No doubt it’s the same for other industries, but we – and our readers – can’t help getting excited when laundry equipment has a role in film and TV dramas, even when it’s only a bit part.

The aficionados amongst us note the models and makes, even losing track of the plot conversations while studying washers and dryers, finishing equipment and other familiar machinery. There can be a touch of nostalgia too when the storyline is set in the past and the production team have managed to source old equipment, or at least the shells of it, as a backdrop in scenes.

While laundry equipment, OPLs and launderettes have appeared in both TV soaps and big screen offerings, which we’ll come to, we’ve yet to see a drama set in a commercial laundry – if you know differently please let us know. Surely they could fit a conveyor system carrying bags of linen into the next James Bond adventure?

And there’s something else to acknowledge… when a macabre setting is needed, particularly in a horror or fantasy show, apparently gloomy laundry machinery comes into its own, complete with ‘Don’t go in there’ sound effects. The latest one to make the most of this is the last series of Stranger Things, a Netflix success which ran for five seasons, culminating in a dramatic finale at the end of 2025. While series fans were excited, for the Pellerin Milnor Corporation it was a chance to point out that a row of 1980s versions of their washers appeared in a pivotal scene based in a scary basement laundry of a hospital.

The Stranger Things heroes are cornered by devilish Demadog monsters in the laundry and end up hiding ‘Jurassic Park-style’ among the washers. They escape when a mother of one of the cast arrives and puts an oxygen tank in a dryer and sets it to the highest temperature. There’s an explosion which kills the pack of monsters, while the stars escape through the rubble.

Most viewers will have hardly noticed the machine during all this excitement, but for Pellerin Milnor it was a highlight. And as viewer Richard Brown, owner of R Brown Specialist Laundry Engineering in Ringwood, Hampshire, says: “It’s great to see known brands in films and series. The older among us will remember hearing a Spencer 350 spinning up in the background in the film ‘Scum’.”

While construction company director Brian McCann adds: “Have been out of this industry for six years but spotted this immediately. Sold Milnor for three years. I’m still getting over the Braun tilt-washer used in Breaking Bad.”

So where else has our sector enjoyed a bit of screen fame? Most will know the launderette in EastEnders, but some of the mystery was taken away when an actress revealed that the washers and dryers didn’t actually work and there was apparently a man behind the scenes turning round the drums to make it look like they were in action.

Launderettes have also featured in Friends (a desperate Ross lurks for hours there in the hope of spending time with Rachel); Fight Club, Baby Driver and Anchorman2. And, of course, the 1985 romantic comedy drama My Beautiful Laundrette is built around refurbishing and managing one. But mostly laundry equipment appears in supernatural thrillers and horror films, including the Halloween series, and in Tales from the Darkside there’s even an episode about a spooky Chinese launderette that washes away sins.

If you’ve spotted equipment you sell or work with on the small or big screen, do let us know.

Somehow a story of secret gay love and racial      discrimination was built around a shop refurbishment