Flushing, Queens - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

• The first series of Charmin toilet paper commercials featuring Mr. Whipple (Dick Wilson) were filmed in Flushing at the Trade Rite supermarket on Bowne Street.
• The rock band KISS first played at the Coventry Club on Queens Boulevard in 1973, and is said to have derived its name from "Kissena," one of Flushing's major boulevards.
• Joel Fleischman, the fictional character from the 1990s comedic drama Northern Exposure, was said to have relocated from Flushing. Often, references were made to actual locations around Main Street, Flushing.
• The eponymous celebration in Taiwanese director Ang Lee's 1993 comedy hit, The Wedding Banquet, takes place in Downtown Flushing's Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel.
• Fran Drescher's character "Fran Fine" on the TV show The Nanny, was said to have been raised in Flushing, where her family still lived. Drescher herself was born in Flushing.
• Flushing was the location of the Stark Industries (later Stark International) munitions plant in Marvel Comics' original Iron Man series. In the movie Iron Man 2, the Stark Expo is located in Flushing.
• On the Norman Lear-produced TV show All in the Family, in the episode when Edith Bunker was arrested for shop lifting, she mentions the Q 14 bus, and the names of a few long-gone stores that were in downtown Flushing.
• The main characters of The Black Stallion series resided in Flushing and many of Flushing's streets and landmarks in te 1940s were mentioned in the first book.
• In the musical Hair the character Claude Bukowski is from Flushing.