Be sure to check out today’s Los Angeles magazine post – about the 20th Anniversary screening of Apollo 13 at the TCM Classic Film Festival. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
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The Cooper House from “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”
Sometimes I become obsessed with a location because I love the movie that it was featured in. Other times I just like the look of a particular place and am desperate to see it in person. And other times still I read something about a filming site that completely transfixes me despite the fact that I have never actually seen it onscreen. Such was the case with the Anywhere, U.S.A.-style residence where the Cooper family – Ben (Steve Carell), Kelly (Jennifer Garner), Alexander (Ed Oxenbould), Anthony (Dylan Minnette), Emily (Kerris Dorsey), and Baby Trevor (Elise and Zoey Vargas) – lived in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. While doing research for a Los Angeles magazine post about Vroman’s Bookstore’s appearance in the 2014 family flick, I came across these production notes and was shocked to read that a re-creation of a real home in South Pasadena had been constructed for the shoot. Interest piqued, I immediately rented Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day on iTunes and, in a stroke of good luck, found the South Pas pad almost immediately.
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As it turns out, the Cooper home is located on Buena Vista Street, a place that I am very familiar with thanks to its many appearances onscreen. While watching Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day’s opening scene, I immediately recognized the mansion visible behind the Cooper family’s van as Lady Heather’s (Melinda Clark) house from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. So I did some Google Street View-sleuthing in the same area and found the Cooper’s residence just a half a block east of Lady Heather’s house. (Patrick Gates’ home from National Treasure is located directly across the street from the Cooper dwelling and the the Liar Liar house can be found two blocks north.)
Of the Cooper home, production designer Michael Corenblith said, “We imagined that this is a family of birds that live in this beautiful cozy little nest that has been created from all of the nicest little branches and twigs and pieces of colored ribbon and fabric. But there are just too many birds for the nest. This family is bursting at the seams, so the idea was to craft an environment for them that would really convey that idea to the audience.” He then set about looking for a “quaint” house to film in.
He found the perfect spot at 1037 Buena Vista Street. Corenblith said, “It was exactly the right house for this family. It had the right scale, it had the right vibe, window scape and was built in the right period. It had a lot of things we really liked, but ultimately, it was going to be too small to actually shoot the movie inside.” So he decided to have a replica of the residence built at Melody Ranch Motion Picture Studio in Newhall. The “home” took five weeks to construct.
The production notes state, “The exterior of the home – complete with backyard and select interior sets – was built in one area of the studio lot, while the upstairs interiors resided on soundstages elsewhere on the lot.” Corenblith did an amazing job designing the interiors! I am in love with the Cooper’s kitchen. With the bright windows, light-colored cabinetry and large center island, it reminds me a lot of Cupcakes and Cashmere’s Emily Schuman’s kitchen.
I cannot believe that the backyard and pool shown in the movie were set re-creations! Had I seen Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day prior to reading the production notes, I would have bet money on the fact that the home’s actual backyard was used.
Corenblith explained that the need to build the backyard replica and interior sets stemmed from the scene involving the crocodile. He says, “We follow the crocodile through the house and out the back into a swimming pool. The path this crocodile takes from the front door, through the house, out the French doors in the back, and directly to a swimming pool was nothing we found in the real world. That was one of the big factors that mandated the design of this configuration.”
Corenblith even had the rear side of the home re-created for the shoot. You can see what the actual back of the house looks like in the aerial view pictured below. It is strikingly similar to what was built.
From the way the production notes were written, I originally thought that no filming whatsoever had taken place at the South Pasadena house. It became apparent while watching the movie, though, that the front exterior of the real home was used in a few scenes and in several establishing shots.
The residence looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen. The unique trees in the front yard are absolutely breathtaking!
In real life, the residence, which was originally built in 1949, boasts two bedrooms, two baths, 2,022 square feet, and a 0.37-acre lot.
It’s no stranger to the silver screen, either. In 1983, the very same home was used as Arnie Cunningham’s (Keith Gordon) Rockbridge, California residence in Christine, though it looked quite a bit different at the time.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Cooper house from Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day is located at 1037 Buena Vista Street in South Pasadena. Patrick Gates’ home from National Treasure is located across the street at 1030 Buena Vista Street. Lady Heather’s house from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is located at 929 Buena Vista Street. The Liar Liar house can be found one block north at 1004 Highland Street.
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The Pink Motel from “Vanderpump Rules”
The latest season of Vanderpump Rules might have been the most epic yet. With Stassi Schroeder making only occasional appearances, I had a fear that the show was going to lose all of its allure and most of its steam, but that was not the case. Kristen Doute brought the crazy like never before and the fact that Ariana Madix had a larger role made Scheana Marie’s onscreen time almost bearable. I loved pretty much every second of Season 3, especially the ‘50s-style photo shoot that took place in the final episode, which was titled “Dethroned.” The photo shoot was held at the Pink Motel, a historic locale that I had the pleasure of stalking back in June 2012.
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The Pink Motel was constructed by a Pennsylvania native named Joseph Thomulka on San Fernando Road in Sun Valley in 1946.
According to a 1990 Los Angeles Times article, Joseph painted the 20-room property bright pink so that it would “get noticed.” In the piece, his son Monty Thomulka says, “He was driving out here from Philadelphia, coming cross the middle states, looking at motels. He wanted something that people would remember.”
Joseph built a small diner, also painted a rose hue, on the site in 1949 and dubbed it the “Pink Café.”
At the time that the Pink Motel and Pink Café were built, San Fernando Road was a bustling thoroughfare that lead from Los Angeles to Santa Clarita. The construction of Interstate 5 changed all of that, though, and while the hotel and restaurant continued to operate for several decades, it was at a much slower pace.
Monty took over the property from his parents in 1969 and still runs it to this day. Operating both a hotel and a restaurant proved to be too much work, though, and he found that he could make more money renting the diner out solely for filming. So he closed the Pink Café to patrons in 1989. Today, the eatery, renamed Cadillac Jack’s, sits frozen in time – ketchup, mustard bottles and table settings in place at each seat – waiting for its next close-up. The Pink Motel continued to operate as a hotel for many years, but it, too, is now available solely for filming. An average of sixty shoots take place on the premises each year!
When we visited the property in 2012, the caretaker happened to spot us taking pictures through the windows of Cadillac Jack’s and, amused at my excitement over seeing the place in person, asked if we wanted to come inside. My answer was a resounding yes! (The photographs below were taken by Mike, from MovieShotsLA. He, too, was invited inside the diner to snap some pictures when he visited the place and was kind enough to share them with me.)
I cannot even describe how cool it was to be able to tour Cadillac Jack’s interior and stand in the footsteps of so many past filmings!
The Pink Motel and Cadillac Jack’s were featured extensively in the Vanderpump Rules “Dethroned” episode.
The shoot made use of pretty much every square inch of the property, including the hotel’s swimming pool which was added to the site in 1959.
The motel’s usual pool, which is fish-shaped, was featured in the 1987 skateboarding movie The Search for Animal Chin and subsequently became a popular destination for skateboarders. Since the motel ceased operations, the pool has been left drained and is now rented regularly for skating events. It is also often utilized for film and photo shoots in its dry state, as was the case with Vanderpump Rules.
You can check out the images from the Vanderpump Rules photo shoot here.
Cataloging all of the Pink Motel and Cadillac Jack’s onscreen appearances would be virtually impossible, but I will list of few of the highlights. In 1974, the site popped up in the Season 1 episode of The Rockford Files titled, “Caledonia – It’s Worth a Fortune!” as the spot where Leonard Blair (Richard Schaal) got beat up.
In 1982’s Grease 2, Michael Carrington (Maxwell Caulfield) tutored Stephanie Zinone (Michelle Pfeiffer) over a hamburger (with extra ketchup!) at Cadillac Jack’s.
The Pink Hotel was used in the Season 7 episode of MacGyver titled “The ‘Hood,” which aired in 1991, as the spot where Kelly Dobbs (Nancy Sloan) was held captive.
Mary Anne Spier (Rachael Leigh Cook), Dawn Schafer (Larisa Oleynik) and the gang hung out at Cadillac Jack’s in the 1995 movie The Baby-Sitters Club.
The eatery was used extensively in Mandy Moore’s 1999 “Candy” music video. Both the exterior . . .
. . . and the interior of the property appeared in the video.
And I, of course, just had to pose for a picture in the booth where Mandy sat in “Candy.”
The pool was also used in the shoot.
In the 2004 comedy The Whole Ten Yards, Jimmy the Tulip (Bruce Willis), Oz (Matthew Perry) and Jill (Amanda Peet) grab a bite to eat at Cadillac Jack’s, which is said to be located in Oceanside. While there, Jimmy knocks out a rude patron and teaches the patron’s son a little lesson about manners.
In a later scene, the trio check into the Pink Hotel along with a gangster they have kidnapped.
In the Season 2 episode of fave show The O.C. titled “The Rainy Day Women,” which aired in 2005, Sandy Cohen (Peter Gallagher) and his ex-girlfriend Rebecca Bloom (Kim Delaney) got stranded for a night at the Pink Motel.
In 2006, the motel was where Off. Debra Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter) and Sgt. Angel Batista (David Zayas) tracked down Ice Truck Killer imitator Neil Perry (Sam Witwer) in the Season 1 episode of Dexter titled “Circle of Friends.”
The Dexter crew returned to the Pink Motel in 2013 to shoot Season 8’s “A Beautiful Day,” in which Debra hides out at the property with Andrew Briggs (Rhys Coiro).
At the end of the 2008 comedy The House Bunny, Shelley Darlingson (Anna Faris) did a photo shoot for Playboy at the Pink Motel.
Cadillac Jack’s was used throughout the music video for CeeLo Green’s hit 2010 song “F**k You”/”Forget You.”
You can watch the “Forget You” version of the video by clicking below.
The first season of the 2010 television series The Booth at the End was shot extensively at Cadillac Jack’s.
In the 2011 flick Drive, Driver (Ryan Gosling) and Blanche (Christina Hendricks) hide out at the Pink Motel. Only the interior of one of the rooms appeared onscreen, though. Director Nicolas Winding Refn says in a Movieline article, “The motel was hard, because so much action goes on. It was called the Pink Motel, which has been used in a lot of movies. But I really liked the motel rooms, so I decided not to do any exterior shots so nobody could know where we were actually shooting. It’s a very classic old hotel, it looks like something from the ’50s or ’60s. The day we shot there, which was the first time we shot anything, was the hottest day in L.A., so it was pretty unbearable. I was told afterwards [that the Valley is hot], nobody told me about it!”
Cutie Matt Bomer did a photo shoot for a 2012 issue of GQ Italia at the diner.
In 2014, the pool was used for Major Crimes’ Season 3 promo shots. For whatever reason, though, a different motel was superimposed into the background of the finalized images.
I actually never would have figured this one out had it not been for Phillip P. Keene, who plays camera tech Buzz Watson on the series. I randomly spotted Phillip shopping at the J.Crew in Pasadena last August. I did not approach him, though, as I already had a photograph with him and do not like approaching actors inside of stores. Well, about an hour later, I literally almost kicked myself over the whole thing. I had been trying to track down the motel from the Major Crimes promo shots ever since they had been released and realized I could have asked Phillip if he remembered the location! So I immediately tweeted him and, miraculously, not only did he respond, but he started following me!
The Season 5 episode of Dance Moms titled “Wild Wild West Coast, Part 2,” in which the Abby Lee Dance Company girls shot a music video for the MattyB song “Turn Up the Track,” took place at Cadillac Jack’s and the Pink Motel.
The interior of Cadillac Jack’s was also featured in the video.
You can watch the “Turn Up the Track” video by clicking below.
The property was also featured in The House of Sand and Fog, High Road, and Pirates of Silicon Valley, as well as in episodes of Columbo, Las Vegas, Highway to Heaven, Murder, She Wrote, Law & Order, and Simon & Simon.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for sharing some of his photos with me for this post!
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Pink Motel and Cadillac Jack’s from Vanderpump Rules is located at 9457 San Fernando Road in Sun Valley. You can visit the property’s official website here.
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The Pioneer Saloon
There’s only one thing I love more than stalking film locations and that’s stalking film locations that have a history. On our way out of Las Vegas last week, the Grim Cheaper and I visited a watering hole that has quite a storied one. The Pioneer Saloon in Goodsprings, which has been deemed Southern Nevada’s oldest bar, was first established over 100 years ago on a curving rural road located about 25 miles southwest of The Strip. Miraculously, little of the two-room saloon has changed since its inception and the place is still going strong to this day.
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The Pioneer Saloon was founded by businessman George Fayle in 1913.
He constructed the neighboring General Store at around the same time, which he operated as a café.
Both structures were built from kits likely purchased from a Sears, Roebuck & Company catalog. According to the Pioneer Saloon’s brochure, the buildings are thought to be some of the last of their kind in the U.S.
The walls and ceilings of the Pioneer Saloon and Goodsprings General Store were constructed entirely out of pressed tin that is still in place today.
The mahogany bar in place at the saloon today is the same one that was installed in 1913. It was made by the Brunswick Company in Maine in the 1860s.
The original brass foot railing is also still in place.
The Pioneer Saloon’s history is steeped in lore. The most notable tale (which I tend to believe) centers around Clark Gable and wife Carole Lombard. On January 16th, 1942, Carole, her mother and Gable’s press agent boarded a flight from Indiana to California. The three had been in the Hoosier State selling war bonds. After a brief refueling stop in Las Vegas, their plane crashed into Potosi Mountain. Gable immediately headed to Goodsprings and spent several days at the Pioneer Saloon, first awaiting news of the crash and then waiting for his wife’s body to be released.
Gable is said to have sat in the spot where I am sitting in the photo below.
The divots that can be seen in the face of the bar are rumored to have come from the many cigars he smoked while waiting.
The Pioneer Saloon’s eastern room is now known as the Carole Lombard & Clark Gable Memorial Room.
The space features numerous photographs and newspaper clippings about the couple, as well as a piece of the wreckage of the airplane on which Carole lost her life.
The room also boasts photographs of the many productions that have been lensed on the premises, but more on that in a bit.
Another infamous moment in the Pioneer Saloon’s history took place in 1915 when a dispute over a card game resulted in a man being shot and killed. The table where he was sitting during the game is pictured below. It was originally located in the main room of the bar, but has since been relocated to the Carole Lombard & Clark Gable Memorial Room.
It is said that the bullet holes below came from that shooting.
The three holes run straight from the inside of the Pioneer to the outside.
The photograph below is pretty eerie. No wonder the place is said to be haunted!
In 1966, the Pioneer Saloon and Goodsprings General Store (the interior of the General Store is pictured below) were purchased by Don Hedrick and his wife. When they passed away, Don Hedrick Jr. inherited the site and continued to run it until 2006 when he retired and sold it to Las Vegas entrepreneur Noel Sheckells. The property had fallen into a bit of disrepair by that point so Noel subsequently poured $600,000 into restoring it. The following year, the Pioneer Saloon was added to the Nevada Register of Historic Places.
The saloon is honestly one of the coolest places I have ever visited. The people there could not have been more friendly and the overall vibe smacked of good times. Besides cheeky décor, the walls are donned with signs that read, “Street girls bringing miners into hotel must pay for room in advance” and “Pioneer Saloon – Open Everyday Till the Drinking Stops.”
The Pioneer even has an “A**hole Association.” Being that one of my good friends refers to the GC as “Ahole” (in a loving way, of course), I made him join. The yearly $5 membership fee is donated to Goodsprings’ local schoolhouse.
While one would not think that a 100-plus year-old watering hole located in the middle of nowhere would serve particularly good food, the Pioneer’s fare was shockingly fabulous! The GC and I both opted for the chicken tacos and they were some of the best I’ve ever had! The restaurant also serves burgers (which smelled so good I almost regretted my choice of the tacos), steaks, ribs, nachos, pizzas, salads, and chicken wings. There is also the option of purchasing various meats onsite and grilling them yourself on the DIY BBQs located on the premises.
Thanks to its unique aesthetic, the Pioneer Saloon has appeared numerous times onscreen. It was featured in the deleted “Hardware Barn” scene in 1998’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Please pardon the craptastic screen captures – I got them off of YouTube.
You can watch that scene by clicking below.
Travis Tritt shot photos for his 2004 album, My Honky Tonk History, at the Pioneer Saloon.
In 2005’s Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, the Pioneer Saloon stood in for the Sloane Valley, Nevada bar where Lou and Karl Steele (Abraham Benrubi and Nick Offerman, respectively) hosted an arm wrestling competition.
Though the interior of the saloon was also said to have been used in the filming, I am not sure if that is true. The layout of the bar shown onscreen does not seem to match up to the layout of the Pioneer.
The Pioneer served as the inspiration for the Prospector Saloon in the 2010 video game Fallout: New Vegas.
The saloon also appeared in Melvin and Howard, the 1982 Cheech and Chong movie Things are Tough All Over, and The Winner, as well as in episodes of Sister Wives, Ghost Hunters and Pawn Stars. And while the bar is also said to have been featured in The Mexican, I scanned through the flick while doing research for this post and did not see it pop up anywhere.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Pioneer Saloon is located at 310 Spring Street in Goodsprings, Nevada. You can visit the watering hole’s official website here. The “gas n gulp” from The Hangover is located just a few miles away at 1 Goodsprings Road in Jean.
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New Scene It Before Post – The “Annie” Orphanage
Don’t forget to check out my latest Los Angeles magazine post – about a location from one of my favorite movies ever, Annie. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
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WeScoutLA – Episode 5
Check out my latest video collaboration with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, in which we visit locations from Valley Girl, Poltergeist, Phantasm, and Encino Man. Enjoy!
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The ” . . . Baby One More Time” Costume
One of the most important items on my Stalking Bucket List was checked off last week while the Grim Cheaper and I were in Las Vegas. Way back in October 2010 (while doing research for this post), I learned that Britney Spears’ schoolgirl costume from her 1998 “ . . . Baby One More Time” music video was on display at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and I just about died. As I have mentioned countless times before on this site, to me that outfit is everything. I’ve replicated it on Halloween and for various costume parties more times than I can count. I love absolutely everything about it, especially the pink hair pom poms. Upon reading on Wikipedia that the costume was at the Hard Rock, I came thisclose to driving out to see it that very night. I restrained myself (or rather, the GC did) and put the stalk on hold for what seemed like eons. So when the GC informed me that we had to head out to Vegas last week, I told him that seeing the costume was our very first priority upon arriving in town.
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Prior to heading to Vegas, I called the Hard Rock Hotel FOUR times to verify that the “ . . . Baby One More Time” costume was still on display. The HR chain has a tendency of moving memorabilia from site to site and periodically rotating items, placing some in storage, and I wanted to make sure that the schoolgirl outfit was on the premises before I got too excited about seeing it. All four people whom I talked to informed me that the costume was most definitely still on display and that it was in the lobby of the HRH Tower. Upon arriving, though, we discovered that it was not in that tower – or anywhere else we looked. None of the Hark Rock employees on duty at the time had any idea where it was, either, and most said that they hadn’t seen it in years. When the VIP concierge informed me that the outfit was most likely in storage, I literally almost started crying on the spot. Talk about a disappointment! Thankfully, the GC suggested that we walk around for a bit on the off chance that we might spot it somewhere. After about 15 minutes of wandering, I caught an image of a black skirt out of the corner of my eye and immediately took off running. Sure enough, it was Britney’s costume!
For whatever reason, the outfit is currently tucked away in the hotel’s Peacock High Limit Gaming Room, which is located just to the right of the casino’s main entrance. You have to actually walk into the room and then around to the extreme right to see the costume, though, as it is situated behind a wall and is not at all readily apparent to passersby.
I was dismayed to discover that my favorite portion of the costume (the pink hair pom poms if you haven’t been paying attention
) was not included in the display. As you can see in these photos, Britney’s entire schoolgirl outfit, including the hair accessories, thigh-high stockings and shoes, used to be on exhibit. I wanted so badly to view the complete ensemble, but, sadly, that was not to be. I was extremely excited over seeing the majority of it in person, though, and am anxiously awaiting the day when the hair ties are brought out of storage and put back on display.
While making screen captures for this post, I noticed something else about the costume that is off. As you can see below, in “ . . . Baby One More Time” Britney donned a maroon crop top, not the black bra that is featured on the hotel mannequin.
I tracked down a photo on the Britney Universe website that shows a clearer image of the crop top that she wore during the shoot.
The background dancers wore schoolgirl costumes very similar to Britney’s in the video, so I am guessing that the black bra might have been worn by one of them, or that Britney’s actual crop top was lost at some point and the black bra put in its place for display purposes.
The “ . . . Baby One More Time” music video was shot on location at Venice High School on August 7th and 8th, 1998. The original concept apparently involved cartoons, until Britney ixnayed the idea. She wanted to shoot something that would be more relatable to her fans and convinced director Nigel Dick to center the storyline around a typical school day. Spears was also responsible for creating the video’s iconic costume. In a 2009 interview, Dick said, “My idea originally was just jeans and T-shirts, and we were at the wardrobe fitting and Britney holds up the jeans and T-shirts and says, ‘Wouldn’t I wear a schoolgirl outfit?’ Every piece of wardrobe in the video came from Kmart, and I was told at the time not one piece of clothing in the video cost more than $17. On that level, it’s real. That probably, in retrospect, is a part of its charm.” Britney also explained to People magazine, “The outfits looked kind of dorky, so I was like, ‘Let’s tie up our shirts and be cute.’” And thus, one of the most iconic outfits in music video history was born. You can check out some behind the scenes photographs of the filming here, here and here.
You can watch the “ . . . Baby One More Time” video by clicking below.
Several other Britney items are on display at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, including a Washington Redskins custom-made dress and glove set that she wore for a 2003 NFL Kickoff photo shoot . . .
. . . and a “Slave” crop top that Spears donned in a commercial for the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards that she shot with Jamie Foxx.
Also on display was the outfit Katy Perry wore on the cover of her “I Kissed a Girl” single;
one of Michael Jackson’s gloves (which was virtually impossible to get a picture of due to the fact that it is so sparkly);
a handwritten letter from MJ to a friend;
the shoe stand where James Brown worked as a child;
album cover photographs that The Doors shot at the original Hard Rock Café in downtown Los Angeles (the spot where Michael Jackson filmed the video for “Beat It”);
and a jacket of MJ’s designed by Michael Bush and Dennis Tomkins.
The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino has also appeared onscreen numerous times, including in an episode of fave show The O.C., but I am saving that information for a future post. Today, it’s all about Britney!
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Britney Spears’ “ . . . Baby One More Time” schoolgirl costume is on display in the Peacock High Limit Gaming Room at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, which is located at 4455 Paradise Road in Las Vegas. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.
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“The Hangover” Gas Station
The Grim Cheaper and I spent last week in Las Vegas on a business/pleasure trip (hence the lack of recent blog posts). While there, we were lucky enough to stay at Caesars Palace (post on that location coming soon!) and found ourselves constantly quoting lines from The Hangover. So one evening we decided to watch the 2009 flick and I have to say it was pretty epic to be viewing it while in a room at the very hotel where filming had taken place. One location that I wondered about while watching was the “gas n gulp” station that the boys – Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha) – stopped at on the way to Las Vegas. I figured it was most likely located in the Palmdale area (where many of the desert driving scenes were shot), but The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations clued me into the fact that the station was actually the Jean Fuel West Shell in Jean, Nevada, just east of the California border. So we dropped by to stalk it on our return trip home.
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Jean Fuel West Shell only appeared once in The Hangover, in the rather brief, but hilarious scene in which Alan admonished an old man for looking at his car and Stu tried to defend the actions of his girlfriend who cheated on him with a Carnival Cruise Line bell hop sailor pilot waiter bartender.
The station’s signage was changed to read “gas n gulp” for the shoot.
The fact that filming took place at a Shell, though, was still fairly obvious due to the yellow and red coloring of the station’s carport roof.
Other than the change in signage, the site looks much the same in person as it did onscreen.
Some filming also took place inside the Shell’s food mart.
The super nice woman working behind the counter informed me that the interior was changed a bit for the shoot. In real life, the cashier stand is located in the center of the store.
But for the filming of The Hangover, a fake cashier stand was built near the store’s south windows, in the area pictured in the photograph below.
The camera then cheated to the right so that the real cashier stand was not visible behind the actors.
On a side-note – One Hangover location that I will not be stalking, sadly, is the home where Mike Tyson – and his tiger – lived. While I did find the address of that humongous dwelling – 22634 La Quilla Drive in Chatsworth – it is located inside of a gated community and is therefore unstalkable.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Jean Fuel West Shell, aka the gas n gulp from The Hangover, is located at 1 Goodsprings Road in Jean, Nevada.
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Latest “L.A.” Mag Post – A Guide to “Pawnee” Locales in Los Angeles
I am so excited for today’s Los Angeles magazine post, in which I compiled a guide to 21 memorable locations featured on the show Parks and Recreation. You can check it out here. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
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Daniel McCormick’s House from “Forever Young”
Back in my early stalking days, I purchased a Scott’s L.A. Audio Tour of Pasadena CD. I loved every minute of it and learned about quite a few new locations while listening, one of which was the home where Claire Cooper (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her son, Nat (Elijah Wood), lived in the 1992 movie Forever Young. This was long before I had a blog, though, so I never wrote down the address and actually completely forgot about it until last week while stalking in South Pasadena. I did not have my Scott’s L.A. CD with me at the time, so used my trusty iPhone to do some Googling to see if I could find the place. I wound up coming across this Facebook post which gave the location of a different residence used in the movie – the bungalow where Capt. Daniel McCormick (Mel Gibson) lived. So I ran right on over to snap some pics. (I ended up tracking down the Cooper house, too, but not until after I had already returned home to Palm Springs, so that will be a different post for a different day.)
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For those who have yet to see Forever Young (and if you haven’t, you really should, it’s a fabulous movie!), the story (which was written by none other than Lost creator J.J. Abrams) centers on Daniel, a test pilot living in 1939, whose girlfriend gets into a terrible accident that lands her in a coma. Not bearing to see the love of his life dying, Daniel volunteers for the latest experiment that his best friend, scientist Harry Finley (George Wendt), is conducting – cryogenic freezing. Harry agrees to freeze Daniel for one full year, but things go terribly wrong and Daniel does not end up being removed from the suspended animation chamber until 1992 – 53 years after initially stepping inside.
Daniel’s small Craftsman-style bungalow is only shown once in Forever Young, in the very beginning of the movie, prior to Daniel being frozen.
Despite a change in paint color, the residence still looks much the same today as it did onscreen in 1992.
According to Zillow, the tiny dwelling, which was built in 1915, boasts two bedrooms, one bath and 864 square feet of space.
I was actually quite shocked to see that the home boasts such a scant square footage as it appears to be much larger from the street.
I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the property was also used in the filming, but I could not find any photographs of the interior online with which to verify that hunch.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Daniel McCormick’s house from Forever Young is located at 612 Meridian Avenue in South Pasadena.
