Beyonce – IAMNOTASTALKER

March 26, 2014February 11, 2019

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! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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

July 14, 2010July 13, 2010

The Tam O’Shanter Inn from “Glee”

A couple of weeks ago I dragged my fiancé out to stalk the Tam O’Shanter Inn which appeared in the Season 1 episode of Glee titled “Dream On”. I found this location thanks to an eagle-eyed stalker who recognized the restaurant immediately while watching the episode back in May. And even though I no longer consider myself a “Gleek” (gasp!), I just could not resist stalking the place. And yes, you read that right – I am no longer a huge fan of Glee. In fact, I can’t even really say that I like the series at all anymore, let alone love it like I used to. In my never-to-be-humble opinion, the show has gone WAY downhill ever since it returned from its four month hiatus this past April. I don’t know if it’s due to the fact that it became such a humongous hit in such a short period of time or if the writers just simply got lazy, but somewhere along the way the show lost its heart. It’s become more about the music and less about the characters that I grew to love so deeply in the first part of the season. While the series used to be over-the-top and fun, in recent months it’s become ridiculous and largely unbelievable – Kurt and Mercedes joining the cheerios, Olivia Newton-John asking Sue Sylvester to star in a re-make of her “Physical” video, and Shelby Corcoran – the coach of Vocal Adrenaline – adopting Quinn and Puck’s baby???? Like, huh??? I could go on and on and on. Not to mention the fact that Mr. Shue, who was in my eyes the real heart of the show, has become a complete and total jerk – i.e. cheating on Emma, pretending to be in love with Sue Sylvester (I don’t even know what to say about that one!), and hooking up with his arch-enemy and head of the rival Glee club, Shelby Corcoran. Sigh. The whole thing makes my head hurt. Although I did love it when all of the kids were calling him “Man Whore” in the “Bad Reputation” episode. Anyway, despite all of that, because I loved part one of the series’ first season SO much, I still find it fun stalking locations featured on the show. Which is how my fiancé and I ended up at the Tam O’Shanter Inn two weekends ago.

Tam O’Shanter Inn actually has a long and celebrated Hollywood history. It was first opened in June of 1922 by Lawry’s restaurant chain founders Lawrence Frank and Walter Van de Kamp and has the distinction of being Los Angeles’ oldest restaurant that is still operating in the same location and by the same family. Art director/humorist Harry Oliver, designer of the Spadena House in Beverly Hills (aka the Witch’s House from Clueless), was commissioned to design the original building in what is called the “storybook-style” of architecture. In fact, the restaurant’s original interior closely resembled that of a ride at Disneyland. The property was extensively remodeled and expanded in 1968 at which time it was renamed the “Great Scot”. In 1982, in honor of the restaurant’s 60th anniversary, the original name, which refers to a style of hat worn in Scotland, was restored and it has remained to this day.

In the “Dream On” episode of Glee, Will Schuester (aka cutie Matthew Morrison) takes frenemie and former Glee-club-rival Bryan Ryan (aka guest star Neil Patrick Harris) to the Tam O’Shanter Inn for a drink to convince him to not shut down the Glee club. Will finally gets Brian to concede and the two wind up singing a rousing rendition of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”.

When we first walked into the Tam O’Shanter Inn, I asked the hostess who greeted us at the door where exactly the “Dream On” episode had been filmed. Well, let me tell you, she could NOT HAVE BEEN NICER! She immediately sat us in the bar area in the exact spot where Matthew Morrison and Neil Patrick Harris were sitting in the episode. She also told us the direction the cameras were facing during filming, what areas of the restaurant could be see in the background, and asked if we wanted to reenact the “Piano Man” scene while she took photographs of us. LOVE IT! I was SO down with reenacting the scene, by the way, but the Grim Cheaper was having none of that! 😉

Filming for the yet-to-be-released Larry Crowne movie, which stars Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks, also took place at the Tam O’Shanter Inn earlier this year. According to the bartender we spoke with, producers had the above-pictured green rug made especially for the filming and then gifted it to the restaurant after shooting wrapped. SO DARN COOL!

Besides being a filming location, the restaurant is also a long time celebrity hangout. Just a few of the luminaries who have been spotted there over the years include Mary Pickford, John Wayne, Fatty Arbuckle, and Tom Mix. Walt Disney loved the place so much that he frequented it on an almost daily basis and on one visit gifted the owners with the above-pictured cartoon, which he personally drew of Lawrence Frank. According to the restaurant’s website, Disney executives dined at Tam O’Shanter’s so often that the place became known as “Disney’s studio commissary”. Apparently Walt’s favorite table was #31, while John Wayne preferred #15.

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I honestly cannot say enough good things about the Tam O’Shanter Inn. I absolutely LOVED the place! Especially their fried calamari appetizer!

On a Glee side note – For those of you who have not yet seen Heather Morris, who plays Brittany on Glee, performing “Single Ladies” live with Beyonce at the 2009 American Music Awards, you can do so now by clicking above. Apparently, Heather was not originally being considered as a cast-member for Glee, but was first called in by series creator Ryan Murphy to teach series regulars Chris Colfer and Jenna Ushkowitz the “Single Ladies” dance for the Season 1 episode titled “Preggers”. Fate stepped in, though, and Murphy ended up liking the actress/professional dancer so much that he immediately cast her in the role of ditzy cheerleader Brittany. And the rest, as they say, is history!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Tam O’Shanter Inn from Glee is located at 2980 Los Feliz Boulevard in the Atwater Village section of Los Angeles. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

September 4, 2009September 3, 2009

The Obsessed House

A few weeks ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, called me up and said, “Where is that big pink house in Altadena that you stalked a while back?” Well, I had absolutely no idea what on earth he was talking about! For some reason, a “big pink house in Altadena” just wasn’t ringing any bells with me. And it really should have, being that I actually know the house he was speaking about quite well. I mean, it’s practically an Altadena institution! Heck, I’ve even blogged about it before! LOL But that’s the blonde in me, I guess. 🙂 Anyway, about an hour after Mike’s phone call, it all of a sudden hit me like a ton of bricks – he had been asking me about the famous Balian Mansion, or, as I like to call it, the real Clark W. Griswold house. 🙂 Mike had been inquiring about the mansion because it was featured briefly in the 2009 movie Obsessed, which he had just finished watching. Mike had an inkling that Beyonce Knowles’ house from the film (pictured above) was most likely located in the same area. And, sure enough, he was right! Just a few clicks through Google Maps later and the two of us were able to locate it, literally right around the corner from the Balian Mansion. 🙂 So, of course, we immediately ran right out to stalk both homes. 🙂

Because only one view of the Obsessed house – the view pictured above – was ever shown in the movie, it looks quite different in person than how it appeared onscreen. For some reason, producers filmed at an angle which cut out the entire garage area. (You can see what the garage looks like in the first picture featured in this post.) The only reason I can think of behind this decision is that producers wanted the home to appear smaller than it really was.

Which makes absolutely no sense to me! You see, while watching the movie I became completely obsessed (ha ha) with the fact that the interior of Beyonce’s home looked a whole lot bigger than the exterior. It’s as if the two just didn’t match up. The inside of her house was absolutely HUGE, yet the outside appeared quite average in size. It was bizarre and completely distracted me throughout the entire movie. I just couldn’t seem to get past it! I kept pausing the DVD to ask my fiance if the dichotomy in sizes was bothering him as much as it was bothering me. (It wasn’t, by the way. LOL) Anyway, as you can sort of see in the above screen capture, the interior of the house appears to be GINORMOUS, which does not at all fit with the exterior that was shown.

Further complicating the matter is the fact that the exterior of the Obsessed house is Mediterranean in style, painted in bright terracotta colors, yet the interior has a classic Colonial style feel. Needless to say, the whole thing just didn’t work for me and I spent the entire movie distracted by the discrepancies between the interior and exterior of the house. LOL Now, it’s quite possible that these variances were not necessarily a production decision and that the studio based their sets on the home’s real life interiors, but somehow I really doubt that. Ironically enough, Mike and I got to see the interior sets of the Obsessed house while taking the Sony Pictures Studio Tour last November. Sadly, though, we weren’t allowed to take any photographs of them. 🙁

Another thing I became obsessed with while watching Obsessed, was the home’s gorgeous, intricately carved mailbox. I absolutely FELL IN LOVE with it! Being that the mailbox was so unusual, I was fairly certain it was a prop that had been brought in solely for the filming. So, you can imagine how FLOORED I was when Mike and I pulled up to the house to find that mailbox standing there! So cool! 🙂 As soon as I buy my first house, I am SO getting one of those! In fact, I’d buy one right now, but I think it’d look a little silly standing out in front of my apartment. LOL

After stalking the Obsessed house, Mike and I made our way down the street to stalk the Balian Mansion. The mansion is actually only featured very briefly in the movie, in the scene when Beyonce turns her car around after realizing she forgot to turn on her home’s security system.

On a humorous side note – As you can see in the above screen capture, the Google Maps Street View photograph of the Obsessed house was apparently taken after the property had just been TP’ed. LOL LOL LOL Talk about your bad timing! Can you imagine your house being forever immortalized on Google Maps with toilet paper strands hanging from every tree??? LOL LOL LOL Too darn funny! The kids who pulled this off must be seriously patting themselves on the back right now!!!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Obsessed house is located at 2345 Midlothian Drive in Altadena. The Balian Mansion is located just down the street at 1960 Mendocino Lane.