NCIS filming locations – IAMNOTASTALKER

November 18, 2010November 17, 2010

All Star Lanes from “Glee”

Another Eagle Rock-area location that Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I stalked a few weeks back after our venture to the nearby Eagle Rock Plaza Mall was All Star Lanes – the bowling alley where Finn Hudson (aka Cory Monteith) took Rachel Berry (aka Lea Michele) on a date in the Season 1 episode of Glee titled “The Rhodes Not Taken”. I found this location thanks to an eagle-eyed (pun intended) anonymous fellow stalker who lives in the area. My source recognized the bowling alley when it showed up in the episode back in September of last year and emailed me immediately afterwards to let me know. So, thank you, anonymous source! I don’t know who you are, but I will be forever grateful for the stalking tip!

The 22-lane bowling alley, which features state-of-the-art equipment and automatic scoring, was completely empty when Mike and I showed up to stalk it, which made for a prime picture-taking opportunity. The owner finally made an appearance about ten minutes after we showed up and was nice enough to chat with us for a bit about the various filming that has taken place there in recent years. Sadly, he didn’t have much to tell me about “The Rhodes Not Taken” episode of Glee, though, because he had never actually watched the show before it filmed on the premises and, therefore, did not pay much attention during the shoot.

He did tell us that part of the episode was lensed in the alley’s retro-style cocktail lounge and, even though it was closed at the time, allowed us to take a quick peek inside. Besides bowling, All Star Lanes also features pools tables, a video arcade, a Chinese food restaurant, and, as was shown on Glee, nightly karaoke! Love it! In 2009, All Star Lanes was voted First Place in the “Best Bowling” category of MyFOX Los Angeles’ “Best of the LA HOTLIST” contest. LA Weekly newspaper also recently dubbed the alley the “Best Glow-in-the-Dark Bowling 2010” thanks to its late-night glow-in-the-dark bowling sessions, which feature glowing pins and balls! How incredibly cool is that?

In “The Rhodes Not Taken” episode of Glee, Finn takes Rachel on a pretend date to All Star Lanes in the hopes that he can somehow talk her into re-joining the McKinley High Glee Club.

Will Schuester (aka Matthew Morrison) and April Rhodes (aka Kristin Chenoweth) also visit the bowling alley that same night and it is there that Will tells April that one of his biggest regrets in life is never having sung with her.

April then leads Will over to the alley’s cocktail lounge where the two hop up on stage and sing a rousing karaoke rendition of the 1987 Heart song “Alone”.

You can watch their “Alone” duet by clicking above.

The owner of All Star Lanes also informed us that the outside of the alley and its parking lot area were recently dressed to look like the Mid-Atlantic Trailways Bus Station for the Season 8 episode of NCIS titled “Broken Arrow” for the scene in which Ziva David (aka Cote de Pablo) and Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo (aka Michael Weatherly) track down Anthony DiNozzo Sr. (aka Robert Wagner).

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Apparently, the All Star Lanes parking lot is quite the popular filming location because fellow stalker Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, also let me know that it was featured during the opening credits of the 1992 Quentin Tarantino movie Reservoir Dogs. In the scene, in which the bowling alley is not actually visible, Quentin and the gang walk through the parking lot toward Eagle Rock Boulevard after their famous conversation about tipping which took place at the nearby Pat & Lorraine’s Coffee Shop. The Eagle Rock Plaza strip mall, which is located directly across the street from the alley, is the building that pictured in the above screen captures.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: All Star Lanes from “The Rhodes Not Taken” episode of Glee is located at 4459 Eagle Rock Boulevard in Eagle Rock. Rachel and Finn bowled in Lane Nine and Will and April bowled in Lane Fifteen in the episode. In Reservoir Dogs, Quentin and the gang walk east through the alley’s parking lot towards Eagle Rock Boulevard. You can visit All Star Lanes’ official website here.

October 21, 2010October 24, 2010

The Griffith Park Merry Go Round from “The Mentalist”

One location that I have wanted to stalk for almost two years now, ever since November of 2008 when it appeared in the Season One episode of The Mentalist titled “Seeing Red”, was the merry go round where Patrick Jane (aka Simon Baker) lured murder suspect Travis Tennant (aka Noel Fisher). The only problem was that I had absolutely NO idea whatsoever where to find it, as in my ten-plus years of living in Southern California the only merry go round that I had ever encountered was the one located on the Santa Monica Pier and it didn’t look anything like the one that had appeared in The Mentalist. So, I immediately called up Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and asked him if he knew where it was located. Sure enough, he did! As fate would have it, the merry go round is located right in the heart of L.A.’s Griffith Park and Mike used to ride it regularly when he was a kid!

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The Griffith Park Merry Go Round is actually something of a Los Angeles landmark and I am extremely shocked that, up until its appearance on The Mentalist two years ago, I didn’t even know of its existence. The Merry Go Round was first built in 1926 by the Spillman Engineering Company and is currently the only full size Spillman carousel still in operation today. It was originally commissioned by the Spreckels family, of the Spreckels Sugar Company, to be used at their San Diego theme park, the Mission Beach Amusement Center. Sadly, the amusement center was shuttered in 1935 in the midst of the Great Depression and the Merry Go Round was subsequently moved to Balboa Park to be featured in the California Pacific International Exposition. When the exposition ended in 1937, a man named Ross Davis purchased the carousel and transported it over 120 miles north to its new home in Griffith Park, where it is still in operation to this day, over seven decades later.

The Griffith Park Carousel is comprised of 68 different hand-made horses, all of which “jump” – ie. move up and down – and boast tails made of authentic horse hair.

The carousel also features a custom-built Stinson 165 Military Band Organ, which plays a library of over 1500 different songs.

And, incredibly enough, the Griffith Park Merry Go Round even served as the inspiration for one of the most famous landmarks in the entire world – Disneyland! Yes, you read that right. According to one of my very favorite stalking tomes, Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors, Griffith Park historian Mike Eberts states, “Walt Disney brought his young daughters to the carousel and this is one of the places where he began to dream up the idea that would lead to Disneyland.” So incredibly cool! The bench where Walt used to sit during those outings (which is pictured very poorly above) is still on display at the merry go round to this day. And, according to the book Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, Walt’s daughter Diane “thought the inception [of Disneyland] took place during the Sunday afternoons when Walt picked the girls up from religious services – he never attended himself – and took them to the Griffith Park merry-go-round, where they would spend hours. ‘He’d see families in the park,’ Diane would later recall, ‘and say, ‘There’s nothing for the parents to do . . . You’ve got to have a place where the whole family can have fun.’” Further adding to the carousel’s celebrity status is the fact that James Dean’s very first acting job took place there! It was a commercial for Pepsi Cola and, in it, the newbie actor was shown handing out bottles of the soft drink to teenagers who were riding the merry go round. Such incredible history!

I, of course, had to take a ride on the carousel while I was there and it was so incredibly fun! Being there brought me RIGHT BACK to my childhood when I used to ride the Edgewater Packing House Carousel on Monterey’s Cannery Row each and every weekend. In an odd coincidence, I just found out today that my childhood merry go round was also designed by the Spillman Engineering Company, but it is sadly no longer in operation publicly as it was purchased by a Vegas millionaire who had it installed in a room in his home! Not kidding! But I digress.

In the “Seeing Red” episode of The Mentalist, Patrick Jane hypnotizes a young murder suspect named Travis in order to lead him to a supposed Sacramento-area merry go round so that he can be captured by the CBI.

Mike clued me into the fact that the Merry Go Round was also featured at the very end of the 1988 comedy Twins, in the scene in which Julius and Vincent Benedict (aka Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito, respectively) meet up with their wives, Marnie and Linda Mason (aka Kelly Preston and Chloe Webb, respectively), and their new twin children at a carousel in a park.

Once Mike told me about the Merry Go Round, I started noticing it popping up in all sorts of movies and television shows, including the Season 2 episode of CSI: New York titled “Zoo York”, in which the body of a teenage debutante is found on the supposed Central Park carousel.

The Griffith Park Merry Go Round also showed up in the 1992 flick Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as the spot where Amylin (aka Paul Reubens) turned Grueller (aka Sasha Jensen) into a vampire.

And it also appeared briefly in the Season 1 episode of MacGyver titled “Every Time She Smiles” as a supposed Bulgaria-area merry go round.

And thank you to fellow stalker Eileen, who informed me that the carousel also appeared in the video for the Jessica Simpson/Nick Lachey song “Where You Are”.

The Merry Go Round was also featured in the Sally Field-directed movie Beautiful, but I don’t own that movie, so I was not able to make screen captures.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Griffith Park Merry Go Round is located at 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, inside of Griffith Park, in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. The Merry Go Round is open each Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. During the summer months, it is also open on weekdays. The Merry Go Round can be a bit tricky to find and is not entirely visible from the road. The easiest way to get there is to take Los Feliz Boulevard to Crystal Springs Drive and head north. Make a left onto Fire Road and park in the first lot that you come to. The Merry Go Round is located just north of that lot.

May 4, 2010May 4, 2010

On the Set of “NCIS: Los Angeles”

This past Thursday afternoon, my fiancé called me up to let me know that an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles was being filmed at the YWCA building in Pasadena, just a few blocks away from his office. So, I immediately grabbed my jacket and my camera and headed over to the set with one goal in mind – to get a photograph with actor Chris O’Donnell, who had been the love of my life back in my high school days. I showed up to the corner of North Garfield Avenue and East Union Street to find that NCIS had commandeered an entire city block of Old Town Pasadena for the filming! But, unfortunately, all of the action was taking place inside of the YWCA building, so aside from a slew of production equipment and a myriad of about thirty production trucks, there wasn’t a whole lot to see. And, sadly enough, the security guard on duty – who absolutely could NOT have been nicer – told me that I had missed both LL Cool J and Chris O’Donnell by a mere twenty minutes. Apparently, the two actors had walked out of their makeup trailer shortly beforehand and, on their way to the set, had stopped to pose for photographs with a small group of fans who had showed up to watch the filming. UGH! Talk about bad timing! The security guard told me that I was welcome to hang around, though, and that the actors would most likely be back outside at some point during the next few hours. So, hang around, I did.

And, as luck would have it, I spotted Chris O’Donnell walking alone from the set to his trailer just a few minutes later. But because he had no entourage with him and because he was a good twenty feet away from me, I didn’t realize it was him until it was much too late. I was absolutely shocked – and pleasantly surprised – to have spotted Chris walking alone, as stars almost always have some sort of an entourage – or “handlers” as they are called in “the biz” – who accompany them while on set. Even more shocking was the fact that Chris had walked to his trailer. It is fairly commonplace for stars to be driven back and forth to their Star Waggons while working on a production. Granted, Chris’ trailer was located only about a half a block away from the YWCA building, but I’ve seen stars be driven far less distances while on set. Heck, I’ve even seen one celeb being driven from one side of a street to the other! Not kidding! Chris seemed super down-to-earth and friendly and made it a point to wave and say hello to the security guard who was on duty, which I also thought was incredibly cool! I have so much respect for stars who acknowledge and are friendly to the crew members who work behind the scenes of their productions. I once read that Drew Barrymore makes it a point to learn the name of each and every crew member – right down to the negative cutter – who works on her movies, which I thought was just about the coolest and most non-divaish thing I had ever heard! So love it! Anyway, once I spotted Chris, I parked myself outside of his trailer and immediately called up the Grim Cheaper and told him to get over to the set as soon as possible so that he could take a picture of the two of us. The GC was NOT happy about this development, but headed over to the YWCA building anyway. Ah, the things we do for love. 🙂 Thankfully, it was only about an hour before Chris exited his trailer and walked to the set – again sans entourage. I called out to him and asked if he would mind taking a picture with me, and the guy truly could NOT have been nicer! He was so incredibly friendly, down-to-earth, and low-key that he almost didn’t even seem like a celebrity. He happily posed for the above photograph (during which the wind was blowing like mad, which is why my hair ended up in my face! UGH!) and shook my hand and introduced himself. I told him that I had been a fan since 1992 when Scent of a Woman first premiered, and he thanked me for the longtime support and then continued on to the set. Sigh! The few NCIS: Los Angeles crew members that I spoke with were also incredibly friendly and nice and the vibe on set reminded me distinctly of that of CSI: Miami. Love it! 🙂 After meeting Chris, the GC was ready to head home, so I never did get to see LL Cool J. But getting a photo with Chris O’Donnell more than made up for that fact. 🙂

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The Young Women’s Christian Association building, where filming took place, was originally constructed in 1921 by famed Los Angeles-area architect Julia Morgan, who is best known for designing the world-famous Hearst Castle in San Simeon. The land on which the YWCA now sits was donated to the Association by prominent Pasadenean David Gamble, of Proctor and Gamble fame. The building, which cost $350,000 to build and was originally used by the Association as a social venue and a dormitory of sorts for young women, is currently in a state of disrepair and has sat abandoned and boarded up for the past two decades. The City of Pasadena is currently involved in an eminent domain dispute with its owner and is trying to purchase the historic building and restore it to its former glory. The owner, however, is refusing to sell. You can read more about the history of the YWCA building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, here and you can see some great interior photographs of the place here. Other productions filmed on the premises include the movie Idle Hands and an episode of Heroes.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: NCIS: Los Angeles was filmed at the YWCA building, which is located at 78 North Marengo Avenue in Pasadena.

November 30, 2009December 9, 2020

The Hyatt Regency Valencia from “Twilight”

The other Los Angeles area filming location from Twilight that I mentioned in last Wednesday’s post is the Hyatt Regency Valencia Hotel. In Twilight, the Hyatt stood in for the Phoenix area hostelry where Bella (aka Kristen Stewart), Alice (aka Ashley Greene), and Jasper (aka Jackson Rathbone) hid out while on the run from the evil vampire James (Cam Gigandet) towards the end of the movie. In reality, the hotel is, of course, not located anywhere near Arizona, but instead can be found just about four miles away from the home that was used as Bella’s mom’s house in the flick. So, of course, since I was already in the area last week, I just had to stalk the place. 🙂 I found this location thanks again to the link that fellow stalker Kerry sent me last April while the first Twilight movie was still in production. Thank you, Kerry! 🙂

The Hyatt is, sadly, featured only briefly in Twilight, but I am happy to report that it looks very much the same in person as it did onscreen. In the scene featuring the Hyatt, Bella, Jasper, and Alice are first shown hanging out in a hotel room discussing their current predicament. And while the exterior set up shots for that scene were indeed filmed at the Hyatt Regency Valencia, after looking at photographs of the hotel’s rooms online, I am fairly certain that the interior filming took place elsewhere. My best guess is that the hotel room scene was either filmed on a soundstage or at a real hotel located somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, where the rest of the movie was filmed.

We next see Jasper and Alice in the hotel’s lobby area waiting to check out. And, as you can see in the above photographs and screen capture, that particular scene was actually shot on location at the Hyatt Regency Valencia and the lobby area still looks pretty much the same in person as it did in Twilight. Even the red flower paintings hanging behind the reception desk are there in real life. 🙂 Love it!

In a subsequent scene, Bella is shown rushing out of the Hyatt Regency Valencia’s main entrance and into a waiting taxi cab. And that pretty much covers the entire Twilight segment that took place at the Hyatt! LOL All told, the scenes probably last a little under 45 seconds. As I said in the previous Wednesday’s post, though, it’s better than nothing! 🙂

While stalking the hotel, I happened to strike up a conversation with one of the bellhops who truly could NOT have been nicer to me. He even took the photograph of me featured at the top of this post. 🙂 According to the bellhop, the Hyatt is actually an oft-used filming location and has been featured in such series as CSI: Las Vegas, NCIS, and the reality show Make It Or Break It. The bellhop said that a scene from Twilight was also filmed in the hotel’s parking garage, but he wasn’t sure which scene. He also informed me that Robert Pattinson actually stayed at the Hyatt Regency Valencia for a few days during the filming of Twilight. LOVE IT! The Hyatt Regency Valencia is a really beautiful hotel, with a large swimming pool, picturesque gardens, and a beautiful wedding courtyard (pictured above). I highly recommend stalking the place or even staying there while visiting the L.A. area. Who knows – you may even wind up in RP’s former room! 🙂

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On a very random side note: Earlier today, while reading the fabulous book Twilight: Director’s Notebook, I learned that the scene pictured above, in which Bella and Edward kiss for the first time, was actually filmed in Pasadena! Apparently, the scene was originally filmed on location in Oregon, but director Catherine Hardwicke never ended up getting the exact shot she wanted. So, a few months later, when the cast and crew was back in California, some reshoots were done, one of which was the Bella/Edward kiss scene. For the re-shoot, a replica of Bella’s bedroom was built at the Elk’s Lodge in Pasadena. 🙂 So, as it turns out, there are actually three L.A. area locations that were featured in Twilight. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Hyatt Regency Valencia, where Bella, Jasper, and Alice hid out in Twilight, is located at 24500 Town Center Drive in Valencia. You can visit their website here. The Elks Lodge in Pasadena, where Bella and Edward first kissed, is located at 400 West Colorado Boulevard. You can visit their website here.