The Stuart Building from “That Thing You Do!”

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Back in early October, upon returning home from doing some That Thing You Do! stalking in Orange (you can read my posts on the locations I stalked here, here and here), I popped in my DVD of the 1996 flick to re-watch it for the first time in years.  I was absolutely shocked – and floored – to discover in the course of the viewing that The Stuart at Sierra Madre Villa, an architecturally-stunning Pasadena apartment complex that I toured while house-hunting in 2006, had been featured in the movie.  Because I had not taken any photos of The Stuart during the tour, I ran right out to re-stalk the place while I was in L.A. last week.

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The Stuart at Sierra Madre Villa was originally constructed as the Stuart Pharmaceutical Company’s (they created Mylanta!) main manufacturing facility and office headquarters in 1958.  The New Formalist-style structure, which is set back 150 feet from Foothill Boulevard and which was originally known as the Stuart Company Building, was designed by architect Edward Durell Stone and took two years to complete.  (Stone also fashioned Radio City Music Hall in New York and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.)  The Stuart’s 9.4-acre grounds were designed by legendary landscape architect Thomas Dolliver Church.

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That Thing You Do! building (14 of 14)

The flat-roofed building, which boasts a cast concrete block screen façade and a large linear reflecting pool with fountains, won the National First Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects and was featured on the cover of Time magazine the year it was completed.

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That Thing You Do! building (6 of 14)

Arthur O. Hanisch, the Stuart Company’s forward-thinking owner, sought comfort for his employees in the construction of the building and assigned several recreational areas to the 35,000-square-foot site, including an atrium with a gorgeous open staircase, a garden court, a dining lounge, a pool, a pool house, a large terrace, and an outdoor shade pavilion.  As you can see below, the two-story atrium is pretty darn striking!  There’s a reason I remembered it all these years later while watching That Thing You Do!

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That Thing You Do! building (2 of 14)

In 1990, the Stuart Company, which had been named in honor of Arthur O. Hanisch’s son, was purchased by Johnson and Johnson/Merck Pharmaceuticals Co.  The Stuart Company Building was shuttered shortly thereafter and, in 1993, was put on the market for $16 million.  A year later, it was purchased by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, who intended to bulldoze it and construct a metro station on the property.  Thankfully, the Pasadena Heritage group immediately stepped in and nominated the Stuart for National Registry status to protect it from demolition.  It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.  During the interim, while its fate was being decided, the building sat vacant and, sadly, fell victim to vandals and transients.  Then, in 2002, the site was purchased by a development company named BRE Properties and a multi-million dollar restoration project was begun.  BRE also started construction on an upscale 188-unit apartment complex directly behind the Stuart Building, which became known as The Stuart at Sierra Madre Villa.  Today, the arresting atrium serves as a leasing office and communal space for residents.

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That Thing You Do! building (4 of 14)

In That Thing You Do!, the Stuart Company Building’s atrium masqueraded as the Play-Tone Records headquarters where The Wonders – Guy Patterson (Tom Everett Scott), Jimmy Mattingly (Johnathon Schaech), Lenny Haise (Steve Zahn), and T.B. Player (Ethan Embry) – posed for publicity photos upon first arriving in Los Angeles.

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The Stuart Company Building was also featured in the 2000 made-for-television movie If These Walls Could Talk 2, in which it stood in for the fertility center visited by Fran (Sharon Stone) and Kal (Ellen DeGeneres).  Several areas of the property were used in the filming, including the atrium;

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a hallway;

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a waiting room;

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and an office.

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For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and InstagramAnd you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

That Thing You Do! building (13 of 14)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Stuart at Sierra Madre Villa, from That Thing You Do!, is located at 3360 East Foothill Boulevard in Pasadena.  You can visit the complex’s official website here.

Watson Drugs and Soda Fountain from “That Thing You Do!”

Watson Drug Store (10 of 11)

Another That Thing You Do! locale that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk while the two of us were in the city of Orange in early October was Watson Drugs and Soda Fountain, which popped up twice in the 1996 flick.  And while I really wanted to grab a bite there, sadly the GC and I had just eaten prior to arriving in Orange.  It was still extremely cool to see the place, which is Orange County’s oldest drugstore and the city of Orange’s oldest continually operating business, in person, though.

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The pharmacy portion of Watson’s was originally founded on Glassell Street by a pharmacist named Keller E. Watson, Sr. in 1899.  Two years later, K.E. Watson’s, as it was then known, was moved around the corner to a building on East Chapman Avenue where it has remained ever since (although it has occupied various different storefronts).  In 1915, Keller added a soda fountain to the site and Watson Drugs and Soda Fountain was born.  When Keller retired in the 1930s, his son, Keller E. Watson, Jr., took over the operations until he, too, retired in 1965.  The shop subsequently went through a succession of different owners and then, in 1971, Scott Parker, a pharmacist from Utah, purchased a portion of it.  Scott took over the site completely in 1986 and, while the pharmacy section was closed in 2011, the Parker family still runs the establishment to this day.

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As you can see below, walking inside the eatery is like taking a step back in time.  Besides serving up hamburgers, shakes and its famous malts, the place also sells gifts and cards, so, of course, I just had to do a little shopping while I was there.  Winking smile

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Watson Drug Store (9 of 11)

Watson Drugs first popped up in That Thing You Do! in the scene in which Guy Patterson (Tom Everett Scott) informed Faye Dolan (Liv Tyler) that he had just accidentally hit her car, which was parked outside.  As you can see below, both the exterior and the interior of the shop were dressed heavily for the shoot.

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Watson’s later appeared in the scene in which Guy gave Faye and his fellow Wonders – Jimmy Mattingly (Johnathon Schaech), Lenny Haise (Steve Zahn), and T.B. Player (Ethan Embry) – portable radios so that they would be able to keep an ear out for their song at all times.

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Thanks to its old-fashioned charm, Watson Drugs and Soda Fountain has long been a favorite of location managers.  In the 1987 made-for-television movie The Stepford Children (which looks pretty good, shockingly!), the diner was where Laura Harding (Barbara Eden) told her husband, Steven Harding (Don Murray), that she wanted to leave Stepford and move to a new town.

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In 2004, the interior of Watson’s masqueraded as two different Massachusetts-area locales in the Season 1 episode of Medical Investigation titled “Progeny.”  It first stood in for the soda shop where a child named Joey White (Adam Taylor Gordon) had a seizure and collapsed.  The space was dressed heavily for the shoot, though, and is not very recognizable in the scene.

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And, for whatever reason, producers chose to use a different location to stand in for the shop’s exterior, as you can see below.

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Later in the episode, Watson’s popped up as the diner where Dr. Stephen Connor (Neal McDonough) and his team – Dr. Natalie Durant (Kelli Williams), Dr. Miles McCabe (Christopher Gorham), Eva Rossi (Anna Belknap), and Frank Powell (Troy Winbush) – discussed what might be causing Joey’s ailment.

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Once again, a different location stood in for the coffee shop’s exterior.  That exterior, which was also used as Rosalita’s Bar on the television series Happy Endings, can be found on the Paramount Studios backlot.

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In the 2006 comedy The Benchwarmers, Watson Drugs was where Gus (Rob Schneider) met his new statistician, Sammy Sprinkler (Alex Warrick).  Both the exterior . . .

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. . . and interior of the diner were used in the scene.

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According to the Filmed in Orange website, Watson’s appeared in Fallen Angel, but, unfortunately, I could not find a copy of the 1945 production with which to make screen captures for this post.  And while the eatery’s website asserts that the spot was featured in the 1981 comedy The Cannonball Run, I scanned through the flick and did not see it anywhere.  Watson’s website also states that Don Knotts, Shelley Hack and Jimmy Smits have all shot commercials on the premises and that George W. Bush made a stop there to pick up a malt while campaigning for the presidency in 2000.

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Watson Drug Store (11 of 11)

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and InstagramAnd you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Watson Drug Store (4 of 11)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Watson Drugs and Soda Fountain, from That Thing You Do!, is located at 116 East Chapman Avenue in Orange.  You can visit the eatery’s official website here.  Tiddlywinks Toys and Games, aka Patterson’s Appliances from the movie, is located just around the corner at 129 North Glassell Street.  The That Thing You Do! mailbox scene was filmed just a few storefronts north of Tiddlywinks, in front of 173 North Glassell Street.  The building that was dressed to look like a Woolworths in the flick can be found across the street at 160/162 North Glassell.

Patterson’s Appliances from “That Thing You Do!”

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After stalking the downtown Orange spot where the That Thing You Do! mailbox scene was filmed (which I blogged about yesterday), I dragged the Grim Cheaper just a few feet south to stalk the storefront that was used as Patterson’s Appliances, drummer Guy Patterson’s (Tom Everett Scott) family’s shop, in the 1996 flick.  Thank goodness for the Seeing Stars website and its That Thing You Do! filming locations page, which had the address of Patterson’s Appliances listed, because, as I mentioned yesterday, my trip to Orange was completely unexpected and I, therefore, had not done any prior research.  Which is a shame, too, because, as it turns out, the town, which is easily one of the cutest places I have ever visited, has appeared in countless productions over the years, many of them favorites of mine.   (Check out this amazeballs list of the various movies and televisions shows that have been filmed in Orange and the corresponding addresses used.  I wish every city would compile a database like that!  LOVE IT!)  Ah well, it looks like I will just have to make another stalking expedition to Orange someday.  Smile

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Patterson’s Appliances was one of the main locations used in That Thing You Do! and the supposed 1960s-era Eerie, Pennsylvania storefront popped up repeatedly throughout the movie.  While Orange does have a very old-fashioned feel to it, production designers heavily dressed the area for the shoot, as you can see below.  Even without the extra dressing, though, the site is still very recognizable from its onscreen appearance.  In fact, being there brought me right back to when I first saw the flick in 1996, which I could NOT have been more excited about.

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At the time of the filming, the Patterson’s storefront was vacant, which allowed designers to thoroughly transform it into a 1964 appliance shop, complete with old-fashioned dishwashers, radios and television sets.

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Patterson Appliances That Thing You Do (9 of 19)

Today, the space houses a toy store named Tiddlywinks Toys and Games.  Thankfully, the exterior still looks much the same today as it did in November and December 1995 when That Thing You Do! was filmed.

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Patterson Appliances That Thing You Do (19 of 19)

When Tiddlywinks moved in, the owners changed a few aspects of the décor, but for the most part the set-up is still very recognizable from That Thing You Do!  Sadly, shops tend to get a little skittish over interior photographs being taken and I did not feel like arguing with anyone on that particular day, so I failed to snap any images of the inside of the place.  But you can check out some pictures of the filming, as well as a photo of the interior of the then vacant shop dressed as Patterson’s Appliances, here.

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For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and InstagramAnd you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Patterson Appliances That Thing You Do (18 of 19)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Tiddlywinks Toys and Games, aka Patterson’s Appliances from That Thing You Do!, is located at 129 North Glassell Street in Orange.  You can visit the store’s official website here.  The mailbox scene from That Thing You Do! was filmed just a few storefronts north in front of 173 North Glassell Street.  The building that was dressed to look like a Woolworths in the flick can be found across the street at 160/162 North Glassell.

The “That Thing You Do!” Mailbox Scene

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Well folks, this post sadly marks the end to my 2013 Haunted Hollywood locales, which is especially depressing because this year was easily the Best. Halloween. Ever.  Once again, the GC and I (dressed up as The Bachelorette’s Emily Maynard and Jef Holm) headed out to our friends’ house in Malibu.  (And yes, I am aware that Emily and Jef are no longer together, but neither are Brenda and Dylan and we dressed up like them, too, one Halloween. 😉 )   Dick Van Dyke ended up not hosting his usual Halloween shindig this year (you can read about his 2011 fest here and his 2012 fest here), so we went instead to a party that our friends’ friends were having in a different gated community nearby.  And let me tell you, it was UH-MA-ZING.

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Not only was every single house in the neighborhood dressed to the nines (I swear, nobody does Halloween like the ‘Bu) . . .

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. . . but there were celebrities galore, including none other than Gwyneth Paltrow!  The GC actually spotted Gwyneth first and, while I just about died of excitement on the spot, because she was with her children, I restrained myself from asking for a photo.  I obsessed about it, though, for the next thirty minutes or so and eventually, without me knowing, the GC went up to her and said, “Gwyneth, could you please take a picture with my wife before her head explodes?”  Next thing I knew, there was a tap on my shoulder and GP was standing in front of me, saying “I heard you wanted a photo.”  Yeah, I was DYING.  And absolutely falling in love with the GC all over again.  Smile  Gwyneth truly could NOT have been nicer (easily one of the sweetest celebs that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting) and I adore her even more now than I did before.  So suck it, Vanity FairWinking smile

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Also in attendance were Cindy Crawford . . .

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. . . and Neil Patrick Harris.  Like I said, Best. Halloween. Ever.  Not sure how I’m ever going to recover from this one!  Here’s hoping next year is just as good.  Smile

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In the meantime, though, it is back to regular, non-haunted postings here at IAMNOTASTALKER.  So here goes!  As I mentioned in my post about the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, in early October Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, hosted her bachelorette party at my favorite place in the entire world, Disneyland.  Because we did not want to make the long drive back to Palm Springs that night, the GC and I got a hotel room in the area, which turned out to be a fateful decision.  The following morning, on our way out of town, I did a GPS search for a nearby Starbucks and when I saw that the closest outpost was located in the city of Orange, I just about had a heart attack as my very favorite movie scene EVER had been filmed in Orange – the mailbox scene from 1996’s That Thing You Do!  So I immediately braced the GC for the fact that we would be making a little unexpected stalking detour.

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In the scene, Faye Dolan (Liv Tyler) is listening to a portable radio and mailing letters in what is supposedly 1960s downtown Eerie, Pennsylvania, when she hears “That Thing You Do!”, her boyfriend’s band’s song, playing on the radio for the very first time.  She starts screaming and runs down the street towards an Army/Navy store where she finds fellow band member T.B. Player (Ethan Embry).  The two then race to Patterson’s Appliances, where another band member, Guy Patterson (cutie Tom Everett Scott), works.  (I will be blogging about the location of Patterson’s Appliances tomorrow.)  Guy turns all the radios in the store to the station playing the song and, shortly thereafter, the other two members of the group, Jimmy Mattingly (Johnathon Schaech) and Lenny Haise (Steve Zahn), show up and proceed to dance around manically.  Liv Tyler is sheer perfection in the scene and it is physically impossible not to be happy while watching it.

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That Thing You Do Mailbox Scene (1 of 15)

You can take a look at the That Thing You Do! mailbox scene by clicking below.  Go ahead, try not to smile while watching – I dare you.  Winking smile

In the scene, the mailbox was set up in front of an empty storefront located at 173 North Glassell Street, in pretty much the exact spot where the red sandwich board sign is situated in the photograph below.

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I found this locale thanks to the Seeing Stars website and my trusty iPhone.  As soon as the GC and I arrived in Orange, I watched the scene on YouTube and saw that the mailbox was located across the street from a Woolworth store.   Seeing Stars listed the address of the store that masqueraded as Woolworths as 160 North Glassell Street, so from there it was simply a matter of matching up the angles of what appeared onscreen to the real life buildings.   You can check out some images of the Woolworths building and the rest of the downtown area dressed for the filming on the City of Orange website here.

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For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and InstagramAnd you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

That Thing You Do Mailbox Scene (12 of 15)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The mailbox scene from That Thing You Do! was filmed in front of what is now a vacant storefront located at 173 North Glassell Street in Orange.  The building that was dressed to look like a Woolworths in the flick can be found across the street at 160/162 North Glassell.

The Dresden Restaurant

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A couple of months ago I was flipping through one of my favorite stalking tomes, Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors, when I came across a blurb written about the legendary Dresden Restaurant in Hollywood.  And while I had actually eaten at the Dresden once before upon first moving to Southern California almost a decade ago, at the time I had no idea it was a filming location!  So, I immediately called up the Grim Cheaper and begged him to take me there that very night.  But being that we were just a few weeks away from our upcoming nuptials at the time, he quickly put a nix on my plans with the caution that “we shouldn’t be spending money right now”.  I acquiesced, but have been itching to stalk the place ever since.  Thankfully, the two of us finally made it out there for dinner two weeks ago, with the GC pretty much kicking and screaming the entire way.  But as it turned out he absolutely LOVED the place – and the $32 dinner bill that came at the end of the night.  Yes, you read that right – our dinner, including one cocktail a piece, was only $32!  We ended up eating in the Dresden’s bar area and ordering up a smorgasbord of happy hour items, including French onion soup and quesadillas, and, let me tell you, the food was not only INCREDIBLE, but the serving sizes were absolutely HUGE.  The staff there was also amazingly nice and answered all of my silly little questions about the extensive filming that has taken place there over the years.  All in all, it was quite the successful stalk and I honestly cannot say enough good things about the place! 

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The Dresden has been a Hollywood staple since it first opened in the 1950’s.  A paint store originally occupied the premises, but the space was converted into an eatery named Pucci’s Cafe sometime in the late 1930s.  It later became known as the Dresden Room, named so for the china dolls which decorated the restaurant interior.  In 1954, a man named Carl Ferraro purchased the restaurant along with his wife, Sara, and remodeled it twelve years later.  The interior has been left virtually untouched since that time and walking through the front doors is like stepping back in time a good fifty years.  One look at the restaurant and it is easy to see why the place has become a favorite of location scouts.

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The Dresden’s most memorable film appearance was in the 1996 flick Swingers, in the scene in which Mike (aka Jon Favreau) meets and makes a fool of himself in front of Nikki (aka The Replacements’ Brooke Langton), his neighborhood Starbucks barista.

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The scene also showcased the Dresden’s legendary long-running musical act, Marty and Elayne, who have been playing at the restaurant nightly since 1982.

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Ironically enough, the big fight scene in Swingers, which supposedly takes place outside of the Dresden’s rear entrance, was actually filmed a few miles away in the parking lot of the famous Musso & Frank Grill in Downtown Hollywood.  The Dresden’s real life rear entrance is shown above.  For the scene, the producers covered over Musso’s back awning with the word “Dresden” . . .

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. . . but forgot to cover over Musso’s “Oldest in Hollywood” sign, which can blatantly be seen in the background during the fight.

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In 1990’s The Two Jakes, the Dresden was used as the Green Parrot night club where J.J. Jake Gittes (aka Jack Nickolson) meets up with Tyrone Otley (aka Tracey Walter).

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In the 1996 flick That Thing You Do, the Dresden stands in for the Blue Spot jazz club where Guy ‘Shades’ Patterson (aka Tom Everett Scott) meets musician Del Paxton (aka Bill Cobbs).

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In the 2000 romantic comedy What Women Want, the interior of the Dresden was used as the Chicago-area Back Door piano lounge where Nick Marshall (aka Mel Gibson) and Darcy Maguire (aka Helen Hunt) meet up for a late night drink.  The restaurant was re-decorated considerably for the filming, with white twinkle lights being added to the walls and mirrors being added to the back of the booths.

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The Dresden was transformed into the Escupimos en su Alimento (which translates to “We Spit in Your Food” LOL) Mexican restaurant for the 2004 flick Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.

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And while The X-Files also shot scenes at the Dresden at one point in time, I am not sure of exactly which episode it appeared in.  Supposedly the restaurant was also featured in Bugsy, but I scanned through that flick earlier today and did not see the Dresden pop up anywhere.

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The Dresden has also long been a celebrity magnet and even boasts an extensive headshot wall-of-fame at its front entrance to prove it.  Just a few of the luminaries who have dined there over the years include Dolly Parton, Nicolas Cage, Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland, Adam West, Danny Aiello, Jay Leno, Keanu Reeves, David Lynch, Frank Sinatra . . .

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. . . “Thriller” director John Landis . . .

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. . . and fellow stalker Owen’s main squeeze Jennifer Love Hewitt.

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I honestly cannot recommend stalking the Dresden enough!  When people say that L.A. has no history, it is places like this that I think of.  I cannot tell you how cool it was to be dining at a restaurant that has not only been in operation for over five decades, but also boasts an extensive film resume and has seen the likes of everyone from Frank Sinatra to Julia Roberts walk through its doors.  If that’s not history, I don’t know what is!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Dresden Restaurant is located at 1760 North Vermont Avenue in Hollywood.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

If You Two Ever Have Kids and One of Them Accidentally Sets Fire to the Living Room Rug . . .

My family and I were supposed to take the red eye home from Hawaii on Wednesday night, but en route to the airport we decided to turn in our tickets and stay a few more days. LOL It was a totally spur of the moment thing and SO MUCH FUN! I can’t even believe we’re still here. Anyway – I didn’t do any Kona stalking today, so thank goodness I have some locations in my stalking reserves that I can blog about. 🙂

Two weeks ago when I dragged my mom out for some Hollywood stalking, we hit up the Hollywood United Methodist Church. I had just discovered this fab website on Back to the Future filming locations and was floored to find out that the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance scenes were filmed at the church, so I just had to stalk it. Hollywood Methodist is pretty much closed to the public on weekdays, but we knocked on the office doors and the facility manager, Stephen, was nice enough to take us on a little filming tour.

The first place we stalked was the church gym, where the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance was filmed and where Marty’s parents finally get together and Marty rocks out to Johnny B. Goode onstage. Currently the gym is being used for rehearsals of Les Miserables, which is playing at the Hollywood Bowl this upcoming weekend.

The same gym was also used for the talent competition scene in That Thing You Do. It’s the location where the One-ders play their hit song “That Thing You Do” for the very first time. It’s not very hard to see why producers chose to use the United Methodist gym for both of these movies, as when you step inside the gym you definitely feel like you are stepping back in time to the 50s.

The scene from Back to the Future when Marty says goodbye to his parents and the year 1955 and says the famous line “If you two ever have kids, and one of the accidentally sets fire to the living room rug, go easy on him” also takes place at the church, in a stairwell leading off from the gym. When BTTF was filmed, the doors leading to the outside were double doors, whereas now there is just a single door. Otherwise the stairway looks exactly the same as it did during filming and I absolutely LOVED being there. 🙂

Besides Back to the Future and That Thing You Do, the church has also been featured in Jarhead, Domino, Anger Management, Big Mama’s House, Beautiful, A Civil Action, Super Mario Bros., Star 80, Imitation of Life, General Hospital, Murder She Wrote, Golden Girls, Jake and the Fatman, and The A-Team, among many others. The church kitchen and an anteroom were used extensively in the movie Sister Act, but the exterior of Whoopi’s church was not United Methodist. That church is actually in San Francisco. The Season 7 episode of CSI entitled “Double Cross”, where a woman is found dead inside a church in a false crucifixion pose was filmed inside of Hollywood Methodist.

Hollywood United Methodist Church, which was modeled loosely after Westminster Abbey in England, opened its doors on March 16, 1930. The church was made a historic-cultural monument in 1981 by the City of Los Angeles. United Methodist has long been supportive of those afflicted with the AIDS disease. While other churches turned their backs on those living with the disease, Hollywood Methodist became a safe haven to those afflicted. In 1993, on World AIDS Day, congregation members placed two large AIDS ribbons on the church tower, where they still stand today. The exterior of Hollywood Methodist often appears in television and film establishing shots of the Los Angeles area and no doubt you will notice it popping up time and time again on your favorite shows. The church is absolutely beautiful and the facilities manager Stephen could not have been nicer to us. I highly recommend stalking there if you find yourself in the area. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Hollywood United Methodist Church is located at 6817 Franklin Avenue in Hollywood, about half a block away from the Hollywood & Highland Center.

That Thing You Stalk!

That Thing You Do has always been one of my very favorite movies. Liv Tyler could not have been more adorable in that movie! The scene where she is running down the street screaming with joy while listening to the Oneders song on the radio for the first time is one of my favorite scenes in all of moviedom! And I do love me some Tom Everett Scott, too. 🙂 So when I read on Pasadena’s Filming Website that a house on Prospect Boulevard in Pasadena was used in That Thing You Do, I, of course, ran right out to stalk it.

I must say that working backwards, or stalking backwards I should say, ie. trying to find the scene in a movie where a certain home or place was featured, proved to be almost as difficult as normal stalking. I had to fast-forward through That Thing You Do twice before I spotted the house in a scene. In actuality only the garage of the home was used, and it was only used briefly in the very beginning of the movie. The home was featured in the scene when Guy Patterson practices with the rest of the band for the first time. It is in this scene that Liv Tyler comes up with the name for the band – “The Oneders”.

I actually had to go back and stalk this house a second time, as the first time I stalked it I didn’t get a photo of the garage, which was the only part of the house used in the movie. The front of the home is never actually shown. The clapboard-style residence is super cute in person and was very reminiscent of the Father of the Bride house, but on a slightly smaller scale. I am actually very surprised the front of the house was not shown in the movie. You’d think that since they were already there filming in the garage, they would have taken some stock footage of the front of the house to use in the movie.

The Prospect Historic District of Pasadena, where the That Thing You Do home is located, is a beautiful neighborhood with absolutely gorgeous homes on tree covered streets. The neighborhood, which was started in the year 1906, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. One of the homes on Prospect, number 657, is known as the Bentz House and was built by the famous architects Greene & Greene, with whom Craftsman style architecture is most commonly associated. Greene & Greene built the Bentz House in 1906 and it still stands today. Jennifer Lopez’ dream house from the movie Enough can also be found in the Prospect Historic District. It is pictured to the left. According to Pasadena’s Filming Website the Enough house was also used in That Thing You Do, but I never saw it. Quite possibly only the interior of the house was used, and therefore I didn’t recognize it, or, also quite possible, the Pasadena website just got it wrong.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The That Thing You Do house is located at 490 Prospect Boulevard. The garage that was used in the movie is to the left rear of the house and is very visible from the street. JLo’s house from Enough is located right around the corner at 445 Prospect Square. The most famous Greene & Greene home, the Gamble House, is located just off of Prospect Square at 4 Westmoreland Place. The Gamble House was used as Doc Brown’s home in the movie Back to the Future, but I’ll save that one for a future post. 🙂