A car shop that only builds screen-accurate reproductions of famous cars like The A-Team van and Doc Brown's DeLorean from Back to the Future sounds like a much more interesting target for a reality show than a group of white trash, beauty pageant freaks without a moral compass.
Apparently executives at the Reelz Channel agree with us.
Robert Moseley, owner and operator of Bob's Prop Shop in Flower Mound, says Reelz will debut Screen Machines, a reality show based around his movie car business, Tuesday, Dec. 2nd. The series will also get its first public screening at a special premiere on the same day at the Alamo Drafthouse in Richardson.
Each episode of the show show will feature Bob and his crew as they attempt to build an iconic movie or TV show car from scratch at the request of a memorabilia collector or a special celebrity connected to the actual car. Some of the upcoming episodes include builds of the Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters, Tony Montana's 1963 Cadillac Series 62 convertible complete with a tiger skin interior and KITT from Knight Rider featuring a cameo from David Hasselhoff, Moseley says.
"This is something we've been working on for a long time," Moseley says. "It's something I wanted to do my whole life. I just didn't know it was going to happen with me doing cars."
Bob's Prop Shop started by accident. Moseley's early endeavors dipped a toe in just about every job you could get in the entertainment industry. Moseley got his start in TV on the cable access circuit as "Videobob" throughout the 90s on shows with names like Underground Connection and Videobob's Stupid Movie of the Week that he says received airtime through syndication. He also did video production on the side for TV commercials and music videos for metal bands like Pantera and Hellyeah!, as well as for Pantera drummer Vinne Paul's Big Vin Record. He also ran a restaurant called The Grill at Reno's that caught some attention in its time on Crowdus Street and even tried stand-up, which he says he "failed [at] miserably."
Building movie and TV props and cars was just a quirky hobby and a unique way to bring people into his restaurant until he started showing them off at car shows. He says people starting asking him if they could build a DeLorean time machine or a KITT for them and in 2009, the car shop became his livelihood.
Three years ago, the publicity his shop attracted caught the attention of reality show producers and earned him a guest spot on the Discovery Channel's Auction Kings where he actually sold one of his DeLoreans.
"I should have gotten twice as much for the car but it got me a lot of exposure," he says. "One of the cameramen on that show approached me during shooting and wanted to make a teaser reel for me."
Moseley also continued to make guest spots on other shows like AMC's Pawn Stars where he sold one of the many Ghostbusters' Proton Packs from his shop to the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas to Corey Harrison and The Old Man for $1,050. AMS Pictures of Dallas saw Bob's appearance on the show and thought his shop would make for a good reality show pitch.
"I think it's going to be a real big hit for Reelz," he says. "People asked me when will you run out of movie cars and the truth is that I don't think we ever will. We sit around and had brainstorming sessional and easily came up with 100 cars and props we could do."
Moseley said he doesn't just hope his show will bring more customers into the shop but that it also will bring more TV shows back to the Metroplex.
"I'd like to see a lot more productions come back to the Dallas area," Moseley says.
Screen Machines debuts on REELZ Channel at 10 p.m. Tuesday, December 2.
