TDP 1441: For Your Consideration 20 WARGAMES

Listen on YouTube it's the Christmas Special! Luke and Michael share a love for the 1983 film starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy. T-shirts can be found here – https://www.redbubble.com/people/ufocast Follow us on twitter @ufo_cast Like us on Facebook Review us on iTunes Email the show – [email protected] The studio had the Galaxian (1979) and Galaga (1981) arcade machines delivered to Matthew Broderick's home. He practiced for two months to prepare for the arcade scene. According to John Badham, the jeep trying to crash through the gate at NORAD and turning over was an actual accident. The jeep was supposed to continue through the gate. They added the scene of the characters running from the jeep and down the tunnel, and used the botched jeep stunt. The NORAD command center built for the movie cost $1 million, making it the most expensive set ever constructed at the time. The producers were not allowed into the actual NORAD command center, so they had to imagine what it was like. In the DVD commentary, director John Badham notes that the actual NORAD command center isn't nearly as elaborate as the one in the movie, calling the set "NORAD's wet dream of itself." There were several nuclear launch close calls that influenced writers Lasker and Parkes to create the scenario of WarGames, including an incident at NORAD on November 9, 1979 when information on a training simulation tape concerning soviet sub launches was accidentally fed into the warning system and for six minutes the American military complex went into high alert. Only after no soviet missiles were detected by the PAVE PAWS early warning radar system did the U.S. stand down. Training simulations were accordingly moved off site of NORAD after this incident. In the movie, one of the scenarios fed to NORAD operators by Joshua is an influx of encroaching soviet missile subs. The WOPR, as seen in the movie, was made of wood and painted with a metal-finish paint. As the crew filmed the displays of the WOPR, Special Effects Supervisor Michael L. Fink sat inside and entered information into an Apple II computer that drove the countdown display.