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| Photo credit: Bridget Cole |
Norm Kober runs the Jailhouse Cafe in Old Town, San Clemente. A
small plaza in a small beach town of south Orange County, Old Town is the
oldest part of the city. Eric Brandt, owner of Old Town and friend of Kober set
it up with a Western theme, except for one certain blue box. Brandt and Kober
stuck a TARDIS in front of Kober’s “spaghetti-western-pancake house.” As both
men enjoy “Doctor Who” and have watched the classic series, they present a prop
of the Doctor’s spaceship, the “TARDIS.” Kober can be seen by his
restaurant most days, ready to share his stories.
Where did this TARDIS come from?
Well this was actually used for the TV show “Doctor Who,” you know, the episode where the Doctor met Nixon in the oval office. Well Eric, he’s a big fan of Doctor Who, he brought it here from the studio and then we fixed it up. He's still going to put monitors inside each window so each window will show the inside of eight different TARDIS’s. But he already put the sign [“the Nixon TARDIS”] up here. And then he had the Dalek made. So he really likes “Doctor Who.” I used to watch it, too in 64. No, in 63, when it was still in black and white. I watched all of the classic series, just not any of the new stuff. It's the longest running TV show in the world. Oh, yeah. It's been on the TV since 1963.
So the TARDIS is an actual
prop from the show? According to the Old Town website it was from the "Impossible Astronaut," but that was filmed in Utah.
Yeah, so Eric got it from the studio out there. They weren’t going to take it with them back to Britain anyway. They built it just for that show so they were fine with Eric taking it.
Why do you call it the "Nixon TARDIS?"
So, you see a few shops down there's the Nixon museum, the little shop down there. It sells food and stuff but it really just has some history. Did you know San Clemente was Nixon's "Western White House?" The museum there really just has stuff on that. And, since this town has had Nixon here and the Doctor met Nixon in one of those episodes, we named the TARDIS that. The "Nixon TARDIS."
So how does the TARDIS and all the paint withstand the rain and stuff?
Oh it stays good for a long time. We had to redo the outside two or three times, because when it rains in San Clemente, which it rarely does, it really rains.Actually, the city of San Clemente didn’t like it.
Oh really? Why wouldn’t they have liked it?
They didn’t like it ‘cuz it isn’t Mexican. You know, since San Clemente is “the Spanish village by the sea” and all that. They don’t even like the Western theme, the new theme of Old Town. But since it’s gotten so popular, they got to learn to accept it.
So how many people have come to see this TARDIS?
It’s had over 66,500 hits on the internet. Everybody loves it. Each year we have a “Doctor Who” thing here, a convention, where everyone gets dressed as the Doctor and his companions. There are kids that come as Daleks, wrapped in aluminum foil and things.Yeah, the first week he got it he put it on my patio. We ended up bolting it to the wall because people kept trying to steal it. I got cameras everywhere and we caught a bunch of different college guys. They were doing some kind of treasure hunt, I think, to just take pictures with it, and some tried to move it around. But I ended up chasing them off.
Do you know what colleges they were from?
I don’t know, probably from all over.
When was that?
Probably the first week we had it.
How long has this been here then?
Four years.
Oh that’s cool. I’ve seen photos where it was just the blue box [TARDIS] without all the paint on the floor. How long ago was the paint added?
The paint’s been there for maybe a year. That’s when we had it sprayed with paint, and it was hand-done. We didn’t plan to keep it on my patio, we just wanted to keep it there temporarily but since people loved it we decided to keep it here. Eric got people to add some extra stuff to it.
Can you tell me more about why Eric decided to add paint and the Dalek and such?
Like I said, Eric just really likes “Doctor Who” and so do I. All those travels through time and space. I’m not up to date with the newer stuff, but there is just so much in the show, like the Daleks and the space thing on the floor. Yeah, we just like “Doctor Who.”
So the TARDIS and the various pieces are for you and Eric’s enjoyment and not for popularity?
Well the popularity is a plus, but yeah, it’s just a cool thing we have here, and one that Eric is still working on, like the monitors inside the TARDIS.
Alright, thank you for your time.
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| Photo credit: Bridget Cole |
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