(upbeat music) - How do we get out of here?

- I have no idea!

I'm still trying to figure it out.

- (laughs) - But I get the sense we're not alone.

- I told you those (indistinct) weren't in my head, see?

- (laughs) - Everybody wave, wave.

There we go, I'm not crazy.

- Hi everyone, Regina and I are on location at Philly's newest attraction.

- And we will start the show as soon as we figure out where the door is.

- (laughs) - All right, everybody, we gotta get out of here.

We gotta get the show started!

Oh, it is not here.

(laughs) - [Shirley] Not in here!

- Shirley, are you tired?

- Yes!

That room of mirrors took a lot of me.

(laughs) - Well, come on, we have a show to do!

Welcome to the show, everyone.

I'm Regina Mitchell.

- And I'm Shirley Min.

Regina and I are on location again.

- We are at the museum of illusions this time in downtown Philadelphia.

- And today's show is all about museums in our region.

- There are so many museums around that we couldn't put them all in this show.

- That's right, but we have some really good ones for you.

So let's start with the brand new museum of illusions.

- Welcome to the museum of illusions!

Where education and entertainment meet to blow your mind!

Come on in.

Are you ready to work out your brain?

Because every turn in this building leads you to one of the 60 exhibits that will stimulate your senses and remind you seeing is not believing.

- We're a one of a kind, edutainment destination that's all about optical illusions.

You're gonna come, you're gonna have a great time and laugh, get some really fun pictures and you're also going to learn a thing or two about vision and perception and optical illusions.

- [Regina] Each experience is created with a deep understanding of psychology, physics, and the playful kid inside all of us.

- [Stacy] We do have immersive rooms where you can walk into them and become part of the illusion.

It helps you understand the illusions a little bit more when you actually experience it.

The Ames room, which was actually created by American ophthalmologist and psychologist, Adelbert Ames, and it's essentially a room that you walk into and guests will appear to grow and shrink as they walk from one corner of the room to the next, and it's really an experiment in forced perspective.

It's a fun illusion, you'll get some great photos.

(upbeat music) The Vortex tunnel is definitely a fan favorite here.

So you walk in and within seconds, your brain is completely confused and so is your vestibular system.

There's handrails in there for a reason.

You probably will have to use them because immediately, it throws off your center of gravity.

You feel that the floor is moving from beneath your feet when in reality, you are walking on a stable, flat surface.

- And each room comes social media ready with things like this cool camera mount and places to place your feet so get the perfect picture for Instagram, TikTok, or your own personal use.

And the best part?

When you post your pics, anyone who sees them will know exactly where you are.

- [Stacy] We definitely added a little bit of Philly flair to our museums.

So we do have our Benjamin Franklin following eyes exhibit.

We have our Elfreth's Alley building illusion.

- [Regina] And don't forget about the Philly diner which is always a great place to hang out, no matter what age you are.

- [Stacy] Yes, kids love this place.

We're great for all ages.

So we see kids, teenagers, they all have a great time here, and they are learning different science and STEM concepts here as well.

- I want to get in on some of the fun too!

- Shirley, I always knew I was bigger than you!

(both laughing) - You're a giant!

I'm a little baby.

- But see, an experience like this needs to be enjoyed with other people.

It's interactive, it's immersive, and you have to have someone else there to play against you.

- Absolutely.

But first, we are gonna head to the neon museum of Philadelphia.

It's a bright spot that's attracting visitors with its glow and local color.

(atmospheric music) - [Shirley] Len Davidson has been fascinated by neon his entire life.

- There's a collection here of probably about 120 mostly vintage neon signs.

Mostly from Philadelphia.

It's a collection that I've accumulated over the past actually 45 years approximately.

- [Shirley] As you walk around, you learn each sign has a backstory, teaching you about a Philly history you won't find in books.

- It's beautiful and it's handcrafted, and as a sociologist I was interested in the stories.

I love hanging out with the old timers.

Now I'm an old timer, but I would hang out with these guys who would start telling me stories about incredible neon signs they made and how they were animated and how they were designed, and so there's all this legend and lore about neon.

So that drew me in.

It just became a quest of a collector.

(upbeat music) We have the Pat Steaks sign from the 1950's.

So we've got some of the great signs here.

- Len, I really like the animated signs.

- Oh, yeah.

- So tell me about that because clearly you need two sets of legs.

- Right, that was made for a dive bar in South Philly called the Blue Suede Saloon and that's what called a two point animation because you've got two sets of legs going back and forth.

If you think about the volume and the quality of the signs that were made between the 30's and the 1960's, it was a tremendous era for neon and within the sign museums, and in our sign museum, it's just a tiny fraction of what was great about that period.

- [Shirley] While neon is experiencing a bit of a revival, it's a dying art and skillset which is why some of these signs are sacred to Len like the Levi's hot dog.

- So you're a 10 year old kid and you're driving from Market street up sixth street and you see this tiny little neon hot dog five blocks away and as you get closer, the hot dog starts to increase in size and then you realize it's 13 foot hot dog and you're a 10 year kid and you're going into this place that your dad had gone to and his father had gone to.

So a lot of these signs have that sense of memory and history for not just me but for a lot of people who come in here.

- Throughout the museum there are guide cards corresponding to each wall and what's really neat is if you have an anecdote connected to a particular sign, you can grab an index card, share it, post it on the wall, and it's like the museum is gathering even more Philly history as time goes on.

- The oral history personalizes it for people because they can tell their stories and it helps us tell the overall story of the signs and of Philadelphia at mid-century.

It's not about nostalgia, it's about culture.

I think of it sometimes as an American history and art museum disguised as a neon museum.

(camera shutter sounds) - I told you Regina wasn't gonna leave me out of the fun!

Whew!

Well, off to Delaware we go.

We're gonna check out two places there, the AMC and the Johnson Victrola museums.

(old timey music) - Welcome to the Johnson Victrola Museum.

For most people, Eldridge Reeves Johnson does not ring a bell.

He is the person who started Victor Records and Victor Talking Machine company.

Mr. Johnson was from Dover.

That's one of the things that we are so proud of here, is a man who did so many great things, who has very little name recognition.

(upbeat piano music) When we was a young man, he was attending school here at the Dover Boys Academy which is now Westley College.

Unfortunately, upon his graduating or finishing school, his parents were given the bad news that their son was not really bright enough to go onto college.

They sent him to a mechanic school.

He learned all of the intricate details of mechanics.

That later helped him out ten fold because there was a gentlemen who came to him with a device that played music.

You had to wind it and as you wound it, it actually played music.

So he said I think I can improve on that and so he invented a spring wound motor and he placed that on the machine and then you crank the machine up.

As the motor wound down, the record would play.

The rest is history.

(music playing) Mr. Johnson, he lived in a time where the only time you heard music is if someone was playing it live.

(upbeat music) He loved music and he felt that everyone should have access to music whenever they wanted.

Music became an integral part of daily life, not just here in America, but literally in the lives of people all over the world.

We're looking at the first quarter of the 20th century.

He built the plant in Camden.

It encompassed over 10 city blocks.

He employed over 10,000 people.

He had this great ability to market starting with his famous logo, the famous his master's voice painting, and it became one of the most famous logos in the world.

The dog, Nipper, who is in the painting, he took on a life of his own and became one of the most significant international icons of probably that time period.

The first inventions were tabletop machines and then a lot of housewives said that the horns are big and unsightly and they collect dust, and they came up with the idea let's turn the horn around, stick it inside of a decorative wooden box, we'll call that the Victrola, which is what happened.

The history of the grammy actually starts here.

We have a grammy that Mr. Johnson was awarded posthumously but the reason why they call it a grammy is because that's short for gramophone, and if you actually look at the grammy award itself, it is one of Victor's little tiny machines on a pedestal.

(music playing) The message that I want to give to all people who come to this museum is just because you have people who don't think that you're very smart or that you have good ideas, does not mean that you are not destined to do great and wonderful and extraordinary things.

Mr. Johnson, he touched the lives of people all over the world and it started here.

(dramatic music) - My name is Michael Hurlburt.

I'm the operations manager here at the AMC museum.

I served in the US Air Force from 1994 up until 2017.

The Air Mobility Command Museum, we specialize in mobility, air lift, tankers, air medical evacuation, and humanitarian relief efforts.

Our museum is 100% free.

Free parking, free admission.

We have aircraft from World War II, Korean War, from Vietnam all the way up until the most recent C-5 which is serving still in the global war on terrorism.

We operate with a total of three staff members but over 100 volunteers that donate more than 3,000 hours a month of their time and we just could not do it without them.

- My name is Don Hall.

I served from 1963 in the Air Force to 1969.

- My name is David Doyle.

I served under 10 presidents while in the Air Force.

- I'm Mike Phillips.

I served the United States Air Force from 1969 to 1989.

- My name is Paul George.

I served in the army in 1961 to '64.

- My name is Bob Bourbona.

Bourbon with an a on the end of it.

I spent 20 years in the Navy as a Navy pilot from 1964 to 1985.

- My name is Chuck Lyon.

I was in service for 20 and four months.

- They bring an individual experience, each and every one of 'em, and they share their stories with our visitors and it's just priceless.

- I work as a volunteer tour guide and I work in restoration.

My father served in World War II.

Three days after D-Day, that plane, the C-47, landed on a makeshift field behind Omaha beach to remove 24 wounded back to England.

My father landed on Omaha on D-Day plus one.

(upbeat music) - This is a unique museum.

I enjoy the people who work here.

Some of these airplanes I actually flew on.

- I started with the museum 20 years ago.

There's a couple of the airplanes in the group on the ramp that I had flown while I was in service.

- I love coming here because of the history.

I love the people that come in here 'cause most of 'em have served.

So it's the sharing of history with people that are very interested.

- One of the things is to honor prior veterans and current service people.

It's so important that they understand what that generation gave.

My father was four years away from home.

- Like having an appreciation for the people that came before us.

I know a lot of people walk out of here, I think, with a real appreciation for the ingenuity, the talent of the American people.

That's what we need to do.

Remember the history that preceded us.

- When you tell them some of the things they don't know, you hear wow, I never knew that, and that's what I like to hear.

- [Michael] When people see that airplane and they see what they actually went through, it just brings history to life.

I don't think you can show enough honor for those that have served in this country.

(camera shutter sounds) - From the serene sounds of the guided tour to a leisurely stroll, these are just some of the attractions you'll find at the Brandywine and Liberty Museum.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Brandywine River Museum of Art.

Today, we are here to do our third stroller tour with the theme of illustration.

We have on the second Tuesday of every month.

Each month is a different theme.

We've found that some of our families were feeling uncomfortable coming out in case their little one would have a tantrum or start crying.

So this was a way for our families to be able to take a deep breath and be like hey, this is okay.

The adults get to get out of their house.

They get to meet and greet with other adults.

They get to have an adult level conversation with the (indistinct) but the little ones also get to get out of their house.

They like walking around the river afterwards and playing on the cow and the pig.

So I think it's kind of two fold where both the adults and the little ones get something out of this.

- I'm a big fan of this museum in general so it's just a chance to get out of the house and do something fun (laughs) and culturally relevant.

He's in a little bit of a restless tantrum now but we can still come here and stretch our legs and see some beautiful art.

- [Liesl] This is a chance for our kids to start coming in at a very young age.

So we really want to show that the museum is for everyone and every age, and that this is just your first introduction to an art museum.

I always am just amazed by what the kids get out of art and out of the tours.

I've had kids that have to go visit the pig because they have such a close connection to it.

They understand color, shape, form, at such a young age.

- If you come on the weekend, you don't know if everyone is going to be amenable to having children in the group.

While the content is not directed necessarily for children, the atmosphere is welcoming to them.

It makes it a more pleasant experience for everybody.

- It's fun to come here and see all the beautiful things.

I, of course, want to expose my son to all types of culture including art.

- Art museum is for everyone and it doesn't matter your age, shape, size, anything.

This is for everyone to come and enjoy art.

- I'm just really pleased to be able to bring my kids to something like this.

We love local history and local culture, and just to expose them from a young age to beautiful works of art.

We always try to buy children's books that have beautiful illustrations and so to get them to be able to see the real thing in person is an experience that we'd love to be able to do again and again.

(slow music) - So this exhibit is two fold.

We talk about the life of our founder, Irvin Borowsky.

and also incorporate his love of glass.

He believed that glass was a very good teaching tool and our exhibit is called strength and fragility.

The concept is just like our liberty, glass is fragile and once it's broken, it's hard to put back together.

So just like glass, our liberty needs to be preserved.

Our freedoms need to be preserved.

So when visitors arrive, they'll read about the life of Irvin Borowsky, our founder.

You'll also experience a sound bath when you talk in.

(slow music) It will be an immersive experience which when you are under the peace portal and you're listening to these sounds, you're in a meditative space and we invite visitors to reflect on peace, on diversity, on how you can be an active citizen and make a difference in your community just like Mr. Borowsky did.

The main piece in our exhibit is called the peace portal but Ulla Darni.

It is a 10 foot high by eight wide structure.

So it's really like a canopy that you could stand under and the canopy is a reverse painting on glass.

But if you look at that canopy, you can interpret it in different ways.

(dramatic music) The centerpiece of our museum is the flame of liberty created by Dale Chihuly.

It spans two floors in our museum and that was a conversation between the artist, Dale Chihuly and Mr. B. Dale said, Irv, this piece needs to be higher.

You need to put a hole in that ceiling so that we can have it go two floors.

So it's a beautiful piece.

There's nothing like it in Philadelphia.

I'm hoping when people leave, they walk away with a feeling of open inspiration in the future and how important it is to get along.

(camera shutter sounds) - Well, we have explored every square inch of this museum.

Woo!

- Hey, there!

(both laughing) It was fun but I think I'm a little bit hungry.

- Was not expecting you to pop up out of there.

Well, this next museum just might hit the spot.

- Scratch?

Yeah, yes!

(both laughing) (upbeat music) - Wow, what if we did something that talked about pizza culture in the format of a small museum?

Surely somebody else has done this.

Surely there's a pizza museum in Italy somewhere!

Surely there's a pizza museum in New York or Chicago of all place and there wasn't, and as we were going through the process in 2011 of collecting stuff, we also wondered if there was Guinness World Record out there.

Sure enough, there was neither another pizza museum and there wasn't a Guinness World Record that we could find and the New York Times wrote an article about us and they took a long time to write their article because they did their due diligence to see whether or not there was another pizza museum.

There was nothing.

So we're like this is kind of unique.

We wanted to talk about why pizza was so big to all of us.

Why do we love pizza so much?

What is it about pizza that draws us?

And with each item that we collected, there was a story, whether it was a toy or a book or a movie.

We were just amazed at how many things are out there that are pizza themed and that's what the record is for.

It's for the world's largest collection of pizza related items.

(Italian sounding music) Some people call it memorabilia.

Some people call it junk.

One man's junk is another man's treasure, obviously.

But this isn't a history museum but we did want to tell the story of how pizza became popular and how it became this big thing, especially to Americans.

And so that's what is all around us through all of the objects that celebrate pizza or are about pizza.

We have 70 years of records, for example.

People were making music about pizza long before pizza even really became a household word in the US.

Same with cartoons and comic books and movies and TV shows and some of these records are really, really cool.

Some of the circular ones and the prints with pizzas on them or patterns that have the wold pizza written out all around them.

And it's really awesome to go back and to see the album art and to see all of the effort that went into not only the band, but also to convey that this band is all about pizza.

I also love how pizza is a brand that is used to promote other brands.

There's a Porsche ad up there and that's one of my favorite examples of that.

It's a $100,000 car that's being sold to you through pizza.

(laughs) That's kind of amazing to me.

Hands down personal favorite, there are three puzzles that are from the 60's and it was right when pizza was becoming popular and they are puzzles about mother goose nursery rhymes but they're in a circle and they have a pie crust around them and they're called pizza puzzles.

People obviously like anything Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

We do have a giant Michelangelo framed picture and people sort of gather around it.

Like they pay homage to the turtles.

I think that what's really unique about it is that it took Philly to tell this story and it wasn't told in New York, it wasn't told in Chicago.

It was kind of overlooked and to me, it's a really interesting part of our vibe that doesn't really exist in other parts of the country.

The creativity, the willingness to do something new, and to make it top notch and exciting.

Yeah, that's Philly.

That's Philly.

- That settles it, we are going for pizza.

- (laughs) That sounds good to me!

And if you would like to get a slice of the pizza brain museum or learn more about any of the museums featured here, head over to our website.

- Do you get the feeling we're being watched?

- (laughs) Yes, 'cause we are!

Mind your business, Ben!

(both laughing) - Hey listen, there's still one more illusion we gotta try.

- I have an idea what it is.

- Come on, you totally got this!

- Well, we'll see you on the other side, I hope.

- Bye, everybody.

(both laughing) Shirley, you go first!

- Oh, thanks.

(laughs) Oh my god!

Oh my god!

(both screaming) - I got you, I got you!

- Whoa!

Okay, whew!

- Close my eyes and feel my way through this.