As part of my evening ritual to mentally wind down before sleep, I watch old TV shows.
Watching an episode of Columbo, “By Dawn’s Early Light” (first airing Oct. 27, 1974), my attention was caught by this visual:
This location made me think of this fellow:
The reason for the connection is due to the rather (horrifying [for all the wrong reasons]) 2018 Halloween sequel which featured the Michael, aka the boogeyman at the (fictional), ‘Smith’s Grove Sanitarium’:
Even though the courtyard’s buildings were obviously different, I thought the tiles and institutional nature of the buildings to be so similar that they were probably shot at the same location. I just didn’t know if the buildings were actually updated, or digitally replaced between the 1974 Columbo and the 2018 Halloween.
A quick search revealed that the Columbo episode was filmed in South Carolina at ‘The Citadel’ while Halloween 2018 was filmed 4.8 miles away at the at Military Magnet Academy – Courtyard in Charleston.
As it turns out, the Citadel was established in 1842, whereas the Military Magnet Academy was opened in August 1997.
So why do they look the same? Because of this:
“Much of the reason Military Magnet and The Citadel have maintained such a longstanding community partnership is their shared emphasis on academic excellence in a disciplined military environment. The Citadel has greatly influenced Military Magnet Academy, according to Principal Anderson Townsend. In 2009, the Charleston County School District redesigned Military Magnet to look like a miniature replica of The Citadel that includes a red and white checkerboard in its center quadrangle similar to those found in the barracks at the military college.“
So, there you have it: an obscure, odd little bit of TV / Movie trivia, also known as, ‘how I spent three hours of my mortal allotment researching, writing and screen grabbing because of an idle moment of curiosity.‘
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