette of the "Maltese Falcon"
posted by cosmicbandito at 8:20 AM on December 13, 2010

I Want To Believe poster - X-Files.
posted by yellowbinder at 8:20 AM on December 13, 2010 [5 favorites]

Rita Hayworth poster from Shawshank Redemption
"Is this good for the company" banner from Office Space
The Salt Flats movie poster from V for Vendetta
A copy of the The Princess Bride book
posted by djb at 8:24 AM on December 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

What about the friends peephole frame? Not, I'm guessing, that you have a peephole in your recroom, but I imagine you could find something in there to frame.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:24 AM on December 13, 2010

Last Exit to Nowhere is mostly 'inspired by,' I think, and also mostly clothing, but there is a spot on poster of the beach closed sign from Jaws.

A couple of people I know have the Time Man of the Year mirror, also from The Big Lebowski

Perhaps, on a bookshelf, some creepy dolls from movies that feature creepy dolls? I am trying to think of movies in which trophies are won...
posted by troika at 8:26 AM on December 13, 2010

The Leg lamps can be found here

I don't know your budget or how much you're willing to renovate [or in my example, destroy] the room, you could make some modifications so the room resembles the set.

For example, if there's a bathroom down there next to the rec room, you could paint the door white and take an axe to it (although the reference may not be too obvious and it doesn't leave that much privacy...)
posted by fizzix at 8:27 AM on December 13, 2010

From Seinfeld, and probably more subtle/less cliched, how about movie posters from the show? Blame It On The Rain, Rochelle, Rochelle, Prognosis, Negative, Sack Lunch, etc.
posted by downing street memo at 8:31 AM on December 13, 2010

The Hitchcock Vertigo poster on Wilsons office wall always catches my eye in episodes of House for some reason.

Im also always drawn to focus on the geometric giraffes in Pete Campbells apartment in Mad Men.
posted by Ness at 8:34 AM on December 13, 2010

Seconded on the Wilson posters. Vertigo, and A Touch of Evil, yes? It's so meta! They're movie posters but they also fit your theme!
posted by bovious at 8:42 AM on December 13, 2010

The 'one goes east, one goes west' painting of dogs from goodfellas.
posted by ellieBOA at 8:48 AM on December 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

all these ideas are big crazy build projects, not just something you could buy...

Doc Brown's ridiculously over-sized guitar amp from the opening scene of Back To The Future.

A Dr. Who Tardis/Police Call Box disguising the entrance to a bathroom or other room. because it's bigger on the inside.

an R2-D2 that delivers drinks and/or lightsabers.
posted by jrishel at 8:48 AM on December 13, 2010

An egg chair from Men in Black? A table/booth combo that looks like the one on the Millennium Falcon? A three-dimensional chess board? A blue police call box coat/game closet?
posted by SMPA at 8:49 AM on December 13, 2010

Ooo ooo, another thought, the Rita Hayworth/Marilyn Monroe/Raquel Welch posters from The Shawshank Redemption.
posted by Ness at 8:52 AM on December 13, 2010

There's a "Don't Klaatu Barada Nikto" banner in Alan's cube in TRON, itself a reference to The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Hire a guy to stand outside your window and hold a boombox?
posted by troika at 9:01 AM on December 13, 2010

The movie Double Jeopardy featured a Kandinsky painting as part of the plot. I read elsewhere that the actual painting was not identified in the film but it may have been from his Blue Rider period. The look of the style was enough for me (a complete non-art person) to be able to recognize Kandinsky paintings in a museum years later.
posted by CathyG at 9:07 AM on December 13, 2010

From my pal, Bill Green:

http://billgreenstudios.com/2010/12/08/at-least-im-housebroken/
posted by Wiggo at 9:15 AM on December 13, 2010

From Seinfeld, what about his Superman statue on the bookshelf? Can't tell if that would count as something which would naturally be in a rec room.

Croquet set (Heathers)

A tattered copy of "Dr. Spock's Baby & Child Care" on the bookshelf? (Raising Arizona)

An amp that goes to 11? (Spinal Tap)

A floor piano (Big)

The Omega Theta Pi paddle from Animal House (bonus points if it says Faber College on it)

A print of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte which was prominently featured in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (when the kids go into the Art Institute)


Also would just like to say that in researching this comment, I inadvertently ran across the answer to a potential "what movie was this that I caught part of during a Saturday TV matinee" AskMe that has been bugging me for, no lie, nine years, and I never could muster enough vague details to ask the question. ("There was an invalid? Several angry sisters, aunts or cousins? A red room? It was subtitled? It all seemed very uptight and Scandinavian?") So, thanks bondcliff!
posted by pineapple at 9:16 AM on December 13, 2010

The giant spool coffee table from That '70s Show?

The cheeseburger phone from Juno, if you need a land line phone down there.

The book Simulacra and Simulation was used in The Matrix (for 100% accuracy it should be a hollowed out book with cash and computer software stored in it).

You could get a framed Death's Head Moth in homage to Silence of the Lambs (bonus if your basement is creepy in any way).
posted by castlebravo at 9:21 AM on December 13, 2010

I was also thinking the Superman figure, as there was one in every Seinfeld.

Barney in HIMYM has a life size storm trooper in his apartment.
posted by I am the Walrus at 9:23 AM on December 13, 2010

Oh, I thought of another one (if objets d'art can go in a rec room?): the crystal egg from Risky Business. Perfect on a mantel or shelf.

How about a Pictionary easel with a drawing of "baby fish mouth"?
posted by pineapple at 9:26 AM on December 13, 2010

Make your own Dharma Initiative labels from LOST and make your own props.
posted by teriyaki_tornado at 9:40 AM on December 13, 2010

Maybe this rocking chair from A Clockwork Orange?
posted by 256 at 9:41 AM on December 13, 2010

Also, I've got a buddy who owns the Kangaroo watch caddy from Pulp Fiction.
posted by teriyaki_tornado at 9:52 AM on December 13, 2010

There is this from the Office. I had this up in my cube at one of my previous jobs and a lot of people recognized it.
posted by sacrifix at 10:27 AM on December 13, 2010

This Pirates of Penzance poster has been on the wall in both The West Wing and Studio 60. Gilbert and Sullivan is a Sorkin... thing.
posted by DarlingBri at 11:47 AM on December 13, 2010

Posters and flags from Ferris Bueller's bedroom? Or, I'm not sure if this would fit within your guidelines, Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte, the painting they visit in the art museum. (In the movie it's the real painting, not a poster in someone's house.)

(I'm sure you could find similar stuff for any 80s teen movie, their bedrooms/dorm rooms were refuges of posters etc)

Patrick Nagel posters (very stylized line art of women) were big in 80s movies although I can't think of a specific one.

Real Genius: the sunset mural behind the fridge in the common area, where Val Kilmer gives his "do you ever have that dream, where you're standing in sun god robes atop a pyramid..." line; and in their dorm room there are a million posters etc.
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:19 PM on December 13, 2010

A Huey Lewis and the News CD.
posted by Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld at 2:34 PM on December 13, 2010

You have to have Abby's farting hippo pillow from NCIS.
Looks like you can get one here.
posted by BoscosMom at 5:50 AM on December 14, 2010

...and it would be pretty easy to do a chalk outline on the floor in paint or tape or if you did it in chalk you could keep chaging it.
posted by BoscosMom at 5:59 AM on December 14, 2010

Ooooo look, they have Caf-Pow cups too! And they're on sale!...leaving now
posted by BoscosMom at 6:23 AM on December 14, 2010

...and learn to fold origami unicorns...
posted by BoscosMom at 7:17 AM on December 14, 2010

In the show Numbers, Charles Epps often has one of these in his office. Here is a youtube tutorial if you'd like to make one. His is pure white though.
posted by BoscosMom at 10:06 AM on December 14, 2010

In The Matrix, the Oracle has a plaque that says, in Latin, "Know Thyself". I think it hangs above a doorway.
Sorry I didn't put these all in one post, I keep thinking of more.
posted by BoscosMom at 10:16 AM on December 14, 2010

If you're going to do the Shawshank Redemption posters, you really need to have a picture of a deep, dusty hole behind it. You know people are going to look.
posted by bristolcat at 1:12 PM on December 15, 2010