Category: TV Locations

The “Good Luck Charlie” House

During the lengthy process of researching the Melissa & Joey house (which many viewers seem to think has been used on another series – you can read my blog on it here), I came across a post on Julia Sweeten’s fabulous website, Hooked on Houses, about the residence where the Duncan family – dad Bob (Eric Allan Kramer), who is an exterminator, mom Amy (Leigh Ann Baker) and their kids, Teddy (Bridgit Mendler), Gabe (Bradley Steven Perry), PJ (Jason Dolley), Charlie (Mia Talerico) and Toby (Logan Moreau/Jake Cinoa) – lived on the now-defunct Disney series Good Luck Charlie. In the article, Julia mentioned that she had not been able to track down the property’s real life address, but that if anyone knew of its location to let her know. Well, Julia, challenge accepted!

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Upon first glance, I had a feeling that the Duncan house was located in the Pasadena area. A commenter on Julia’s article confirmed my hunch and another commenter clued me into the fact that while an address number of “358” was visible above the home’s front door in some of the series’ establishing shots, a different address number of “501” was shown painted on the curb in others. I was fairly certain that the “358” had been faked for the filming and that the residence’s actual address was most likely “501.” From there, finding the house was a snap!

The Duncan residence actually sits at 501 Palmetto Drive in Pasadena’s South Arroyo neighborhood.

The four bedroom, four bath, 5,045-square-foot Craftsman was originally built in 1903 and sits on 0.26 acres of land. The picturesque two-story abode (LOVE the double bay windows!) was last sold in April 1981 for $209,500. According to Zillow, it’s worth about $2.3 million today. Not a bad return on an investment!

The Duncan house, which was said to be located at 358 Edgewood Drive in Denver, Colorado on the series, looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, minus the mailbox and tire swing – and Bob’s exterminator truck.

The brightly-colored interior of the Duncan home was just a set that existed on a soundstage at Los Angeles Center Studios, where the series was lensed.

It is quite a point of contention among Good Luck Charlie fans that the layout of the interior did not at all match the home’s exterior, especially the front door which was drastically different in design and shape from the door shown in establishing shots.

The house was also briefly featured, covered in snow (digitally, I believe), in the series’ 2011 made-for-TV movie, Good Luck Charlie, It’s Christmas.

While another Hooked on Houses commenter stated that they thought the Duncan house was used in the 1996 movie Space Jam, that information is incorrect. The Space Jam residence is located at 1002 Highland Avenue in South Pasadena, right next door to the home from Liar Liar (which I blogged about here).

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Good Luck Charlie house is located at 501 Palmetto Drive in Pasadena.

April 15, 2014
Dutton’s Brentwood Bookstore from “The Wonder Years”

UPDATE – The Wonder Years is coming to DVD for the first time ever in October! The 26-disc boxed set includes all six seasons of the show, plus a cast reunion segment, over 15 hours of bonus footage, a collectible metal locker, two production booklets packed with behind-the-scenes information, a replica yearbook, and Wonder Years magnets. Sets can be pre-ordered here.

I recently received an extensive list of The Wonder Years filming locations from a fellow stalker named Mallory who lives in Iowa. Mallory is a huge fan of the series (she loved it so much that she put off watching the finale for ages as she couldn’t bear to see the show end – love that!) and over the years had managed to compile an index of over thirty locales featured on it. One of the locations, the book shop from the Season 1 episode titled “Swingers,” I had been trying to track down for a while. Said book shop turned out to be the historic Dutton’s Brentwood Bookstore, an L.A. institution that was shuttered in 2008. I decided the place was still worthy of a stalk, though, and headed over there when I was in the area a couple of weeks ago.

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The original Dutton’s Books & Prints was opened in 1961 by Bill and Thelma Dutton at 5146 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood. All four of the couple’s children worked onsite, including eldest son Davis who took over operations of the store in the 1970s. He opened a couple of sister shops shortly thereafter. Doug, the youngest Dutton child, decided to establish his own branch of the family business and in 1984 purchased Brentwood Book Shop in the Barry Building, which had been around since the ‘60s. He renamed the site Dutton’s Brentwood Bookstore and ran it independently of Davis’ outposts. Dutton’s Brentwood was an immediate success and Doug eventually expanded, taking over several adjacent storefronts, all of which surrounded a courtyard where patrons were encouraged to lounge over a good tome. In a 2008 Huffington Post article, author Tom Teicholz described the 5,000-square-foot space as such, “The whole place always had a ramshackle feel, with frayed carpets and crowded shelves. Each area is its own empire, and one felt free to wander among them, and trusted to take a book from one area to the other without being accused of running off.” The store even attracted its fare share of celebrities and such stars as Dustin Hoffman, Jamie Lee Curtis, Diane Keaton, Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck, Meg Ryan, John Lithgow, Nora Ephron, Randy Newman, Maria Shriver, and Calista Flockhart could often be seen perusing the crowded aisles.

In 2004, upon learning that the owner of the Barry Building was securing plans to tear down the property to make way for a new shopping center, Doug decided to open a sister store in Beverly Hills. He figured that if the Brentwood site did end up closing, he would still have a place to operate. Sadly though, the Beverly Hills store wound up hurting him financially and he closed it in 2006. Shortly thereafter, Davis shuttered the original Dutton’s in North Hollywood due to declining sales. Dutton’s Brentwood was soon suffering the same fate and that, coupled with the fact that Doug had never recovered fiscally from the Beverly Hills debacle, led to the decision to close the store. On April 30th, 2008, Dutton’s Brentwood made its last sale. In a cruel twist of fate, the Barry Building’s owner eventually withdrew his plans to tear down the property in 2013. Had Doug not opened the Beverly Hills store, it is quite possible that the Brentwood outpost would still be in operation. Today, the space houses Cisco Home, a sustainable furniture company.

In the “Swingers” episode of The Wonder Years, Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) and Paul Pfeiffer (Josh Saviano) headed to Dutton’s to pick up a copy of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex: But Were Afraid to Ask, upon the recommendation of Kevin’s older brother, Wayne Arnold (Jason Hervey). While the Dutton’s name was visible on the shop’s awning in the scene, because the façade of the Brentwood storefront did not match what was shown onscreen, I figured a different Dutton’s had been used in the filming. As you can see below, the shop that appeared in The Wonder Years had an entrance door located on its right hand side. Dutton’s (which you can see photographs of from the time that it was in operation here and here) did not. None of the other Dutton’s locations seemed to match up either, though. It wasn’t until Mallory mentioned that she thought a fake door had been added to the exterior for the shoot that things began to fall into place.

We now believe that a different book store was used for the interior filming and that a fake door was added to the exterior of Dutton’s so that it would match up to what was shown of that interior.

We still cannot figure out where interior filming took place, though. As you can see in the scene capture below (which I flipped), there appear to be the words “Harmon Books” along with some sort of initial (possibly an “A”) painted on the door behind Kevin and Paul. No amount of Google sleuthing has been able to unearth a Harmon Books in the L.A. area, though. Does the store happen to look familiar to any of my fellow stalkers?

Thanks to the Dear Old Hollywood website, I learned that the Dutton’s space was also featured in the 1965 film Sylvia, as the spot where Alan Macklin (George Maharis) first tracked down Sylvia (Carroll Baker). At the time, the shop was still operating as the Brentwood Book Shop.

Dutton’s North Hollywood location was the bookstore where Preston Meyers (Ethan Embry) worked in the original opening of Can’t Hardly Wait, which never made it to the screen. That opening is only visible briefly in the movie’s trailer.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Mallory for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Cisco Home, aka the former Dutton’s Brentwood Bookstore from the “Swingers” episode of The Wonder Years, is located at 11975 San Vicente Boulevard in Brentwood.

April 9, 2014
The Mystery of the “Melissa & Joey” House

In February, I received a challenge from a fellow stalker named Jill who wanted to know about the home belonging to Melissa Burke (Melissa Joan Hart) on the ABC Family sitcom Melissa & Joey. The residence looked familiar to her and she was fairly certain that it had been used previously in another series. She was not alone in that belief. One quick Google search of “Melissa & Joey house, same as” led me to several message boards in which commenters queried about where they had seen the property before. I had never actually watched an episode of Melissa & Joey, but was immediately intrigued, so I streamed the show on Netflix. The Burke residence did not look at all familiar, though. Thus began the mystery of the Melissa & Joey house. And y’all know how much I love myself a good mystery! Fellow stalker Geoff, of the 90210Locations website, did manage to track the dwelling down shortly after Jill posted her challenge and while I ran right out to stalk it, I have yet to figure out why the place looks so familiar to so many viewers.

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Several of the message boards I came across featured commenters asking if the Melissa & Joey house was the same property used in Reba, Step by Step or Boy Meets World. As you can see in the collage pictured below, though, the Melissa & Joey residence bears virtually no resemblance to the Reba or Boy Meets World house. And while it does look similar to the Step by Step house, they are clearly not one and the same.

To me, the Melissa & Joey house is reminiscent of both the Mama’s Family and Old School homes, but, again, is obviously not either one.

So I will put it out there to my fellow stalkers. Do any of you recognize the home from another production?

Melissa & Joey is set in Toledo, Ohio, but the Burke residence can actually be found in Hancock Park. Of the property, series’ executive producer Boy Young said, “Her house is a house here in Los Angeles that we selected because it’s architecturally believable from Toledo. Our production designer basically surveyed architectural styles of Toledo and tried to find something here in L.A. that resembled that.”

In real life, the picturesque, two-story dwelling, which was originally built in 1914, features four bedrooms, three baths, 3,005 square feet of interior space, and a 0.22-acre plot of land. It last sold in April 2008 for $1.795 million.

Several message board commenters also stated their beliefs that the interior set – which exists inside of a soundstage at CBS Studio Center in Studio City – was recycled from another series, as well, although it does not look at all familiar to me. So I will once again put it out there to my fellow stalkers – does anyone recognize the interior of the Melissa & Joey house from another production?

On a side-note – I am BEYOND excited to announce that I wrote a small article about the Double Indemnity house for the April 2014 issue of Los Angeles magazine, which is on newsstands now.That’s me buying out the Palm Desert Barnes & Noble of every copy of the magazine that they had on Saturday.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Jill for challenging me to find this location and to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for tracking it down!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Melissa & Joey house is located at 102 North Norton Avenue in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.

March 31, 2014
The Donna Martin Graduates Protest Site

As big of a Beverly Hills, 90210 fan as I am, it will probably come as a shock to learn that up until recently I had yet to stalk the spot where one of the show’s most iconic moments was filmed – Burbank City Hall, aka the Donna Martin Graduates protest site from the Season 3 episode titled “Something in the Air.” So, since I was in the area recently stalking The Wonder Years houses (you can read those posts here and here), I decided that it was about time that I amended that fact.

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Burbank City Hall, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was designed by architects William Allen and W. George Lutzi. Construction on the Moderne/Art Deco-style building began in 1941 and lasted until 1943. The final cost of the project was $409,000.

The building’s most impressive feature is its tower, which stands at 77 feet.

The lobby area, which I, unfortunately, did not get to see, boasts twenty different kinds of marble, bass relief sculptures and a grand staircase. The building also houses two large murals painted by Hugo Ballin. In a 1996 Daily News article about the structure, Councilman Ted McConkey is quoted as saying, “Anyone walking into City Hall would recognize that it’s something unique. It’s special because of the period in which it was built, because of the way it’s been maintained and because of all the murals at City Hall. We get an inordinate number of requests to use City Hall from film companies.” Love it! You can check out a fabulous photograph of the lobby here.

In “Something in the Air,” Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestley) stages a Senior Class walk-out during final exams to protest the fact that Donna Martin (Tori Spelling), after showing up drunk to the prom, is not being allowed to graduate with her class. (The Juniors also participate in the walk-out, in order to protest the dress code that the school board has implemented for the upcoming school year.) The protestors – chanting the now legendary line “Donna Martin graduates!” – wind up at the steps of Burbank City Hall, which (I think) is supposed to be masquerading as the West Beverly Hills School District in the episode.

This guy had a little trouble with his “No scapegoats” sign.

During the rally, Mrs. Teasley (Denise Dowse) warns the students that they are all in danger of being flunked, which only serves to rile them up further. With Brandon leading the charge, they head inside the building and into the school board meeting.

Once inside, Brandon, of course, makes a speech in Donna’s defense. That speech never ceases to crack me up. He says, “Donna Martin is the kind of girl that goes out of her way for people. That’s why all these people here are going out of their way for her.” Like, huh? Did I miss something in all of my avid 90210 watching? When did Donna ever go out of her way for anyone, let alone the entire Junior and Senior class? It all ends well, though, as the board members wind up being moved by Brandon’s speech and vote to allow Donna to graduate. Donna Martin graduates, indeed!

“Something in the Air” was not the first Beverly Hills, 90210 episode to be lensed at Burbank City Hall. Although the exterior of Beverly Hills City Hall was used as an establishing shot . . .

. . . the interior of Burbank City Hall was where Jim Walsh (James Eckhouse) and Brandon attended a meeting about the Highpoint Center project in the Season 2 episode titled “The Pit and the Pendulum.”

Thanks to the Dear Old Hollywood website, I learned that Burbank City Hall stood in for a police station in the 1954 film Pushover.

In the Season 3 episode of The Rockford Files titled “Crack Back,” which aired in 1977, Burbank City Hall masqueraded as the courthouse where Beth Davenport (Gretchen Corbett) defended a professional football player who was on trial for murder.

In 1980’s American Gigolo, Burbank City Hall was where Julian (Richard Gere) was accosted by the press after being arrested. Very little of the building is visible in the scene, though.

The building masqueraded as a courthouse once again in the 1993 made-for-TV movie A Place to Be Loved (aka Shattered Family).

The interior of Burbank City Hall stood in for the U.S. Naval Headquarters at Pearl Harbor in the ending scene of the 1995 movie Crimson Tide.

For the exterior of the U.S. Naval Headquarters, a different building was used – Memorial Hall at Chapman University in the City of Orange.

The IMDB website states that Burbank City Hall was also utilized in the 1961 film The Choppers, the Season 2 episode of Police Woman titled “Generation of Evil,” the Season 2 episode of S.W.A.T. titled “Courthouse,” and the Season 1 episode of Matt Houston titled “The Showgirl Murders,” but, unfortunately, I could not find copies of any of those productions to verify that information.

On a Donna Martin Graduates side-note – Even though we don’t have kids, during the holidays the GC and I participate in a bit of Elf on the Shelf fun by trading off hiding our elf (named Max) every night for each other. This year, Max decided to hold a walk-out – with some nutcrackers, a couple of Santas, and my 90210 dolls – in honor of my favorite television show. While I thought it was genius, the GC did not share in my enthusiasm.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Donna Martin Graduates protest from the “Something in the Air” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 was filmed at Burbank City Hall, which is located at 275 East Olive Avenue in Burbank.

March 28, 2014
Michael’s House from “The Wonder Years”

UPDATE – The Wonder Years is coming to DVD for the first time ever in October! The 26-disc boxed set includes all six seasons of the show, plus a cast reunion segment, over 15 hours of bonus footage, a collectible metal locker, two production booklets packed with behind-the-scenes information, a replica yearbook, and Wonder Years magnets. Sets can be pre-ordered here.

Fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, recently challenged me to find the old Victorian that Karen Arnold (Olivia d’Abo) and her boyfriend, Michael (who was played by none other than Friends’ David Schwimmer), moved into in the Season 4 episode of The Wonder Years titled “The House That Jack Built.” At the time, I had yet to hit that episode in my binge-watching of the series, so I scanned ahead and was pleasantly surprised to recognize the residence immediately. As it turns out, the home is located in South Pasadena and is one that I know quite well, due to the fact that it sat abandoned and run-down for over a decade before being fixed up. (Y’all know how much I love me some abandoned properties!) When I lived in Pasadena, I practically drove by the place on a daily basis, while on my way to and from the Harbor Freeway, and always wondered why such a beautiful dwelling had been left to deteriorate. I had even watched a music video being shot on the premises many moons ago (more on that later). For whatever reason, though, I had never blogged about the home, so I figured it was about time that I do so.

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In real life, the property, which is a South Pasadena Local City Landmark, is known as the Riggins House and it was originally built in 1885. Yep, it’s currently 129 years old! The five-bedroom, two-bath, 2,778-square-foot Queen Anne-style Victorian, which sits on 0.33 acres of land, was last sold in June 2005 for $1.2 million.

I never did learn the story behind the residence or why it was left in disarray for so many years. I think it has something to do with the 710 Freeway Project, though. (In the 1960s, the state of California purchased 500-plus homes – many quite large, beautiful and historic – in what is now known as the 710 Corridor with the intention of tearing them down to build a connector road between the 210 and 710 freeways. While some of the houses were leased out, many were left vacant from that point onward. Thankfully, the freeway extension project was squashed last October and the homes are now finally, finally being returned to private ownership.) Oddly enough, I preferred the look of the place in its run-down state, most likely because it reminded me of the “Thriller” house. Unfortunately though, I do not have any photographs of it from that time period.

According to An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles, Professor Thaddeus Lowe, who was best known for founding the Mount Lowe Railway and Citizen’s Bank of Los Angeles, lived in the Riggins House while his own (much larger – we’re talking 24,000 square feet!) house was being built a couple of blocks away at 995 South Orange Grove Boulevard. That residence, which was once one of the largest homes in the entire nation, was sadly demolished between 1927 and 1928.

In The Wonder Years “The House That Jack Built” episode, Karen decides to leave her college dorm in order to move into a large home with a “roommate,” whom she fails to tell her parents is actually her new boyfriend. Both the exterior of the Riggins House . . .

. . . and the interior were shown in the episode.

The residence subsequently showed up in several Season 5 episodes of The Wonder Years, including “Dinner Out;”

“Stormy Weather;”

and “The Wedding.”

As I mentioned above, I once watched a music video being filmed at the Riggins House – the 2003 video for the Beyoncé/Missy Elliot/MC Lyte/Free compilation song “Fighting Temptation,” which was featured on the soundtrack for Beyoncé’s then most recent movie, The Fighting Temptations. In a 2003 interview, Beyoncé stated that the Riggins House was chosen for filming because it reminded her of the Georgia-area residence where The Fighting Temptations was shot.

The interior of the Riggins House also appeared in the video.

You can watch “Fighting Temptation” by clicking below.

As I also just learned, the Riggins House was utilized as the Pyramid Corners, Oklahoma residence of the Torkleson family in the short-lived series The Torkelsons, one of my favorite shows ever! (Oh, Man in the Moon . . . ! ) In an odd twist, and for reasons I cannot even begin to fathom, imagery of the property was flipped in all establishing shots that appeared on the program, which ran from 1991 to 1992.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for challenging me to find this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Michael’s house from The Wonder Years is located at 919 Columbia Street in South Pasadena.

March 26, 2014
The Fake Fendi Apartment Building from “Sex and the City”

My favorite moment from the two Sex and the City episodes that took place in Los Angeles (Season 3’s “Escape from New York” and “Sex and Another City”) was when Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) attempted to buy fake designer purses at a seedy apartment building somewhere in the Valley. I, of course, was pretty intent on tracking down said apartment building and while I spent quite a bit of time trying to do so a few years back, I came up empty-handed. Then, a couple of weeks ago, after finding Lorenzo Lamas’ house from the “Sex and Another City” episode (which I blogged about here), I became inspired to have another go at it and, lo and behold, pinpointed the place!

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In “Sex and Another City,” Samantha purchases a fake Fendi bag while visiting L.A. with the girls. When Carrie sees the faux purse, she flips over it (and its $150-price tag) and Samantha tells here, “We could go get more. I got the guy’s card. He lives somewhere called ‘the Valley.’” (Samantha says the words “the Valley” with a romantic undertone, so its obvious she was never an avid 90210 watcher. ) The two then take a two-hour drive to the guy’s apartment building, which supposedly has an address number of 45386.

Only the backyard and rear portion of the apartment building were shown in the episode, which, coupled with the fact that I assumed the place actually was located “deep in the Valley,” made it rather difficult to find.

While re-watching the scene a couple of weeks ago, I was shocked to spot the unique building visible in the background behind Carrie and Samantha. Somehow, I had failed to notice it during all of my previous viewings. As it turns out, the building is one I am quite familiar with and have visited frequently over the years.

The building pictured in the background of the scene is located right across the street from Warner Bros. Studios and is known as Warner Bros. Studio Plaza or Building 160. It is the spot where guests check in for the Warner Bros. VIP Tour, which I have taken more times than I can count. How I never spotted the building on my earlier viewings of the fake Fendi scene is beyond me!

Especially considering that I knew from one of those tours that the scene in which Carrie met with Matthew McConaughey (who played himself) in the “Escape from New York” episode was filmed INSIDE OF a Warner Bros. Studio Plaza office. Duh!

Not to mention that a few other scenes from the two episodes were filmed at Warner Bros., including the scene in which Carrie attempted to smoke on a backlot stoop (which I wrote about for Los Angeles magazine here) and the two scenes in which Carrie drove to the studio for meetings about turning her column into a TV show (which were shot across the street from Building 160, in front of Gate 5).

In real life, the building is not seedy at all, nor is it located in a shady area.

While I really wanted to walk into the backyard to catch a glimpse of where filming had taken place, I somehow managed to restrain myself.

I was thrilled to see, though, that the size and positioning of the building’s windows, the base of the exterior stairwell and the three gray poles to the side of it all matched up to what appeared onscreen.

The spot where the dogs were caged up in the scene is denoted with a pink arrow in the photograph below.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The fake Fendi apartment building from the “Sex and Another City” episode of Sex and the City is located at 141 South Avon Street in Burbank.

March 24, 2014
Fatso’s Drive-In from “The Wonder Years”

UPDATE – The Wonder Years is coming to DVD for the first time ever in October! The 26-disc boxed set includes all six seasons of the show, plus a cast reunion segment, over 15 hours of bonus footage, a collectible metal locker, two production booklets packed with behind-the-scenes information, a replica yearbook, and Wonder Years magnets. Sets can be pre-ordered here.

My favorite episode of The Wonder Years is Season 5’s “Frank and Denise.” I absolutely love everything about it – the characters of Frank ‘The Stank’ Stanavukovic (Noah Blake) and Denise “The Grease” Lavelle (Amy Hathaway), their relationship, the poetry, and the fact that Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) starts referring to himself as “Calvin Arnold.” All in all, it’s just a perfectly-crafted episode and storyline. So when I saw that the MyTWYYearbook website had tracked down the location of Fatso’s, one of the main locations featured in “Frank and Denise,” I just about died of excitement and ran right out to stalk it while in L.A. last week.

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In “Frank and Denise,” Fatso’s is the restaurant where Denise, a popular girl whom Kevin has recently befriended, works.

In real life, the eatery is known as Jim’s Original Famous 1/4 Lb. Charbroiled Burgers. (I know, I know, the name is a lot to chew on – pun intended.) The drive-in, which serves everything from the aforementioned burgers to tacos to teriyaki chicken bowls, was originally founded in 1960 by a man named Jim (obvs) at 8749 East Valley Boulevard in Rosemead. It has remained at that same location ever since.

Jim’s was taken over by a new owner, Chris Athas, in 1997. At some point thereafter, Athas remodeled the restaurant and it, unfortunately, no longer even remotely resembles Fatso’s from “Frank and Denise,” as you can see below. You can check out some photographs of what Jim’s looked like pre-remodel on the MyTWYYearbook site here.

Oddly enough, Jim’s masqueraded as a different restaurant, Zesty’s, in The Wonder Years episode that followed “Frank and Denise,” titled “Full Moon Rising.” The eatery was shown from the opposite side, which is, I guess, how producers figured they could get away with featuring the same location as two different places in back-to-back shows. Thankfully, whoever runs MyTWYYearbook has eagle eyes and caught the double-usage.

As you can see below, the red, white and blue tiling of Fatso’s from “Frank and Denise” matches that of Zesty’s from “Full Moon Rising,” as does the rock façade exterior and the pick-up window.

Later in Season 5, in the episode titled “Hero,” Kevin heads back to Fatso’s, this time with Paul Pfeiffer (Josh Saviano) and Winnie Cooper (Danica McKellar), to celebrate McKinley High’s big basketball win. As you can see below, though, instead of filming at Jim’s, a different restaurant was utilized – one that I have yet to track down.

On a The Wonder Years side-note – I was shocked to spot none other than Person of Interest’s Jim Caviezel playing high school basketball star Bobby Riddle in “Hero.” He looks exactly the same today as he did when the episode was filmed back in 1992!

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to MyTWYYearbook website for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Jim’s Original Famous 1/4 Lb. Charbroiled Burgers, aka Fatso’s from the “Frank and Denise” episode of The Wonder Years, is located at 8749 East Valley Boulevard in Rosemead. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

March 5, 2014
Lorenzo Lamas’ House from “Sex and the City”

This past weekend was hands down the best. Oscar. weekend. ever. I ended up stalking only one event (the torrential rain kept me indoors the rest of the time), but while there I got to meet one of my top-five celebrity crushes, Mr. Joshua Jackson from Dawson’s Creek. Like I said, best. Oscar. weekend. ever.

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I also met Alex Newell from Glee . . .

and The O.C.’s Peter Gallagher (who happened to be playing in a celebrity golf tournament in Palm Springs).

I also got to do a bit of location stalking during the few, brief moments when the sun was out, most of it Sex and the City-related. While doing research for my most-recent Los Angeles magazine Scene It Before post, about the backlot stoop where Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) attempted to smoke a cigarette in the Season 3 episode titled “Escape from New York,” I got inspired to track down some of the missing locations from the episode and the one that followed it, titled “Sex and Another City.” (Both episodes took place in L.A.). The locale I was most intent on finding was the ultra-modern pad that Keith Travers (Vince Vaughn) took Carrie to look at in “Sex and Another City.” In the episode, the real estate agent informs Keith that the residence belongs to actor Lorenzo Llamas and that he has it listed at $3.4 million, but that it will probably go for $3.2.

When Carrie sees the inside of the place, she says, “This is not a house, this is an airport!”

Thanks to its modern style and stellar views, I was convinced that the residence was located somewhere in the West Hollywood area, so I was shocked to come across this listing which stated that it was actually in Studio City. From there, tracking down the home’s exact location was a snap. Sadly though, when I went to stalk it, I learned that the pad is located on a private road and is not accessible to the public. I did manage to catch a glimpse of it from a few blocks away, though.

According to this article, the unique home had a bit of a stilted start. Architect Michael Pearce completed building the exterior of the structure in 1996, shortly before it was acquired by the bank. A man named Robert Seltzer subsequently purchased it for $600,000 and commissioned architect David Kellen to finish the project. The residence was then put on the market in 2004 for, in a case of life imitating art, $3.4 million. It appears to have been put on the market again in 2013 for $2,795,000, but I do not believe that it ever sold.

According to the real estate listing, the property was in need of some repairs and TLC at that time. As you can see below, it does appear that some sort of work is currently being done on the place.

The stunning home boasts four bedrooms, five baths, 5,873 square feet of space, a 0.59-acre plot of land, an infinity pool, a spa, a rooftop deck, three balconies, twenty-foot ceilings, glass walls, a gourmet kitchen, three fireplaces, and a sauna. You can see some interior photographs of the pad here. According to this article, Leonardo DiCaprio (whom I was devastated did not win the Best Actor Oscar on Sunday night) even checked out the property at one point in time.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Lorenzo Lamas’ house from the “Sex and Another City” episode of Sex and the City is located at 3596 Woodhill Canyon Road in Studio City. Woodhill Canyon Road is private and not accessible to the public, but you can catch a glimpse of the residence from Mound View Place, which is located just a few blocks east.

March 4, 2014
Winnie Cooper’s House from “The Wonder Years”

UPDATE – The Wonder Years is coming to DVD for the first time ever in October! The 26-disc boxed set includes all six seasons of the show, plus a cast reunion segment, over 15 hours of bonus footage, a collectible metal locker, two production booklets packed with behind-the-scenes information, a replica yearbook, and Wonder Years magnets. Sets can be pre-ordered here.

It was quite a Wonder Years weekend for me. Not only did the Grim Cheaper and I indulge in some more binge-watching of the show, but I also got to meet Dan Lauria, aka Jack Arnold himself! As fate would have it, the actor happened to be participating in a celebrity golf tournament in the desert this weekend. When I saw his name on the list of players, I just about died being that I have been on such a Wonder Years kick as of late. So bright and early Saturday morning I dragged the GC right on out to the course – Starbucks in hand, natch! Dan really could not have been nicer. When I asked him for a photo, he said, “Sure! That’s what we’re here for this weekend!” Um, love! Then, when we went to take the picture, the GC had some trouble getting my camera to work and Dan joked, “He doesn’t know how to use a camera – he must be a director.” Such a sweet guy! And I absolutely love that he was wearing a ‘50s-style hat. So apropos! And now, on with the post!

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As was depicted on The Wonder Years, diagonally across the street from Kevin Arnold’s (Fred Savage) house (which I blogged about on Friday) is the home where his perennial love interest, Winnie Cooper (Danica McKellar), lived.

Like the Arnold residence, Winnie’s house was built in 1949 and also boasts three bedrooms and three baths.

Sadly though, while still recognizable, the property is not nearly as frozen in time as Kevin’s house is. As you can see below, the wood paneling that used to cover the front left portion of the residence has since been removed.

Alterations have also been made to the front porch area and a walkway has been added. The main front window has been changed, as well. LOVE that there is a bench in the exact same spot that the Coopers had one, though!

The one-story residence, which was shown considerably less often than the Arnold home, was only utilized in the first three seasons of The Wonder Years. Winnie and her family sold the house (breaking Kevin’s heart in the process) in the Season 3 finale, which was titled “Moving.” Their new abode, said to be located four miles away on the series, can actually be found just around the corner at 501 Tufts Avenue. And yes, I will be stalking that location soon!

Because it was so rarely shown, I would venture a guess that the inside of the real life home was used as the interior of the Cooper house.

For all of my fellow Wonder Years aficionados, in 2002 the Biography series aired a fabulous episode titled “The Wonder Years: Comedy Coming of Age” that featured a lot of behind-the-scenes information about the show. You can watch it by clicking below.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mikey, of the Mike the Fanboy website, for suggesting this stalk! You can read his write-up of the day here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Winnie Cooper’s house from The Wonder Years is located at 525 University Avenue in Burbank. Kevin Arnold’s house from the series is located diagonally across the street at 516 University Avenue.

February 24, 2014
Kevin’s House from “The Wonder Years”

UPDATE – The Wonder Years is coming to DVD for the first time ever in October! The 26-disc boxed set includes all six seasons of the show, plus a cast reunion segment, over 15 hours of bonus footage, a collectible metal locker, two production booklets packed with behind-the-scenes information, a replica yearbook, and Wonder Years magnets. Sets can be pre-ordered here.

My good friend Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, recently asked if I wanted to do some stalking of The Wonder Years house with him. The 1968-set coming-of-age series finally made its way to Netflix in October 2011 (due to music licensing issues, it has never been released on DVD) and Mikey had been indulging in some binge-watching. He had never stalked the Burbank-area residence where Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) and his family – Jack (Dan Lauria), Norma (Alley Mills), Karen (Olivia d’Abo) and Wayne (Jason Hervey) – lived on the show, though, and while I had stalked and blogged about the location before, because it was eons ago (in March 2008), I figured it was most-definitely time for a redux. So one rainy day (I had literally just had my hair blown out, too!) a couple of weeks ago, the two of us met up to do some Wonder Years stalking. As soon as I returned home, the Grim Cheaper and I started binge-watching the series, as well (thanks, Mikey! ), and I was shocked at how oddly sad it is – much more so than I remembered. While still enjoyable, I find myself tearing up at least once during every episode.

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Visiting the Arnold abode was like stepping back in time. As you can see below, virtually no part of the property has been changed in the 25-plus years since the series first debuted.

The one-story, three-bedroom, three-bath, 1,839-square-foot home, which was originally built in 1949, was featured regularly throughout the series six-season run.

Amazingly, the residence was last sold in 1987, which means that the same family who owned it during The Wonder Years years still owns it today! Love that!

The dwelling was also featured weekly in The Wonder Years opening credits.

For some reason, Mikey and I were both under the mistaken impression that Winnie Cooper (Danica McKellar) waved to the camera in the opening credits and we each sat down on the curb to reenact the moment while we were there. It was actually Paul Pfeiffer (Josh Saviano) who waved in the opening, though. Whoops!

You can watch The Wonder Years opening credits by clicking below. (Bet you can’t not sing along!)

Time also appears to have stood still on the Arnolds’ street. It was never specifically stated where the series was supposed to have been set, producers instead choosing to keep things vague so that the narrative would be relatable to anyone who grew up in a suburban American town in the late 1960s. The formula worked, too. Even though I came of age in the ‘80s, my childhood wasn’t all that different from Kevin’s. I cannot express how incredibly nostalgic stalking the neighborhood was – due both to the fact that it still looks like a community from a bygone era and because it brought back so many memories of my early years.

I am 99.9% certain that the real life interior of the home appeared in the pilot episode and that a set resembling it was subsequently built for all future filming once the series got picked up. As you can see below, the kitchen in the pilot episode looks quite a bit different than than the one that appeared in the Season 1 episode titled “The Phone Call.”

Another view of the kitchen from the pilot as compared to a view of the kitchen from the Season 1 episode titled “Swingers” is pictured below.

Stay tuned for Winnie Cooper’s house (pictured below) on Monday! And I recently stumbled across this amazeballs site, so you know what that means! There will definitely be more Wonder Years stalking in my future!

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mikey, of the Mike the Fanboy website, for suggesting this stalk! You can read his write-up of the day here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Kevin Arnold’s house from The Wonder Years is located at 516 University Avenue in Burbank.

February 21, 2014