Have you heard a Carpenters song or names mentioned in a movie, tv commercial, books, etc? Post the sightings here and I'll add them to the list.

Replies will be deleted once I've added it to the list in order to keep the post clean. Please keep comments in other threads.

Thanks,
Pamela

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1. Friends episode where they sit round the apartment singing 'Top Of The World'
2. Simpsons - when the doorbell sticks and plays 'Close To You' all night waking the neighbourhood
3. Simpsons #2 - when Homer sees Marge in school for the first time, they play the opening bars of Close To You
4. Sabrina the teenage witch-episode when Sabrina needs to interview a rock female star who is always angry but Sabrina uses her magic to change the rock star's attitude and this woman starts singing "We've only just begun" instead of her rock song...
5. St. Elmo's Fire: In it one of the characters, Kevin, (Andrew McCarthy) when asked about love, said he was in love once, when he was playing bongos in a band, with "our lead singer, and she sang 'We've only just begun' as sweet as Karen Carpenter."
6. Parenthood: A scene where Rick Moranis sings "Close to You" in a classroom at a school!
7. BOYS ON THE SIDE: The Whoppi character was singing a heartfelt, poignant version of SUPERSTAR
8. Starsky and Hutch movie most of the Carpenter's version of "We've Only Just Begun" is played about halfway through
9. Detroit Rock City(1999 Movie )
10. Tommy Boy(1995 Movie)
11. Gilmore Girls (2004 TV Show)
12. Celeste in the City(2004 ABC Family tv movie)
13. Anger Management(2003 Movie)
14. About a Boy(2002 Movie)
15. The Brady Bunch(TV)
16. X-files: Used the Carpenters a lot. In the episode where the old couple in the motorhome get killed by mad dogs, the song "Close to You" is playing. In another episode, a woman with psychic powers uses her talents to kill her fiance while she is listening to "Rainy Days..."
17. The Broken Hearts Club: An alternative romantic comedy showed at Harris Theater in Pgh. Timothy Olyphant's character loves karen carpenter.
He asks his date "do you like the carpenters?"
His date replies "play something else".
He responds: "you don't find karen carpenter's music remotely romantic?"
His date responds no. After mentioning a few songs, he ends the evening because of it.
18.Aquafina Commercial, they play Top of the World with Karen singing.
19. A book by Gene Simmons called "KISS and Makeup"... page 120 is his memorable encounter with Karen Carpenter. READ HERE

Some of these you might want to add too.

Linda's "Behind the Glass:The Phil Ramone Story"(BBC Radio2).(not sighting?)

Chris-An Ordinary Fool shared Michael Landon's Tv Movie.

SOMEDAY87 shared John Carpenter's film "In The Mouth of Maddness".
http://www.leadsister.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3220

Musical "We Will Rock You" Karen's photo

at the screen up behind performers.
A song is probably "No-One But You (Only The Good Die Young)".

-- DVD available in Japan --
Seiko Matsuda's "Tatta Hitotsuno Takaramono" Karen's "Sing"(2004 TV, 2005 DVD)
"Kazenoyoni Utaga Nagareteita" Kazumasa Oda sang "Yesterday Once More" at piano (2004 TV, 2005 DVD)
"Beginner" Karen's "There's A Kind Of Hush", "Top Of The World" and "I Need To Be In Love", instrumental "Top Of The World"(2003 TV, 2004 DVD)(Instrumental is also on CD)
"Starsky and Hutch"(2004 Movie)

-- Japanese TV of which theme song was sung by Karen, all the dramas were released as DVD --
"Beginner"(above)
"Miseinen" Karen's "I Need To Be In Love", "Top Of The World"and other Carpenters songs (1995 TV)
"Koigashitai Koigashitai Koigashitai" Karen's "The Rainbow Conneciton" and "Leave Yesterday Behind"(2001 TV)

Sakura

Okay,I'm kind of embarrassed but they used "Close To You" on Celebrity Love Island,while showing footage of one couple getting on really well...then some other song when they fell out,which I didn't listen to cos I was singing "Close To You" rather loud!

I just heard Dr. Joy Browne talk about them about a week or two ago on her live radio show.



Linda

Here are a few:

An Episode of "Joan of Arcadia." In it, Joan and her brother Luke are on the school swim team. She mentions "brother sister" teams, like the Carpenters and I think she may have said the Osmonds. Either way, she definitely said "The Carpenters."

Also, the Aquafina Commercial, they play Top of the World with Karen singing.

The Dixie Chicks went on their Top of the World Tour. After the concert is over, the speakers play the first verse of Top of the World as people are walking out. Barb and I sat down and enjoyed it.

Daria episode. My friend said that they sang a version of Close To You at the end of one of the episodes.

Another friend said that on either VH1 or MTV, a group of artists sing "Sing."

You may have gotten this one. They play almost half of "We've Only Just Begun" in the recent flick "Starsky and Hutch"

In "Celeste In the City," the following was said, "In the immortal words of Karen Carpenter, we've only just begun," by Celeste's gay friend. He was played by the guy that played Zander in Buffy.

I was just posting elsewhere, and talking about listening to Top Of The World in the car, and it reminded me of a great moment. In the movie "High School High" with Jon Lovitz, he is shown arriving at his new job in a very rough inner city school, and Top Of The World is playing very plainly on his car radio, and he is just right in there with it, singing along and tapping his fingers to it, its a beautiful day and he couldn't be happier.

That is right before they pan back and we see that his car has already been stolen, and there is nothing left of the breifcase he was holding but the handle that he is still clutching.

A really good, and appropriate placing of a great Carpenters song.

And it is a very cute movie too, I really love the math lesson he gives them, if you've ever seen it, you know what I am talking about.

(I know we're not supposed to comment....but....)

The Carpenters have made it to MTV. There is hope for the world yet!

Don't forget about the book by Gene Simmons called "KISS and Makeup"... page 120 is his memorable encounter with Karen Carpenter.


Linda

I'm not familiar? Could you give us a Readers Digest version of it?

I'll save myself the work and bring back a thread from the past.

Annie is a closet KISS fan


Linda

Hey!!

They're neato Simmons is a good writer

I think I apply make-up better, though.

ONJ's band master talked about Gene Simmons. Gene always eats three cookies before going to bed. Cookies charmed Annie.

In '70s I heard Karen talk about Gene on a radio interview when it was aired.

Several years ago I found an interview with Gene on the net. I don't remember when or where. But when I searched before, I found that KISS and Carpenters performed on the same day or Carpenters performed the next day of KISS.

Sakura

I'm glad Karen wasn't beguiled by Kissy boy and his seducing charade. Especially as she was a world renoun artist and performer and not some naive groupie ready for a meaningless fling. I never liked Kiss and their costume antic rock but hey, it made them real rich and successful so that's show biz.

The fact that Gene Simmons has had 4600 women, but not Karen Carpenter, speaks volumes about her character. Quite frankly, I believe the tables were turned when they hooked up... Karen seduced Gene into an evening of intellectual exchange.

Linda

Very much agreed Linda. And from where I stand Simmons didn't have 10% of Karen's talent and character and wasn't qualified to be on the same stage as and with her.

Wow....calm down Dave! She said no...she said no!! Call it a night!

alrighty then...

I just saw War of the Worlds. No, there was no Carpenter song in it.

However, in the previews 3 or 4 people sing parts of "Close To You" in different languages. They get the words wrong, but the tune is correct. It is very funny. I don't recall what they were advertising. I just happen to be in Boston today (for work), and I saw the movie here, and maybe that preview commercial is shown in certain areas and some of you have seen it already. Have you?

Never seen it before until today.

I saw WOTW today myself (rather dissapointed, screenplay missed the mark, Sci-Fi effects were real good though) but I came in during the middle of the previews so I may have missed what your're referring to.

Evil, mean, bad creatures though.

Who's Gene Simmons?

Do you know KISS, Rachel? That band from the 70s with the dudes with crazy makeup? Gene Simmons is the main guy - the one with the long tongue. He mentioned Karen in his biography, "KISS and Makeup".
He's still around - quite a character

ooooh do a google image search... I'm sure you'll understand.


Linda

When i was doing Panto a few years ago in Newcastle, we used a few capenter songs in the show " Top of the world" "Close to you" and i have to say they were the best songs to use

I'm sure they (Carpenters) were mentioned on SAVED BY THE BELL????


Regards
Simon (TopOfTheWorld23)
*NEARLY AT 1,000 POSTS!!!*

Channel 5 in the UK are using part of Calling Occupants as the background music for a trailer for a show called Stargate Atlantis

Channel 5 used 'I won't last a day without you' as the background music for a trailer for the film 'Sleepless in Seattle'

South Park featured an episode this season with a chinese singer called Ming...kind of a female version of William Hung! The end credits featured her singing "Sing", which was also featured during the show itself.

Marcus

* an instumental version of "Close To You" is played on the tv show "Moonlighting" (w/ cybill shepherd & bruce willis). the episode is called "Atomic Shakespeare" and aired in 1987


* "The Carpenters" and "Captain & Tennille", are mentioned by name on the tv show "Married With Children". the episode is called "A Tisket, A Tasket, Can Peggy Make A Basket?" and aired in 1993

Carpenters mentioned in Brady Bunch:

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from Brady Bunch:

in the episode "Getting Davy Jones (1970)", Marsha and her friends mention wanting to get 70s bands like the "5th dimension", "Beatles", and "the Carpenters" to come to play at school

i noticed somebody said something about a vh1 commerical, and yes, there was. it was an advertisement for vh1, and they take clips from various music videos that were being played at the time(i believe this was around the summer of 04) and composed them together to the song "sing". whoever made it actually watched the mouth movements of these singers, so when it looked like they were singing a word from the song, they would have that person "sing" it. so, it actually ends up looking like all these singers are singing the song "sing" but of course, they're playing the real song, with karen singing it. i remember there being gwen stefani, avril lavigne, maybe 50 cent, and u2, i believe. there were probably about 15-20 other singers, all different genre's of music. i thought it was really cool. i keep looking for a version of it on the internet, if i ever find it, i'll post the link.

I love that VH1 ad. It always made me smile when I saw it.

Me too

I love that ad. If anyone wants to see that, let me know and I will post in Members Only

Stephen

Yes please Stephen. It think it's great!


Simon

The VH1 commercial was sooo cool--but I just realized two days ago [when I got their gold album for Christmas] that "Sing" is a Carpenters song [yes, I'm semi-new to this]. I would get the song stuck in my head and think it was lame to be singing a song from a commercial...but I love the song!

I knew the voice sounded familiar...duh.

OK, so maybe this isn't technically a "Carpenters sighting," but I just saw a Snickers ad that includes the song "Make Your Own Kind of Music" from the Carpenters' 1971 TV show.

It's pretty funny. Here's the link. Click "Bald."
Snickers toupee

Hahahaha that's great

Tonight I was watching the movie Anger Management, starring Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson and there's a scene where Nicholson's character says something like:

- Get rid off all types of aggressive music.
- But The Carpenters are not aggressive.
- Oh, come on. Close To You. We've Only Just Begun...

And then I missed the joke because my dad said something that distracted me. Anyone who has watched it, what was it?

(The words to dialogue were the ones the portuguese dubbing used, not the actual english dialogue from the movie.)

I never noticed that.

When I saw the Snickers commerical, I wondered about that. I didn't know they actually used a song though, I just new that was the name of the show.

That is how I view it, too. Karen was a pretty sharp cookie!

;-)wisejester7

So I'm hoping 4600 is an overexaggeration. That's a nasty case of chlymidaherpasyphilitus.

What on earth is that?

i totally get that.

So I've watched it again and Jack Nicholson said:
- Oh, come on, don't be such a fool. Close To You. We've Only Just Begun! Songs of madness and obsession!

I and my mom laughed...

There was a recent episode of According To Jim a few weeks back when whatever her name is, you know the one that has been pregnent is getting ready to give birth in the Hospital and Jim is in their with her, and she was talking about how much pain she was in, she needed something soothing to listen to, then she said that she really needed to hear the Carpenters right now

The song "Only Yesterday" is featured in the background of another film with Drew Barrymore in it . . .not sure what it's called though!

Isn't Drew Barrymore often mentioned lately at LeadSister forums?


Some fans mentioned Whoppi's "Superstar" on "Boys on the Side" on this forum, but I had not known Carpenters and parts of lyrics of "Close To You" were mentioned and sung in this movie until I saw it.
I might post this before, "Superstar" was not Carpenters arrangement but it was close to Barry Manilow's arrangement for Bette Midler. At the end of the credit I saw the name of Clive Davis!!

Sakura