Category: This and That

  • Paramount Studios as a Wedding Venue

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    Well, I guess it is finally about time that I start blogging about my wedding, but I can’t very well do that without first writing about the place where I got almost all of my wedding planning inspiration – the Studios at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood.  When Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I embarked on our very first VIP tour of the historic lot back in September of 2008, our fabulous tour guide, Ian, who sadly no longer works at the studio, mentioned that sections of Paramount could be rented out for parties, weddings, and other special events.  And even though at that point in time I already knew without a doubt where I wanted to get married, the thought of tying the knot at Hollywood’s oldest continuously operating studio definitely piqued my interest.  Especially once Ian told us that it was possible to rent out the New York Street backlot area, which is quite possibly my very favorite place in all of Southern California.  So, pretty much immediately after the Grim Cheaper proposed, I called up the Paramount Studios Special Events Department and scheduled a tour of the lot’s various event venues.  And, let me tell you, it was an amazing experience!  The special events tours are actually very similar to the VIP Tours in that all of the same areas of the studio are shown.  The main difference, however, is that the event tours are private, so ours consisted of only four people – my two parents, the Grim Cheaper, and me – which was absolutely INCREDIBLE!  The special events coordinator who we dealt with, a super nice man named Craig who I believe no longer works for Paramount, was extremely knowledgeable about the history of the lot and where various filming had taken place over the years, so the entire two-hour affair pretty much became a private, walking tour of the lot which was customized just for me!  And, as you can imagine, I absolutely loved every single minute of it!

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    Events at Paramount can pretty much be held in any section of the 65-acre lot, making the party possibilities absolutely endless.  Available venues include empty soundstages, each of which can hold up to 1,500 guests and can be completely decorated and customized based on each particular event;

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    the B-Tank, which is a 914,023 gallon water tank that can be filled and dressed to resemble any sort of water setting one can imagine; 

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    any of the studio’s park areas, including Production Park;

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    and Lucy Park, which I’ve blogged about previously;

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    any of the lot’s theatres, including the historic Paramount Theatre;

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    and the smaller Gower Theatre;

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    the famous Bronson Gate and water fountain area, which can accommodate up to 500 people;

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    and, of course, New York Street. 

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    As luck would have it, a huge breast-cancer awareness fundraiser was being set up in the New York Street section of the lot during our tour, so we were actually able to see firsthand what an event in that space would look like.  And I have to say that it was absolutely AMAZING!  I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been more inspired in my life than I was when I set foot onto New York Street that day and witnessed the extravaganza pictured above. 

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    Because the fundraising event incorporated three of the things that I love most in this world – New York, Hollywood, and filmmaking – I was completely in awe of the whole thing and my brain immediately started working on overload.  All of sudden, idea after idea started pouring into my head and it was at that moment that I decided that the Grim Cheaper and I would be having a movie-themed wedding.  Which in retrospect really seems like a no-brainer, but for whatever reason, up until we visited Paramount, the thought had never occured to me.

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    The most inspired wedding idea that came to me while at Paramount was that we could name each of the reception tables after various movies that had been filmed on New York Street and that, upon arrival, each guest would be given a card with a movie line written on it.  Each line would correspond to one of the tables and our guests would have to figure out which movie their particular line came from in order to find where they would be sitting during the reception.  And even though we didn’t end up getting married on New York Street, we did use that idea for our tables and our guests absolutely LOVED it, but more on that in a future post.

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    Even though I absolutely loved the idea of getting married on New York Street, the GC and I ultimately decided against it.  As my best friend Kylee said after viewing the above pictures of the breast cancer fundraiser, a wedding – especially one as small as ours (we only invited 80 people) – would wind up getting lost in the spectacle of the space.  The venue is much better suited for a party – a ten-year anniversary party, perhaps Smile – rather than a wedding ceremony.  Oh, and there was also the little matter of cost!  Renting New York Street will run you $12,500, which may sound like a lot, but is, amazingly enough, a fairly average venue rental rate for the L.A. area.  (According to msn.com, Los Angeles is one of the most expensive cities in the US to get married!)  The New York Street backlot area measures a whopping five acres and can accommodate up to 5,000 people and while it, according to the Paramount Special Events website, can now be customized to suit smaller groups, that wasn’t actually the case when we were thinking about getting married there.  Even though we only wanted to utilize a small portion of New York Street, we would have been required to rent the entire five acres, which is actually fine – I expected that.  What I didn’t expect, though, and what we were not told until we received the actual proposal, was that we would also have to pay to light the entire backlot as well – at a cost of $12,000!!!! – even if we were, in actuality, only going to light a small section of it.  And, mind you, that $12,000 only covered “washing” the street in light, so that the space wouldn’t be pitch black during the reception.  If we wanted any sort of specialty lighting, that would, of course, be an additional cost.  There was also a fee of $3,500 just to power the event.  I’m not kidding!  And because Paramount hires only in-house employees for its events, you also have to pay union wages for absolutely everyone who works it  – from the lighting technicians to the catering staff to the parking attendants.  Besides paying union wages, you also have to adhere to union regulations, the most maddening of which was the fact that every employee must be paid for a minimum of six hours of work, whether they worked a full six hours or not.  So, while I knew that getting married at Paramount would be pricey, I had no idea it would be as exorbitant at it actually was.  Our proposal came to a whopping $41,000 for a pretty bare bones wedding – no open bar, no appetizers, no specialty food.  The GC literally almost choked when that email came through!  And keep in mind that that $41,000 did not include a DJ, a photographer, ceremony musicians, a dance floor, flowers, or the mashed potato bar that I had my heart set on.  As the old saying goes, though, you get what you pay for, and a party at Paramount would have, no doubt, been nothing short of incredible!

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    Even though we did not ultimately choose to tie the knot at Paramount, I am so incredibly thankful that we considered it.  Our wedding would have been a very different event had we not.  And now at least I know where I want to hold our ten-year anniversary party.  Smile

    Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

    Stalk It: Paramount Studios is located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.  If you are interested in hosting an event on the lot, you can visit the studio’s special events page here or you can call (323)956-8398.

  • Taking the Day Off . . . Again

    I hope all of my fellow stalkers had a fabulous Thanksgiving holiday!!  I just returned from Lake Arrowhead last night and, unfortunately, did not have time to write a new blog post during my weekend away.  Have no fear, though, as I did manage to get some stalking in while I was there and will be blogging about those locations soon.  Smile  And I promise to be back tomorrow with a whole new post, so. . .

    . . . until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

  • The Whisper Lounge – One of Michael Buble’s Favorite L.A. Restaurants

     
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    Last week, Michael Buble’s tour marketing manager, Tory Class, who I follow on Twitter (@ToryonTour), sent out a link to a recent interview the cutie crooner had done with The Hollywood Reporter during which he named his five favorite places to hang out in Los Angeles.  I, of course, watched the video immediately and just about died when he mentioned the Whisper Restaurant and Lounge at The Grove as one of his favorite area restaurants, being that the Grim Cheaper and I had just dined there a few months prior.  I, unfortunately, did not take any photographs of the place at that time, though, so I promptly added the eatery to my ever-growing “To Stalk” list and informed the GC that we would be dining there that very weekend.  And we, indeed, did, this past Saturday night.  Ironically enough, Michael actually mistakenly referred to the place as the “Viper Lounge” in his interview, but being that there is no such restaurant at The Grove and being that there is only one spot there that has the word “lounge” in its name, I was able to figure out which establishment he was talking about.
     
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    The Whisper Restaurant and Lounge, which first opened in January of 2004, is owned and operated by billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso (no relation to actor David Caruso), the man who was the brains behind both The Grove shopping center and the more recent Americana at Brand in Glendale.  The eatery was modeled after the private supper clubs that thrived during the heyday of Hollywood and was designed to resemble a 1940’s speakeasy (hence the “whisper” in the name), with dim lighting, dark wood-paneled walls, large leather booths, an indoor/outdoor canopied patio, and Rat Pack music on the stereo.  It’s a very quiet, intimate spot and both the GC and I fell in love with the place immediately.  Being that it is on the pricier side, though, I almost fell right off my bar stool when the GC announced that he couldn’t wait to bring my parents back there as he knew that they would also love it and suggested that we do so this upcoming weekend!
     
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    In The Hollywood Reporter interview, Michael mentioned that the restaurant serves “the best flat crust pizza ever” and I have to say that I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment.  The GC and I opted for the Wild Mushroom and Truffle version and it was nothing short of A-MA-ZING!  The couple dining next to us ordered the Pizza Margherita with prosciutto added to it and, holy schmoley, did it look good.  I am going to have to sample that myself on my next visit there.  The Grilled Baby Broccoli with Garlic Butter side dish that I ordered was also spectacular – easily the BEST broccoli I have ever eaten in my entire life.  I was seriously tempted to lick my plate clean.  Winking smile  The service was also impeccable and lacked any sort of the typical L.A. snootiness that is usually found in upscale Hollywood-area restaurants.  The bartender was INCREDIBLY nice and, because she had only worked at the Lounge for two months, was not sure if Michael Buble had ever frequented the place, so she sought out a few of the more veteran servers to find out for me, and, sure enough, they confirmed that the singer is a regular patron.  So incredibly cool!  While we were dining, we also had the pleasure of meeting the  Assistant General Manager, a SUPER nice man named Eric Todd, who was very excited to hear that Michael had mentioned the eatery in a recent interview and did not think I was at all weird for stalking the place because of it.
     
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    Apparently, Michael Buble is not the restaurant’s only famous fan.  In fact, the place seems to be a veritable celebrity haven.  Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there recently include Halle Berry, Kim Kardashian, Kris Kardashian, Bruce Jenner, Spencer Pratt, Heidi Montag, Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Leah Rimini, Lauren Conrad, Jessica Simpson, Lara Flynn Boyle, Vivica A. Fox, Nick Lachey, David Spade, Sam Worthington, former Bachelor- contestant Jerry Ferris, and Antonio Sabato, Jr.  And while we, unfortunately, did not spot any celebs while dining at the restaurant, we did see actress and former Real World-er Jacinda Barrett and her husband, actor Gabriel Macht, and comic book legend Stan Lee, who was doing a signing at Barnes & Noble, while walking around The Grove earlier in the day.
     
     
    Michael Buble’s Five Favorite Places in L.A.

    You can watch Michael Buble’s Hollywood Reporter interview by clicking above.  And for those who are not able to watch, his five favorite Hollywood haunts are as follows: 1. Koi Restaurant, 2. The Chateau Marmont hotel, 3. His house in West Hollywood, 4. The Grove and the Whisper Lounge, and 5. Disneyland!  Because I am an absolute Disney freak, I was incredibly excited to hear that last one.  Of the park, Michael says, “When I walk in there now and I go through the gates, I’m seven years old.  I go right back.  I just, I can’t get enough of it.”  Love it!  And congratulations are also in order here as MB won his very first American Music Award this past Sunday night for Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist!  Whoo-hoo!

    Justin Bieber’s AMA Speech

    On an AMA side note – I just have to say that I absolutely LOVED Justin Bieber’s speech after winning Favorite Pop/Rock Male Artist, in which he acknowledged the King of Pop, saying, “I want to thank Michael Jackson because without Michael Jackson, none of us would be here.”  Love it!  Then when he called Usher up on stage after winning the Artist of the Year award, I literally got tears in my eyes!  (You can watch his Artist of the Year award speech by clicking above).  What can I say?  I love me some Biebs! 

    New Kids on the Block and Back Street Boys 2010 AMA’s Performance

    I also absolutely LOVED LOVED LOVED the NKOTB/BSB performance!  It was – dare I say it – the best performance of the night and, because I’ve had New Kids on the Blocks songs on my iPod for as long as I can remember, so think I am going to have to get myself some tickets for that tour! 

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    On another side note – While doing some stalking in Hollywood this past Saturday morning, the Grim Cheaper and I spotted the above-pictured Tom Cruise look alike in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and I just about died from excitement!  The guy looked SO much like the movie star that it was absolutely UNCANNY.  The GC and I both did a double take and for a few brief moments I actually believed he was the real Tom Cruise doing some sort of a press appearance at the legendary Hollywood theatre.

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    The guy was being absolutely MOBBED by people wanting to take a photograph with him and I have to admit that in the ten-plus years that I have lived in Los Angeles, never once have I paid – or been tempted to pay – to have my picture taken with the faux celebrities or superheroes who make their living on the Boulevard, but I HAD HAD HAD to get my picture taken with Tom.  Smile  There was absolutely NO way I was going to let that opportunity pass me by.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking!

    The Whisper Lounge

    Stalk It: The Whisper Lounge is located inside of The Grove shopping center, near where Farmers Market Place meets Gilmore Lane, across the street from the Wonderland Bakery, in Los Angeles.  The restaurant’s exact location is marked with a pink arrow in the above aerial view.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here, its Facebook page here, and you can follow the Lounge  on Twitter here.  The Whisper Lounge is currently hosting a “Blues Beats, Exquisite Eats” event each Sunday night, with live jazz music and a five-course tasting menu.  You can find out more information about “Blues Beats, Exquisite Eats” here.

  • The 101 Coffee Shop from “Swingers”

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    One location that I have wanted to stalk ever since moving to Los Angeles over a decade ago, but didn’t because there were numerous erroneous reports floating around online which stated that the place had since closed down, was the 101 Coffee Shop which appeared in the 1996 movie Swingers.  It wasn’t until Mike, from MovieShotsLA, pointed out the restaurant to me while driving by it after we finished our tour of Paramount Studios back in September that I realized the location was, indeed, still open for business.  I added the cafe to the top of my “To Stalk” list that very day and when fellow stalkers Lavonna, Beth, Debbie, and Connie came out from Ohio for a Hollywood stalking trip a few weeks later, we all hit the place up for a quick bite to eat.

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    Apparently, there is quite a bit of confusion surrounding this particular location, so I thought I’d put all the mystery to rest with today’s post.  The diner, which is located on the first floor of the Best Western Hollywood Hills Hotel, originally opened in the 1930’s and was named the “Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop”.  In 1994, the restaurant, which was faltering at the time, was taken over by a French chef named Susan Fine Moore and her husband, Michael, who revamped the property’s interior and updated its menu to include an array of standard comfort foods along with some Mexican dishes.  Of the new menu, which vacillated greatly from L.A.’s typical low-fat fare, Fine said, “We kind of pride ourselves on being an oasis from all that craziness.  There’s a new diet, a new fad every week, but actually people seem a little bit less obsessed than they used to be about diets.  Otherwise we wouldn’t be so busy.  Generation X is lovely – they’ll eat anything.  And the older generation is figuring, I suppose, who wants to live to 108 if you can’t put butter on your potato?”  Love it!  The Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop really started to take off under the helm of Susan and Michael and it was at that point that the place, thanks to its high-quality food and laid-back attitude, started attracting celebrities.  A few stars who were known to frequent the diner include Brad Pitt, my girl Jen Aniston, Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow, Johnny Depp, Andy Garcia, Minnie Driver, Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, and Kevin Spacey.  After losing their lease in July of 2001, Susan and Michael moved their restaurant two miles east to a new location at 1745 North Vermont Avenue, but the place, sadly, closed down shortly thereafter.  In the meantime the former Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop space was leased to new owners – Warner Ebbink and Brandon Boudet of the Eat Heavy Restaurant Group – who opened a new eatery in its place.

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    That new restaurant is named the 101 Coffee Shop and, let me tell you, it is a VERY cool place.  Ebbink, who has a passion for architecture as well as food, redesigned the property’s interior himself, modeling it after the old-time cafes of the ‘60s and ‘70s.  Boudet serves as the head chef and, under his tutelage, the eatery still serves up high-quality comfort food, including macaroni and cheese, meatloaf and gravy, and tuna melts.  For the foodies in your group, more highbrow offerings, like the Grilled Tandoori Salmon Sandwich, the Kale “Greek” Salad, and the Grilled Albacore Tuna Burger, are also on the menu.  And, despite the change in ownership, the restaurant is still a big time celebrity hotspot.  Fellow stalker Chas ran into both Nicolas Cage and Matt LeBlanc on two separate occasions while dining at the cafe.  So, while the Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop is no longer in operation, the 101 Coffee Shop is alive and well, and, despite the remodel, is still very recognizable from Swingers.

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    Then out-of-work actors Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau actually wrote the screenplay for Swingers over several meals at the Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop.  (The restaurant seems to be something of a lucky charm for writers as the pilot episode of the extremely successful CBS comedy series Everybody Loves Raymond was also penned in one of the cafe’s back rooms.)  According to a November 1998 New York Times article, Favreau and his good friend Vaughn used to frequent the diner regularly.  Of the restaurant, Favreau said, “It was like a family atmosphere.  We didn’t have a lot of money, and I lived in a tiny apartment up the block.  I loved the people who ran the place, who made you feel like a big shot, even if you weren’t.  Very good portions – you never left hungry.”  Once the screenplay was sold, Favreau decided to use the restaurant as a filming location for no less than three scenes in the movie!  The Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop first appears in the opening scene in which Mike (aka Favreau) talks to Rob (aka Sex and the City’s Ron Livingston) about how to get his girlfriend back.

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    That scene was filmed in the second booth to the left of the restaurant’s main door, which, despite the remodel, still looks very much the same today as it did in the movie.

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    The scene in which Trent (aka Vince Vaughn) tells Mike that he is “all growns up” was also filmed at the cafe.  The booth where that scene was filmed is, sadly, no longer there.  It looks as if the restaurant also had some sort of a grocery section at the time the movie was filmed, but it no longer does today.

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    The movie’s ending scene, in which Trent thinks a fellow diner is making goo-goo eyes at him, also took place at the former Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop.

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    In more recent years the coffee shop stood in for Winkie’s, the diner where Lorelai (aka Lauren Graham), Rory (aka Alexis Bledel), and Emily Gilmore (aka Kelly Bishop) stopped to grab a bite to eat while on their way to North Carolina to attend Mia’s wedding in the Season 7 episode of Gilmore Girls titled “Gilmore Girls Only”.

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    Randomly enough, Gilmore Girls filmed in pretty much the exact same spot where Lavonna, Debbie, Connie, Beth, and I ate lunch!  🙂  So cool!

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    In the Season 1 episode of Entourage titled “Date Night”, Vincent Chase (aka Adrian Grenier), Johnny ‘Drama’ Chase (aka Kevin Dillon), Eric Murphy (aka Kevin Connolly), and Turtle (aka Jerry Ferrara) grab some breakfast at the cafe on the morning of Vince’s big movie premiere.

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    Some filming for that episode also took place outside of the coffee shop.

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    The Entourage boys returned to the cafe to film the Season 7 episode of the show titled “Buzzed”, in which Turtle’s credit card is rejected after he tries to pick up the gang’s lunch tab.

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    The coffee shop was also featured twice in the 2007 movie In the Land of Women. It was first seen in the opening scene in which Sofia Bunuel (aka Elena Anaya) breaks up with Carter Webb (aka Adam Brody).

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    And it was used in the ending scene in which Carter meets Janey (aka fave actress Ginnifer Goodwin).

    Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location!  🙂

    Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

    Stalk It: The 101 Coffee Shop, aka the former Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop from Swingers, is located at 6145 Franklin Avenue, on the first floor of the Best Western Hollywood Hills Hotel, in Hollywood.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

  • Lucky Baldwin’s British Pub and Cafe from “The Big Bang Theory”

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    In the recently-aired Season 4 episode of fave show The Big Bang Theory titled “The Irish Pub Formulation”, Sheldon Cooper (aka Jim Parsons) refers to an Old Town Pasadena-area restaurant named Lucky Baldwin’s Pub.  Ironically enough, just a few days prior to watching that episode, fellow stalker John from Northern California had mentioned that very establishment to me in an email.  While John was vacationing in Los Angeles earlier this summer, he had ventured out to Pasadena and stopped by both POP Champagne Bar, my very favorite restaurant, and Lucky Baldwin’s Pub and had written to me to let me know about his experiences there.  Amazingly enough, I had never actually heard of Lucky Baldwin’s before receiving his email, but John said that the place had a good atmosphere so I made a mental note to check it out in the near future.  Well, imagine my surprise when just a few days later I heard the place referenced on The Big Bang Theory!  I am so incredibly thankful to John because had he not mentioned the bar in his email, I would have written the place off as a fictional locale that was created by the writers of the show.  So, once I knew that it was, in fact, a real-life establishment, I just had to stalk the place. 

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    Lucky Baldwin’s is an incredibly cool little bar tucked away on a side street of Old Town Pasadena.  It is a low key, down-to-earth place that boasts an extensive menu of British pub favorites, including Bangers and Mash, Fish & Chips, and Pigs in a Blanket.  Because I have always been the type of girl who prefers chicken strips to chicken marsala, a place like Lucky Baldwin’s is truly right up my alley.  The only problem with chicken-strip-serving-type establishments, though, is that they tend to not feature champagne – my drink of choice – on their cocktail menu, but I am VERY happy to report that that was not the case at Lucky Baldwin’s!  A bar that serves pub food AND champagne – that is simply music to my ears!  Lucky Baldwin’s was first founded just over fourteen years ago, in July of 1996, by an Englishman named David Farnworth and his partner Peggy Simonian and was named after Elias Jackson “Lucky” Baldwin, the California businessman who founded Santa Anita Park in Arcadia and who owned the land that now makes up the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden.  In 2005, Farnworth and Simonian opened a second restaurant named Lucky Baldwin’s Delirium Pub a few miles away in the sleepy little town of Sierra Madre.  According to the Old Pasadena website, Lucky Baldwins is “truly Old Pasadena’s favorite secret hideaway” and I couldn’t agree with that statement more – the restaurant is definitely a secret.  I’ve lived in Pasadena for over a decade now and had never even heard of the place!  It is definitely going to be a frequent stomping ground for me and the Grim Cheaper in the future, though, because we absolutely loved the place.

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    In “The Irish Pub Formulation” episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon discovers that Leonard Hofstadter (aka Johnny Galecki) has spent the night with their friend Raj Koothrappali’s (aka Kunal Nayyar’s) little sister, Priya (aka Aarti Mankad).  To protect Leonard’s secret, Sheldon comes up with an “iron clad alibi” about that night which revolves around the fictional “fun-loving and morally-loose Miss Maggie Magarie”.  Of Maggie, Sheldon says, “You met her at Pasadena’s most popular Irish watering hole, Lucky Baldwin’s, where Maggie spends her nights tending bar with a head full of curls and a heart full of dreams.”  I think it is so amazingly cool that the writers of The Big Bang Theory, which is set in Pasadena, chose a real life locale to refer to in the episode. I love, love, love it when real life places are mentioned in movies and television shows. 

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    They did get a couple of things wrong, though.  In reality, Lucky Baldwin’s is British, not Irish, and the restaurant does not currently serve pickled eggs or whiskey (or any other hard alcohol), as Sheldon alludes to in the episode.  But the Big Bang writers definitely did their homework on this one because, according to our waitress, the bar is a popular hangout for both Caltech and Jet Propulsion Laboratory employees.  On the series, Leonard, Raj, and Sheldon all work at Caltech, while Howard Wolowitz (aka Simon Helberg) is employed by JPL.  The Bob’s Big Boy in Toluca Lake, which was also mentioned in “The Irish Pub Formulation” episode of The Big Bang Theory, is also, in fact, a real life locale.  And while it might seem a bit crazy that I stalked this location due to a mere mention on a TV show, as you can see in this Yelp review, I wasn’t the only one to do so! 

    You can watch the hilarious “alibi” scene by clicking above.

    Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker John for telling me about this location!  🙂

    And a BIG shout out goes to fellow stalker Debbie who is celebrating a special birthday today!   Happy Birthday Debbie!

    Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

    Stalk It: Lucky Baldwin’s British Pub and Cafe, from The Big Bang Theory, is located at 17 South Raymond Avenue in Old Town Pasadena.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

  • Villa Sorriso – The Restaurant Where Michael Jackson’s “Celebration of Life” Reception Was Held

     

    One location that I stalked quite a while back, but, for whatever reason, have yet to blog about is Villa Sorriso Ristorante – the Italian eatery where the Jackson family hosted the September 3, 2009 “Celebration of Life” reception for pop star Michael Jackson following his burial at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.  I dragged my good friend Nat, who was in town visiting from the San Francisco-area, and the Grim Cheaper out to the Old Town Pasadena restaurant this past June to celebrate my 33rd birthday after the place had been high up on my “To Stalk” list for close to a year.  And I have to say that the restaurant was definitely worth the wait!  I absolutely fell in love with the place immediately upon entering. 

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    Villa Sorriso is absolutely HUGE and is composed of two formerly separate spaces that originally housed the restaurants Clearwater Seafood and Old Town Bakery.  The 12,000-square foot property currently consists of a central outdoor courtyard that encircles a large silver fountain, a side patio with private cabanas that are available for rent, a martini bar and lounge complete with a separate VIP section, a private upstairs lounge named Zebra, and several indoor dining areas.  Sorriso, as it was originally known, first opened back in 1991 and at the time was located at 46 East Colorado Boulevard, across the street from its current location, and was, ironically enough, the very first Pasadena restaurant my family and I ate at upon moving to the City of Roses a little over a decade ago.  The eatery moved to its current location in early 2004, whereupon “Villa” was added to its name.  Ironically enough, the Italian restaurant is actually owned by a Taiwanese-born aerospace engineer/investment baker named Jack Huang.  After working in the aerospace industry for over a decade, Huang had a short stint heading up the worker’s compensation department of the popular Panda Express Chinese food chain, during which he became interested in opening a restaurant of his own.  In 1994, Jack, along with his wife, Karen, founded his first eatery, Wok ‘N’ Roll Sushi, which was also coincidentally Old Town Pasadena’s very first sushi bar.  In 2000, he purchased the already established Sorriso Ristorante from its original owner, Varo Angeletti, and set about revamping and updating the property which, at the time, was floundering.  The restaurant became a hit and a few years later he moved it to its current, larger home.  Instead of subletting the lease on the former Sorriso space, Jack decided to open up a tapas bar named Bar Celona in its place.  And in November of 2009, he bought out the owners of the now-defunct Fred’s Mexican Cafe and opened up ix-Tapa Cantina, a spot which just so happens to be my very favorite Mexican restaurant in Pasadena.

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    Villa Sorriso is an absolutely beautiful place that serves up some fabulous food and I honestly can’t recommend stalking the place enough.  I ordered the crusted rosemary chicken entree while I was there and it was simply delicious!!  My favorite part about the restaurant, though, had to be the fact that old black-and-white movies are projected onto the walls of the courtyard each night, as you can see in the above photograph.  So incredibly cool!

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    For Michael Jackson’s “Celebration of Life”, the Jackson family rented out the entire restaurant to host 250 of the King of Pop’s closest family and friends.  Guests included Macaulay Culkin, Mila Kunis, Corey Feldman, Al Sharpton, and Gladys Knight.  The entire Jackson family – most notably Jermaine – has apparently been frequenting the restaurant since it first opened back in 1991, which is how they decided upon holding the gathering there.  Quite a few industry parties have been held there over the years as well, including the January 2010 FOX Broadcasting Company’s UpFront after-party, at which Lisa Edelstein, Jesse Spencer, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Dianna Agron, Jane Lynch, Cory Monteith, Kevin McHale, Lea Michele, Jenna Ushkowitz, Emily Deschanel, Olivia Wilde, and Seth Green were all in attendance.  You can see photographs of that party here.  My girl Shannen Doherty has also been spotted at the restaurant in the past.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

    Stalk It: Villa Sorriso is located at 168 West Colorado Boulevard in Old Town Pasadena.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

  • The Canyon Country Store Where Jennifer Aniston Used to Work

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    I just recently finished reading Jennifer: The Unauthorized Biography, a FABULOUS book about my girl Jen Aniston written by Sean Smith, a famed British biographer who has also penned bestselling bios about J.K Rowling, Britney Spears, and Justin Timberlake.  According to the brief blurb about Smith featured on the book’s first page, the U.K. newspaper The Independent once dubbed the author a “fearless chronicler” and I honestly couldn’t agree with that sentiment more.  The guy is a meticulous researcher and, while you wouldn’t think there would be much information about Jen that I didn’t already know, Smith managed to dig up a few factoids that had me spinning with excitement – one of which being that the actress once worked at the Canyon Country Store – a deli/market in Laurel Canyon – for a few months before becoming famous.  Smith happened upon the market by chance, actually.  At the time she worked there, Jen was living just up the road from the store in a home at the end of Ridgemont Drive and, while venturing up to her former abode while doing research for his book, Smith decided to stop in for a bite to eat at the small grocery store.  While there, he happened to ask the owner if Jen had ever frequented the place and was shocked to discover that she had actually once worked there!  According to Tommy, the market’s longtime owner, Jen did a little bit of everything at the store – from working the cash register to stocking shelves to making sandwiches at the deli counter.  When she started landing jobs in the entertainment industry, she quit working at the market, but would still pop in regularly to buy cigarettes and other essentials.  Well, as you can imagine, I just about died upon learning that information and immediately dragged my husband right on out to stalk the place.

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    The Canyon Country Store has actually been around since the early 1900s.  At the time it was known as the Bungalow Inn Lodge and area hunters would congregate there each night to host picnics.  The Inn burned down in 1929 and was subsequently rebuilt out of a more substantial brick material.  A kitchen was added to the premises a few years later, whereupon food was served to hungry patrons.  The property eventually evolved into a grocery store and then finally into the delicatessen/market/fine wine shop/coffee bar that it is today.  During the ‘60s, the store became a regular hangout for Jim Morrison and his musician friends, who all lived nearby and would often gather together on the market’s front patio for spontaneous jam sessions.  Everyone from Joni Mitchell to Three Dog Night to Frank Zappa has performed live at the market at one time or another.  In his famous song “Love Street”, Jim sings of “this store where the creatures meet”.  That store is none other than the Canyon Country Store and “Love Street” is actually Rothdale Trail, the street that runs behind the market which Jim and his longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson referred to as “Love Street” because of the many hippies and love children that would walk down it each day.

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    I had the pleasure of meeting Tommy while we were stalking the Canyon Country Store and, let me tell you, the guy could NOT have been nicer!!!  Not only did he take us on our own little private tour of the place, but when I asked if I could snap some photographs, he suggested that I get behind the main counter and pretend to use the cash register like Jen used to do when she worked there!  Well, as you can imagine, I just about had a heart attack upon hearing his offer and immediately jumped behind the counter to snap a quick pic.  So incredibly cool!  He also told us that Jen was an amazingly nice person and that she truly listened when speaking with people, which is a very rare quality indeed!

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    Tommy also informed us that when Jen was married to Brad Pitt, the two would often stop by to say hi and to grab a bite to eat at Pace Italian Restaurant, which is located directly below the market and is a place I am going to have to stalk in the very near future!

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    Because so many celebs live in Laurel Canyon, the Country Store is regularly frequented by stars.  Sophia Loren, Jessica Biel, and Pamela Anderson have all been spotted there in the past and actress Christina Applegate (pictured above) is apparently a regular.

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    And the store is also a filming location!  The market was featured at the very beginning of the 1980 horror movie The Fog, although it looked quite different at that time.  You can see a photograph of the market as it looked during the ’80s here.  The Canyon Country Store has also been featured in the movies Breezy, Rainbow Drive, and the aptly-titled Laurel Canyon – none of which I have ever seen.  🙁

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    Tommy was also nice enough to walk us down to Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson’s former house, which is located directly behind the Country Store.  You can check out some great interior photographs of the home, which is currently for sale for a cool $1,199,000, here.

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    I, of course, had to grab a bite to eat while I was stalking the market, which the Grim Cheaper was not too happy about, especially when he discovered that the deli sandwich he ordered was going to cost him $8.99.  He later said it was one of the best sandwiches he had ever eaten, though, and had to concede that it was worth every penny.  🙂  I opted for the market’s chicken salad, which was simply AMAZING!  Honestly, some of the best chicken salad I’ve ever had in my entire life, and that means a lot coming from me as I am VERY picky about my chicken.  I honestly cannot recommend eating at the Canyon Country Store enough – it is FABULOUS!

    Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

    Stalk It: The Canyon Country Store is located at 2108 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Laurel Canyon.  Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson’s former home is located just behind the store at 8021 Rothdell Trail.  You can order Sean Smith’s biography of Jennifer Aniston here.

  • Halloween 2010 at the Hotel Santa Barbara

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    As I mentioned last week, this past Saturday morning the Grim Cheaper and I headed up north to the Central Coast of California to spend Halloween with our good friends who live in Santa Barbara, or the “American Riviera” as the seaside city is colloquially known.  For those who have never visited the area during Halloween, I must say that there is just simply no place better to spend the holiday.  For whatever, Santa Barbara has got some MAJOR Halloween spirit.  Downtown State Street turns into one big Halloween fest each and every October 31st, during which everyone – and I do mean everyone – dresses up for the occasion.  It’s an absolute blast and if you EVER have the opportunity, I HIGHLY recommend spending at least one Halloween there!

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    At one point in the evening, we even witnessed a flash mob dancing to “Michael Jackson’s Thriller”, in which ALL of the participants were dressed like Zombies.  So darn cool!  But I digress.

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    Anyway, as I always do when planning a vacation, I set out to find a hotel to stay at that had some sort of Hollywood history or cinematic significance.  And find one, I did!  While doing some cyberstalking I came across an article on the Santa Barbara Conference & Visitors Bureau website titled “Movie Tourism is a Natural in ‘Hollywood North’”.  Besides doling out some fabulous area filming location information, the article also stated that in the 1920s the Hotel Santa Barbara, a place where I have actually always wanted to stay, was “the getaway for many of Hollywood’s brightest stars”, including actors Leo Carrillo, Clark Gable, and Carole Lombard.  So, I immediately booked the GC and I a room there.

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    The 84-room, Mediterranean-style property, which was originally named “The Saint Barbara Hotel”, was established in 1916 and was one of the first hotels built by famed Santa Barbara hotelier Neal Callahan.  The original hotel building was destroyed during the June 29, 1925 earthquake and was rebuilt by Callahan the following year.  From the very beginning, the upscale hotel enjoyed a loyal following, housing vacationing starlets and wealthy tourists alike.  According to this October 2000 Los Angeles Times article, during Prohibition the property even boasted a hidden gambling room on its premises, where alcohol was indeed still served.  And while in later years the hotel degraded a bit in stature, it underwent an extensive $4 million renovation and restoration project in 1997 and is once again a popular upscale vacation venue.

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    The hotel was very reasonably priced by Santa Barbara standards (most hotels in the seaside city are exorbitantly expensive and not very well maintained), especially considering the place’s centralized downtown location.  Lots of freebies, such as bottled water in the room, wireless internet, and a continental breakfast, were also included.  Our room, while small, was extremely cozy and very nicely appointed.

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    And it also boasted a fabulous view of Downtown State Street and the Santa Barbara Mountains.  And even thought the staff there couldn’t tell me much about the history of the place nor about any of its celebrity clientele during the heyday of Hollywood, I honestly can’t recommend the Hotel Santa Barbara enough!  I’ve stayed in quite a few different hotels in the area over the years and not only was the Hotel Santa Barbara one of the nicest, it was also one of the least expensive, which, of course, pleased the Grim Cheaper to no end.  🙂

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    As always, the GC and I looked to Hollywood for our costume inspiration this year and decided to dress up as Ferris Bueller (aka Matthew Broderick) and Sloane Peterson (aka Mia Sara) from fave movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  My mom, whose help we enlisted to make Ferris’ leopard print vest, was convinced that no one would recognize us being that the movie is almost two and a half decades old.  I, however, knew that would not be the case.  I mean, hello!  Ferris and Sloane are iconic!  How could people NOT know who we were!  And sure enough, I was right – people recognized us pretty much everywhere we went that night.  🙂  Well, a few did refer to us as Ferris and “Simone”, but hey, that’s close enough.  😉

    Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

    Stalk It: Hotel Santa Barbara is located at 533 State Street in the heart of Downtown Santa Barbara.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

  • The Fisher & Sons Funeral Home from “Six Feet Under”

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    One location that I stalked well over a year ago, but for whatever reason have yet to blog about, is the Victorian-style residence which stood in for the supposed North Hollywood-area Fisher & Sons (and later Fisher-Diaz) Funeral Home on the immensely popular HBO series Six Feet Under.  Amazingly enough, up until yesterday morning, I had never seen even one episode of the show and, unfortunately, I have to say that after watching the pilot episode yesterday morning, I wasn’t all that impressed with it.  It’s a bit of an odd series.  The only part I enjoyed was one of the opening scenes in which David Fisher (aka a pre-Dexter Michael C. Hall) tells a supposedly grieving widower (played by Harper Roisman) that his wife is at peace now, to which the widower replies, “If there’s any justice in the universe, she’s shoveling sh*t in hell!”  LOL LOL LOL 

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    But while I didn’t especially like the pilot, I did absolutely fall in love the main house featured in it.  In real life, the property is known as the Auguste Marquis Residence and it was originally built in the Queen Anne/Eastlake style (much like the “Thriller” house that I blogged about yesterday) in 1904 and is Los Angeles’ 602nd historic cultural monument.  The dwelling, which currently houses the Filipino Federation of America, boasts 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a whopping 6,324 square feet of living space, and sits on over half an acre of land.  The home was originally built for a Swiss native named Auguste Rodolphe Marquis, who worked for Death Valley’s Johnnie Consolidated Gold Mining Company, from which he made a considerable fortune.  The property was purchased shortly after the second World War by General Hilario Camino Moncado, a native of the Philippines and founder of the Filipino Federation.  His heirs still own the property to this day.

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    The Auguste Marquis Residence was featured each week as the home where the dysfunctional Fisher Family – siblings David, Nate (aka Peter Krause), and Claire (aka Lauren Ambrose) and their mother Ruth (aka Frances Conroy) –  lived and operated their mortuary business on Six Feet Under, which ran from 2001 through 2005. 

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    In real life, the Fisher & Sons Funeral Home sign is, of course, not there.

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    And while the home was mostly just used for establishing shots, some occasional filming was also done onsite there throughout the series five year-run, as was the case with the pilot episode, screen captures of which are pictured above.

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    The interior of the Fisher home was a set that was built on a soundstage at the Columbia/Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood and, from what I’ve been able to discern online, looks nothing like the interior of the actual Auguste Marquis Residence.  A short film named Good Night was also filmed on location at the Six Feet Under funeral home in September of 2009 and Don Cunanan, the set photographer, snapped some pictures of the filming, in which you can see some of the residence’s real life interior.  You can take a look at those photographs here.

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    On a coincidental side note – I was floored to spot Mountain View Cemetery, which I just blogged about this past Tuesday, featured quite extensively in the pilot episode of Six Feet Under, as the site of the funeral of Nathaniel Samuel Fisher (aka Richard Jenkins).

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    And I’d like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a VERY happy Halloween!  Hope your holiday is fun and candy-filled!

    Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

    Stalk It: The Filipino Federation of America – aka Fisher & Sons funeral home from Six Feet Under – is located at 2302 West 25th Street in the West Adams District of Los Angeles.

  • The “Thriller” House

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    Today, in honor of Halloween, I thought I’d blog about what is arguably the most famous haunted house of all time – the Victorian-style residence that was featured in the 1983 music video “Michael Jackson’s Thriller”.  Even though I’ve actually already blogged about this location once before (way back in December of 2007 when I first started my site!), because I mixed it in with a post about Halliwell Manor from Charmed which is located on the same street, I thought it was about time that the “Thriller” house was given proper recognition with its very own post.  Especially since my dad recently transferred our VHS recording of “The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller” onto a DVD so that we could finally watch it again, being that neither of us has owned a working VCR in about five years time.  I used to watch the “Making Of” special almost weekly as a child and was absolutely ENTRALLED with it.  And I am very happy to report that over twenty-seven years later, the behind-the-scenes special is JUST as enthralling.  🙂  I wish the Jackson family would release it on DVD as I’d love to have a copy that wasn’t taped off of television.

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    In real life, the property is known as the Sanders House and it was originally built in 1887!  Yes, you read that right – the residence is over 123 years old!  It was commissioned by a man named Michael Sanders who ran a storage warehouse in Los Angeles at the time.  The Queen Anne/Eastlake-style home boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and 3,532 square feet of living space – which I was shocked to discover as the residence looks to be much smaller from the street.  The property was originally a single family residence, but has since been converted into a duplex-type dwelling, and has been undergoing an extensive restoration project for the past decade.  In 1971, the home was declared a cultural historic monument and the entire 1300 block of Carroll Avenue, where the “Thriller” house is located, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  You can see some fabulous historic photographs of the “Thriller” house and its neighboring homes here.  And you can read a more in-depth write-up on the history of the Sanders House on fave website Big Orange Landmarks here.

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    I was only at the “Thriller” house for about ten minutes yesterday and no less than three different groups of fellow stalkers showed up to take pictures of the place while I was there – and it was in the middle of the day no less!  Simply amazing!  I was really hoping that the “Thriller” homeowners would have decorated their abode for Halloween, but as it turns out they are not currently very thrilled about the publicity that their property’s famous history generates.  According to a SUPER nice neighbor whom I spoke with while I was stalking the place yesterday, shortly after Michael Jackson passed away in June of last year, a deplorable fan stole the mailbox from the “Thriller” house and the homeowner is still pretty upset about it – especially being that the mailbox was the original one which was installed when the residence was first built over 123 years ago!  I can’t even believe that a person would have the audacity to not only trespass on someone else’s property, but to then steal something from that property while doing so.  It is people like that who give us harmless stalkers a bad name and it makes me madder and madder the more I think about it.  Not only did that thief sour the residents on the magic of owning and living in the “Thriller” house, but they also destroyed part of a historic landmark in the process.  UGH!  Don’t even get me started! 
     
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    The super nice neighbor also informed me that the 1300 block of Carroll Avenue is THE place to be on Halloween.  One year he counted over 2,000 trick-or-treaters knocking on his front door alone!  Halliwell Manor from Charmed (pictured above) is already decked out for the occasion, but the neighbor said that all of the houses on the block – not just the famous ones – typically have lines of about twenty to thirty people standing out in front of them all night long.  Amazing!  I would SO love to stalk the neighborhood on Halloween, but I already have plans to spend the holiday in Santa Barbara this year.  Ah well, there’s always next year.
     
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    Only the exterior of the “Thriller” house was used in the filming of the music video.
     
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    All of the interior scenes were shot on a soundstage somewhere in Los Angeles.
     

    You can watch the video “Michael Jackson’s Thriller” by clicking above.

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    The “Thriller” house was also used as the residence of Finn (aka Reynaldo Rosales) in the Season 4 episode of Charmed titled “Size Matters’”.

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    And fellow stalker Angela from Florida alerted me to the fact that the dwelling was also used as the residence of Madam Serena (aka Zelda Rubinstein) in the 1989 movie Teen Witch. It is quite ironic that the house belonged to a woman named Serena in the flick, as the star of Teen Witch was none other than Robin Lively – real life sister of Blake Lively, who plays the famous Serena van der Woodsen on TV’s Gossip Girl.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

    Stalk It: The house from “Michael Jackson’s Thriller” is located at 1345 Carroll Avenue in the Angelino Heights section of Los Angeles, just a few miles north of Downtown.  The Halliwell sisters’ house from Charmed is located two doors east of the “Thriller” house at 1329 Carroll Avenue.  And Holly’s Nashua house from the “Employee Transfer” episode of The Office is located just around the corner at 1347 Kellam Avenue.  If you stalk any of these locations, please, please do not trespass and, for God’s sake, do NOT steal, touch, or destroy ANYTHING while there!