TV filming locations – Page 13

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!

[ad]

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.

July 29, 2010July 29, 2010

David Wallace’s House from “The Office” – Part II

Another filming location from The Office that I dragged my fiance out to stalk two weekends ago was the large Colonial-style estate belonging to Dunder Mifflin Paper Company CFO David Wallace (aka Andy Buckley) on the show. This is not the same Pasadena-area property that stood in for the Wallace residence in the Season 3 episode of the series titled “Branch Closing” that I blogged about two weeks ago, however. For an unexplained reason, after shooting the “Branch Closing” episode, producers chose to use a different, but similar-looking home located in the Encino-area, to stand in for the Wallace residence. I found this location, as usual, thanks to fellow stalker Owen, who tracked down a slew of Office filming locales long before I ever even watched the show. So, thank you, Owen!

Owen had warned me before I stalked the house that the property was not only gated, but set quite a ways back from the street and was most likely not at all visible to the public. I am very happy to report, though, that the stalking gods were smiling down upon us when we arrived to stalk the house because miraculously the front gates were standing WIDE OPEN! YAY! I am also happy to report that the home looks exactly the same in person as it did on the show.

I honestly can’t get over how large the Wallace residence is! The place is absolutely gargantuan! And it is currently for sale! According to its real estate listing, the home, which is currently being offered at $4,998,000, boasts 6 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms, 6,000 square feet of living space, and sits on a whopping 3 acres of what the listing describes as “park-like” land. The home also features a separate 700-square foot guest house, working horse stables, a tennis court, a pool, and a spa.

The home first appeared in the Season 3 episode of the series titled “Cocktails”, in which David Wallace and his wife, Rachel, throw a party at their house for all of the Dunder Mifflin managers.

And, as you can see in the above screen captures as compared to these interior photographs of the home, the real life inside of the house and even some of the actual furniture was used in the filming of that episode.

I have to say here that I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE the scene in “Cocktails” in which Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) turns to a party guest who is eating shrimp and says, “You know that line on the top of the shrimp? That’s feces.” LOL LOL LOL That scene especially resonates with me because someone once told me that very same thing when I was a little girl and I have NEVER forgotten it and now can’t eat shrimp unless that “line” has been removed.

One VERY odd anomaly that I noticed while watching the “Cocktails” episode today was that the trash cans pictured in the background of the scene in which Michael and Dwight trade shirts were all spray-painted with the number “1485”. And while the home where that episode was filmed is numbered “5133”, the Pasadena residence that stood in for David Wallace’s house in the previous “Branch Closing” episode was in fact numbered “1485”. I don’t even know what to make of this development, as that shirt-trading scene was obviously not filmed at the Pasadena location. I guess I’ll just have to chalk it up to being a very, very bizarre coincidence.

David Wallace’s house also appeared in the Season 6 episode of The Office titled “Sabre” in the scene in which Michael goes to David’s home to get some advice on how to deal with the new corporation that has just taken over Dunder Mifflin.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: David Wallace’s (second) house from The Office is located at 5133 Louise Avenue in Encino. You can visit the home’s real estate listing here.

July 12, 2010July 22, 2010

David Wallace’s House from “The Office”

Fellow stalker Owen and I recently set out upon a mission to try to track down the Colonial-style residence belonging to David Wallace in the Season 3 episode of The Office titled “Branch Closing”. This proved to be a rather difficult find for us, though, being that we had virtually nothing to go on – no house number or street sign was visible in the background of the episode and neither Owen nor I had any idea of which city the house might be located in. We figured that unless we were able to get ahold of a crew member and gather some inside information, we would never be able to track the place down. That is until last week, when I stumbled upon this fabulous filming locations database, which, lo and behold, had photographs of the exact property which we were looking for! And not only did the database state that the house was located in Pasadena, but it also gave us an address number – 1485. YAY! I immediately emailed the link to Owen and the two of us set about using Google Maps to search every 1400 block in the Pasadena area. Three minutes later I got a text from Owen with the address. And while he says that this one was a team effort, my hat is definitely off to him because there is absolutely NO WAY I ever would have found the place as quickly as he did. So, THANK YOU, OWEN! 🙂

[ad]

In the “Branch Closing” episode of The Office, Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) and Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) come up with a plan to save the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company’s Scranton branch by driving to New York to make a personal face-to-face plea to CFO David Wallace (aka Andy Buckley) at his home, the address of which Dwight has stolen off of the company Christmas card list. Because Wallace is not at home when they show up to confront him “Michael Moore-style”, they are forced to wait outside on the sidewalk all day and into the night with only a bottle of Gatorade to sustain them. And while Dwight and Michael never end up getting the chance to confront Wallace in the episode, the Scranton Branch does eventually get spared from closure.

I am VERY happy to report that the Wallace residence looks much the same in person as it did onscreen. In fact, the only difference I noticed was that the bronze eagle that was affixed to the round portico above the front door in the episode was not there in real life. Otherwise, though, the house looks exactly as it did on the show. Love it!

As you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, producers even went so far as to have the house’s real life “San Marino Security” sign covered over with a “Mount Vernon Security” sign for the filming, which is so darn cool!

And, of course, I just had to sit in the spot where Dwight and Michael were sitting at the end of the episode. 🙂

On a side note – for whatever reason, in the episode of The Office titled “Cocktails”, which aired during the very same season as the “Branch Closing” episode, a similar-looking, but obviously very different, home stood in for the Wallace residence. Have no fear, though, Owen also found that property, so I will be stalking it soon!

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: David Wallace’s house from the “Branch Closing” episode of The Office is located at 1485 Lomita Drive in Pasadena.

May 10, 2010May 9, 2010

“The Mary Tyler Moore Show” Apartment Building

In 1975, after the real-life owner of The Mary Tyler Moore Show house put a big, fat ixnay on letting the series do any more filming on her property, producers decided to move their spunky heroine to the newly-built, multi-colored apartment complex known as Cedar Square West in the Cedar-Riverside area of Minneapolis. My parents and I had actually driven by the complex, which is now called Riverside Plaza, numerous times during our stay in the North Star State – and had often commented on what an eyesore it was – but it wasn’t until stumbling upon John Weeks’ Mary Tyler Moore Show locations website while killing time at the Mayo Clinic that I realized the place was a filming location. Once I learned that the building stood in for the home of Mary Richards during the final two seasons of the iconic series, I decided I just had to write a blog post about it, which I did during the 90-minute car ride from Rochester back to Minneapolis this past Friday morning. I had planned on taking photographs of Riverside Plaza once we reached our destination, but, sadly, it rained pretty much all day on Friday, so I put it off, thinking the pictures would not come out very well. I figured I could snap a few photos the following morning while on our way to the airport to fly back home. Since we had passed Riverside Plaza on our way into town after first landing in Minneapolis the week prior, I thought it would stand to reason that we would also pass it on our way out of town while heading back to the airport, but that’s not exactly what happened. For whatever oddball reason, our GPS unit took us on an alternate route to the airport, a route which did not go past Riverside Plaza, and I therefore never got any photographs of the place! UGH! But since I had already written the content about the locale, I decided to do a post on it anyway. Which landed me in uncharted territory – a blog post with no photographs to go with it. Thankfully, though, I found a video about the Plaza on the MinnPost news website, from which I was able to make the screen captures which appear above and throughout the rest of this post. Thank you, MinnPost! 🙂 And let that be a lesson to me – never write a blog post without first taking pictures of the subject on which I am writing. 😉

[ad]

Riverside Plaza, which is comprised of six towers, was constructed in 1973 by modernist architect Ralph Rapson and was modeled after a multi-use residential housing design known as Unite d’Habitacion, which was created by the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, aka Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris (try saying that one three times fast!). The towers were designed in the very aptly-named brutish-style and, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, stick out like a sore thumb in the otherwise beautiful skyline that makes up Downtown Minneapolis. The buildings are such an eyesore, in fact, that each time my family drove past them, one of us would comment on their not-so-aesthetic appearance. Rapson was inspired to build the complex after a vacation in Europe, during which he discovered similar style communities in which groups of different economic and cultural backgrounds lived together in close proximity. He originally envisioned Riverside Plaza to be comprised of 11 buildings with 12,500 different apartment units which would house over 30,000 people. His vision was never realized, however. The developer funding the project defaulted on his loans and only six buildings, comprised of 1,303 individual units, were completed. Supposedly, there are several “skyways” – covered walking bridges which connect buildings – on the premises which were never finished and therefore lead to nowhere. Because 50% of the units are subsidized housing, the complex is currently home to a large number of low-income residents. According to quite a bit of information online, the Plaza is rundown, infested with crime and drugs, and is colloquially called “the crack stack”, which is why I had only planned on taking pictures of the place from afar. 😉 Riverside Plaza is scheduled to undergo a $90 million renovation project in the near future in order to make the place more energy-efficient and is currently being considered for Historic Landmark status. Being that so many Minnesota residents despise the place, though, I have serious doubts that the status will be awarded. You can see a great photograph of Riverside Plaza here.

Riverside Plaza first appeared in the Season 6 episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show which was aptly entitled “Mary Moves Out”. Mary continued to be a resident of the building throughout the remaining two seasons of the series, which ended in 1977.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Riverside Plaza, aka Mary Richards’ apartment building on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, is located at 1600 South 6th Street in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

May 7, 2010May 7, 2010

“The Mary Tyler Moore Show” House

Well, after three days and a whopping (insert sarcasm here) three tests (including a blood test, an ultra-sound, and a CAT scan, each of which my dad has undergone numerous times with his doctors at home over the past two years), we have been discharged from the Mayo Clinic sans diagnosis. The doctor’s sole recommendation was to see a pain specialist back in L.A. UGH! Would Dr. House have given up so easily? I don’t think so! Oh, if only the real world was like T.V.! Anyway, we are heading back to Minneapolis tomorrow (where I will hopefully get to do a bit more stalking) and then we are flying to Los Angeles on Saturday morning. As I said yesterday, though, our trip wasn’t a total waste – we had a blast in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Stillwater. So, now, on with the stalking! Another Minneapolis filming location that fellow stalker Owen clued me onto was the apartment house where Mary Richards lived during the first five seasons of the iconic television series The Mary Tyler Moore Show. And, even though I have yet to watch even one episode of the show, as I mentioned yesterday, I just had to stalk the place because of its huge significance in television history. On The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mary supposedly lived in Unit D of a large apartment house located at 119 North Weatherly Avenue in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And, while the show was filmed primarily in the Hollywood area, all of the exteriors were shot on location in the Great Lake State. The series was created by producers James L. Brooks and Allan Burns in 1970 and the two included a highly-detailed description of their leading lady’s studio apartment in the original treatment of the pilot script. As you can see on fave website Hooked on Houses, where a copy of that script is posted, Mary’s apartment was originally described as “A room. Actually an entire apartment, but a single large room. There are some – mostly of the working-girl variety – who would consider this place a “great find”: ten-foot ceilings, pegged wood floors, a wood-burning fireplace, and, most important, a fantastic ceiling-height corner window.” Location scouts found that window – and the incredibly picturesque house to which it belonged – near the Lake of the Isles on Kenwood Parkway in Minneapolis. And, although actress Mary Tyler Moore never actually set foot inside of the residence, production designers did, whereupon they painstakingly measured and photographed the now-famous third-floor window so that it could be replicated on a soundstage at CBS Studios. And, thus, one of the most well-known sets in television history was born.

As the television series grew in popularity, so did Mary’s Queen Anne-style residence. The “Mary Tyler Moore house”, as it soon came to be called, became an almost immediate tourist attraction, overwhelming and angering the then-owner. According to journalist Neal Karlen’s January 12, 1995 New York Times article about the property, actress Mary Tyler Moore stated that the woman who owned the place during the time the show was being filmed, “was overwhelmed by people showing up and asking if Mary was around.” Oh, to have such a problem! 😉 To prohibit location managers from shooting additional exterior footage of her home, the owner hung huge signs reading “Impeach Nixon” all over the property in 1973. It was at that point that producers decided to move Mary Richards to a new dwelling – a one-bedroom apartment in the Riverside Towers complex in Downtown Minneapolis. But that didn’t stop Mary’s former house from being a major tourist destination. As of 1995, it was still drawing as many as THIRTY tour buses A DAY, even though The Mary Tyler Moore Show had been off the air for close to two decades! But as Mary Tyler Moore herself said, “The outside of the house was so warm, cozy and soothing. As the nest of all these characters who invaded people’s hearts, the house was going to receive similar affection.” And it still does today, over thirty years later.

[ad]

The house, which was built in 1878 and was designed by architect Edward Stebbins, originally boasted 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, and 6,461 square feet of living space. The dwelling was converted into an apartment home, much like it was portrayed to be on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, for a short time, but was transformed back into a single-family residence sometime before the year 1988, at which time the property was purchased by Evan Maurer, the then-director of the Minneapolis Art Institute. Evan and his wife, Naomi, at first regretted the purchase of the home due to the amount of attention it attracted, but in time they came to understand the appeal. Years later Evan said, “In some ways, it’s like we’re caretakers living inside a monument. Mary is a myth, but myths have great power. They answer questions, and they set up value systems. There’s something in the Mary ethos that’s very important to very many people. She’s the greatest mythic hero from this region since Paul Bunyan.” Evan also called the house “Minnesota’s version of Graceland”. Love it!

In 2005, a high school English teacher named Don Gerlach purchased the property from the Maurers for $1.1 million and gave the entire pad an extensive makeover and a significant add-on with the hopes that he would be able to flip it for a profit in a little over a year’s time. Which is exactly what he did. In August of 2007, Don sold the home, which currently boasts 8 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, a crafts room, a billiards room, an exercise room, nanny’s quarters, and a whopping 9,161 square feet of living space, for $2.8 million. During the renovation, the size of the kitchen was quadrupled and it now features four ovens, two refrigerators, two dishwashers, and a five-foot wide stovetop! Not kidding! Honestly, who needs a kitchen with TWO refrigerators and FOUR ovens??? My parents have two ovens at their house and I must say that they do come in handy on Thanksgiving, but FOUR ovens? Really? The new owners must do a heck of a lot of entertaining! 😉 You can watch a news report about the house which was filmed in 2006 here and you can see some great interior pics of the current interior on fave website Hooked on Houses here.

On The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mary Richards’ apartment was located behind the third-story Palladian windows pictured above. At the time the show was filmed, the area behind that window was, in actuality, just an unfinished attic. Today, it houses a media room, which the owners call the “Mary Tyler Moore Suite”. Love it!

The interior of Mary’s studio, which is pictured above, only ever existed, of course, on a soundstage in Hollywood.

The Kenwood neighborhood, where The Mary Tyler Moore house is located, is an absolutely beautiful area comprised of huge, picturesque houses with large, rolling front lawns . . .

. . . all situated around the gorgeous, tree-lined Lake of the Isles which boasts beautiful views of Downtown Minneapolis. I would LOVE to live there!

Big THANK YOU to Owen for telling me about this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Mary Richard’s apartment house from The Mary Tyler Moore Show is located at 2104 Kenwood Parkway, in the Kenwood area of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

May 6, 2010May 6, 2010

The Mary Tyler Moore TV Land Statue

Well, I am still here with my family at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. After a bit of a battle, my dad’s doctor finally agreed to reschedule some of his tests to yesterday afternoon. The results showed nothing, though, which isn’t that big of a surprise being that the tests the doctor scheduled were tests that my dad had already taken a multitude of times back in California. I had really been expecting a team of Dr. House-style, think-outside-the-box-type doctors to consult on my dad’s case, but, sadly, that’s not really how things work at the Mayo. We flew halfway across the U.S. for him to undergo a couple of tests that he had already taken in Los Angeles. There is one more test scheduled for this morning, but the doctor is fairly certain that it won’t show anything. Ah well, at least we tried. We’re not really sure of our next step, but it might be to visit Stanford University Hospital in Northern California. We’re thankful, though, that we at least got to see quite a bit of the state of Minnesota during our trip, and I have to say that we all absolutely fell in love with the place! My dad has even suggested that following my mom’s retirement next year, the two of them spend a few months in Minneapolis/St. Paul and Stillwater – two cities that we never would have gotten to see if it weren’t for some stalking sites located there. 😉 So, all is not lost. Anyway, on with today’s post . . . One of the first things my mom did upon learning that my dad had been accepted as a patient of the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, was research all of the famous filming that has taken place in the Great Lake State over the years. And there has actually been quite a bit of it, including that of one of my very favorite movies of all time – 1996’s Beautiful Girls, but more on that later. I also enlisted the help of fellow stalker Owen to add to my Minnesota stalking itinerary and, between the three of us, we came up with quite an extensive list comprising of roughly 22 locales in all. And, yes, my parents actually flew out to Minnesota a full day prior to my dad’s check-in date at the Mayo, just so that I could do some stalking! I know, I know – my parents are truly amazing! Anyway, one of the locations that Owen brought to my attention was the famous street corner where Mary Tyler Moore threw her hat in the air during the opening credits of the hit television series The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which ran on CBS from 1970 through 1977. And, even though I had never actually seen even one episode of the series, I, of course, knew of the iconic hat-throwing scene during which newly-single career woman Mary Tyler Moore tossed her tam o’shanter (a wool bonnet-style hat of Scottish origins) up in the air in the middle of a street in Downtown Minneapolis. The moment is so iconic in television history, in fact, that in 2002, the TV Land cable network erected an 8-foot tall bronze statue representing Mary in the exact spot where filming took place back in 1970. So, of course, I just had to stalk it!

Mary’s hat-throwing scene was actually ranked Number 2 on Entertainment Weekly’s list of “The 100 Greatest Moments in Television”. The first was the assassination and funeral of President John F. Kennedy. It’s odd to me that two such diametrically opposing moments in TV history – one joyous, the other incredibly tragic – would be ranked as number 1 and number 2 on EW’s list, but I digress.

I cannot express how incredibly cool I think it is that the TV Land network created a statue to commemorate such an iconic moment in television history. Oh, how I wish things like this were done more often! Apparently, TV Land has even developed something called the Landmarks Initiative, an organization whose sole goal is to recognize legendary television characters by placing commemorative statues in the locations in which those characters are most closely associated. How fabulous is that? Hopefully it’s only a matter of time before there are bronze renderings of Ross, Rachel, Phoebe, Joey, Monica, and Chandler out in front of the Friends building in New York. 😉 Ironically, when Mary’s statue was first announced, it stirred up quite a bit of controversy among certain individuals (who obviously had their underwear on too tight!) who complained that the City of Minneapolis should not be honoring a fictional television character. But as Larry W. Jones, the General Manager and Executive Vice President of the TV Land network, stated, “The indelible impression of Mary releasing the tam is one of the most celebrated symbols of freedom in modern society. By placing a statue in the original location where this image was captured, TV Land hopes this statue will remind passers-by of the freedom and optimism that Mary has come to represent.” So, take that, all of you naysayers! 😉 Despite the protests, the statue was finally erected on May 8, 2002 and both Mary Tyler Moore and the Mayor of Minneapolis were on hand for the unveiling.

The TV Land statue was designed by a sculptor named Gwendolyn Gillen and was chosen out of nineteen other designs by a panel of artists, which included Mary Tyler Moore herself.

Amazingly enough, before the unveiling there was actually quite a bit of debate as to where the hat-throwing scene had taken place. While The Mary Tyler Moore Show producers knew that the scene had been filmed somewhere on Nicollet Mall in Downtown Minneapolis, no one could seem to remember the exact spot where Mary stood, and because the area had changed so significantly in the almost four decades since filming took place, it was virtually impossible to determine. Further complicating the matter was the fact that the department store which appeared in the background of the scene had been completely destroyed in the Minneapolis Thanksgiving Day Fire of 1982. If only I had been blogging back in 2002, the TV Land executives could have called upon me and my fellow stalkers to determine Mary’s hat-throwing location. 😉 The correct spot was finally found thanks to Rodney Homstad, an eagle-eyed former police officer who had worked on the production back in 1970. You can read more about the search for the hat-throwing location here.

I honestly can’t recommend stalking this location enough! Even though I was not a fan of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, I could NOT have been more excited to see the TV Land statue in person and to pose for a few photographs with it. 🙂

You can watch The Mary Tyler Moore Show opening credits, which feature the famous hat-throwing scene, by clicking above.

A big THANK YOU to Owen for telling me about this location and to all of my fellow stalkers for all of the well-wishes and prayers you’ve been sending. They have meant so much to me during these difficult past few days. I will keep you all posted on what happens.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Mary Tyler Moore Show hat-throwing statue is located near the corner of 7th Street and Nicolette Mall, in front of Macy’s department store, in Downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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. 🙂

[ad]

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.

April 29, 2010April 28, 2010

Charlie’s Apartment Building from “Monster-in-Law”

The third and final Monster-in-Law locale that I set out to find this past weekend was the supposed Venice Beach area apartment building where Charlie Cantilini (aka Jennifer Lopez) lived in the flick. Fellow stalker Nick had already determined that the Spanish-style building was located somewhere in Hollywood, so from there I set out on a Google search using the terms “Mediterranean”, “apartments”, and “Hollywood”. And I have to say that I got REALLY lucky on this one, because the first thing that popped up was this link to a complex named “Mediterranean Apartments” on North Sycamore Avenue. After looking at an aerial view of the building, I quickly determined that it was not, in fact, the Monster-in-Law locale that I had been searching for, but I did notice another apartment complex just a few doors down that looked an awful lot like Charlie’s. And sure enough, it was! The stalking gods were definitely smiling on me during this search, because, honestly, what are the odds of tracking the building down so easily??? And, let me tell you, I almost fell over when I realized that not only had I already stalked Charlie’s apartment a few years prior, but I had even blogged about it! More on that later, though.

[ad]

In real life, Charlie’s apartment building is known as the El Cadiz and it is located in the heart of Hollywood, a good fifteen miles away from Venice Beach, it’s purported location in Monster-in-Law. The building was constructed during the height of the Great Depression in 1936 by architect Milton J. Black and was named after the province of El Cadiz in the south of Spain. According to the book Courtyard Housing in Los Angeles: A Typological Analysis, the complex has the distinction of being the very last Spanish Revival-style courtyard apartment building to be constructed in L.A. In 2005, the Church of Scientology purchased the El Cadiz, and thanks to the community’s fear that the place would subsequently be torn down, just a few months later the City of Los Angeles declared it a Cultural Historic Monument, preserving its beauty for future generations to appreciate. The El Cadiz is an absolutely gorgeous dwelling that boasts numerous Andalusian decorative elements including a red-tiled roof, covered balconies scattered throughout, large water fountains, arched doorways and windows, and a multitude of courtyards. Sadly, though, none of those elements is visible from the street and what is visible is fairly non-descript, as you can see above.

Even more unfortunate is that fact that not even Google maps can give us a very good view of the building. 🙁 But you can read a more in-depth history of the property and see a picture of its interior courtyard here.

Charlie’s apartment building is only featured at the very beginning of Monster-in-Law, in the scenes which take place before she moves in with new-fiancé Kevin Fields (aka Michael Vartan).

Because of the way some scenes were filmed and because, according to the movie’s production notes, all of the apartments in the El Cadiz building were vacant and undergoing extensive renovations at the time of the filming, I am fairly certain that the real life interior of one of the units was used in the movie, too.

Coincidentally, the El Cadiz was also featured each week during the first two seasons of the immensely popular television series Alias, where it stood in for Sydney Bristow’s apartment. (An even further coincidence is that both productions starred actor Michael Vartan!) As I mentioned above, I actually stalked the place – and blogged about it! – back in February of ‘08, but because only the exterior of the complex was featured in Alias, while only the interior courtyard was featured in Monster-in-Law, I didn’t recognize that they were actually the same place.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Nick for helping me find this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: El Cadiz, aka Charlie’s apartment building from Monster-in-Law and Sydney Bristow’s apartment building from Alias, is located at 1721-1731 North Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood.

April 23, 2010July 22, 2010

Sid & Dexter’s Sports Bar from the “Happy Hour” episode of “The Office”

As I mentioned yesterday, one location that fellow stalker Lavonna was absolutely dying to stalk while she was in town last week was Sid & Dexter’s Sports Bar, the arcade/restaurant which appeared in the Season 6 episode of The Office entitled “Happy Hour”. So, before her arrival, I called upon fellow stalker Owen for some help in tracking the place down, but, unfortunately, the two of us came up completely empty-handed. My first instinct was that filming had taken place at one of the local branches of the popular Dave & Buster’s restaurant chain, but after looking at photographs of all of the D&B’s located in the L.A. area and comparing them to the screen captures of The Office that Lavonna had sent me, I couldn’t find a match. So, after a few hours of searching, Owen and I came to the unfortunate conclusion that Sid & Dexter’s was most likely not a real location, but a set that had been built solely for the filming of the “Happy Hour” episode. Lavonna was sorely disappointed over this discovery, as was I, because I knew how badly she wanted to stalk the place. But then, this past Friday, while stalking Scranton Business Park, I had an inspired idea. Because the security guard manning the front gate was so incredibly nice, I decided to ask her whether she knew where the “Happy Hour” episode had been filmed. And, lo and behold, she did! She told us that filming had taken place at a restaurant/arcade next to a bowling alley somewhere on Universal CityWalk. And, let me tell you, I almost fell over when I heard that. Usually when I meet crew members and ask them about locations, they have no recollection whatsoever about where a filming took place, even if they were actually on the set that particular day! So, for the security guard to know where the “Happy Hour” episode was shot, when she had never actually been there was absolutely incredible to me! Yay! So, Lavonna, her daughter, Melissa, her friend, Debbie, and I immediately headed over to Universal CityWalk to try to track down Sid & Dexter’s!

My initial plan of attack was to visit each and every restaurant located on Universal CityWalk until we found the right one. Thankfully, though, that wasn’t necessary. Fairly immediately upon entering the outdoor shopping center, Lavonna spotted a sign for the chain restaurant Jillian’s and thought it might be the right spot. And, sure enough, it was! In actuality, Sid & Dexter’s Sports Bar is a restaurant/arcade/bowling alley/billiards bar named Jillian’s. Sadly, though, it has been completely remodeled since its onscreen appearance and no longer looks anything like it did when filming took place. According to one of the super nice bartenders we spoke with, The Office filmed at Jillian’s for an entire week, just after the place had closed its doors to the public to begin the remodel process. As soon as filming wrapped, the ENTIRE place was completely gutted and the rebuilding began. The single, solitary decor item that remains from the old design is the above pictured cartoon which is now hanging on a wall in the billiards room. Such a bummer!

The Jillian’s staff could NOT have been nicer, though, and took us on our own personal tour of the restaurant to show us where filming took place and to explain what the former layout used to look like. As you can see in the above photograph and screen capture, the place is COMPLETELY unrecognizable from its Office appearance. 🙁

Thankfully, though, the ticket machines still look identical to how they appeared on the show, so, at least there’s that. 🙂

[ad]

Lavonna had desperately wanted to see the zebra-print wall which appeared in the background throughout most of the “Happy Hour” episode. Sadly, though, it had been thrown out during the remodel and that area was then transformed into the ticket redemption counter (pictured above).

And while Jillian’s still makes use of the actual pool tables which appeared in The Office, they have since been moved to a different part of the restaurant.

Lavonna also wanted to see the Whac-A-Mole arcade game that Dwight (aka Rainn Wilson) and Isabel (aka Kelen Coleman) played on the show, but the bartender informed us that that particular game was brought in by producers solely for the filming. The dance machine that Andy (aka Ed Helms), Kelly (aka Ellie Kemper), Ryan (aka B.J. Novak), and the other Kelly (aka Mindy Kaling) played on, however, is a real game that can still be found at Jillian’s.

So, of course, Melissa and I just had to pose on it. 🙂

The bartender ended up asking Jillian’s two general managers to come out so that we could ask them all sorts of silly questions about the filming of The Office, and, let me tell you, they could NOT have been nicer. They talked to us for a good twenty minutes and when they heard how upset Lavonna was over not being able to see that zebra-print wall, they ended up giving her the above “Sid & Dexter’s” sign which appeared in the “Happy Hour” episode! How incredibly cool is that?? I mean, talk about the ultimate Office keepsake!

The managers also showed us a bowling pin that the entire Office cast had signed during the filming. That’s Melissa posing with it in the above picture. So darn cool!

They also informed us that Justin Bieber had recently filmed his “Baby” video in the bowling alley located on Jillian’s second level. So, of course, we had to go stalk that, too.

I am very happy to report that the bowling alley portion of the restaurant was not altered during the recent remodel and still looks EXACTLY the same as it did in the video. Yay!

You can watch Justin’s “Baby” video by clicking above. I so love the line, “She had me going crazy, Oh I was starstruck, She woke me up daily, Don’t need no Starbucks!” LOL Although, I don’t think there’s a guy in existence who could make it so that I didn’t need Starbucks in the morning. 😉

While we were stalking Jillian’s bowling alley, we ran into another SUPER nice bartender named Rashid, who actually made a brief appearance in the background of the “Happy Hour” episode of The Office! He was supposed to have a speaking role in the episode and producers even went so far as to make him shave his head for the part, but, sadly, as so often happens in Hollywood, his scene wound up on the cutting room floor. 🙁 We are hoping it will be featured in the “Deleted Scenes” section of The Office’s yet-to-be-released Season 6 DVD set, though.

You can catch a glimpse of Rashid in the background behind the Sid & Dexter’s manager in the above pictured screenshot. So cool!

We had a blast hanging out at Jillian’s and I honestly cannot recommend stalking the place enough, even though it no longer bears any sort of resemblance to Sid & Dexter’s. The staff truly could NOT have been nicer, the prices were very reasonable, the food was excellent, and the ambiance was lively and fun! Jillian’s is definitely a place I will be returning to again and again!

On a Justin Bieber side note – For those who have yet to see his first appearance on Chelsea Lately which aired back in December, you really must tune in! The kid is absolutely adorable and HILARIOUS and truly holds his own against Chelsea, which is a pretty amazing feat for a 15-year old!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Jillian’s, aka Sid & Dexter’s Sports Bar from the “Happy Hour” episode of The Office, can be found at 1000 Universal Studios Boulevard, on Universal CityWalk, in Universal City. The bowling alley where Justin Bieber filmed his “Baby” video can be found on the restaurant’s second level. You can visit the Jillian’s website here.

April 6, 2010May 12, 2010

Wayne Manor From the “Batman” Television Series

Just up the street from the Just Married mansion which I blogged about yesterday is the residence which stood in for Wayne Manor, aka Batman’s abode, in the 1966 television series and movie of the same name. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the Batman mansion and the Just Married mansion are quite often mistaken for each other due to a myriad of reasons. So, to set the record straight – and since we already were in the area a couple of weeks ago doing some Just Married stalking- I decided to drag my fiancé a few hundreds yards up the road to also stalk Bruce Wayne’s pad. Sadly, though, not very much of it is visible from the street.

According to Zillow, the residence, which was built in 1928, boasts ten bedrooms, six bathrooms, a whopping 16,599 square feet of living space, and sits on over five acres of land! And if you look at the above photographs, it is very easy to see why the property is often confused with the Just Married mansion that burned down in October of 2005. Not only are both houses gargantuan, set far back from the road, and Tudor/Gothic Revival in style, but both were constructed almost entirely out of brick by the very same architect, Paul Revere Williams, and bear a striking resemblance to each other. Further adding to the confusion between the properties is the fact that they are located within blocks of each other on the very same street, San Rafael Avenue, in Pasadena and have both been featured in countless productions over the years.

Because the location rumors about the two mansions have been running rampant for so very long, this weekend I decided to try to get my hands on as many of the productions filmed on the premises as I could to try to set the record straight once and for all. And I didn’t do too bad – the only movies I wasn’t able to track down were Topper, Three Men and a Little Lady, Executive Action, The Gumball Rally, The Bells of St. Mary’s, Sweet Bird of Youth, and True Confessions. If anyone has those movies or has seen them in the past, can you let me know which, if either, of the San Rafael mansions was featured in them?

As I mentioned above, the mansion’s most famous appearance was as Wayne Manor in the 1966 television series Batman and the subsequent movie of the same name that was made that very same year. But its resume hardly ends there.

The residence was also used as both the St. Audrey’s Home for Boys where Grace (aka Emma Thompson) was taken in by a nun . . .

. . . and as Roman Strauss’ (aka Kenneth Branagh’s) home in 1991’s Dead Again.

In the first Rush Hour movie, the mansion stood in for Los Angeles’ Chinese Consulate.

As you can see in the above photograph and screen capture, though, the exterior gate which appears in that movie is not the home’s real life gate.

In 1999’s Bowfinger, the mansion was used as the residence of action star Kit Ramsey (aka Eddie Murphy).

[ad]

And in that flick the home’s real life gate does actually appear and was the site of one of the movie’s funniest scenes.

In Scary Movie 2, the mansion stood in for Hell House/Kane Manor where most of the film’s action takes place.

In X-Files: Fight The Future, it was used as the Somerset, England home of the Well-Manicured Man (aka John Neville).

According to some reports that I found online, the mansion was also featured in 1986’s Stand By Me, which seemed a bit odd being that I had always heard that Stand By Me was filmed almost in its entirety in the state of Oregon. After re-watching the flick earlier today, though, I believe that the mansion did appear once at the very end of the movie as the residence of “The Writer” (aka Richard Dreyfuss). As you can see in the above screen captures, the front driveway area does match that of the Batman mansion. Why would they come all the way to Pasadena to film this one brief scene, though, when the rest of the movie was filmed hundreds of miles away in Oregon, you ask? Well, according to IMDB’s Stand By Me trivia page, an actor named David Dukes was originally cast in the role of “The Writer”. After his scenes were shot, though, and filming had wrapped, they re-cast the role with actor Richard Dreyfuss and re-shot all of his character’s scenes. So, since the Richard Dreyfuss scenes were filmed at a later date – I am guessing after principal photography in Oregon had already wrapped – it makes sense that they would have been shot somewhere in the L.A. area, closer to where the film was being edited.

And if you’ll notice in the above screen captures, which were taken from the movie Dead Again, the mansion’s front window and the view from it does sort of match that which appeared in Stand By Me, which makes me think that the property was actually used in the movie, although I don’t have any concrete proof to back that up.

Fellow stalker Ivan just sent me the above screen captures from the television series Land of Giants, in which Wayne Manor stood in for the residence belonging to Uncle Trojar in the episode entitled “Collector’s Item”. And, yes, the mansion was blown up t the end of that episode. Thank you, Ivan! 🙂

According to fave website OnLocationVacations, the mansion was also the site of some filming from the upcoming Dinner For Schmucks movie starring Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, and Zach Galifianikis. Besides being a filming location, the mansion was also the Pasadena Showcase House of Design in 1997. So, I hope that at least partially puts to rest some of the locations rumors about the two landmark San Rafael Avenue mansions. If I come across any further information, I will post it here! And please let me know, dear readers, if you come across any information yourselves!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Wayne Manor from the Batman television series is located at 380 South San Rafael Avenue in Pasadena. Unfortunately, the residence is not very visible from the street. To see the best views of the home, drive just a bit north of where the main gates are located.