What do these things have in common: A bald eagle soaring through the sky. A crook reaching under the dashboard of a car. A body washing up on a beach.
George Berkheimer of Laurel, Md., said that whenever he sees a bald eagle flying across a movie screen he waits “with dread.” The image is invariably followed by the screech not of an eagle, but of a red-tailed hawk.
That annoys Jody Marshall of McLean, Va., too, who admits that the eagle’s call is kind of wimpy.
But it’s not just the hawk-for-eagle swap that’s commonplace. “The laughing kookaburra is another standard example,” Jody wrote. “Native to Australia, its maniacal call is used in scenes depicting African or South American jungles. Then there are the western birds used as ambient ‘color’ in scenes depicting the eastern United States, and vice versa. It bothers me when we don’t value the natural world enough to portray it accurately.”
Mike Briguglio of North Potomac, Md., finds the ease with which a character hot-wires a car — starting it without a key — laughable. Mike wrote: “You have not been able to pull some wires from under the dash and touch them together to start a car and be able to drive it for decades. Lame.”
Speaking of cars, a reader named English Brent Taylor said he plays a little game whenever a person is depicted driving a car on TV. He looks to see if the car is in Park. “You know: the shift lever up high when looking in the windshield,” Brent wrote. “Maybe they just have different autos in Hollywood.”
Peter Quinn of Cabin John, Md., notices how often in TV and movies people get out of a taxicab before paying the driver.
“Any self-respecting cabbie would lock the doors before letting a passenger get out without handing the fare over first,” he wrote.
Whenever Ken Herst of Springfield, Va., sees a mutilated corpse — on a TV show! — he awaits a familiar trope: the victim being identified “through dental records.”
Ken wrote: “Really? I know there is a national DNA database and the national fingerprint database, but I am not familiar with a national dental records database. If they don’t know who the victim is, how can they go to his or her dentist to get the dental records?”
Michael R. Dudley of Stafford, Va., spent 32 years in the U.S. Army. “I tend to look closely at the uniforms, haircuts and hand salutes of actors on television and in movies,” he wrote. “There is almost always something out of kilter, especially on dress uniforms. Hair is often too long and hand salutes are rendered in a sloppy fashion. After a career of doing all of these things correctly I’m appalled at the apparent disregard for attention to detail.”
A reader named Lisa from Washington state agrees. She has a specific gripe with the Fox TV show “The Resident.” It’s a show she likes, but she feels the whole premise is wrong.
The character played by actor Matt Czuchry is supposed to be a doctor who gained experience in the Marine Corps, with deployments in war zones.
“He has a huge tattoo of the Marine Corps slogan ‘Death Before Dishonor’ on his back,” Lisa wrote. “Problem is, the Marine Corps does not have its own medical staff. Navy corpsmen serve as medics to deployed Marine units, and their doctors are naval officers, not Marines.”
Caroline Nothwanger is a veterinarian in Virginia. Her blood pressure rises when she sees a doctor on a TV medical show don a stethoscope with the earpieces facing backward.
“The earpieces should point forwards — toward the nose — so that they will direct sound down the ear canal,” she wrote. “They are a little harder to put on this way, but once you know it’s wrong, you can’t un-see it.”
Who knew?
Well, probably Paula Refo, a registered nurse who lives in Warrenton, Va. She pointed out another medical reversal: “In medical shows, the oxygen tubing is often backward, behind the head rather than under the chin and around the ears.”
Paula figures they do this “to make the person look more attractive.”
Hmm. That does sound like something Hollywood might do.
Twitter: @johnkelly
For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/john-kelly.