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The "Wings" universe vs our reality


I was curious about a few things, and went poking around on the internet. Here's what I found:

The producer -- The name of the show's first producer was the same as Frasier Crane's fictional producer, and it turns out there was a sad reason for that. The real-life Roz Doyle died of cancer during the run of Wings, so the creators named a character in their new show in her honor. By the way, Peri Gilpin, who played the fictional Roz, had earlier been a leading contender for the role of Helen, but the network didn't think she was quite right for the role.

The airport -- There is a real Tom Nevers Field on Nantucket, but it's not the airport, it's a playground (https://www.nantucket-ma.gov/2469/Tom-Nevers-Fields-Playground). The real airport is Nantucket Memorial, which oddly enough looks a whole lot like the fictional Tom Nevers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nantucket_Memorial_Airport

The airplane -- Like Lassie, there were actually several planes used as "the" plane, which presumably explains some of the camera angles (so as not to show the plane-of-the-day's registration number). But the official plane, N121PP, is reportedly still flying to Nantucket, at last report for Cape Air (motto: "We're Your Wings").

Most of the above is from IMDb's Wings Trivia page: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098948/trivia/

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I LOVE this show. I think it's one of the funniest sitcoms ever.

You do have to look carefully at the registration to see that sometimes Joe's, "this is Nantucket one two one, papa papa" does not match the numbers on the tail. Sometimes the letters shown are definitely not "pp".

Still, one of the great sitcoms. I don't think it even lost a step when they finally had Joe and Helen get hitched. Some shows "jump the shark" when the lead characters get married. Wings stayed funny.

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Yup. Hadn't seen it since the network run, but it's even funnier on DVD.

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