Wonderland from “Scandal”

Wonderland B613 Headquarters Scandal (6 of 11)

I realize this is a complete about-face, but I am so over Scandal!  I know, I know – my love for the series was incredibly short-lived.  The Grim Cheaper and I just finished watching Season 4, though, and both felt that it went downhill fast.  The last few episodes proved so ridiculous that I don’t think we’ll be watching Season 5 when it starts airing in September.  Case in point – and warning, there be spoilers ahead! – one of the series’ main storylines centers around a super secret agency known as B613 that works outside of the government.  The agency is responsible for killing and torturing numerous people in the name of protecting the republic.  During Season 4, Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) and her fellow gladiators vow to take down B613 and in one of the last episodes a grand jury is convened to review evidence about the agency’s past evils.  After testimony is heard, all of the jurors are gunned down and killed, as is the court stenographer, and NO ONE notices or cares – not the media, not the government, not the courthouse workers.  Nothing is done about the killings, they aren’t investigated, the show just moves on from there.  I mean, wouldn’t it be a fairly easy crime to solve?  Entire jury gets massacred after hearing testimony – gee, I wonder if murderer happens to be a member of B613?  Oh, and did I mention that the jurors were killed in a court van while inside the courthouse parking garage?  I mean, come on!  I’m all about suspending disbelief, but that scenario is just so ridiculously implausible that I was angered upon watching it.  There were several other asinine storylines that played out this past season (I won’t even get into the fact that Olivia is completely safe after returning home from being kidnapped despite the fact that it was made apparent she could easily fetch over a billion dollars if she was sold on the black market) that just added to my annoyance.  So I just can’t even with Scandal anymore.  BUT I did happen to stalk the headquarters of B613 a couple of weeks ago while I was in L.A. and figured what better time than today to blog about it.  OK, end rant!  Winking smile

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On Scandal, the B613 headquarters has a litany of names.  It is known as Wonderland (because it is said to be located on Wonderland Avenue in Washington, D.C.), ACME Limited, and ACME Paper Company.  And, as we found out in the Season 3 episode titled “No Sun on the Horizon,” the agency does actually sell paper.  As wannabe B613 agent Quinn Perkins (Katie Lowes) says upon  being relegated to answer the ACME Limited sales line as a way to pay her dues, “I don’t know if we sell copy paper.  Because I just don’t, OK!  Ugh, yeah, well your phone manner sucks, too!”  Ah, such a great scene from back when Scandal was good!

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The exterior of Wonderland was featured in the Season 3 episode titled “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

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The location manager did a fabulous job with this location.  The building chosen for filming is equal parts non-descript and foreboding.

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Wonderland B613 Headquarters Scandal (5 of 11)

In real life, the building serves as the headquarters of the J.M. Carden Sprinkler Co.  The Art Dec-style structure was originally built in 1931 as the Valley Dairy Company offices.  According to this The  Eastsider LA article, the interior of the property is quite fabulous.  I am kicking myself now for not having ventured inside.

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I am unsure if the interior of Wonderland, which was shown in the “No Sun on the Horizon” episode, was a set or if filming took place on location somewhere.  I am 99.9% certain, though, that the interior of the J.M. Carden Sprinkler Co. building was not used onscreen.

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Thanks to fellow stalker Richard (you may remember him from this post and this post), I learned that the building masked as a downtown Los Angeles 9-1-1 dispatch center in the Season 3 episode of 9-1-1 titled “The Taking of Dispatch 9-1-1.”

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Wonderland, aka B613 Headquarters from Scandal, is located at 2909 Fletcher Drive in Glassell Park.

The “Crossroads” Grocery Store

Special Note – I attended a taping of Ellen yesterday afternoon and ended up being ON the show as one of her game contestants.  🙂 🙂 🙂  The episode will air today, so tune in!  I absolutely CANNOT wait to see it!  And now, on with the post . . .

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A couple of weeks ago, I sent fellow stalker Chas, of the ItsFilmedThere website, on a mission to try to track down all of the as of then not-yet-found locations which appeared in the 2002 movie Crossroads.  At the top of my list was the supposed Alabama-area Super A Foods grocery store where Lucy Wagner (aka Britney Spears) and her friends, Mimi (aka Taryn Manning), Kit (aka Zoe Saldana), and Ben (aka Anson Mount), made a pit stop during their road trip from Georgia to Hollywood in the flick.  I knew from watching the movie’s DVD commentary with producer Ann Carli, director Tamra Davis, and writer Shonda Rhimes (who I just discovered was the same woman who created Grey’s Anatomy!) that the grocery store was located somewhere in the L.A. area and I had tried in vain to find it several times without any luck.  I had also enlisted the help of my dad who, as I have mentioned before, used to work in the grocery business, and while he did have a few Super A stores that he previously consulted for, he sadly did not recognize the one that appeared in Crossroads.  So imagine my surprise when Chas called me shortly after watching the movie to let me know that the grocery store was the first location he had managed to track down.  Amazingly enough, all he did was input the words “Super A Foods” and “Los Angeles” into the Google search bar and the Crossroads store was the first entry that popped up!  Not kidding!  So, I dragged my dad right on out there to stalk the place the very next morning.  Yay!

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I am VERY happy to report that the exterior of the market still looks EXACTLY the same in person as it did in onscreen. 

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In real life, the “Alabama’s Finest Meat & Produce” sign that was put in place for the filming reads “Carniceria”.

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I was BEYOND excited when I discovered that the children’s mini merry-go-round machine that appeared in the movie was actually there in real life!  So incredibly cool!

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Some filming also took place inside of the Super A Foods market.  In the DVD commentary, director Tamra Davis mentions that the shoot was an all-night event and that it was one of the hardest days of filming due to the fact that everyone was beyond exhausted.  She also mentioned that more than a few squabbles took place that night.

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Sadly, the interior of the store has since been remodeled and looks quite a bit different today than it did when Crossroads was filmed back in 2001.

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The signs that appeared in the background of the scene have also since been changed, but the new ones are, thankfully, quite similar – in shape at least – to the old ones.

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Crossroads was filmed in Super A Foods check stand #1, but as you can see in the above photographs, that area is much more modern now than it was in the movie.  Such a shame!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, for finding this location!  Smile  You can check out his extensive Crossroads filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Super A Foods which appeared in Crossroads is located at 2925 Division Street in the Glassell Park area of Los Angeles, just southwest of Eagle Rock.