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2014 TV - Fox "The Simpsons" episode "Married to the Blob" |
About halfway through this January 12 heavily Japanese-referenced episode, as Homer and Mr. Nakamura are walking down the street after a round of Snake Rice Wine but right before they start to hallucinate, a Japanese restaurant they pass by has a round window out front with a stylized bonsai logo. A light grey rectangular pot with a thin wide foot holds the tree. Brown trunk with three vertical branches, and a fourth which points out to the right and has a separate foliage cloud. The main foliage is in a rounded triangle shape (reminiscent of a woman's hat silouette). The two middle branches are thicker than the "Y" of the main trunk which they come out of. | ||
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TV - CBS
"How I Met Your Mother" final episode "Last Forever: Part Two" |
At the 18:09 mark, a slightly gray-haired Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) in the year 2030 is sitting at his desk across from his kids, saying, "And that, kids, is how I met your mother." To the front right (just to the right of a gold-colored toy robot) can be seen the needles and branches of a small pine. The camera cuts repeatedly back and forth between the children (Lyndsy Fonseca and David Henrie) and Ted during the ensuing conversation. On the ninth shot of Ted, the desk top is seen in full along with the potted tree. A dark brown rectangular pot sitting in a thin tray, with mossy groundcover over the entire soil surface. A fairly thick light grayish-brown trunk rises up perhaps an inch before bending to the right and slightly towards the back for another inch before splitting off a first branch to the right. As the trunk heads straight upwards, a second branch splits off to the left with a slight downward curve after it leaves the main trunk, and the apex continues up to about a 6" total height above the soil. Three foliage pads needing something of a "haircut" are on top of the branches. Closer/longer examination seems to indicate that the tree is probably artificial, probably plastic by the 19:11 mark. One more shot back to the above-tray level, then the next one is full desk top slowly zooming into an above-the-tray, then six more quick cutaways with just the top of the tree showing through the 19:54 mark. Air date March 31. (Brought to RJB's attention by son Andrew who paused the episode when he was watching it.) | ||
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2015 TV - PBS "Ask This Old House" episode "Ceiling Fan, Bonsai" |
At the beginning of this April 9 episode, from the 00:25 to 00:38 mark, a teaser for the larger segment, and from the 00:47 to 01:37 mark, three bonsai (at least two are junipers with stated ages of 50 and 75 years)trees are shown in a toy village surrounded by an electric train set. | ||
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2016 A Hybrid/ION Television movie A Husband for Christmas |
At the 5:32 mark, when we see the interior of Brooke Harris (Vivica A. Fox)'s place, there is a small juniper in a glossy oval pot just out of focus right center. (At the 5 minute mark when she is talking to her mother, we may have seen the wee conifer under a table lamp against the wall -- perhaps the camera half a minute later is looking out from that wall.) The tree is planted right of center in the pot, left of center is a small pyramidal rock which is perhaps a third the height of the mallsai-shaped tree. During the phone conversation she is now having with Amanda (Dominique Swain), there are a couple of shots from this angle with the camera moving slowly to the right of the tree -- and around 7:20 moving to the left as the scene ends. At the 14:30 mark the table light is on to the left of the couch and, yes, the wee conifer we glimpsed earlier is the tiny décor there. At about the 1:11:23 mark the tree is very briefly seen in her new condo as she puts a photo frame down. Air date December 11. (Brought to RJB's attention by wife Shirley.) | ||
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2017 TV - Apple iPhone 7 Commercial "The Rock x Siri Dominate the Day" |
In the opening shot of this 3:45 length
July commercial, we have a close-up of the face of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as he is looking intently at a
small juniper bonsai he is trimming (with regular "snip" "snip" sound) using left-handed black gardening
scissors [sic! - he is supposed to be pinching with fingers only, please]. The green top of the tree
out of focus is what we first see of it. "This one's for earth," is his spoken line. The camera
pulls back to show the entire tree: a medium-size low informal upright with dark thick trunk in a squat
rectangular blue-glazed pot with tan unglazed feet. The juniper with thick foliage is perhaps 15" wide
and half as tall. Light gray gravel covers the soil surface. The pot rests on a thin white marble
or plastic table-tray on a low table in apparently the living room. A small glass and silver pipe atomizer
with water is to the left side on a tray with tweezers and some other tool; an open book with back cover and
a few pages folded back on the table just to the right of the pot and perhaps a small pair of dark concave
cutters next to that. Meanwhile, we see that Johnson is lifting a wall-mounted pulley weight with his right hand, while his head is being shaved by a female assistant with a straight-blade razor. He repeats the line with different inflection (probably rehearsing for some movie role). His male assistant expresses fawning bored affirmation and Johnson asks the Siri app on his phone to read his schedule for the day. "You have 25 appointments at 7:15, 7:20, 7..." Another male assistant comes in and says that The Rock is on the television. When the female news reporter wonders how much more he can do in a day, he takes it as a challenge, letting go of the weight, putting down the scissors, pulls off a short salon bib, and grabs his phone. As he heads out the door towards the back, we see a final shot of the tree. This is now 24 seconds into the commercial, which then continues with an amusing but highly improbable series of international adventures for the busy day. (Seen by RJB in an Apple posting on Facebook on Jul 24.) |
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TV - PBS
"Newshour" episode "What we can learn from Nixon's 'Saturday Night Massacre'" |
This is an interview of William Ruckelshaus by Judy Woodruff. Between the 6:38 and 6:45 marks of this 7:22 program, there is a shot of Pres. Nixon on the telephone in the Oval Office of the White House. Center screen there is a bust of Abraham Lincoln behind him, on a table next to the large window. Just to the right of the bust is a small slant-style pine bonsai, with only a slice of its dark brown ceramic pot visible. The pot is mostly hidden by the back of Nixon's desk chair. Air date July 31. (Brought to RJB's attention the following day in an email by Kate Schumacher and Richard Robinson of the Phoenix Bonsai Society.) | ||
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The Film Factory, Bennie Boekfilms, and Bouwer Bosch Films movie Vuil Wasgoed |
In one scene in this Afrikaans film when a character states
(in the English subtitles) "Next batch you show Manny how it all works," on the table immediately in front
of him there is a perhaps foot-tall Pierneef-style and root-over-rock tree in a very shallow round brown
pot. Release date at the 8th
Silwerskerm
Festival in South Africa 25 August; in general 8 December. (Brought to RJB's attention by
December 2, 2018 Facebook post by Caroll Dewar Hermann with screenshot.) |
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TV - ABS
"Gardening Australia" episode "Miniature Marvels" |
This September 16 episode has host Jane Edmanson learning about bonsai with native trees from Marcela Ferreira in suburban Melbourne. | ||
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2018 TV - Netflix "One Day at a Time" episode "Storage Wars" |
At the 7:35 mark, the rich and eccentric
Schneider (Todd Grinnell) is sitting on his couch with a small juniper on the coffee table in front of him
in a close-up shot. He has a small pair of black scissors in his right hand. He blows on the
foliage and now we see why his regular glasses are on the table: he is wearing a pair of magnifier
glasses. Elena (Isabella Gomez) comes in and asks him when he started doing bonsai (both use the
proper pronunciation). He scoffs and corrects her, "Bonsai are for dorks. This is penjing, the
gentle Chinese art of tray scenery." She notices that the figurines at the base of the tree (which we
cannot see) resemble her family. He quickly covers the tree with a large cloth and says they can be
any Cuban family. After some conversation he states that "I may only look two or three years older
than you, but I have the wisdom of that ancient bonsai." When she starts to correct his terminology,
he says in exasperation "It's all the same stuff." He then takes the cloth off, picks up a tiny
figurine and flicks it away. She asks if that is her and he responds "not every gay teenage Cuban girl
figurine is you." He then backhand sprays her with the small glass atomizer he has to mist the tree
with. He goes back to working on the tree and we see it from the side angle now: about a 5" tall bushy
untrimmed juniper with very thin trunk in a blue glazed oval tray. Air date January 26. (Brought
to RJB's attention by wife Shirley.) |
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TV - YouTube Red/YouTube Premium/Netflix
"All Valley" episode "Cobra Kai" |
This series is a direct continuation and
spin-off of the first four films in The Karate Kid franchise, and initially picks up 34 years after the 1984
titular film. Ralph Macchio returned from the film series as Daniel LaRusso, now a happily married successful
owner of a group of Los Angeles-area car lots, but who is missing an essential balance in life since the death of his
mentor, Mr. Miyagi. With every new vehicle sold he gives a small-sized juniper bonsai -- seen in various episodes.
(This commercial was said to air
before the 1st episode of the first season.) The series is reasonably well-done with the tension created by
Daniel's old rival, Johnny Lawrence (William Zubka, returning also) at rock-bottom as an unemployed handyman haunted by
his wasted life. However, when Johnny rescues bullied kid Miguel (Xolo Maridueña) from tormentors, he is
inspired to restart the notorious Cobra Kai dojo. This revitalization of his life and related misunderstandings
find Johnny restarting his old rivalry with Daniel. Even as this antipathy festers, it finds itself reflected
in their protegees as Miguel (who happens to be Daniel's daughter Samantha (Mary Mouser)'s boyfriend) and his comrades
are gradually poisoned by Cobra Kai's thuggish philosophy. Johnny's estranged miscreant son Robby (Tanner Buchanan),
meanwhile, finds himself inadvertently coming under Daniel's wing and flourishes in ways worthy of Mr. Miyagi. In
the 7th episode of the first season there is a scene where Daniel teaches Robbie about trimming bonsai. Air date
May 2.
New 10/06/24 |
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Broken Road Productions and New Line Cinema movie Tag |
Near the beginning of the film, a large potted tree is seen in
the office of the therapist (uncredited, Carrie Brownstein), behind her on a table. Air
date in USA 15 June. (Brought to RJB's attention by wife Shirley.) |
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2019 |
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2020 |
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2021 TV - Netflix "The Right Path" episode "Cobra Kai" |
In the 4th
episode of the third season, John Kreese (Martin Kove, returning from the original film) at the Cobra Kai asks his students
to kick off a smallish juniper bonsai in a white round pot which is balanced on a perhaps 6' tall upright standing log/thick pole.
Two students try with running kicks but fail. Eli 'Hawk' Moskowitz (Jacob Bertrand) then volunteers, and standing
next to the pole kicks IT. The bonsai and soil fall to the ground out of the unbroken pot which circles on the ground for
a few seconds. (Curse of Boldly Gow!) Air date January 1.
New 10/06/24 |
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A Warner Bros. movie
Dune |
"Not five minutes into the [October 22] film,
just one line of dialogue passes before we see Jessica (Recbecca Ferguson) and Paul Atreides (Timothée
Chalamet) together at the breakfast table, with Paul, our hero, flanked by two of what is ultimately four
bonsai on display in the room. In the next shot we get a better view of the tree to Paul's right..."
"Three of the bonsai in this room appear to be junipers styled with an old school "Darth Vader helmet," as
many American bonsai people describe it (not always with praise, but that's a story for another time).
All four trees are very conventional, in bonsai terms: dense sculpted foliage pads arranged along a trunk that
follows textbook ratios to the letter. I do't mean that as an insult; these are beautiful trees, and
I kept pausing the scene to drink them in. They're the perfect plants for our good guys." (From
Max Fallowitz's article.) | ||
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2022 TV - PBS "GardenSMART" "Bonsai - An Art and Science," |
In Show
#35/6909, Eric Johnson interviews Rodney
Clemons. (Brought to RJB's attention by wife Shirley.)
New 08/05/23
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TV - Netflix
"Downward Spiral" episode "Cobra Kai" |
In the 4th
episode of the fifth season, Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) puts in a large winning bid for part of Daniel LaRusso
(Ralph Macchio)'s bonsai collection trees at a charity auction. Silver had previously suggested that he would turn them
into mulch. Silver then speaks to the audience, announcing that his Cobra Kai will offer free karate lessons to low-income
kids. Daniel sternly tells Silver to respect the trees. Air date September 9.
New 10/06/24 |
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2024 TV - Russia 1 "Morning Show" "Bonsai," |
A six-and-a-half minute piece about
Moscow nursery owner Pavel Gorbachev who shows how to make a bonsai with a Ficus. Airdate
January 27, 2024, in Russian. (Brought to RJB's attention by Nik Tokonoma's Feb 10, 2024 Facebook posting.)
New 02/10/24
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TV - Global BC
News "Bonsai legend continues his devotion," |
A two-minute piece about Gerald Rainville,
the first trained-in-Japan apprentice from Canada, who is now one of the top growers in the West. Airdate
February 11, 2024. (Brought to RJB's attention by Gerald Rainville's Feb 11, 2024 Facebook posting.)
New 02/12/24
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TV - CCTV 13
News "Penjing and Chad Sinclair," |
A six-minute piece about Chad Sinclair
and his experience making Sichuan penjing during his now 20-year stay in China -- from Canada. Airdate
February 14, 2024, in Chinese with some English. (Chad Sinclair's Feb 14, 2024 Facebook posting,
with video found by Allan Harding.)
New 02/17/24
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Anyone who knows of additional TV, film, or theatrical uses of bonsai -- or corrections to any portrayal in these four parts -- is asked to please contact rjb@magiminiland.org . Contributor acknowledgment will be posted. Please include as many details as possible. We will be confirming and filling in some blanks by way of the various film and TV sites on the web (first choice being the The Internet Movie Database). Thank you! |
| Overview | Celluloid Bonsai I | Celluloid Bonsai II | Celluloid Bonsai III |