Buy the Floor They Walk On
Fancy yourself in an Austin Powers brocade Nehru jacket? Can’t bear to go on without a Tori Spelling tummy-baring T-shirt?
And how about that drop-dead gorgeous floor on Shannen Doherty’s latest TV series?
Yes, that’s right--the floor.
According to Sam Baldoni, founder of the ultimate Hollywood merchandise catalog--the online AsSeenin (https://www.asseenin.com), the most sought-after piece in the collection of set furnishings from popular television series is the laminated floor that appears beneath the feet of Doherty and the other witches on the WB’s “Charmed.”
If you want to be seen in the clothes, the chairs, even the cars you see on TV and in the movies, Baldoni and a handful of other Hollywood entrepreneurs stand ready to sell them to you from one of their new Web sites.
Baldoni, who negotiates production deals for Spelling Television, first came up with the idea of selling items from Spelling sets to defer the costs of making shows such as “7th Heaven,” “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Any Day Now.” But when he set up a test site for the products in June, he realized there was, as he put it, “a tremendous need” for the service.
Since the launch of the test site, more than 500,000 visitors have stopped by to browse and buy.
“We’re getting hits from all over the world--Italy, France, Germany, New Zealand,” says Baldoni, “and all without putting out a single press release.”
Many AsSeenin shoppers found out about the test site through links from fan pages for “Charmed” and other Spelling productions. But beginning in late September, when the site is fully operational, AsSeenin will add products from dozens of movies and other network TV shows to its retail menu.
Although sales so far have been limited to replicas of the items used on the sets, Baldoni plans to expand the site to include end-of-season auctions of parts of the real sets by next spring. That field already is being mined by other cyber-shopping pioneers, including network soaps such as CBS’ Guiding Light (https://www.cbs.com), which is marketing copies of the special bracelet that character Reva Lewis received from her daughter.
Clothes, paintings, even appliances and decorative pillows that made their debuts on movies also are being recycled by budget-conscious studios. New Line Cinema, for example, set up its Web site (https://www.newline.com) to handle the rush of fans hot to buy the cool shades Wesley Snipes wore in “Blade.”
New Line also has set up an auction site (https://auction.newline.com) to market movie props and costumes from such hits as “Boogie Nights,” “Rush Hour” and “Austin Powers.” Among the most popular items from both of New Line’s sites is--Do ya dig it, baby?--Austin’s male-symbol medallion.
That wasn’t quite the sort of item Baldoni had in mind when he envisioned creating a new business selling set pieces, but it was close.
“I’d have to say, what I really wished I could have purchased was the car James Bond drove in his early movies,” says the 40-something Baldoni. “But some of those jackets Bond wore--now, they wouldn’t look so bad on me.”
Pamela Warrick can be reached by e-mail at pamela.warrick@latimes.com.
