Category: Movie Locations

A Peek Inside the Pink House from “13 Going On 30”

As I mentioned in Monday’s post, this past weekend, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I actually got to GO INSIDE the pink house featured at the end of fave romantic comedy 13 Going On 30. Those of you who read my blog regularly know that I absolutely LOVE 13 Going On 30 and that Jenna’s pink Craftsman style home is one of my very favorite filming locations of all time!   Mike actually found this location for me back in May of 2008, after what seemed like MONTHS of me begging him to track it down.  LOL But even though Mike was the one who actually located the house, he had yet to stalk it himself. So, I just HAD to take him there on Saturday while the two of us were in the area.

As fate would have it, when I first blogged about Jenna’s pink house back in May of 2008, the real life homeowner, an AMAZINGLY NICE woman named Mimi, happened to stumble upon my site and was amazed to see a post dedicated to her residence. LOL  Mimi ended up leaving me a comment where she mentioned that after the filming of 13 Going On 30 had been completed, she and her husband asked the production crew who were repainting the house back to its original color to leave one brick pink in memory of the movie. HOW COOL IS THAT???? So, when I took Mike to stalk the place on Saturday, the two of us stood there on the sidewalk for quite some time, scrutinizing every square inch of the house looking for that brick. LOL Well, Mimi happened to see us through her front window and came outside to say hello. She recognized me from my site and said “Do you want to see the pink brick?” Well, as you can imagine, I just about DIED. I had been itching to see that brick ever since I first read her comment over a year ago!   🙂

The brick is actually located on the rear side of a post in the driveway area of the home and I could NOT have been more excited to be seeing it in person!!!!! I can’t tell you how cool it is that Mimi and her husband left that one brick pink! I SO SO SO LOVE IT!  Mimi is truly a woman after my own heart! 🙂 Except, knowing me, I probably would have left the whole house pink! LOL 🙂

Then, just as I was about to die of excitement over seeing that brick, Mimi asked us if we wanted to come inside to see the living room area where they had also filmed!!!! DID WE WANT TO COME INSIDE????? DID WE WANT TO COME INSIDE?????? LOL OF COURSE WE DID! Well, it turns out that the mantle area shown in the movie was a fake that was built solely for the filming in what is really Mimi’s dining room. The production crew covered over the large window pictured above with a fake wall, a fake fireplace, and a fake mantle. Mimi said that the crew spent about a week building one fireplace, only to have the producers not like it.  So, they ended up having to rip it out and build a new one entirely from scratch.  She said it was an amazingly intricate fireplace made out of tile, but, ironically enough, after what amounted to two weeks of construction on two different fireplaces, neither one was ever seen in the movie. LOL LOL LOL  In the scene when Jenna is unpacking photographs, the camera never shows anything below the top right corner of the mantle area.   So, all of that fireplace construction was pretty much for naught. Only in Hollywood, I swear!

Adding to the irony is the fact that there is already a fireplace and a mantle in the house that could have been used in the scene! LOL   Too funny!

I can’t tell you how exciting it was to be able to see the interiors of the home in person and to hear all of the behind-the-scenes info! Truly a once in a lifetime!   All in all,  filming at the house took two weeks to complete, including the painting and construction time. The actual filming of the scene between Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo took less than one day to shoot. LOL And, amazingly enough, the pink house scene wasn’t the movie’s original ending, but a re-shoot that was filmed after the first ending didn’t fare well with test audiences.

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Mimi’s house has also been featured in a commercial and the Season 2 episode of Cold Case entitled “Who’s Your Daddy”.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The pink house from 13 Going On 30 is located at 1965 Fletcher Avenue in South Pasadena, just a few doors down from the Step by Step house, which is located at 2011 Fletcher. The house from Kelly Clarkson’s Because Of You video is located across the street at 2006 Fletcher Ave. Please respect the owner’s privacy and don’t trepass, knock on the door, or ask to be let inside.   Mike and I were extremely lucky to be invited inside the house, but as this is not common practice, please don’t bother the owner about doing it yourself.

August 13, 2009
The “Never Been Kissed” Prom

A couple of weeks ago, thanks to fellow stalker Chas, I was able to stalk the location of South Glen South High School’s prom from the 1999 movie Never Been Kissed.   Chas and I both knew that the prom interiors had been filmed at the Ebell of Los Angeles – a women’s educational and philanthropic club which has a long and storied film history and which I promise to blog about in the near future – but the exterior scenes had actually been filmed at another location entirely. It was that exterior location that I asked Chas to find during my Never Been Kissed stalking kick a few weeks back. Ironically, he told me that it was the one location from the movie that he didn’t think he would be able to track down. Well, I guess he just doesn’t realize how good he really is because a few hours later he emailed me back with an address and, sure enough, it was the spot!!   YAY!

Ironically enough, the exterior Never Been Kissed prom location can actually be found just a block and a half away from the Ebell.    Why the two different locations you ask? Well, my best guess is that producers wanted to shoot Drew and the gang’s entrance to the dance at a building with a large drop-off area, which the Ebell unfortunately doesn’t have.  So, when they found a suitable building located just two short blocks away, they decided to film the entrance scene there instead. Just another example of the magic of Hollywood at work! 🙂

For some odd reason I could not find much information about the Never Been Kissed prom location online, even though it looks like it could be some sort of historic structure.   I’m actually very surprised that it is not on the National Register of Historic Places, as it is a truly beautiful place. The only information I was able to discover is that the Mediterranean style building, which used to be a private residence, was converted to commercial office space in 1981. While it is currently vacant, in the past the building housed the Metropolitan Talent Agency and, most recently, a wedding coordination company named the Ahn Gallery.   You can see interior photographs of the building on its leasing website here.

Big THANK YOU to Chas for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!   🙂

Stalk It: The Never Been Kissed prom site is located at 4526 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Note – if you search this location using Google Maps, the building will not show up. You have to move about a block to the West to see it. 🙂 The Ebell of Los Angeles, where the interior prom scenes were filmed, is located just down the street at 743 South Lucerne Boulevard. Unfortunately, both properties are currently closed to the public.

August 12, 2009
The “Rumor Has It” House

Out of the blue last week, fellow stalker Owen and I became a bit obsessed with finding the white clapboard colonial style home used in the 2005 Jen Aniston movie Rumor Has It. For some extremely odd reason, neither Owen (who is also a HUGE JA fan) nor I had ever tried to locate the house before. I didn’t especially love the movie, though, in spite of the fact that it starred my girl Jen, so that’s probably why I never sought it out. But, last week, when Owen mentioned the movie to me, we both got the exact same thought in our head at the exact same time – “We have GOT to find that house!” LOL And find it, we did! Well, he did, actually!

Even though the movie supposedly takes places in Pasadena and even though the house looks like a very typical Pasadena area home – there’s a white clapboard colonial on practically every corner here – I was convinced that, in typical Hollywood fashion, the house would most likely be located elsewhere.  Because Pasadena stands in for pretty much every city in pretty much every state in pretty much every movie LOL, it seemed only fitting that when a production called for a Pasadena area home, the location scouts would find it in a city other than Pasadena. LOL

So, imagine my surprise when Owen texted me to let me know that he had found the house exactly where the movie said it would be.   While searching the IMDB Rumor Has It message boards he found a thread entitled “White Colonial In Pasadena Used As Movie Set” where a man had written the following entry: “It was quite a shock seeing Rumor Has it while flying back to Boston. I suddenly recognized the home my grandfather built in Pasadena at 717 South Hudson Avenue in 1920 and that I lived in briefly in 1946-47 while my father built a new home near the Annandale golf course. Not often that one sees one’s childhood home used as a movie set — and sees Shirley MacLaine walking out the front door or Kevin Costner arriving.”   So, Owen googled the address and, sure enough, it was the house!!    THANK YOU, IMDB!

So, of course, as soon as I had the address, I immediately ran right out to stalk the house! 🙂   Surprisingly enough, I had actually parked RIGHT in front of the Rumor Has It house just two weeks prior while stalking the Dickie Roberts house, which is ironically located just two doors down!!!!    I felt like such an airhead for not recognizing the house at the time, but, in my defense, it actually looks quite different in person than it did in the movie. The paint color has been changed from white and forest green to more muted tones and, sadly, the house just isn’t as charming in person as it was in Rumor Has It.  Don’t get me wrong, the house is cute, it’s just not AS cute as it was in the movie. But there was also something else that looked quite different to me that I just couldn’t put my finger on – until I got home.

In person, the house seemed much smaller than it did in Rumor Has It and I couldn’t figure out why until I was able to compare screen captures from the movie to the photographs I had just taken. As you can see in the above screen capture, producers actually put large hedges over the real driveway of the home and extended the curb and grass area on the sidewalk in front of the driveway, making the front yard appear much larger than it actually is.

In the scene when Jen Aniston’s father pulls up to the house, he actually parks in the real life home’s neighboring driveway (pictured above)!  LOL Why go to all of that trouble just to give the illusion that the house is larger than it actually is? Why not just film at a bigger house? As I mentioned above there are houses similar to this one on practically every Pasadena street corner.   LOL Ah, the magic of Hollywood!

But even though the house looked quite different in person than it did in the movie, I was still absolutely floored to be stalking it! It was soooo exciting to think that my girl Jen – and Shirley MacLaine and Kevin Costner – had once stood on the very same sidewalk that I was now standing on. 🙂 LOVE IT!

Had to do it! 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Rumor Has It house is located at 717 South Hudson Avenue in Pasadena, just two houses down from the home used in Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star.

August 10, 2009
The Jerry Maguire House

A couple of months ago, I gave Mike, from MovieShotsLA, the mission of locating Dorothy Boyd’s house from the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire.   From a quick internet search, Mike was able to ascertain that Dorothy’s tiny yellow house was located in an area of Manhattan Beach known as the “Tree Section”. The home’s exact location, though, was not mentioned anywhere online and since Google Maps Street View is not available in Manhattan Beach, we were unable to locate the house using the internet. So, two weeks ago, Mike and I set about to stalk Manhattan Beach’s Tree Section in person.  Our plan was to literally drive up and down each street in the neighborhood until we found Dorothy’s house.  But, thanks to a very lucky twist of fate, it never actually came to that.

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The Tree Section of Manhattan Beach is thus named not because of an abundance of trees as one might guess, but because the vast majority of streets in the area are named after different types of trees, such as Palm, Walnut, Oak, and Elm. It is said that the Tree Section is one of the most sought after areas to live in Manhattan Beach due to its rural neighborhood feel which has been maintained thanks to extremely narrow streets, lack of sidewalks, tiny houses built in the ’40s and ’50s, and proximity to the beach.  Oddly enough, though, when Mike and I arrived in Manhattan Beach, we could not find the Tree Section anywhere.   After driving around in what seemed like circles for quite some time, we pulled over to ask a random woman to point us in the right direction. The woman immediately asked us, “Well, is there a particular street you are looking for?” We both pretty much started laughing and told her we had NO idea what street we were looking for.   Thinking we were probably crazy, she then said “Well, what is it you are trying to find?”   Figuring she would have absolutely NO IDEA what were talking about, we told her we were looking for the Jerry Maguire house. Well, lo and behold, she started laughing and said “Oh my God, one of my good friends from high school lived across the street from that house during the filming. I know exactly where it is!” Honestly, what are the odds???? The stalking gods must have been watching out for us that day, because of all the people in Manhattan Beach to ask for directions, we find the one who knows exactly where the JM house is! Our new best friend then gave us detailed directions to the house and Mike and I were on our way! YAY!

Before arriving at the house, Mike was worried that it may have been remodeled, as sadly that is fairly commonplace with the older Tree Section homes. So, we were both absolutely FLOORED when we pulled up and saw that the house looked EXACTLY- and I do mean EXACTLY – the same today as it did over thirteen years ago when the movie was filmed. It is absolutely incredible to me that virtually no part of the house has been changed in the almost decade and a half since filming took place. The paint color, the landscaping, even the house number plaque all the look exactly the same. HOORAY!

The only difference that I noticed was the tree in front, which used to have a second limb that crossed in front of the house. That limb has since been removed.

The Jerry Maguire house shows up numerous times throughout the movie, most notably in the scene when Jerry takes Dorothy out on their first date.

And I believe the real backyard of the home was also used for the filming of several scenes, including both Jerry and Dorothy’s wedding ceremony and their subsequent break-up.

And from what we could see of the inside of the house from the street, it definitely looks as if the home’s real life interior was also used in the film, most notably for the many “Divorced Women’s Group” meetings. A little bit of movie trivia for you – Winnie Holzman, the creator of fave show My So-Called Life, was one of the members of that “Divorced Women’s Group” (pictured above).

Which is extremely ironic to me, because in Jerry Maguire, Dorothy and Jerry have what I’ve always referred to as “their My So-Called Life moment” in the middle of the street out in front of Dorothy’s house. LOVE IT!

I highly recommend stalking the Jerry Maguire house for any fans of the movie, as, thanks to the aweome fact that its appearance has not been changed in recent years, it is one of the most recognizable movie locations I’ve ever been to!  On a very sad side note, though, I drove by the 90210 house the other day and almost had a heart attack when I saw that it had been painted an entirely different color! It’s almost unrecognizable now! UGH! Such a tragedy!!!!! 🙁   That stuff should not be allowed to happen!!!!!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Jerry Maguire house is located at 527 23rd Street in the “Tree Section” of Manhattan Beach.

August 6, 2009
Paul Rudd’s House From “I Love You, Man”

One location I have been trying to find for quite some time now is the Mid-Century Modern style abode where Paul Rudd and Rashida Jones lived in fave romantic comedy I Love You, Man.   I was dying to stalk the house not only because of its incredibly unique architecture, but also because I was such a big fan of the movie. It’s hilarious! Well, I happened to mention my quest in an email to fellow stalker Owen last week and it wasn’t ten minutes later that he had emailed me back with an address! Sure enough, it was the right  house!   YAY! So, of course, I ran right out to stalk it! 🙂

Ironically enough, the I Love You, Man house is exactly where the movie purports it to be – in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. Not only that, but the scenes where Paul Rudd drives to and from his home in the movie were really filmed along the actual streets one would take to get there in real life.  On my way to stalk the house yesterday, I was amazed to realize that I was actually passing by some of the very same buildings that Paul drove by in the movie, which was shocking to me as most driving scenes in movies are not filmed anywhere near the places where the characters are supposedly leaving from or heading to. LOL

I am very happy to report that the I Love You, Man house looks exactly the same in person as it did in the movie. And I absolutely loved seeing it! The house is extremely unique in its appearance and even though, as I have mentioned many times before on this blog, the modernist style isn’t really my thing, I truly love this house! I am not at all surprised that producers chose to use it as the home of a young, fairly successful Los Angeles real estate agent and his fiance.

My favorite part of the house has to be the dual staircases leading up to the front door. I just love the juxtaposition of the rounded and straight stairway, which you can sort of see in the above photograph. So cool and, as I said before, just so unique!

Ironically enough, the man who lives across the street from the I Love You, Man house pulled up while I was stalking the place. I was really hoping I’d get the chance to talk to him and ask him all sorts of questions about the filming, but instead he gave me a look like I was absolutely out of mind for taking photographs of a random house in L.A. and immediately went inside his home. LOL I so should have left a note on his door saying “You obviously don’t realize this, so I really feel it is my duty to tell you –  you live right ACROSS THE STREET from the I Love You, Man house!”   LOL Sheesh, some people!

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Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The I Love You, Man house is located at 3959 Franklin Avenue in Los Feliz, just around the corner from John Marshall High School, aka the Girls Just Want To Have Fun high school.

August 5, 2009
Jeff Malene’s House From Girls Just Want To Have Fun

Got a call from fellow stalker Chas last week, who told me that he had finally received his Girls Just Want To Have Fun Netflix rental in the mail. Chas was calling me up to ask if I wanted any other locations from the movie found – besides SJP’s ubiquitous apartment building, of course. I believe my exact answer to his question was “Um, yeah, ALL OF THEM!” LOL So, this past week Chas set about locating every single GJWTHF filming location. And I am happy to report that he came through – big time! One location that I was absolutely DYING to stalk was the small house belonging to siblings Jeff and Maggie Malene (aka Lee Montgomery and Shannen Doherty) in the movie. I did not have high hopes for this location, though, as I was convinced that it had been torn down in the twenty-four years since GJWTHF had been filmed. Thankfully, Chas proved that theory wrong, though, when he located the house just outside of South Pasadena on Friday. YAY!

So, I, of course, immediately ran right out to stalk it! 🙂 And I am EXTREMELY happy to report that aside from the paint color and a new porch railing, the GJWTHF house looks EXACTLY the same today as it did in 1985 when the movie was filmed! 🙂 I was absolutely STUNNED that all these years later the house would still be so recognizable. So cool! I do have to say, though, that Jeff Malene’s house is actually a lot bigger in person than I imagined it would be. For some reason, onscreen it appeared to be much smaller than it actually is. Standing there on Friday, looking at this small, relatively nondescript home, I couldn’t help but think to myself ‘How in the HECK did Chas find this location amidst the millions of other homes in L.A.?’ It’s incredible – just incredible!

Amazingly enough, even Jeff’s neighbor’s house still looks very much the same today as how it appeared in the movie. As you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, although the two downstairs windows have changed a bit, the upstairs window still looks exactly the same.

Jeff’s house shows up several times throughout Girls Just Want To Have Fun, most notably the front yard area where Jeff practices doing flips to impress SJP.

The garage area where Jonathan Silverman and Lee Montgomery play basketball in the beginning of the movie also looks exactly the same, but unfortunately, thanks to a fence standing in my way, I couldn’t get a good picture of it. 🙁

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I highly recommend stalking the GJWTHF house to all fans of the ’80s flick! I can’t tell you how cool it was to be seeing that house in person all these years later!

As always, a big THANK YOU to Chas for finding this location!! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Jeff Malene’s house from Girls Just Want To Have Fun is located at 6511 Pollard Street in Los Angeles, just off of Avenue 64.

August 3, 2009
The Zeta House from House Bunny

Last week, thanks to fellow stalker Owen, I was able to stalk the Zeta House from the 2008 movie House Bunny. Owen actually found this location without ever even having seen the film, which takes some pretty major stalking skills, I tell you!!!! He happened to notice the house while watching a House Bunny preview and, because of its unique and distinct look, set about on a mission to locate it. Which he did in record time! And even though I didn’t particularly like House Bunny all that much, once Owen told me where the house was located, I just HAD to stalk it. 🙂 I do have to say, though, that I did absolutely LOVE Anna Faris in the movie. I laugh out loud EVERY TIME I hear her do that scary-deep-voice-to-remember-a-name thing. LOL LOL LOL

The House Bunny house is absolutely GINORMOUS in person, much larger than it appears onscreen. It’s so huge that pictures don’t even really do it justice, in fact! It’s easily one of the biggest houses I’ve ever seen in my life!!!! Other than its size, though, I am happy to report that the House Bunny house looks exactly the same in person as it did in the movie. 🙂

Well, until the girls painted it blue towards the middle of the film, that is.

And, of course, in real life there is no ZETA sign. 🙂

The house shows up several times throughout the movie, most notably as the location where Anna Faris does her absolutely HILARIOUS Marilyn-Monroe-over-the-subway-grate impersonation! LOL LOL LOL

I highly recommend stalking the House Bunny house. The home itself is just so unique and distinct, that even if you didn’t like the movie it’s still worth the trip. 🙂 The house is also located on a pretty amazing street that is chock full of HUMONGOUS Craftsman style homes. Walking around the neighborhood it’s easy to forget that you are just one small block away from the hustle and bustle of the 10 Freeway.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Zeta House from House Bunny is located at 2151 West 20th Street in Los Angeles.

July 31, 2009
The Dickie Roberts House

Today is my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry’s birthday! The two of us are actually heading down to Disneyland in a bit, where Kerry has secured a reservation for a little birthday celebration at the park’s exclusive Club 33 members-only restaurant and, let me tell you, I could not be more excited!! I’ve been trying to get into that place for YEARS!! But I’ll save that story for a future post.  🙂 Anyway, for the past few months, Kerry has been begging me to find the blue clapboard residence featured in the 2003 movie Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. Unfortunately, though, not only had I never seen the movie, but I also had no idea where the home might be located. So, the other day when fellow stalker Chas happened to mention that he knew the location of the Dickie Roberts house, I just about died!!! I immediately told Kerry, who also just about died. 🙂 So, Kerry, this one’s for you!

Once Chas had given me the address of the Dickie Roberts house, I just HAD to watch the movie, and I am happy to report that I LOVED it.    I even found myself tearing up at the end, causing my fiance to look over at me and say “Are you actually crying over Dickie Roberts???” LOL LOL LOL What can I say, it’s a very touching movie! 🙂 Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star is the story of a thirty-something washed up actor, played by David Spade, who pays a family to let him move into their home with them in the hopes of recreating his lost childhood so that he may become a better adult and, in turn, a better actor. The home, which belongs to the Finney family in the film, is supposedly located at 741 Mockingbird Lane in an idyllic neighborhood somewhere in the Los Angeles area. Once I visited the house in person, it wasn’t too hard to see why producers chose to use it as Dickie’s perfect childhood home. While I was there a woman was out walking her dog, children were riding their bikes in their front yards, a couple was jogging down the street together, and every time any of them passed each other they would call out “Hi Mrs. So and So! How are you this morning?” It was literally like a scene out of a movie! I felt like I had somehow stumbled onto the set of The Truman Show or something! LOL It’s just as idyllic of a street in real life as it was portrayed to be in the movie.   Love it!

I am also very happy to report that the Dickie Roberts house looks pretty much EXACTLY the same in person as it did in the movie.   According to IMDB, the real life owners of the home liked David Spade’s backyard treehouse from the movie so much, that after filming wrapped they elected to keep it!  I was SO looking forward to seeing that treehouse in person, but, alas, it is not visible from the street. 🙁

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The Dickie Roberts house shows up several times throughout the movie, most notably in the hilarious scene when Dickie is introduced to the wonder that is a Slip ‘n Slide!   A little bit of movie trivia for you – Wham-O, Inc., the company that manufactures the Slip ‘n Slide toy, actually sued Paramount Pictures for using their product in the movie without permission. LOL The things people get upset about, I swear!   🙂

Happy birthday to Kerry and a big THANK YOU to Chas for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Dickie Roberts house is located at 741 South Hudson Avenue in Pasadena.

July 29, 2009
Paco’s Tacos Cantina From Jerry Maguire

Last Friday, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I spent an entire twelve hours stalking together!!! Yes, you read that right – an ENTIRE TWELVE HOURS!!! I’m not exaggerating!! The two of us literally drove from one end of L.A. to the other – we covered Pasadena, Redondo Beach, Eagle Rock, El Segundo, and even Santa Monica – and back again! It was FABULOUS! 🙂 One of the places at the top of our day’s stalking list was a little restaurant called Paco’s Tacos Cantina, which was featured in the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire.

Mike discovered this location back in the ’90s. At the time he worked just a few blocks away from Paco’s and used to frequent the restaurant regularly for lunch.  One day he noticed a poster of Jerry Maguire hanging on the wall (pictured above) and asked the owner about it.  Well, it turns out that a pretty major scene from the movie had actually been filmed at the Cantina. So, of course, I made Mike take me there for lunch so I could stalk the place! 🙂

In the movie, Paco’s Tacos Cantina is the restaurant where Jerry Maguire, aka Tom Cruise, takes Dorothy Boyd, aka Renee Zellwegger, on their very first date. It is before that date that Jerry says one of my very favorite movie lines ever – well, besides “You had me at hello”, of course!   🙂 When Dorothy walks out in her LBD (that’s Little Black Dress for all of you guys out there), Jerry says, “Wow! That’s more than a dress. That’s an Audrey Hepburn movie!” LOL Love it!   Please excuse the above photographs as I wasn’t able to take them from the exact same angles from which the scene was filmed.

And, of course, Mike and I just had to sit next to the fish tank like Jerry and Dorothy did in the scene. 🙂

I HIGHLY recommend stalking Paco’s Tacos!   As I’ve mentioned before, I am a VERY picky eater, but I have to say that I absolutely loved Paco’s! The tacos were to die for – with all white meat chicken, no less!!!! And the chips and homemade tortillas were pretty amazing, too!    While there, Mike and I got to meet Paco himself, who really could not have been nicer! He was even sweet enough to pose for a couple of pictures with us. 🙂 Paco told us that his Cantina was also featured numerous times in the ’70s television series CHiPs.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Paco’s Tacos Cantina, aka the Jerry Maguire restaurant, is located at 4141 South Centinela Avenue in Los Angeles. You can visit their website here.

July 28, 2009
The Christmas Vacation Mansion

Last week I did something that I am almost too ashamed to admit to on this forum.  I, Lindsay Blake of iamnotastalker.com, actually spent about two hours searching for a filming location that I – are you sitting down for this – HAD ALREADY FOUND! LOL LOL LOL I’m not kidding!!!! I guess I truly am a blonde! Ever since fellow stalker Owen tracked down the Griswold house from fave movie National Lampoon’s Vacation, I have wanted to find the mansion which stood in for Clark’s boss, Frank Shirley’s, house in the movie’s 1989 sequel Christmas Vacation. So, last week, I sat down at my computer on a mission to do just that.   But unbeknownst to me, it seems I already had!

My first stalking step was to pop in my Christmas Vacation DVD and skip forward to the scene when Cousin Eddie shows up with his RV at Frank Shirley’s Chicago area manison on Christmas Eve night and kidnaps him – an idea he gets after hearing Clark’s HILARIOUS “last minute gift ideas” rant. LOL LOL LOL

As soon as the mansion came into view on my computer screen I realized that it looked extremely familiar. My first thought was that it might be located in the Pasadena area and that the reason it looked familiar was because I had driven by it regulary on my way to and from home. The more I watched the scene, the more I kept thinking to myself, “Man, I KNOW that house!” I spent the next couple of hours on Google Map’s Street View, looking up and down all the streets I frequent on a regular basis.  I also spent quite a bit of time researching behind-the-scenes information on the movie. Then, just as I was about to go completely crazy, it hit me! Not only had I stalked the Christmas Vacation mansion before, but I had even BLOGGED ABOUT IT! LOL LOL LOL   What an airhead I am!

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It turns out that the Christmas Vacation house is actually the Mansion Bel Aire which I stalked last May while on the hunt for the Fresh Prince of Bel Air house.  The Mansion Bel Aire was built in 1922 by prominent Glendale area businessman Mattison Boyd Jones and was also used in the Aaron Spelling TV series Flamingo Road.    According to Zillow, the house sits on over one and a half acres and measures a whopping 5,698 square feet! The mansion is truly amazing to see in person and I highly recommend stalking it – preferably during the month of October, as the owners apparently really do the place up for Halloween. Mansion Bel Aire has been nominated for a City of Glendale Halloween Spirit Award for several years in a row now. You can bet I am going to be dragging my fiance out to stalk it once again come October! 🙂 Personally I think they should do the place up for Christmas, too! Bring in fake snow ala how it looked in Christmas Vacation! Can you imagine how cool that would have been to see being filmed?!?!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Christmas Vacation mansion, aka Mansion Bel Aire, is located at 727 West Kenneth Road in Glendale.

July 27, 2009