IBM Selectric Typewriter - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• Capitalizing on the then-new Selectric typewriters, the IBM Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair was a large theater shaped and styled like a giant Selectric type element.
• Notable Selectric users include Isaac Asimov, Hunter S. Thompson, David Sedaris, P. J. O'Rourke, and Stephen J. Cannell.
• Aaron Sorkin credits a Selectric typewriter with interesting him in becoming a writer (although he now writes his stories on Apple Macintosh laptops).
• The 1963 Perry Mason story "The Case of the Elusive Element" turned on the fact that the pivoting textball ("element") in Selectric typewriters could easily be switched, making it impossible to know which machine had actually been used to type a message.
• The title sequence of Gerry Anderson's 1970 TV series UFO featured close-ups of a Selectric-based machine.
• In the TV series Mad Men, which is set during the early- to mid-1960s, Selectric II typewriters are featured prominently on the secretaries' desks, even though they were not introduced until 1973. In his 2008 DVD commentary, creator Matthew Weiner said the Selectric was chosen for his show for aesthetic reasons and because of the difficulty of assembling the required number of period-appropriate conventional electric typewriters.
• In Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, the writer attacked by Alex is shown using a Selectric typewriter.
• In the 2002 film Secretary, a Selectric II is shown being used by Maggie Gyllenhaal, playing the newly hired secretary Lee Holloway.
• In Philip Roth's novel The Anatomy Lesson, character Nathan Zuckerman dismisses the self-correcting Selectric II as "smug, puritanical, workmanlike" compared to his old Olivetti portable.
• In the 1976 Columbo story "Now You See Him", Jack Cassidy's perfect murder is foiled when the detective reads the killer's motive on the victim's used Selectric II carbon film ribbon.
• Philip K. Dick wrote his novels on an IBM Selectric, from 1976 (or earlier) until his death.
• The character Karen Eiffel, played by Emma Thompson in the 2006 dramatic comedy film Stranger than Fiction, writes her novel Death and Taxes on a Selectric II typewriter.
• In seasons 2 and 3 of Fringe, a Selectric II typewriter is used as a communication device to send messages to the other dimension.
• In Stephen King's novel Bag of Bones, main character Michael Noonan types his early novels using a Selectric, and his rediscovery of the machine several years later helps him to both (temporarily) conquer a cataclysmic case of writer's block and serve as a clue regarding his late wife's activities in the last year of her life.
• In the TV series Californication, lead character Hank Moody is a writer who uses a Selectric II.
• In the 1980 workplace comedy film Nine to Five, Selectric II typerwriters are shown on many of the secretaries' desks; At one point, a shot appears of Dolly Parton typing a memo, which then zooms to highlight what she's typing, showing a closeup of the printball.