Michael Buitron

We loved irony in the ‘80s and there was no better moment than when the TV series Airwolf, starring Jan-Michael Vincent, shot an episode at CalArts. Set builders arrived a couple of days before shooting and built a full-scale replica of an art gallery in the Main Gallery. It was the kind of simulacra that Roland Barthes could only dream of. 

Years later I made an effort to find and watch as many TV shows and movies that were filmed on our beloved campus. In addition to Airwolf, there were episodes of Murder She Wrote and Banacek, and movies like Woody Allen’s Sleeper, The China Syndrome, Escape from New York, and my favorite, Attack of the Bee Girls, which gets first prize for using the most locations. At the time I was keeping a blog and made several posts on these shows.