Ad Adds to City’s Anytown Mystique

Old Towne further solidified its identity as Anytown U.S.A. this week when a film company set up lights and cameras on North Glassell Street to shoot a commercial.

“This was the only small town we could find in the L.A. region,” said producer Gary Romano, who stood under a glaring sun Monday to shoot a 30-second commercial for Snapple Beverages.

The 100 block of Glassell, just off the traffic circle, was closed to motorists but not to passers-by, about 200 of whom stopped to watch the action over the course of the day. The street’s small businesses provided the setting for a new Snapple advertising campaign that has two drivers crossing the country to hand out free drinks, Romano said.

In Anytown, they stop in the middle of a street that has a Republican Party headquarters on one side and a Democratic Party office on the other.

The distribution of free Snapple apparently overcomes even Orange County politics.

“Through their goodwill, they manage to bring harmony,” Romano explained with a smile.

About 60 actors wearing plastic straw campaign hats and a production crew of 60 from Propaganda Films worked from 7 a.m. to nearly 10 p.m. to shoot the 30-second commercial.

The filming earned money for merchants, who were compensated by the film company if they had to close their businesses, and was good public relations for the city, said Lori Corbett, the city’s film liaison.

“It’s good for the city, it helps us become known,” said Corbett, who also helped coordinate the 16-day shooting of a Tom Hanks movie on the traffic circle last winter. “Merchants downtown have shown that they want the filming down there. And the Orange County Film Commission has promoted Orange.”

The commercial, one of four shot for the campaign, will air in three to four weeks.