Southland filming locations

December 20, 2013December 20, 2013

Footsies Bar from “Bad Santa”

One location that has been a thorn in my side for as long as I can remember is the gorgeous wood-paneled bar featured in the opening scene of Bad Santa. Despite having contacted several crew members and spending copious amounts of time searching for it online, I just cannot seem to find the place – and, let me tell you, it is driving me absolutely crazy! A locale from the 2003 black comedy that I was able to track down last January, though, thanks to location manager Steve Beimler, was Footsies – a different watering hole that appeared in the movie. While Beimler originally informed me that Footsies was the bar from Bad Santa’s opening scene, when I went to stalk it – with Mike, from MovieShotsLA – I knew right away that it was not the right spot. Regardless, I was excited to have a Christmas locale for my stalking backlog and figured it was most definitely blog-worthy.

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Footsies popped up towards the beginning of Bad Santa as the supposed Milwaukee-area tavern where Willie (Billy Bob Thornton) and Marcus (Tony Cox) celebrated their successful robbery of a local mall. It was also where Willie told Marcus that he was hanging up his Santa hat and moving to Miami Beach. Only the interior of the bar was used in the filming.

In real life, the establishment looks very much the same as it did onscreen, despite a slight remodel.

According to Mike, who grew up in L.A., Footsies has been around forever. Oddly enough, though, I could find no information whatsoever – nothing, nada, zip! – about its history online.

I did learn that the bar appeared in two episodes of Southland, though. The exterior was used in the Season 1 episode titled “Derailed” as the watering hole that Officer Dewey Dudek (C. Thomas Howell) stumbled out of before heading to work early in the morning.

And in the Season 5 episode titled “Bleed Out,” Footsies was where Officer Ben Sherman (cutie Ben McKenzie – sigh!) and Detective Sammy Bryant (Shawn Hatosy) investigated a disturbance.

For any of my fellow stalkers who might have information or are interested in helping with the hunt, the exterior of the thorn-in-my-side Bad Santa bar is pictured below. According to a crew member that I spoke with, it is located somewhere in Santa Monica and was dressed for the filming. (I am guessing that the entire green front panel may have been faked.) The locale is a one-story brick building that sits perpendicular to a traffic light.

The interior of the thorn-in-my-side bar might also be located in Santa Monica (although no crew members can say either way with any certainty). It is such a beautiful, historic-looking site, I am shocked that no one I have spoken with has any recollection of its whereabouts.

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.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Footsies bar, from Bad Santa, is located at 2640 North Figueroa Street in Los Angeles’ Cypress Park neighborhood.

April 25, 2012April 24, 2012

Chateau LeMoine from “Southland”

A few months ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, posted some photographs on his site of Chateau LeMoine, an uh-ma-zing castle-like property that was featured in the Season 3 episode of Southland (his favorite television series, second only, of course, to Beverly Hills, 90210) titled “Cop or Not”. And while I have never watched Southland, I became majorly obsessed with the fabulously unique home. So, a couple of weeks back, while on our way to stalk Franc’s wedding coordinator office from Father of the Bride, which I blogged about in mid-April, I asked Mike to make a pit stop at the Chateau so that I could finally see it in person. And, let me tell you, the place did not disappoint!

Mike found this location thanks to a sign that read “LeMoine” that was visible in the background of “Cop or Not”.

He had also spotted an address number of “846” on the curb in front of the residence in the episode. A quick Google search of the terms “LeMoine”, “846”, “House”, and “Los Angeles” led him right to the Chateau LeMoine. Yay!

Chateau LeMoine was originally constructed in 1925 by French architect Earl LeMoine at a cost of $9,000. According to an article in the Larchmont Chronicle, LeMoine’s wife had fallen in love with the land, which contains a natural brook and waterfall, a few years prior and Earl had surprised her by building “a chateau resembling those in their native south of France” as a birthday present. After the death of Earl’s wife, the property went through a succession of different owners and eventually wound up in a state of disrepair. Until 2009, that is, when an architect named Dean Caldarelli and a real estate agent named Dmitri Chami purchased the dwelling and began an extensive renovation process, during which they widened doorways, fenced off the perimeter of the property, added interior archways, and built a large pool/”Baroque-influenced water feature” and garden area in the front yard.

An aerial view of the property pre-remodel is pictured above.

As you can see above, the property’s detailing is nothing short of spectacular. Sure, the place is a bit kitschy and over-the-top, but, then again, so is Los Angeles. Winking smile Chateau LeMoine, which boasts five bedrooms, six baths, 4,510 square feet, 0.33 acres of land, a turret, a moat, four exterior courtyards (all with seating areas), a two-story wood-beamed living room with twenty-foot ceilings, and a one-bedroom, one-bath guest house, is currently for sale for a cool $2.475 million. You can check out the real estate listing here.

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In the “Cop or Not” episode of Southland, the Chateau LeMoine belonged to actor Billy Stearn (John Charles Meyer) and was where he was arrested for the murder of his estranged wife, Bethany.

The real life interior of the home, which you can see photographs of here, also appeared briefly in the episode.

A Ben McKenzie fan named Annie happened to catch the filming that took place at Chateau LeMoine and posted a great write-up of it, along with some fabulous photographs, on the Ben Support Live Journal website, which you can check out here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Chateau LeMoine, from the “Cop or Not” episode of Southland, is located at 846 South Longwood Avenue in the Brookside area of Los Angeles, just south of Hancock Park.

April 4, 2012April 3, 2012

The Coffee Pot from “90210”

As I mentioned back in March in my post about Bar Keeper in Silver Lake, the whimsical little barware store that stood in for Upon Galley in the 2005 movie A Lot Like Love, one locale that I had been absolutely itching to stalk in recent weeks was the Coffee Pot, an Echo Park-area café that appeared in the Season 4 episode of fave show 90210 titled “Babes in Toyland”. And while tracking down this location required minimal effort on my part, stalking it would be a different story altogether.

The GC and I actually tried to stalk the Coffee Pot not once, but twice, and both endeavors proved futile. Our first attempt took place on a Sunday when we just happened to be in the neighborhood and decided to drop by, only to discover that the shop is closed on Sundays. Then, last weekend, we made a special trip out there, on a Saturday this time, only to be met with a sign on the front door announcing that the small café was closed because “I’m the mom and I said so!” Um, OK. And while it is said that “the third time’s the charm”, I think we will just cut our losses at two unsuccessful stalks for this location. It is unfortunate, too, because the place looked absolutely adorable and I had a major hankering for some coffee at the time.

I was so flummoxed over the shop being closed yet again that I completely forgot to have the GC take my picture out front. I was able to snap two photographs of the Coffee Pot’s interior through the café’s front windows, though, and being that there was also a Starbucks located right across the street and I did manage to score myself a latte, I guess the trip was not a total loss. Winking smile

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In the “Babes in Toyland” episode of 90210, troublemaker Vanessa (Arielle Kebbel) tries to sabotage Adrianna Tate-Duncan (Jessica Lowndes) and Dixon Wilson (Tristan Wilds) by sending them to the fictional “Echo Park Grill” for a fake meeting with the VP of A&R for Def Jam Records. Oddly enough, three different locations were used to stand in for the restaurant in the episode. The first establishing shot shown in the scene was of the 3900 block of West Sunset Boulevard in the Sunset Junction area of Silver Lake, where Bar Keeper is located.

The second establishing shot was of Figaro Bistro in Los Feliz, which I I blogged about back in August 2011. The exterior of Figaro also appeared in the Season 3 episode of 90210 titled “How Much is that Liam in the Window”.

And, finally, the Coffee Pot was used for all of the “Echo Park Grill’s” interior scenes, where Adrianna and Dixon waited futilely for the record executive. As you can see above, the café is a pretty cute spot.

Despite the conflicting establishing shots, this location was actually a snap to track down as I had noticed the words “Coffee Pot” on the door of the café while watching the episode. A simple input of the terms “Coffee Pot” and “Los Angeles” into a Google search spit back a result of the Coffee Pot in Echo Park. Yay! Too bad it wasn’t quite as easy to stalk.

Fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, also let me know that the Coffee Pot had appeared as “Spark Plug Coffee” where Officer Ben Sherman (cutie Ben McKenzie – sigh!) and Detective Sammy Bryant (Shawn Hatosy) arrested a man for having placed a hidden camera in a women’s bathroom in the Season 4 episode of Southland titled “Risk”.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for informing me of the Coffee Pot’s Southland appearance.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Coffee Pot, from the “Babes in Toyland” episode of 90210 and the “Risk” episode of Southland, is located at 2201 West Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park.

December 14, 2009November 8, 2010

Clown Dog Restaurant from “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead”

UPDATE – I just drove by this location last week and was shocked to discover that the entire thing had been completely torn down. The only part of it left standing is the All American Burger sign pictured below. 🙁 A Chipotle restaurant is currently being built in its place. So incredibly sad! I will leave this post up, though, for those stalkers who are interested in seeing photographs of how it used to look.

A few weeks ago, I dragged my boyfriend out to Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood to stalk a restaurant named All American Burger – a location which has been on my list of places to stalk ever since fellow stalker Owen informed me that it stood in for the Clown Dog diner where Bryan (aka Josh Charles) worked in fave movie Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. In a random twist of fate, Owen happened upon this information during his search for the main house used in Don’t Tell Mom back in September. While trying to track down that location, Owen came across an interview with actor Keith Coogan, who played Christina Applegate’s younger brother Kenny in the flick, who had this to say, “The film was shot entirely in Southern California. Mostly in the San Fernando Valley and Santa Clarita/Antelope Valley areas. The house is really close to Six Flags Magic Mountain. Some locations were in the heart of Hollywood, like the roof of the Holiday Inn, and the Clown Dog is actually an ‘All American Burger’ located on Sunset Blvd. Some scenes were shot in Santa Monica and Malibu, as well as some interiors which were filmed in Simi Valley/Sherman Oaks.” (Unfortunately, for the life of me, I cannot find the source of that interview online, otherwise I would post a link to it here.) An actor who not only remembers where scenes from his movies were filmed, but actually references them in an interview??? SO LOVE IT!!!!! Thank you, Keith!!! So, once I heard where Clown Dog was located, I immediately added the address to my long “to stalk” list and finally made it out there to see the place in person just a few weeks back. YAY!

And, let me tell you, this was one stalk that was DEFINITELY worth the wait. As fate would have it, the owner of the restaurant, an INCREDIBLY nice man named Lang, was working behind the counter when we arrived. Of course, the first words out of my mouth were, “Was Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead filmed here?” Lang laughed and told me that yes, indeed, the movie had been filmed on the premises. I then asked him if everyone who came in inquired about the very same thing, to which he replied “You’re only the second person in the twenty-plus years I’ve worked here who has ever asked me that!” LOL It’s nice to know I’m unique! Lang seemed truly amused at my excitement over stalking his restaurant and really could NOT have been nicer about it. Not only did he tell me that I was welcome to take all of the pictures of the place that I wanted . . .

. . . BUT HE ALSO LET ME DON ONE ONE OF THE ALL AMERICAN BURGER UNIFORMS AND STEP BEHIND THE COUNTER TO POSE FOR A PIC! LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT!

I also so love it that the real All American Burger hat is almost exactly the same as the Clown Dog hat that Christina Applegate wore in the movie! 🙂

Because my fiancé and I were both starving at the time, we just had to grab a bite to eat during our stalk. And, let me tell you, we were not disappointed! While All American Burger is by no means fancy, their food is simply A-MA-ZING! The menu features your typical all-American fare, such as burgers, hot dogs, and French fries, all of which happen to be right up my alley. 🙂 My fiancé and I ended up splitting a cheeseburger and fries – both of which were excellent! And the Grim Cheaper was very excited about the fact that the entire meal cost us $4! Even more exciting to him, though, had to be the restaurant’s working pinball machine, which he played quite a few games on. So cool! (Please pardon the above picture, I was in a goofy mood that day. 🙂 )

All American Burger pops up twice in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. It first shows up in the beginning of the movie, in the scene in which Sue Ellen (aka Swell), gets a job working behind the counter of the fast food restaurant.

Fed up with Mr. Egg, her perennially happy boss, Swell quits her new job after only one day of work, but not before making a romantic connection with fellow Clown Dog employee Bryan.

The restaurant next shows up towards the end of the movie, in the scene in which Swell, upset over her recent fight with Bryan, drives by Clown Dog and sadly watches him working through the window.

I am very happy to report that although over 18 years have passed since Don’t Tell Mom was filmed, All American Burger still looks very much the same in person as it did onscreen. Missing in real life, of course, is the circus themed decor that was used to dress the restaurant during the filming. Besides Don’t Tell Mom, All American Burger has also been featured in a recent episode of Southland and in an album cover for one of musician Howie Day’s CD’s. And because the restaurant is something of a Hollywood institution, celebs have been known to stop in there from time to time, including The O.C.’s Adam Brody, who is a regular. 🙂

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Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: All American Burger, aka Clown Dog from Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, was located at 7660 West Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.