Michelle’s Downhill Derby from “Full House”

There’s nothing like remnants of a film shoot remaining behind years after the fact to set my heart aflutter.  Last June, a fellow stalker named Chris kindly emailed me a lengthy and comprehensive list of Full House locations he had tracked down, one of which was the Griffith Park road where the Downhill Derby from Season 7’s “Michelle a la Cart” took place.  Though I did not remember the episode, the locale had me particularly intrigued thanks to some vestiges from the shoot Chris noted were still visible.  As he wrote in his email, “In the 2007 imagery on Google Street View, you can still see the faded lane markings on the road from the race.”  Um, sign me up!  So onto my To-Stalk List the site went and I finally headed out there to see it in person a few weeks ago.

In re-watching “Michelle a la Cart” in preparation for this post, I realized there’s a reason I did not recall it from its original airing in 1994 – the episode just isn’t all that memorable.  It centers around three less-than-scintillating storylines.  First, D.J. Tanner (Candance Cameron) laments a phone message left by her ex-boyfriend, Steve Hale (Scott Weinger) – she thinks he’s despondent over their recent break-up, but it turns out he just really wants a CD back.  Then there’s Joey Gladstone (Dave Coulier) who attempts to learn ballet from Stephanie Tanner (Jodie Sweetin) in the hopes it will improve his hockey-playing skills, which gives us this great visual.   Oh, Joey!

In the main narrative, Michelle Tanner (Mary-Kate and Ashely Olsen) decides to build a soapbox car with her aunt Becky (Lori Loughlin) so she can compete in the local Downhill Derby and defeat neighborhood meanie Kenny (K. Evan Bonifant), who thinks she can’t win because she’s a girl.  Though lackluster as a whole, the episode did give us a great zinger from Michelle.  When faced with her nemesis’ jeering, she tells him, “My dad said if I can’t say anything nice then I shouldn’t say anything at all . . . but my dad’s not here and you’re a weenie!”  (You can see a clip of the fabulous moment here.)

The episode culminates in the big Downhill Derby competition, which was set up on Vista Del Valle Drive just west of where it intersects with North Vermont Canyon Road in Griffith Park.  The race’s starting point was positioned at the very eastern edge of Vista Del Valle Drive, close to where it dead ends.

The finish line was set up about two hundred feet away, where the hilly part of the road bottoms out.

(Spoiler alert – Michelle, of course, wins the derby and, in the process, learns that girls can do anything boys can do.)

In the episode, the racers’ lanes are made up of uninterrupted white lines and dotted yellow lines, as you can see below.

It is those lines that are still visible today – not just on Google Street View imagery from 2007 as Chris had mentioned, but in real life, too.

Though extremely faded, the dotted yellow lines . . .

. . . and the uninterrupted white lines are still somewhat intact, as you can see in my photos above and below.

While I originally assumed that the markings were painted onto the road strictly for the Full House shoot, it is entirely possible they were there prior to the filming – especially since the yellow lines pictured in my images appear to be newer additions.  Considering said lines are not typical road boundaries, though (I have never seen anything like them, at least), and it is unclear as to exactly what they designate, I do not believe they are original elements of the street.  Either way, I love that markings visible in a shoot that took place 24 years ago remain evident today.

While I was stalking the Downhill Derby site, security guards happened to be setting up street closures on the premises for a concert that was taking place nearby later that night.  I can only imagine their befuddlement in seeing me bounce all over the road, enthusiastically snapping photo after photo of faded lines and loudly exclaiming to the Grim Cheaper how thrilled I was to be seeing them in person.  Ah, to be on the outside looking in.

Big THANK YOU to Chris for finding this location and telling me about it!

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Downhill Derby from the “Michelle a la Cart” episode of Full House took place on Vista Del Valle Drive just west of where it intersects with North Vermont Canyon Road in Griffith Park.  (Be advised, some maps refer to Vista Del Valle as “Boy Scout Road,” though Google Maps and my GPS both recognize the street as Vista Del Valle.)

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