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While the 2019 Disney+ movie Noelle was largely shot in the Vancouver area, The Outlet Shoppes in Atlanta (located at 915 Ridgewalk Parkway in Woodstock, Georgia) played a key role masquerading as Phoenix’s Desert Ridge Marketplace, where Santa’s daughter, Noelle (Anna Kendrick), crash lands with her reindeer during a last-minute attempt to save Christmas. You can learn all about it in my latest reel.
I debated titling this post “How The Goldbergs altered my Thanksgiving.” The Grim Cheaper and I were introduced to the ABC series, which is like an ‘80s-set The Wonder Years, last fall and quickly became hooked. We plowed through all of the episodes in just a few weeks and found each to be poignant, nostalgic and moving. One in particular affected us more than others, though. While watching Season 2’s “A Goldberg Thanksgiving,” in which matriarch Beverly (Wendi McLendon-Covey) attempts to impart her holiday meal traditions onto teen daughter Erica (Hayley Orrantia), the GC turned to me and said, “OH MY GOD! Your mother never did that with you, did she? That’s why I am responsible for Thanksgiving dinner every year!” He was right. For whatever reason (most likely because we often traveled during my childhood Thanksgivings), my mother never taught me how to cook a turkey with all of the fixings. The GC’s mom did, though. Much like Beverly, she woke the GC and his brother up early each Thanksgiving morning and had them help with the preparations, teaching them her family traditions in the process. Well, that was it for the GC – he drew a line in the sand and announced that he was abstaining from cooking 2016’s meal, leaving the job to me and my mom. The two of us obliged, very successfully blanching, braising and broiling away (that’s the beginnings of my mom’s homemade cranberry sauce above), and later replicated the feast with me in the driver’s seat on Christmas. So that is how The Goldbergs altered my Thanksgiving. Needless to say, it is a special memory for me. So when I happened to stumble upon the show being filmed at Westside Pavilion two weeks later, it was all I could do not to faint from excitement.
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As I mentioned in this post, the GC and I headed into L.A. to do some Christmas shopping/Christmas stalking at Westside Pavilion after I discovered that Christmas with the Kranks had been lensed on the premises. When we pulled into the parking garage, I spotted one of those yellow signs I love so much, with the word “Gold” written across it. In what can only be described as a blonde moment, I wondered aloud what could be filming. I just about fell over a few minutes later as I stepped off the escalators onto the mall’s second floor and spotted Hayley Orrantia herself sitting in a chair while on a break from shooting none other than The Goldbergs! I was not sure how friendly she and the rest of the cast and crew would be, but nothing was going to stop me from asking for a pic. As it turns out, she and everyone else involved in the production could not have been nicer. Hayley immediately stood up and introduced herself when I approached. She seemed genuinely thrilled we were fans and was so friendly and chatty that I even got to tell her my Thanksgiving story. And the day just got better from there. I wanted to wait until after the episode aired to blog about the experience, though. Thankfully, it finally did last week.
In the episode, titled “The Spencer’s Gift,” Erica and her brother Barry (Troy Gentile) get jobs at a Spencer Gifts store at the supposed Willow Grove Park Mall in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, where the series is set. One of Westside Pavilion’s vacant storefronts masked as Spencer’s in the shoot.
Both the interior and exterior of the space were heavily dressed for the show. Because Hayley was shooting a scene inside of the faux Spencer’s while we were there, I was a bit nervous about snapping any pictures of it. Looking back, I really wish I had, though, because as the GC and I soon came to find out, the crew could not have been cooler about set photos. Ah, well. Live and learn, right?
After watching a bit of the filming, the GC and I ventured to other parts of the Pavilion to begin our Christmas shopping. As we were walking around, we happened to pass by an arcade and I turned to him, shocked, and said, “Wow! I can’t remember the last time I saw an arcade in a mall! Not since, like, the ‘80s!” Yeah, I know. Facepalm!
It took us at least a few minutes to realize that the arcade was actually a storefront dressed for The Goldbergs shoot! D’oh!
As you can see, though, it looked pretty darn realistic.
In “The Spencer’s Gift,” Erica and Barry’s younger brother, Adam F. Goldberg (Sean Giambrone), learns from their example and also gets a job, at the mall’s Challenges Arcade.
Both the interior and exterior of the arcade space were utilized in the episode.
As the GC and I made our way through Westside Pavilion, we began discovering more and more storefronts dressed as fake shops.
We had literally wandered right into an ‘80s-inspired set – and the experience was magical!
The faux stores were so realistic that half the time we were unsure which were real and which were fake. Trying to differentiate the actual shops from the set shops became a game for the two of us and it could not have been more fun!
At one point we ran into a friendly crew member who clued us in as to which stores were authentic, which were real but dressed for the shoot, and which were altogether fictional. The shop below, for example, which we were convinced was an imposter, was actually real.
Though it was given some tubular set dressing for the filming.
The crew member also told us to feel free to take photos of the fake stores and even started pointing out the prop mall signage and faux directories posted around the center.
The entire experience was like heaven for me – hands-down my favorite shopping venture of all time – and very reminiscent of the fabulous day my dad and I spent on the set of CSI: Miami back in 2009.
The cherry on top of our day was when we ran into Troy Gentile as we were leaving the mall. Troy is easily one of the nicest celebrities I have ever met and wound up chatting with us for so long that a crew member had to finally come retrieve him as they were waiting on him to film a scene. (Be sure to zoom in on Troy’s nametag in the photo below. I completely missed it in person, but as my friend Michael pointed out, it reads “B. Tasty.” Love it!)
Westside Pavilion’s food court and actual Hot Dog on a Stick stand also appeared in “The Spencer’s Gift,” though we did not witness the scene that was shot there being filmed.
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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Westside Pavilion, from “The Spencer’s Gift” episode of The Goldbergs, is located at 10800 West Pico Boulevard in Rancho Park. Filming took place in the third level food court and on the second level in various vacant storefronts. Spencer’s was set up in an empty unit located in between Lady Foot Locker and Fanzz. Tans Forever from Christmas with the Kranks was set up nearby in the space that now houses Kid’s Club.
One spooky-type location that I have had on my To-Stalk list for just about forever now is the Macy’s department store located inside of the Burbank Town Center Mall, which was featured as a murder site in the Season 2 episode of fave show The Mentalist titled “Redemption”. And while I had recognized the location immediately while watching the episode way back in September of 2009 and had even stalked the Burbank Town Center Mall recently due to its appearance in another episode of The Mentalist, for whatever reason I had completely forgotten about Macy’s. So I promptly dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place this past weekend after doing some shopping at a nearby Ikea.
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In the “Redemption” episode of The Mentalist, CBI Agent Teresa Lisbon (aka Robin Tunney) and her ne’er-do-well consultant Patrick Jane (aka Simon Baker) are called in to investigate the murder of a man in a supposed-Sacramento-area department store. The scene in which the two arrive at the store was filmed at the bottom of the escalators on Macy’s Second Floor, next to the MAC Cosmetics counter.
Lisbon and Jane are immediately escorted by Police Captain Bocanegra (aka Geoffrey Rivas) to the murder site in the store’s Men’s Department. It was due to this particular segment of the scene, in which Patrick and Jane walk over some unique green tile and wood flooring, that I recognized the episode had been shot at the Macy’s in Burbank. The GC and I once did some shopping in the Burbank Macy’s Men’s Department quite a few years back and while we were there I had commented on how pretty I thought the floors were. They did not look like typical department store floors and made me think of the upscale Herald Square Macy’s on 34th Street in New York in which the Men’s Department is composed of dark woods. Anyway, the image of those floors stuck with me, for whatever reason, so when I saw Lisbon and Jane walk over them in “Redemption”, I recognized them immediately.
Lisbon and Jane are then shown the bludgeoned body of Ivar Rasmussen, which was found in a little waiting area outside of the men’s dressing rooms. It is there that Patrick proceeds to smell the body in order to gather clues, infuriating Captain Bocanegra in the process.
Sadly, the area used for the filming of that scene was being redressed when we showed up to the stalk the place and was not very accessible.
But I did manage to snap a picture of a similar alcove located in a different section of the store.
After properly “sniffing out” the body, Jane proceeds downstairs to the Ground Level Furniture Department in order to interview the patrons who were in the store at the time of the bludgeoning.
It is there that he performs a ritual using the hands of one of the witnesses to lead him to the murder weapon, which turns out to be the base of a crystal wineglass.
After the murder weapon is found, a huge fight breaks out among the killer and the security guards, which ends up causing $250,000 worth of damage to the store. When Lisbon admonishes him for creating the ruckus, Jane says, “What? The case is closed isn’t it?” Ah, I so love Patrick Jane! 
That portion of the scene was filmed in Macy’s furniture/bedding/cookware department, which, amazingly enough, looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen. I thought for sure the production crew had dressed the area for the filming, but that does not actually appear to have been the case.
On a Mentalist side note – A couple of weeks ago, my good friend Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, called me up for some help after she discovered that she had locked her keys inside of her car while doing some shopping at the Burbank Town Center Mall. I headed over there and after calling Roadside Assistance and having them jimmy open the lock, we discovered that her keys were not, in fact, inside of the car after all. So I ventured inside the mall to see if anyone had turned them in to the security office. No one had and Pinky’s poor dad ended up having to drive all the way from Ventura to bring her a spare set – and, sadly, her originals have still yet to be found. FAIL! But every cloud does indeed have a silver lining, as they say, because a few days later I was watching the Season Premiere of The Mentalist, which was titled “Scarlet Ribbons”, and just about died when I noticed that a scene was filmed at the Burbank Town Center Mall security office! As I mentioned in the post I wrote about the show’s Season 3 Finale back in June, Patrick Jane finally killed Red John (aka Bradley Whitford) in the middle of the Burbank Town Center Mall at the very end of the episode. Well, when Agents Kimball Cho (aka Tim Kang) and Wayne Rigsby (aka Owain Yeoman) set out to investigate the killing in the Season 4 opener, one of their first stops was the mall’s real life security office, looking exactly as it had when I visited it only days before. SO incredibly cool!
That security office is pictured above. I had to take the photograph a bit on the down-low as I was afraid that one of the security guards might get upset if he saw me snapping any pictures of the place.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Macy’s at Burbank Town Center Mall, from the “Redemption” episode of The Mentalist, is located at 200 East Cypress Avenue in Burbank.
While watching the two-part Season 3 finale of fave show The Mentalist titled “Strawberries and Cream” a few weeks back, I just about died when I realized that the Burbank Town Center had stood in for the supposed Sacramento-area “Pinewood Shopping Mall” in the episode’s climatic final scene. While Burbank Town Center is not actually my local mall, I immediately recognized the place as the Grim Cheaper had taken me there on our very first date, just a little over a decade ago. We had first gone to see the movie Cast Away at a nearby theatre and then headed on over to the mall so that the GC could show me an antique carousel that used to be located there. Prior to our date, I had no idea of the carousel’s existence and thought it was so incredibly cool that the GC knew little tidbits about LA like that. I am pretty sure I fell in love with him right then! 
And while the carousel was sold a few years back (I hear it is now located in the San Diego area), because we had spent at least a half an hour looking down upon it from the Center’s second floor, when that area of the mall popped up on The Mentalist I recognized it immediately. So yesterday, after getting my hair cut in Burbank, I decided to cruise on over there to snap a few pics of the place.
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In the “Strawberries and Cream” episode of The Mentalist (and a BIG warning here that there are major spoilers ahead, so if you have yet to watch the Season 3 finale and plan on doing so, you should STOP reading this post now), Patrick Jane (aka Simon Baker) sets up a sting operation in the middle of the mall in order to both prove that DLE Director Gale Bertram (aka Michael Gaston) is the CBI’s mole and to also hopefully discover the true identity of Red John, the serial killer who murdered his wife and daughter.
While there he ends up finally meeting and then killing Red John, who was played with perfection by The West Wing’s Bradley Whitford.
In what turned out to be my very favorite part of the episode, after shooting Red John and causing mass pandemonium in the mall, Patrick sits down calmly, finishes drinking his tea, and then calls out to the waitress, “Check please!” before surrendering himself to the authorities. LOL As you can see in the above screen captures, the central area of the mall, where the antique carousel used to be located, was decorated to look like a café for the filming.
Oh, how I wish they did actually serve espresso in that area of the mall! In reality, though, after the carousel was removed, a small – and not-very-aesthetically-pleasing – children’s train ride was placed there. Note to Starbucks – the Burbank Town Center is in desperate need of a cute café, pronto! 
Photographs of the area which appeared on The Mentalist, taken from the mall’s second level, are pictured above.
And a view of that area from the mall’s bottom floor is pictured above.
The entrance to one of the Burbank Town Center’s garage areas was also used in the episode, but I completely forgot about that yesterday while I was stalking the place and failed to snap any pictures of it.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Burbank Town Center, from the “Strawberries and Cream” episode of The Mentalist, is located at 201 East Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank. You can visit the mall’s official website here. The area where Patrick Jane shot Red John is located in the very center of the mall, on the bottom level, in front of Old Navy and Shiekh Shoes. The parking garage entrance which appeared in the episode is located at 501 North Third Street.
This past Monday morning, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, called me up to ask if I wanted to do some stalking with him in the San Gabriel Valley. As it turns out, Monday was a holiday – although I hadn’t realized it beforehand – and Mike had the day off from work. So, after first loading up on some Starbucks coffee (but of course) the two of us headed right on over to Eagle Rock, where the first item on our stalking agenda – Eagle Rock Plaza mall – was located. I had been dying to stalk the mall ever since May 18th of this year when it appeared in the Season 1 episode of Glee titled “Dream On”, in the scene in which Artie Adams (aka Kevin McHale) starts a flash mob in the middle of a supposed Ohio-area shopping center. My good friend and fellow stalker Kerry’s daughter, Jen – who is a total Gleek – had challenged me to find this location the day after the episode aired and, amazingly enough, it wasn’t too hard to track down at all. I just simply used Google Images to search through interior photographs of Los Angeles-area malls and fairly quickly came upon one of Eagle Rock Plaza, which I recognized immediately. And even though I live only a few miles outside of Eagle Rock, for whatever reason it has taken me this long to get out there to stalk the place. Oh well, better late than never, right? [And yes, I am pretending to dance like Artie in the above picture. ;)]
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In the “Dream On” episode of Glee, Artie visits a local mall with his girlfriend Tina Cohen-Chang (aka Jenna Ushkowitz), and while she is in line buying a hot pretzel, he daydreams about being able to get up out of his wheelchair and dance. He ends up starting a huge flash mob to the 80’s song “Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats.
As it turns out, Eagle Rock Plaza is a very tiny mall and it wasn’t hard at all to track down the exact spot where filming had taken place. Artie’s flash mob scene was shot in the very center of the property, right in between the mall’s two main escalators and directly in front of the Seafood City Supermarket.
You can watch the “Safety Dance” number by clicking above.
While we were there, Mike and I stopped by the Eagle Rock Plaza’s management office to ask about the filming that has taken place there over the years and the woman on duty literally could NOT have been nicer! She spent quite a bit of time chatting with us and filling us in on some of the productions that have been shot on the premises, including the Season 4 episode of The Closer titled “Time Bomb”, in which Brenda Leigh Johnson (aka Kyra Sedgwick) and her fellow members of the L.A.P.D.’s Major Crimes Division investigate a bomb threat at a local mall.
Ironically enough, only the interior of Eagle Rock Plaza appeared in that episode. All of the exterior scenes were filmed at Los Angeles City College, in front of the campus’ Communications Center, which does actually look quite a bit like a mall.
Eagle Rock Plaza was also featured in Avril Lavigne’s music video for the 2002 hit song “Complicated” . . .
. . . which you can watch by clicking above.
One production that shot on location at Eagle Rock Plaza that the management didn’t know about, but that I recognized immediately was Michael Buble’s 2009 behind-the-scenes DVD titled “The Making of Crazy Love”. In the documentary, Michael is shown posing for a photo shoot outside of a Macy’s department store during which he is made to run back and forth through a large parking lot. Michael is a total goofball and EXTREMELY funny during the shoot, announcing to one passerby who drives by, “Welcome to Macy’s!” LOL I can only imagine if I had arrived at the mall on a random day to do some shopping only to find MICHAEL BUBLE standing at the entrance welcoming me! I probably would have had a heart attack right on the spot. But I digress. Anyway, for whatever reason (most likely because MB was so darn funny in the spot – at one point he says, “The next shot is of me shopping at Macy’s . . . finding discounts . . . there is a pillow set that is to die for!” LOL LOL LOL), I have been literally hell-bent on stalking that parking lot ever since watching the DVD late last year. Trouble was, I couldn’t seem to find the darn place anywhere.
Until this past Monday that is, when Mike just happened to drive through the part of the Plaza’s parking lot that is located directly behind Macy’s and I recognized it immediately. YAY! Thank you, Mike!
And I, of course, just had to imitate MB running while I was there. 🙂
You can watch Michael’s absolutely hilarious photo shoot in the Macy’s parking lot by clicking above.
Big THANK YOU to Jen for challenging me to find this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for taking me there! 🙂
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: Eagle Rock Plaza is located at 2700 Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock. You can visit the mall’s official website here. Michael Buble posed for his running photographs in the southwestern portion of the Plaza’s parking lot, directly behind Macy’s department store, in the area depicted with the pink circle in the above aerial view. The “Dream On” episode of Glee was filmed in the center-most point of the mall, in between the property’s two main escalators and directly in front of the Seafood City Supermarket.