It's actually a miniature.[/quote] What I meant was that it wasn't shot on location. The actors were filmed on green screen.
There's a TV Tropes article on this very thing. The anime series Astro Fighter Sunred was more or less based entirely on this trope. It's a parody of Power Rangers/Ultraman-style sentai shows in which a typical episode consists of the slackerish hero bickering with his girlfriend while the not-very-successful supervillains start new part-time jobs. It's quite an amusing series, if you ever get the chance to see it. One of my favorite episodes of Steam Detectives starts with the normally-flamboyant villainess Red Scorpion on a day off, sitting at her kitchen table in jeans and a pullover, having tea and reading the newspaper (which ends up having an article in it about something she decides to steal, which sets off the rest of the episode).