Our Former Power Wheelchair Hits It Big In Hollywood

A few months back we received a phone call from this man who is contracted by film and production companies to make props for their shows and movies.

This guy, who we will refer to as Bill, called us asking about wheelchair parts and the like to be a part of this show on FX called 'The Americans.'

Obviously, we were very intrigued. The-Americans-Poster Long story short, Bill made the trip up from New York one Saturday morning and told us what he wanted to do with our parts. He was making a Mail Robot machine for the show.

Mail Robot machine? What the heck is that?

I had never heard of them before, but I guess they were pretty popular and useful back in the 1980's. Basically, big companies with giant offices back then used these machines to help deliver mail to their workers.

Bill told us that in the first few seasons of the TV show they used a rudimentary version of the Mail Robot, and that they would pull it using an invisible string to move it around during shooting of their office scenes.

The first model Mail Robot used in the first few seasons of 'The Americans.' The first model Mail Robot, seen above, was introduced in season 2 of 'The Americans.'[/caption] Now, Bill said, the producers wanted an upgraded version of the Mail Robot, one they could move around with tires, motors, gearboxes and a joystick controller.

Bill somehow found us online and the rest is history. He ended up purchasing one of our power wheelchairs, a Shoprider Streamer Sport, to be Frankenstein-ed back at his workshop.

Come to find out, and I wish I had started watching it sooner (it's great, by the way), the Mail Robot is actually a big part of the show, and has become one of the most central characters.

There's even a parody Twitter account for the Mail Robot. Who knew?