Twister, one of the great blockbuster movies of the 90's turns 25 years old today.
The thrill ride, starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton galavanting across the plains of Oklahoma chasing tornadoes, raked in nearly $500 million at the box office. Only Independence Day earned more in 1996.
Of course it did well. It also starred NBC 5 Chief Meterologist Rick Mitchell as "Meterologist #3."
"The movie company came to the station (in Oklahoma City) in May of 1995," Mitchell recalled. "And they said 'Just do what you would normally do in a tornado situation, and we'll feed you a scenerio.'"
Mitchell said a few hours of filming on a Saturday turned into several clips during the movie. He still gets modest royalty checks: five or six dollars a couple times every year.
"I had one that I never cashed that was for a penny," Mitchell laughed. "But imagine what Helen Hunt is getting after all these years."
There's no doubt in Mitchell's mind that Twister is the reason for the explosion in interest in storm chasing.
"Once Twister came out everyone wanted to do it," Mitchell says. "It's basically log-jam city when you go out into the country on a stormy afternoon...but it probably spurred on a lot of future meterologists, so that's the good thing about it."
And the other good thing for Mitchell is the good will it's brought him for the last 25 years.
"It always ends up on cable somewhere at some point, and I'll have someone text me 'Hey! I'm watching Twister today,'" Mitchell says. "It's just kind of a fun novelty thing that's been a little quirk of my life that I would have never expected. And it's turned out to be so fun!"