USA TODAY International Edition
‘ Bad’ breaks in the Smithsonian as Blue Sky takes its place in history
WASHINGTON Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan has a new favorite museum: the National Museum of American History. He and the cast of the Emmywinning AMC drama reunited there Tuesday to donate props to the Smithsonian.
“I’m sorry to say it, Air and Space Museum, but another has taken your place in my heart,” the show’s creator jokes.
You can’t fault Gilligan: Getting crystal meth into the Smithsonian kind of trumps astronaut ice cream. “If you had told me there’d be crystal meth in the same museum as the Star- Spangled Banner, Thomas Edison’s light bulb, Abraham Lincoln’s pocket watch and Dorothy’s ruby slippers, I’d have told you you were using too much of Walter White’s product.”
Two baggies of his signature baby- blue highly potent ( but fake) drug are part of the exhibit, scheduled to open in 2018, along with hazmat suits and gas masks worn by stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul.
Among other artifacts, donated by Bad producer Sony Pictures Television: a soda cup from Los Pollos Hermanos, Gustavo Frink’s ( Giancarlo Esposito) money- laundering fast- food restaurant, and the DEA badge belonging to Dean Norris’ ill- fated Hank Schrader.
And then there’s the pièce de résistance: the black hat that transformed Walter White from from a meek, cancer- stricken chemistry teacher to Heisenberg, the fearsome drug lord — or as he famously put it, “the one who knocks.”
When Cranston was introduced to the crowd at the ceremony, he went straight for that hat and tried it on, explaining, “I wanted to see if it still fits.” He and Gilligan each kept one after Breaking Bad wrapped in 2013 after five seasons.
Paul’s most prized possession is the one- eyed burned pink teddy bear that landed in Walt’s pool as the result of a plane crash in Season 2. “They made four, and Vince gave me the one they actually used in that scene,” he says. ( It’s now in his living room.)
If Breaking Bad’s Smithsonian exhibit is a hit, curators could easily produce a macabre sequel featuring the unusual items used to kill people on the show. Gilligan’s pick? The cartrunk- mounted machine gun Walt engineered near the end of the series. Paul voted for the box cutter Gus used to murder one of his own henchman. And Cranston chose “the barrel of hydrofluoric acid that we used to melt people.” He can picture tourists saying, “Come on kids, jump in the barrel!”