Jennifer Love Hewitt – IAMNOTASTALKER

April 12, 2012April 11, 2012

Franck’s Wedding Coordinator Shop from “Father of the Bride”

When the Grim Cheaper and I first showed up to stalk Fig & Olive restaurant, from the 2012 “Matthew’s Day Off” Honda CR-V Super Bowl commercial which I blogged about last week, I became absolutely enchanted with Melrose Place, the tiny tree-lined street on which the eatery is located. Even though I had been a fan of the series Melrose Place back in the 90s, before tracking down Fig & Olive earlier this year I had no idea that the charming and idyllic little street, which runs a scant three blocks and is made up of mostly high-end boutiques, even existed. In a recent About.com Los Angeles article, author Shana Ting Lipton calls Melrose Place a “hidden gem” and she could not be more right! Because its name so closely resembles that of the neighboring, and far more well-known, Melrose Avenue, I believe Melrose Place often gets lost in the shuffle, which explains why this stalker had never before heard of it. Needless to say, I absolutely fell in love with the picturesque little thoroughfare on the spot, as did the GC.

While we were there, I happened to notice that the sidewalks on Melrose Place were extremely wide with brick ornamentation and my mind immediately flashed upon the shop where wedding coordinator Franck Eggelhoffer (Martin Short) and his assistant, Howard Weinstein (BD Wong), worked in fave movie Father of the Bride – a location that I had long been trying to track down. For some odd reason, I had remembered that the sidewalk in front of Franck’s shop was also quite wide and lined with brick (I know, I know – my mind retains the oddest of information), so I snapped a quick pic of the Melrose Place sidewalk so that I could compare the two when I returned home. Well, lo and behold, when I popped in my DVD later that night, I was able to confirm that the sidewalks were one and the same. Yay!

From that point, all I had to do was pinpoint the exact storefront where Franck worked and, being that Melrose Place is only three blocks long, the venture was an easy one. Then, last Thursday, after I had figured out the correct spot, I dragged Mike, from MovieShotsLA, right on back out there to do some stalking of it.

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Franck’s shop shows up only once in Father of the Bride, in the scene in which George Banks (Steve Martin) begrudgingly accompanies his wife, Nina (Diane Keaton), and daughter, Annie (Kimberly Williams-Paisley), to meet the hard-to-understand wedding coordinator for the first time. One of my very favorite lines in the movie is actually uttered during that scene – when George laments over the high price of the wedding cake, he says, “My first car didn’t cost $1,200!”, to which Franck responds, “Well, welcome to the ‘90s, Mr. Banks!” Love it!

In the scene, George, Nina and Annie are shown walking east on Melrose Place in front of the building numbered 8420.

And I, of course, just had to imitate them by posing for an action walking shot while I was there. Smile

I believe that the green “Antiques” awning that was visible in the background behind the trio was once attached to the building pictured above, which is located at 8422/8424 Melrose Place. Fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, came across an article about the vacant property which mentions that it did, in fact, once house an antique store. And, as fate would have it, back in 2007 the very same building was also the site of a Hanes Comfortique Event hosted by none other than Owen’s main squeeze, Jennifer Love Hewitt. Talk about synchronicity!

The building that stood in for Franck’s shop, which was also an antique store at the time of the filming, is now home to the Zero + Maria Cornejo boutique. According to the About.com Los Angeles article that I mentioned earlier, Melrose Place actually used to be known as “the antiquing street” thanks to the myriad of antique shops that were located there once upon a time.

And while the full exterior of the property was not shown in Father of the Bride, the door that Annie, George and Nina walked through still looks exactly the same today as it did back in 1991 when the movie was filmed! Love it!

The real life interior of the store was also featured in Father of the Bride. As you can see in these pictures, while that interior has since been remodeled, it is still set up in the same basic three-room configuration that it was during the filming.

Even the ribbed pillars that were visible in the background of the scene are still there, as you can see in the main photograph featured in this RackedLA post.

In the scene, George, Nina, Annie, and Franck sat on a couch in front of the store’s eastern-most window.

That window is pictured above.

It is thanks to that portion of the scene that I was able to pinpoint exactly where Franck’s shop was situated. While looking for clues, I had noticed a few distinct architectural elements on the building located across the street, which was visible through Franck’s window. From there I used Google Street View to search for those elements and, thankfully, it was not long before I found them. As you can see in the screen shot and Street View image above, the arched window (denoted with a pink arrow), horizontal lip (denoted with a yellow arrow) and rectangular-shaped cutout (denoted with a blue arrow) of the building located at 8417 Melrose Place all match up to what appeared onscreen.

Sadly, as you can see above, those elements are now covered over with large awnings and are no longer visible. Thank God for Street View!

I had also spotted a center island and a “Keep Right” sign through the window in the scene and, looking at aerial views, saw that that same island was located just east of the Zero + Maria Cornejo boutique. And while the island still exists to this day, the “Keep Right” sign has since been removed.

The Zero + Maria Cornejo employee that we spoke with while there could NOT have been nicer and was not only floored to learn that he worked in such a cinematically significant location, but also allowed Mike and me to snap some pics through the same window that Annie, Nina, George, and Franck sat in front of.

On a Father of the Bride side note – I just learned that the character of Franck Eggelhoffer was inspired by real life wedding planner Kevin Lee, who appeared on this past season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills as the wedding coordinator hired by Lisa Vanderpump. You can watch a video clip of the “real Franck” by clicking above. And yes, Martin Short had the guy down to a T!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Zero + Maria Cornejo, aka Franck’s wedding planning shop from Father of the Bride, is located at 8408 Melrose Place in West Hollywood. Fig & Olive restaurant, from the 2012 “Matthew’s Day Off” Honda CR-V Super Bowl commercial, is located just down the street at 8490 Melrose Place in West Hollywood. You can visit Fig & Olive’s official website here.

May 19, 2011May 20, 2011

The Cravens Estate from “Commander in Chief”

As I mentioned a few weeks back, because of my love for Matt Lanter, the Grim Cheaper and I recently purchased and sat down to watch the first – and only – season of the short-lived television series Commander in Chief, on which the cutie actor portrayed the role of First Son Horace Calloway. I absolutely fell in love with the show and immediately started creating a list of locations to stalk from it, the most important being Pasadena’s former Cravens Estate, now the American Red Cross’ San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters, which was used several times to stand in for the White House on the series. And as soon as the GC and I finished watching the final episode, I dragged my dad right on out to stalk the place. I have actually written about the Cravens Estate once before, back in July of 2008 just a few months after I first started my blog, but it was a very brief post and did not include any photographs of the interior of the property. So, I figured the place was definitely worthy of a re-post.

The Cravens Estate was originally built in 1930 for Mr. John S. Cravens and his wife Mildred and was designed by San Francisco-area architect Lewis P. Hobart, who was also responsible for constructing the City by the Bay’s Grace Episcopal Cathedral and the Crocker Building on Market Street. After migrating to Pasadena in 1900, the Cravens first commissioned an English-style mansion to be built on a 16-acre plot of land on what was then known as “Millionaires’ Row”. Three decades later, after vacationing in France, the couple decided to tear down their existing abode and build a new one based upon the design of the the Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte, located just south of Paris. That new manse became known as the Cravens Estate and it cost a whopping $310,000 to construct, making it one of Pasadena’s most expensive homes at the time. After the Cravens, who had no children, passed away in the 1940s, the property went through a succession of owners until finally being donated to the American Red Cross in 1962, whereupon it became their San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters. The mansion is both a Pasadena Cultural Landmark and a Landmark of Historical Significance. In 2010, it was chosen to be used as the Pasadena Showcase House of Design, whereupon numerous designers came in and completely restored the property, which had lost a bit of its luster over the years, back to its original grandeur.

When I originally dragged my dad out to stalk the estate, I was hoping that we might be allowed to take a quick peek at the interior of the property and snap a few pictures. Well, imagine my surprise when the SUPER-nice receptionist said that if we were interested we could schedule a full-blown tour of the building. If we were interested? IF WE WERE INTERESTED??? Um, heck yes, we were interested!!! So I immediately scheduled a tour and dragged my dad back out to the estate once again just a few days later. What we ended up being given, though, was not what I had expected at all. Our SUPER-nice tour guide was extremely excited over how much I already knew about the estate and my enthusiasm for its filming history, so she wound up taking us on a TWO-AND-A-HALF-HOUR excursion through the property during which she showed us its every nook and cranny, including the attic area, the servants’ quarters and the basement. I can honestly say that it was one of the best stalking experiences of my life! Even my dad enjoyed it! The estate, which boasts four levels, 50 rooms, and just under 20,000 square feet of living space, is an absolutely remarkable piece of property! Pictured above is the entryway, which features hand-painted murals depicting the grounds of the Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte.

Our tour included the Cravens Estate’s reception room;

dining room;

Mrs. Cravens’ former sitting room;

a sun room;

the media room;

one of the original bathrooms;

the upstairs balcony;

the bridal room;

Mrs. Cravens’ original closet;

and the back side of the estate.

The area of the home that I was most excited about seeing, though, was the kitchen, which stood in for the White House Residence’s kitchen on the first few episodes of Commander in Chief.

The Cravens Estate kitchen was actually remodeled in 2010 for the Pasadena Showcase House of Design, but thankfully, as you can see above, it still looks very much the same as it did on the series.

We also got to see one of the property’s upstairs rooms . . .

. . . which was featured on Commander in Chief as the office of First Gentleman Rod Calloway (aka Kyle Secor).

And we were shown the central stairwell and glass-plated dome area . . .

. . . which popped up in the series as a White House stairwell in the episode titled “The Price You Pay”.

I just about died when our tour guide said I could pose for a picture on that very same stairwell. LOVE IT!

The exterior of the Cravens Estate also appeared in “The Price You Pay” episode as a supposed Washington, D.C.-area restaurant where President Mackenzie Calloway (aka Geena Davis) and her husband, Rod, take Attorney General nominee Carl Brantley (aka Alan Arkin) and his wife, Sue (aka Elizabeth Dennehy), out for dinner.

The Cravens Estate was also used extensively as Dalton Academy during this past season of Glee – a show which has gotten so bad that I can hardly bear to watch it anymore. Anyway, it first showed up in the Season 2 episode titled “Never Been Kissed” in the scene in which Kurt Hummel (aka Chris Colfer) spies on a rival Glee club known as the Warblers. Kurt later transfers to Dalton and joins the Warblers, after which time the estate was featured regularly on the series. Areas of the estate which appeared on the show include the central staircase;

the entryway;

the reception room;

and the dining room.

The Cravens Estate was also featured weekly as the supposed Falls Church, Virginia-area JAG headquarters on the television series of the same name. According to the official Cravens Estate website, JAG producer Donald P. Bellisario used to regularly receive letters from fans stating that they had searched high and low for the property while on stalking expeditions in Falls Church, Virginia, not realizing that it was actually located right here in Pasadena.

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The Cravens Estate was also used extensively as the Silverberg & Blake law firm where Robert Clayton Dean (aka Will Smith) worked in the 1998 thriller Enemy of the State. Areas which appeared in the movie include the exterior;

the dining room;

the central stairway;

and the same upstairs room that was used as Rod Calloway’s office on Commander in Chief.

In the 2001 movie Swordfish, the estate was where Stanley Jobson’s (aka Hugh Jackman’s) daughter, Holly (aka Camryn Grimes), went to school.

The back of the estate stood in for the French Consulate where a limo was bombed towards the beginning of the 2007 flick Rush Hour 3.

The estate’s reception room also appeared in Rush Hour 3.

According to the book The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations, the above-pictured scene from the 2001 movie Traffic, in which Robert Wakefield (aka Michael Douglas) is briefed by the White House Chief of Staff (aka Albert Finney), was filmed in a room at the Cravens Estate, although because only a tight shot of it was shown, I am not able to verify this or make a guess as to the exact room where filming took place.

The estate was also where Chauncey Gardiner (aka Peter Sellers) and Eve Rand (aka Shirley MacLaine) attended a cocktail party in the 1979 movie Being There.

The estate also stood in for the University of Minnesota dorm where Brenda Walsh (aka Shannen Doherty) briefly lived in the Season 4 episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “So Long, Auf Wiedersehen” and “The Girl from New York”.

In the Season 5 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Look Into Their Eyes and You See What They Know”, the estate stood in for Beecher Academy, where Edie Britt’s (aka Nicolette Sheridan’s) son Travers (aka Stephen Lunsford) attended school. After Edie’s death, the women of Wisteria Lane – Bree Hodge (aka Marcia Cross), Lynette Scavo (aka Felicity Huffman), Gabrielle Solis (aka Eva Longoria), Susan Mayer (aka Teri Hatcher), and Karen McCluskey (aka Kathryn Joosten) – travel to the school in order to bring Edie’s ashes to Travers.

The entryway of the Cravens Estate was transformed into a restaurant in the Season 3 episode of Mad Men titled “The Gypsy and the Hobo” for the scene in which Roger Sterling (aka John Slattery) takes Annabelle Mathis (aka Mary Page Keller, who, ironically enough, also had a recurring role on Commander in Chief) out for dinner.

Fellow stalker/Jennifer Love Hewitt-aficionado Owen also let me know that the estate appeared as Parkdale Academy in the Season 4 episode of Ghost Whisperer titled “Delusions of Grandview”.

Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were used quite extensively in the episode.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The American Red Cross’ San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters, aka the Cravens Estate from Commander in Chief, is located at 430 Madeline Drive in Pasadena. Here is a map link to the location. You can visit the property’s official website here. If you would like a tour of the estate, please call to schedule an appointment first.

August 3, 2010August 2, 2010

The “Party of Five” House

Sunday night I returned home from my bachelorette party weekend, which turned out to be a surprise Sex and the City-themed soiree thrown up north in San Francisco. Needless to say, I was absolutely FLOORED about it. 🙂 The celebration was, of course, held at a filming location, so I will, of course, be blogging about it, but I am still waiting on some pictures that my friends took before I can do so. In the meantime, though, I thought I’d blog about a location that I have been wanting to stalk for what seems like forever now – the San Francisco home where the Salinger Family – Bailey (aka Scott Wolf), Charlie (aka Matthew Fox), Julia (aka Neve Campbell), Claudia (aka Lacey Chabert), and Owen (aka toddler twins Brandon and Taylor Porter) – lived on the 90’s television series Party of Five. For whatever reason, even though I’ve had the place on my To-Stalk list for ages now, every time I’ve visited San Francisco over the past two years, I haven’t been able to make it out to the house. So, I begged my good friend Nat to take me there the morning following my party and, let me tell you, I could NOT have been more excited to finally be seeing it in person.

Because I accidentally left my trusty stalking notebook at home, I didn’t have the address of the house with me this past weekend, so, before heading out there, Nat and I did a little cyberstalking to find the address online and as it turns out the property has its own listing on Yelp! Love it, love it, love it!

I am VERY, VERY happy to report that the Salinger house looks EXACTLY the same today as it did back in 1994 when Party of Five was filmed. Even the paint colors have remained the same! YAY! The home is absolutely GORGEOUS in person and so quintessentially symbolizes San Francisco that it is not at all hard to see why producers chose to use it as the main residence on the Bay Area-based series.

In real life, the three-story dwelling, which was built in 1900, features seven bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, a whopping 6,705 square feet, cathedral ceilings, a four-car garage, an elevator, a gourmet kitchen, a greenhouse solarium, stained glass windows throughout, two decks, and views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Palace of Fine Arts, and San Francisco Bay. The property was sold to new owners earlier this year for $6,550,000. I can’t even imagine owning an iconic piece of television history like that! So darn cool!

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The house was featured each week in the Party of Five opening credits and in establishing shots throughout the series’ six-year run.

Because parts of the Party of Five pilot were shot on location in San Francisco, I assumed that the real life interior of the house was also used in the filming of that episode. But if you look at this recent real estate listing for the home and compare it to the above screen captures, you can see that that was not actually the case. But I am happy to report that the real life house does boast a small garden courtyard, much like its onscreen counterpart.

You can watch the Party of Five opening credits, which feature the house, by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Nat for taking me to stalk this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Party of Five house is located at 2311 Broadway in the ultra-exclusive Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco.

March 17, 2010March 16, 2010

Millions of Milkshakes

Thanks to the earthquake which jolted me awake at around 4 O’clock this morning after which I was not able to fall back asleep, I am currently feeling a bit off my game. So, I have to apologize in advance if today’s particular blog post isn’t exactly up to par. Anyway, on with the stalking! Back in November, fellow stalker Lavonna tipped me off to a little milkshake stand in West Hollywood named Millions of Milkshakes which has become quite the celebrity hot spot as of late. The shop, which opened up in 2008, is basically a make your own milkshake bar featuring a virtual smorgasbord of over one hundred different ingredients (consisting of everything from chocolate chip cookie dough and Toblerone chocolate bars to fresh blueberries and protein powder), that customers can mix together in over 75 million different combinations – and yes, they actually paid a mathematician to calculate the number of milkshake possibilities – with either regular ice cream, non-fat frozen yogurt, or non-dairy ice cream. If you’re not brave enough to invent your own concoction, or don’t have the time to peruse the shop’s extensive menu of toppings – and believe me, it is overwhelming! – you can order up one of the many varieties created by and named after your favorite celebrity. Of course, once Lavonna told me about the place I immediately added it to my long list of “To Stalk” locations, but since I don’t get out to WeHo very often, I had yet to actually visit it. But since we were in the area two Saturdays ago eating at the nearby Marix Tex Mex Cafe, I just had to drag my fiancé a few blocks to the west to finally stalk the famous milkshake stand. And, let me tell you, the place was well worth the wait!

Millions of Milkshakes is an absolutely adorable little spot that was first opened up on Halloween day of 2008 by a British restaurateur named Sheeraz Hasan. At the tender age of 16 in his hometown of London, Sheeraz came up with the inspired idea of converting his family’s then-failing restaurant into a Hollywood themed eatery named the Tinseltown Cafe. His cafe became an immediate success and a few years later Sheeraz headed out to Hollywood, with stars in his eyes. He ended up becoming friends with Creative Artists’ Agency founder Roland Perkins and creating his very own Los Angeles news show entitled Hollywood TV. After the show took off, Sheeraz set his sights on opening up a milkshake stand. Using his Hollywood connections, he invited tween queen Miley Cyrus to make an appearance at his newly opened eatery which set off an immediate publicity storm. Shortly thereafter, the place became insanely popular with celebrities and non-celebrities alike. Just a few of the stars who have created their own signature shake at the now-famous milkshake bar include LaToya Jackson, Vivica A. Fox, Donny Osmond, Ben Stein, Aaron Carter, John Gosselin (UGH!), Leonardo DiCaprio, Lindsay Lohan, Spencer and Heidi Pratt, Stephanie Pratt, Antonio Sabato, Jr., Gwen Stefani, Adam Sandler, Tim Allen, Paris Hilton, all three Kardashian sisters, and fellow stalker Owen’s main gal Jennifer Love Hewitt. In fact, Millions of Milkshakes has become such a celebrity hotspot that Good Day L.A. recently dubbed the place “the new red carpet”. Love it! Also adding to the stand’s popularity (at least in my eyes) is the fact that they are almost always playing Michael Jackson music on the stereo. 😉

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Because my girl Jen Aniston has yet to create a Millions of Milkshakes signature shake, my fiancé and I opted instead to order Miley Cyrus’ creation. And even though I really can’t stand the singer/actress, I have to say that the girl’s got some good taste in shakes! The Hannah Montana star’s drink is made up of vanilla ice cream, chocolate chip cookie dough, and Reese’s peanut butter cups and I have to say that it was simply A-MA-ZING. Like quite possibly one of the best things I have ever tasted in my entire life! Sadly, because I am diabetic, I could only sample two small sips of the drink, but OMG you can bet I’m running straight to Millions of Milkshakes the next time my blood sugar is low. 😉

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Lavonna for tipping me off to this location and a Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all of my fellow stalkers! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Millions of Milkshakes is located at 8910 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can visit their website here.

November 20, 2008February 13, 2009

Stalking the WB – Again!

After spending our morning at Sony Pictures Studio, Mike from MovieShotsLA, his fiance Jen, and I headed over to Warner Brothers Studio in Burbank to take their VIP tour once again. I had heard that no two tours are ever alike at the WB and Mike and I wanted to see if that was really true. And you know what? It was! This experience was COMPLETELY different from the first time we took the tour back in September of this year. It was like seeing an entirely different studio.

Our tour started off the same way as last time, with a movie spotlighting the many productions that have been filmed on the WB lot. Then we were whisked away to our golf cart to begin our backlot tour. This time Mike and I both asked to be taken to specific places that we didn’t get to see on our last Warner Brothers excursion. Mike was dying to stalk the New York City Street area, which was closed off during our last tour due to some filming that was taking place there. My location request was to see the stoop Carrie sat on during her visit to the WB in the SATC episode entitled “Escape From New York”. It is on this fake stoop that Carrie, after many failed attempts at smoking in L.A., lights up a cigarette only to have a security guard walk up and tell her to put it out. “But this is New York!” she says, to which he replies “No, Ma’am, it’s a set!” LOL LOVE IT!

Our tour guide, Matthew, pointed out Carrie’s stoop on the New York City Street right as we began our tour – it is located about ten feet away from the fire escape where the upside-down kiss from the first Spiderman movie took place. For some reason the stoop didn’t look familiar to me, and “I couldn’t help but wonder” if our tour guide had made up the location to appease me and, in truth, didn’t really know where Carrie’s stoop was located. Turns out I couldn’t have been more wrong! As soon as I got home, Mike emailed me a screen cap of the scene with Carrie smoking on the stoop and quite obviously our tour guide had been correct. 🙂 Turns out they really do know their stuff! The fact that he knew the exact location of a scene that lasted only about 30 seconds in one brief episode of SATC that was filmed over eight years ago absolutely amazed me. I think the WB tour guides may even be better than me at this stalking stuff! 🙂

Not only did Matthew know where Carrie’s stoop was located, but he also pointed out that the administration building where our tour began is the very same location where Carrie attended the studio meeting with Matthew McConaughey in the same SATC episode. AND the gate where she entered the studio for that meeting is the very same gate we were taken through at the beginning of our tour. 🙂 Let me tell you, Matthew really knows his stuff! 🙂

Next our guide took us up and down New York Street, which was amazing to see! Countless movies have been filmed there, my personal favorite being the 1982 movie Annie. So I was super excited when we were shown the orphanagewhere Little Orphan Annie lived before being rescued by Daddy Warbucks (pictured above). The orphanage looks a bit different now, as it has been dressed and remodeled for different productions through the years.

Other locations on New York Street include Ross’ apartment building from Friends,

the salon from You Don’t Mess with the Zohan,

the restaurant where Jack Nicholson has a heart attack in Something’s Gotta Give,

and Jack Nicholson’s therapists office in As Good As It Gets.

New York Street was extremely cool – literally every single building there had been used in a famous television or movie production. So much so, in fact, that I can’t even remember all of them!! Next time I need to take along a notebook to write everything down. 🙂

After New York Street we headed over to a small office building which had just been used in the filming of Without a Trace earlier that morning where it stood in for a motel. The episode was supposed to take place in Autumn, so the prop department had brought in fall leaves to place all over the ground.

Then we were driven by one of the studio’s commissaries, which our tour guide told us had stood in for a college campus restaurant where Rory Gilmore and her father eat lunch in an episode of Gilmore Girls.

Next we were driven by another set of offices which just recently were used as the high school in the Sarah Conner Chronicles.

After that our tour headed to the WB lagoon/swamp area which has been used in countless, countless productions including Million Dollar Baby (where a shack next to the swamp stood in for a roadside cafe), ER (the scene where George Clooney saves a boy from drowning during a rainstorm was filmed inside the lagoon) and Fantasy Island (the lagoon ws the location where the boats bringing weekly visitors were docked).

Next to the lagoon is a fairly new set named Warner Village, which was built after the WB’s Wild West Town was torn down. Warner Village is a small street of middle America style homes very similar to the Wisteria Lane set over at Universal Studios. Homes on this street have been used in everything from The George Lopez Show to Cold Case to this year’s An American Carol. Inside the Warner Village homes are production offices for television series and movies which are produced on the lot.

After visiting Warner Village, we headed over to the ER hopsital set. Even though we had seen this set on our last WB tour, it still held a new experience for us. This time the entire hospital exterior was decorated for Christmas and covered in snow, which was really exciting to see. In actuality, the snow is made from the shavings of plastic water bottles, but even up close it looked extremely real.

During this tour, we were allowed to venture inside the Emergency Room facade of ER to snap some pics. The vending machines pictured above are fake, by the way. In reality, they are high quality photographs of real vending machines pasted onto carboard stands. They were so realistic, though, that I actually had to go up and touch them before I would believe that they weren’t real. 🙂

After the ER set, we were driven by a small park-like area where some Ghost Whisperer filming was taking place. AND we even got to see Jennifer Love Hewitt for about half a milli-second as she hopped into a waiting van. JLove was super cute – at least she seemed so in the very brief moment we saw her.

Next we headed to a prop warehouse where everything from furniture to artwork used in various Warner Brothers productions is stored. The most famous prop piece located there? One of the Sam’s pianos from Casablanca, which is actually on loan from an art collector who stumbled upon the piece at an auction a few years back. The art collector liked the look of piano, bid on it, and apparently got it for quite a steal as the previous owner didn’t realize its cinematic significance. It wasn’t until the new buyer got home that he noticed a piece of paper with a Warner Brothers stamp and a serial number tacked to the inside of the piano. When he contacted Warner Brothers to ask about it, the serial number led them to discover the movie in which the piano had been used. And, lo and behold, it was one of the most famous films in history. 🙂

Mike, Jen and I had a blast on our second Warner Brothers Tour and it is definitely true what they say – it’s never the same tour twice. I HIGHLY recommend taking this tour – even if you have already been on it previously. : ) I can’t wait to go back myself for yet another WB adventure! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Warner Brothers Studios is located at 3400 Riverside Drive in Burbank. Tours run every 30 minutes Monday through Friday from 8:20am to 4:00pm. Advance reservations are recommended. Tickets cost $45 per person. You can learn more about the tour here .