Television and film of New Jersey

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Motion picture technology was invented in New Jersey, by Thomas Edison. The early work was done at his West Orange laboratory. His "Black Maria" was the first motion picture studio.
Filming first started in 1907 in Fort Lee and the first studio was constructed there in 1909.
More recent motion pictures and televisions shows also have been set in New Jersey. The popular television drama The Sopranos depicts the life of a New Jersey organized crime family and is filmed on location at various places throughout the state. The Family Man, starring Nicholas Cage was filmed in Teaneck in 2000. The 1979 film The Amityville Horror was filmed in Toms River and the scene in the church is filmed in Point Pleasant.
Cable network CNBC originates most of its in-studio programming from Englewood Cliffs. Sister news network MSNBC broadcast from studios in Secaucus from 1997 until late 2007, when the network moved to Rockefeller Center's GE Building in a cost-cutting measure by parent company NBC Universal.
MyNetworkTV flagship station WWOR-TV (Channel 9) is licensed to and broadcasts from Secaucus; former owner RKO General moved the New York-based station across the Hudson in 1983 in an unsuccessful attempt to retain the station's license.
Daddy Warbucks' mansion from the 1982 movie Annie was built in 1929 by Hubert Parson, the president of F.W. Woolworth. He called it Shadow Lawn. Now it is Woodrow Wilson Hall, owned by Monmouth University at West Long Branch, NJ.
Also in 'Annie', the raised bridge that Rooster chases Annie up is located in East Newark, NJ.
Although not credited, at least one scene from The Godfather (1972) was filmed in New Jersey. The scene in which Clemenza states the famous line, "Leave the gun. Take the cannolis," was filmed in the marsh along the Hudson River in Jersey City, just west of the Statue of Liberty, in what is now Liberty State Park.
The film Cop Land (1997) was filmed in Fort Lee, Cliffside Park, Teaneck and Edgewater.
The 2004 Sundance Film Festival favorite Garden State (starring Zach Braff and Natalie Portman) was shot on location in Maplewood and South Orange.
The popular animated series Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Megas XLR take place primarily in New Jersey.

Kevin Smith as Silent Bob, Jason Mewes as Jay

Director Kevin Smith's movies have a recurring set of characters (most famously Jay and Silent Bob) who nearly all of come from New Jersey (primarily the "tri-town" area of Atlantic Highlands, Leonardo, and Red Bank). The state appears in all of Smith's films, and his first three films, Clerks., Mallrats and Chasing Amy, were dubbed the "New Jersey Trilogy." The short-lived animated spinoff spawned by Clerks. also took place in the same locations as the movie. Smith's subsequent efforts, Dogma, Jersey Girl, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and Clerks II all had scenes taking place in various New Jersey locales.
2001's A Beautiful Mind had several scenes shot at both Princeton University and Fairleigh Dickinson University (Madison campus). The movie is a biopic of the mathematician John Nash, who currently lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
The 1994 film I.Q., about Albert Einstein's attempt to play matchmaker for his niece, was filmed in Princeton, Lawrenceville, Cranbury, and Rocky Hill.
Brian Keith, Sandra Dee, and Frank Langella were all born in Bayonne.
Actor Jack Nicholson grew up on the Jersey shore, and went to Manasquan High School in Monmouth County. The school's auditorium is named after him.
The 2004 stoner film Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle took place in New Jersey. Several locations seen in the movie include Princeton University, Newark, New Brunswick, and a fictional White Castle in Cherry Hill.
The 1993 film Coneheads was set and filmed in Paramus.
Although supposedly set in New York, the 2003 movie School of Rock was filmed primarily in Edison and Mahwah, perhaps due to the significance these towns have on rock music.
The 1988 comedy film Big starring Tom Hanks, was filmed in Cliffside Park.
The 1983 cult classic Eddie and the Cruisers was filmed mostly in Somers Point and Ocean City.
Goodfellas, the 1990 Martin Scorsese film about the mob, had some scenes filmed on location in Fort Lee.
Although depicting Newark's notorious car thieves, the 1995 film New Jersey Drive [1] was shot in East Orange and Elizabeth, as well as Brooklyn and Queens, New York.
The movie War of the Worlds was filmed in many locations in New Jersey, including Bayonne, Howell Township and Newark. The infamous radio show broadcast starring Orson Welles, The War of the Worlds was set in Grover's Mill (a section of West Windsor Township) and other locations around New Jersey.
The Ron Howard film Cinderella Man and the Elia Kazan film On the Waterfront both take place in the old Hudson County docks.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) was set in New Brunswick, and includes a scene set in "Greasy Tony's"—a real Rutgers-area eatery.
Actor and comedian Joe Piscopo was born in Passaic. In 1985, he released a comedy album entitled "New Jersey." The cover art parodied the common perception of New Jersey as nothing but freeways and factories. The following year he starred in an HBO comedy special entitled The Joe Piscopo New Jersey Special. In 2004, Piscopo announced that he was considering a run for the governor's office.^[1]
Bruce Willis grew up in Penns Grove and graduated from Penns Grove High School. He returns to the borough occasionally to visit family.
Tom Cruise briefly attended elementary school at Packanack School in the Packanack Lake section of Wayne, and went to high school and lived his teen years in Glen Ridge.
Susan Sarandon attended Edison High School in Edison.
Danny DeVito was born in Neptune, grew up in Asbury Park, went to school in Summit, and now lives in Manalapan.
Cosby Show actors Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Keshia Knight Pulliam were born in Jersey City and Newark, respectively.
The television medical drama House is set in New Jersey and takes place at the fictional Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Overhead images of the building are actually the Frist Campus Center at Princeton University.
In his comedy special What Am I Doing in New Jersey?, George Carlin comments that he believes New Jersey deserves the title "Toll Booth Capital of the United States of America." He also suggests changing the state nickname from "The Garden State" to "The Toll Booth State."
The NBC show Ed was based in the fictional town of Stuckeyville, Ohio, but filmed in various locations in New Jersey. Stuckeybowl, one of the main settings of the show and where they also had numerous sets, was located in Northvale, New Jersey before it was demolished in 2006.
The Adventures of Pete & Pete, set in the fictional town of Wellesville in an unnamed state, was filmed in New Jersey. Originally, the school scenes were shot in Bayonne and the neighborhood scenes in South Orange, and Leonia. For the third season, production took place in Cranford. The occasional New Jersey Transit Bus or other such object in a shot would occasionally give this fact away.
The first level of the Tony Hawk's Underground video game is set in an unidentified town in New Jersey. The town is depicted as a ghetto/white trash environment, stricken with a large amount of illegal narcotics. The fact that Mike Vallely refers to it as "the old neighborhood" indicates that it may be Edison, New Jersey although this can be neither confirmed or denied.
The 1998 film One True Thing, starring Meryl Streep, Renée Zellweger, and William Hurt, was filmed in the towns of Maplewood, Morristown, and at Princeton University.
The film The Wedding Singer starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore takes place in Ridgefield, New Jersey. The Broadway Musical of the same title starring Stephen Lynch as Robbie Hart and Laura Benanti as Julia Sullivan also takes place in Ridgefield.
The film The Station Agent was filmed and took place in Newfoundland, New Jersey.
Actor James L. Avery, Sr. was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey.