TV – Page 17 – IAMNOTASTALKER

January 13, 2010February 5, 2010

William McKinley High School from “Glee”

My Hollywood obsession as of late is the new Fox musical dramedy Glee. Actually, stating that I am obsessed with the series is a rather gross understatement. To say it’s more of an all-out, withdrawal-symptom inducing addiction would be closer to the truth. In fact, I don’t think I’ve been this enamored of a show since, dare I say it, high school when Beverly Hills, 90210 was on the air. Let’s face it – I am ABSOLUTELY, WITHOUT A DOUBT, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT, HEAD OVER HEELS IN LOVE with Glee! In fact, the “Sectionals” episode was so fabulous that I watched it three times in a row (not kidding!), mostly because of the big “My Life Would Suck Without You” grand finale number, which was just about the cutest thing ever – especially the kiss at the end! 🙂 To illustrate just how smitten I am with the show (and its leading man Matthew Morrison – sigh!), I’d like to share the following little anecdote with you. This past Friday, my dad had a minor surgery in the West L.A. area and, being the nice daughter that I am, I volunteered to drive him to and from the hospital. Well, I guess it’s true what they say about no good deed going unpunished because I later found out that Glee would be filming on location on Larchmont Boulevard that very same day. Of all the bum luck! 🙁 Anyway, my dad’s surgery went off without a hitch and while leaving the hospital I realized that Larchmont Boulevard was (sort of) on our way home. So – and I can’t even believe I’m about to cop to this in a public forum – I just HAD to stop by. I mean, don’t I owe at least that much to you, dear readers? 😉 So, yes, while my dad was drugged out of his mind on anesthetic, sleeping in the passenger seat of my car right next to me, trying to recover from surgery, I drove over to Larchmont Boulevard to stalk the Glee set. Unfortunately, because they were filming inside of a store, I couldn’t see a whole lot via a simple drive-by. And while deciding if I should park my car – with my dad inside – to venture closer to where they were filming, my conscience got the best of me and I turned around and drove on home. So sad! 🙁 Ironically enough, though, my mom, who is also a big “Gleek” and who knew about the filming, called me up about five minutes later to ask if I had stopped by the set. When I told her that I just couldn’t do it because I was worried about my dad, she said, “Why?? He’ll never know the difference!” LOL LOL LOL As the author of the I Am A TV Junkie blog said recently of his own Glee addiction, “It’s becoming a little ridiculous. I may have to join a support group.” Well, if you find one, TV Junkie, please sign me up, as well! 🙂 Until that time, though, I figure if you can’t beat ‘em, stalk ‘em! So, this weekend I headed down to Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo High School in Long Beach, which stands in for William McKinley High School on Glee.

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo High School is featured extensively on Glee. In fact, according to this article, filming takes place there on a very regular basis. The areas of the school which appear in the series include the football field, track, and bleachers, which were unfortunately completely locked up at the time;

the staff parking lot area, which is located directly in front of the gym;

and the outdoor stairwell located just to the left of the gym. (Please excuse the above photographs – the position of the sun was making it very difficult to take pictures that day.)

The Cabrillo High School location that I most wanted to stalk was the arched-over outdoor hallway where Emma and Will shared a brief chat in the episode entitled “Showmance”. Ironically enough, that outdoor hallway can be found at the top of that very same staircase located to the left of the gym, but unfortunately, I didn’t realize that until after I got home and re-watched the episode. 🙁

While stalking Cabrillo, I was lucky enough to run into two teachers who could NOT have been nicer and even went so far as to point out all the areas of the school used on Glee. Both teachers I spoke with were quite amused over my excitement at seeing the Glee locales in person, especially since one of the them had yet to ever even watch the show! I tried to explain to him that not watching a series that regularly films at his workplace is tantamount to sacrilege in my eyes, but I don’t think he much cared. 🙂 Most of the filming of Glee is relegated to the one small section of Cabrillo High’s 64-acre campus (and no, that’s not a typo, the school actually measures a whopping 64 acres!) pictured above. The football field, staff parking lot, and gym, which are all located near the school’s main entrance just off of West Willard Street, are denoted with pink circles in the above aerial image.

A more close-up view of the staff parking lot is pictured above.

According to the teachers I spoke with, several interior areas of the school, which I unfortunately could not stalk, are also used on Glee, including the cafeteria;

and the auditorium. You can see interior photographs of the school here.

From what I understand, though, McKinley High’s gym is actually located on the campus of another school altogether – Helen Bernstein High School in Los Angeles.

And a little bit of Glee trivia for you – according to one of the teachers I spoke with, Cabrillo High’s real life steel drum band was featured in the series’ pilot episode in the scene pictured above. So cool! 🙂

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Besides regular episodic filming, a photo shoot with the cast of Glee was also recently held at the school, which you can watch a behind-the-scenes video of here. Cabrillo High School has also been featured in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, an episode of the television series Bones, and both Cheaper by the Dozen movies.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo High School, aka William McKinley High School from Glee, is located at 2001 Santa Fe Avenue in Long Beach. Please remember that even though Cabrillo is a “public” school, it is still considered private property. Take good care not to trespass, especially when students are present. If you do want to visit the school, I suggest doing so on a Saturday or Sunday, and always ask permission from a faculty member before gaining access to the property.

January 12, 2010January 11, 2010

Dexter and Rita’s House from “Dexter”

This past weekend, I dragged my fiancé out to Long Beach – or as Snoop Dogg calls it “The LBC” – to do some stalking. My original plan was to book a room at the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort and Spa – the spot currently standing in for the Beverly Hills Beach Club on 90210 – and spend the whole weekend down in the South Bay, but being that I could not find a room for under $270, the Grim Cheaper was having none of that. 🙁 So, I had to settle for spending only a single day in Long Beach, which actually worked out just fine as I managed to cram quite a bit of stalking into that 12 hour period. 🙂 And the first location I stalked? Dexter and Rita Morgan’s new home from the fourth season of fave television series, Dexter.

In the premiere episode of Season 4, which was entitled “Living The Dream”, Dexter (aka Michael C. Hall) and Rita (aka Julie Benz) move into a new home together after tying the knot in the previous season’s finale. Ironically enough, though, until making screen captures for this post earlier today, I had never actually seen their new house onscreen. Because my fiancé and I only just recently became Dexter fans, we have yet to see any of the series’ fourth season episodes. In fact, we are just now beginning to dive into Season 3. But even though we have yet to see the episodes in which the new home appears, I was still absolutely dying to stalk the place as I have a (very) small personal connection to it. As it turns out, some good friends of mine who live in the Long Beach area happen to know the people who live directly across the street from the new Morgan residence, in the home pictured above which was actually featured very briefly in Dexter’s Season 4 opener. So cool!!! Because my friends know my penchant for filming locations, as soon as they learned this information they passed it on to me, but sadly this was long after the filming of Season 4 had already wrapped. I so wish I had found out about this location earlier in the year, as I would have LOVED to have stalked the place and seen Michael C. Hall in person. I do love me some MCH! 🙂 Anyway, since we were in the area on Saturday, I just had to drag my fiancé out to stalk the home.

And I am very happy to report that the Dexter house looks EXACTLY the same in person as it did onscreen in Season 4. Even the address plaque and the mailbox are the same! In fact, the only difference I noticed, besides the fact that the house appears a bit more pinkish onscreen, is the front gate. On Dexter, the house’s front gate is made of polished wood, while in real life it is constructed of wrought iron. The Dexter house is extremely cute in person and it’s not very hard to see why producers chose it to stand in for the Miami area residence of the series’ main star – the place definitely gives off a Florida vibe.

I did notice something quite interesting while stalking the place, though. At first glance it would appear that Dexter’s home is a typical single-family residence, but while there I noticed that the curb out front had two address numbers – 3319 and 3321 – painted on it, as you can see in the above photograph.

So, when I got home I did some cyber-stalking and, thanks to Zillow, discovered that the property is actually a multi-family dwelling with one house located in the front and a second house situated out back. You can see both houses in the above aerial images. The front house, which is the one shown on Dexter, was built in 1922 and is a 3 bedroom, 1 bath dwelling measuring 2,219 square feet.

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Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that this same house is used on Dexter next season, as well, and that I’ll be able to make it out there to watch the show being taped live!!! How incredibly cool would that be? 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Dexter and Rita’s new house from Season 4 of Dexter is located at 3319 East 1st Street in the Bluff Park neighborhood of Long Beach.

December 31, 2009December 30, 2009

The Blair House Inn from “Murder, She Wrote”

Way back in August, I received an email from a fellow stalker named Jenny who wanted to know if I had ever stalked Mendocino’s Blair House Inn – a quaint little Victorian bed and breakfast better known as Jessica Fletcher’s (aka Angela Lansbury’s) residence on the long-running television series Murder, She Wrote. And, amazingly enough, I actually had! As I’ve mentioned a few times before, I grew up in Northern California – San Francisco to be exact – and when I was about 18 years old, my mom, my dad, and I started spending our Easters in Mendocino, a small coastal town located just about two hours north of the Bay Area. Well, as you can imagine, I was absolutely floored during that first Easter when I discovered – thanks to the now out-of-print book Mendocino & The Movies – that countless productions had been filmed in the area. So, I, of course, immediately dragged my parents right out to do some stalking! And the first location I stalked just happened to be the Murder, She Wrote house. I had yet to blog about the residence, though, because that particular stalking adventure took place long before the digital age of film and I had absolutely no idea whatsoever where I had stored my Blair House photographs. It wasn’t until just a couple of weeks ago that I was finally able to sift through the numerous picture boxes I keep in my parents’ garage and, thankfully, I found my Mendocino stalking photos pretty much immediately. So, without further ado . . . I give you my post on the Murder, She Wrote house, aka the Blair House Inn. 🙂

The Blair House Inn was originally built in 1888 as a private residence for a successful banker named Elisha Blair, who had migrated to the area from Maine with his family in 1857. It’s quite ironic to me that the original owner of the Blair House hailed from Maine, being that on Murder, She Wrote, Jessica Fletcher’s residence was also supposedly located in the Pine Tree State. I guess you can say that the property came full circle! 🙂 The Blair House was built by Mendocino architect Oliver Johnson and was constructed entirely out of Douglas Fir and Redwood trees and, amazingly enough, still looks almost exactly the same today as it did back in 1888!

The Blair House Inn is extremely proud of its cinematic history and even had a replica of Jessica Fletcher’s beloved bike built to put on display in the property’s front yard, which I think is just about the coolest thing ever! They also named their largest room “Angela’s Suite”, in honor of Murder, She Wrote’s lead actress Angela Lansbury. You can see photograph’s of Angela’s Suite here. And while my family never actually stayed at the Blair House Inn, it looks like a fabulous place to spend a weekend.

Being that Mendocino doubled for the fictitious town of Cabot Cove on Murder, She Wrote, the Blair House Inn was hardly the only area locale to be featured on the series. In fact, once a year, the entire cast and crew of the highly popular mystery show would venture out to Mendocino and spend at least one week on location shooting exterior scenes and establishing shots to be used throughout each season. Out of the 264 Murder, She Wrote episodes that aired during the series’ twelve year run, only nine were actually filmed on location in Mendocino, but establishing shots of the town were featured almost weekly. Some Mendocino citizens were even cast in the various episodes shot on location. Oh, if only I had lived there while the show was being filmed!!! 😉

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Blair House Inn from Murder, She Wrote is located at 45110 Little Lake Street in Mendocino. You can visit their website here. The Heritage House, which was the hotel used in the movie Same Time, Next Year, is located just a few miles south at 5200 North Highway 1 in Little River.

December 30, 2009December 29, 2009

The “Keep It Together” Park from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

Another location that Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I visited during our Valley stalking day back in October was the Van Nuys – Sherman Oaks War Memorial Park, aka the spot where Brandon Walsh was “discovered” in the Season One episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 entitled “Fame Is Where You Find It”. The War Memorial Park is so named because in 1947 the American Legion organization raised money to purchase a 63 acre parcel of land which was then donated to the City of Los Angeles to be used as a public park dedicated to the memory of war veterans. The original plan was to build the park as a sort of homage to “The Wizard of Oz” books – what “The Wizard of Oz” has to do with war veterans, I’m not exactly sure, but I guess that’s why I’m not a city planner 🙂 – with different sections of the property featuring scenery from the Land of Oz. In the end, though, only two “Wizard of Oz” structures were ever built – an “Over the Rainbow” bridge and a castle, both of which have since been demolished. 🙁 The absolutely ginormous War Memorial Park currently boasts two basketball courts, a jungle gym, a football field, a soccer field, a gymnasium, eight tennis courts, three running tracks, and eight baseball diamonds. Like I said, the place is absolutely HUGE! And it is actually thanks to those baseball diamonds that Mike discovered this location. As fate would have it, in the early ‘90s Mike belonged to a softball league which held its weekly games on the War Memorial Park fields. So, when he first watched the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode of 90210, he recognized the park immediately. YAY! And, of course, ever since he mentioned the place to me, I was absolutely dying to stalk it. Which I finally got to do this past October. Thank you, Mike!

Sadly, though, when we arrived at the park we discovered that the little picnic table canopy area, which just so happens to be the part of War Memorial most recognizable from 90210, was in the process of being torn down. 🙁 Such a bummer!!

War Memorial Park shows up numerous times in the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode. It first appears at the very beginning of the show, in the scene in which Brandon plays a little solo game of street hockey next to a playground.

As fate would have it, an episode of the show Keep It Together just so happens to be filming at the very same park where Brandon is playing. When a key actor fails to show up to the set, Brandon is immediately hired to replace him, and voila, a star is born! Or so Brandon thinks.

Brandon’s small Keep It Together scene, in which his only line is “Hey, Babe! Looking good. Real good, babe.” – LOL – was also filmed at War Memorial Park. The now defunct “Over The Rainbow” Bridge is visible behind Keep It Together’s lead actress Lydia Leeds in the above screen capture.

At the end of the episode, the park pops up once again in the scene in which Brandon forgives Lydia for being such a diva.

On a very interesting side note – While watching the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode a few months back, Mike – who has got to be one of the most observant people I’ve ever met in my life!!! – noticed some very fascinating scenery in the background of a few of the scenes. Because the episode centered around the filming of the television show Keep It Together, much of the action took place on a studio backlot. But instead of renting out a different Hollywood lot for the filming of the Keep It Together scenes, producers simply decided to masquerade their own 90210 soundstages as those of the show within the show. Which, of course, makes sense. But what they didn’t realize was that, years later, an eagle-eyed stalker would figure out their little location trick. As you can see in the above screen capture, the famous red brick Peach Pit After Dark wall is visible in the background of the scene in which Lydia Leeds applies Brandon’s makeup in the Keep It Together makeup trailer. And I am fairly certain that the makeup trailer used in that scene was the real life 90210 makeup trailer! Yes, ladies and gentleman, that means that you are looking at the actual spot where Shannen Doherty, Luke Perry, Jennie Garth, and Jason Priestley got their makeup done before filming each and every morning! SO DARN COOL!

I took the above photograph of the Peach Pit’s brick wall back in August of 2008 during Mike and my private tour of the former 90210 studio. As you can see, it matches the brick wall pictured behind Lydia in the make-up trailer scene perfectly. Mike told me that he actually drove by the 90210 studio several times while the show was still on the air and that the make-up and wardrobe trailers were indeed parked in the area directly in front of the Peach Pit wall. So darn cool!!!!!!!

Because the former 90210 studio was located in a industrial area, it was surrounded by various warehouses, one of which happened to be a washing machine factory. When Mike and I visited the studio last year, he pointed out the factory to me and, let me tell you, I’ve never seen so many washing machines in my entire life! There were literally hundreds upon hundreds of them lined up alongside the building. LOL Well, in the scene in which Brandon and Lydia arrive at the Keep It Together studios via limousine, you can not only see that washing machine factory, but you can even see quite a few of their washing machines! Too darn funny!

The above image is an aerial view of the area where that scene was filmed. The pink “X” denotes the spot where Lydia and Brandon were standing and the purple circle shows the hundreds upon hundreds of washing machines stationed just outside of the studio. LOL LOL LOL

Most interesting, though, was what showed up in a later scene from the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode – the scene in which, while walking around the studio, Brandon finds out that the entire Keep It Together script has been rewritten.

In that scene, you can ACTUALLY SEE THE REAL LIFE WALSH FRONT PORCH SET AND THE EXTERIOR OF THE WALSH’S DINING ROOM WINDOW (denoted with the pink arrows above)!!!!! How incredibly cool is that???? When Mike first sent me the screen captures from that scene and pointed out the Walsh house in the background I just about died I was so excited. LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT! 🙂

And, a little bit of 90210 trivia for you – a very young Melissa Rivers (pictured above) made one of her first television appearances in the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode playing an actress named MacKenzie, who, according to Lydia Leeds, only has a career because her uncle is “like this really big producer” . Hmmm, sound familiar, Tori Spelling?? 😉

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A big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location and for discovering all of the behind-the-scenes location information from the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode! You are my hero! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks War Memorial Park, aka the park where Brandon Walsh was discovered, is located at 14201 Huston Street in Sherman Oaks. The area used in the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode can be found near the corner of Hazeltine Avenue and Huston Street.

December 29, 2009December 29, 2009

Tamale Heaven from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

One location that Mike, from MovieShotsLA, has been begging me to blog about for over a year now is the Canoga Park burger restaurant that stood in for Tamale Heaven in the Season Two episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 entitled “Ashes to Ashes”. In real life that restaurant is named Michael’s Burgers and even though it has been on my “To Stalk” list for ages now, because I rarely find myself in the Canoga Park area, I had yet to visit the place. So, during our Valley stalking day back in October, Mike made a point of stopping by the tiny restaurant to finally show it to me. And, let me tell you, I could NOT have been more excited! 🙂 Especially because the “Ashes to Ashes” episode has always been one of my favorites, thanks to the fact that it featured all of the elements that made 90210 such a classic show – a sugary sweet, albeit cheesy, moral message, Dylan and Brenda back together and madly in love, and boyscout Brandon not only taking on the Beverly Hills Security Patrol, but race relations, as well! Love it! One of my favorite 90210 lines EVER was actually spoken during this episode, in the scene in which Devo (love the name!) accuses Brandon of trying to score drugs at Tamale Heaven, causing Brandon to say, “Hey, I’m not a doper, man!” LOL LOL LOL See what I mean? Classic 90210!

Amazingly enough, Mike frequented Michael’s Burgers on a regular basis back in the early ‘90s. So, when the restaurant appeared in the “Ashes to Ashes” episode, he immediately recognized the place. Love it! According to Mike, the burgers at Michael’s are out of this world, but unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to eat there while stalking the place. 🙁 Oh well, it looks like I’m just going to have to drag my fiancé back there in the near future. In the “Ashes to Ashes” episode, only the back entrance and rear parking lot area of Michael’s Burgers were used.

For some reason, the front exterior, which is pictured above, was never shown.

The areas which appeared in the episode include the main rear door,

the interior,

the rear employee entrance,

and the dumpster area. Because Tamale Heaven is supposed to be located in the ghetto, somewhere between “Watts and the airport”, producers really dressed the place down for the filming. In reality, though, Michael’s Burgers is not located in a bad area at all, nor is it completely covered over with graffiti. And, amazingly enough, despite a change in paint color and the lack of graffiti, Michael’s Burgers still looks almost exactly the same today as it did eighteen years ago when the episode was filmed! LOVE IT!

On a side note – While making screen captures for today’s post, I spotted something quite interesting. If you look in the above screen capture, you will notice a sign in the upper left hand corner which ends with the letters “R” and “S”. I am fairly certain that that sign read “Michael’s Burgers” and that it wasn’t actually supposed to appear in the scene. I am guessing that producers either forgot to take the sign down for the filming or left it up thinking it would not be visible in the shot. Whoopsie! 🙂

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Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location and for taking all of the photographs featured in this post. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Michael’s Burgers, aka Tamale Heaven, is located at 7225 Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Canoga Park. You can visit their website here. Directly across the street from Michael’s, at 7218 Topanga Canyon Boulevard, is the strip mall that was used in the 1999 movie Blast from the Past.

December 28, 2009December 28, 2009

Wollman Ice Skating Rink

I’m sticking with my Christmas stalking theme for one more day – even though it’s already December 28th – as I had originally intended to publish this post on Christmas Eve, but, unfortunately, ran out of time. As I’ve said many times before, though, it’s better to be late than never! So, here goes! One New York location that definitely belongs in any collection of Christmas movie locales is Wollman Ice Skating Rink, a spot which appeared in one of my very favorite holiday flicks of all time, Home Alone 2: Lost In New York. I had the pleasure of skating at Wollman Rink with my fiancé back in 2004 and absolutely fell in love with the place. With the Plaza Hotel and other New York skyscrapers towering in the background, the rink actually looks more like a picture postcard than a real life location. If you haven’t been there yourself, take my word for it, Wollman Rink is absolutely magical. 🙂

Wollman Rink was originally constructed in 1949 thanks to a $600,000 donation from New York philanthropist Kate Wollman. Kate had the ice skating rink built in honor of her parents, Jonas and Bettie, and her four brothers, William, Morton, Henry, and Benjamin. From the beginning, Wollman Rink was an immediate success, welcoming over 300,000 skaters in its first year alone. Today, it is visited by an average of 4,000 skaters per day.

Like practically everything else in New York, Wollman Rink is currently owned and operated by real estate mogul Donald Trump, who purchased and completely rebuilt the property back in the ‘90s. His name is displayed on almost every square inch of the rink, lest anyone ever forget who it belongs to. 😉 In the summer months, the rink is transformed into a small amusement park named Victorian Gardens. Wollman Rink is not to be confused with the similarly named Kate Wollman Memorial Rink, which was constructed in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park by the William J. Wollman Foundation upon Kate’s death in 1955.

Thanks to its picturesque appearance, Wollman Rink has long been a favorite of location scouts, appearing in countless movies and television shows over the years. In Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, Harry and Marv, aka “The Sticky Bandits”, plan their robbery of Duncan’s Toy Chest while skating at Wollman Rink. Ironically enough, though, before my first visit to New York, this stalker was under the mistaken assumption that the Home Alone scene had been filmed at the famous Rockefeller Center ice staking rink. It wasn’t until I started making a stalking itinerary for my first Big Apple vacation that I realized my mistake. As it turns out, New York has not one, but TWO cinematically historic ice skating rinks. But I’ll save the Rockefeller Center rink for a future post. 😉

Wollman Rink also appeared in the Season One episode of Gossip Girl entitled “Roman Holiday”, in the scene in which Blair Waldorf (aka Leighton Meester), along with her mother, her father, and her father’s new boyfriend go ice skating just a few days before Christmas.

On a side note – I am absolutely IN LOVE with the skates with the hanging pink pompoms that Blair wore in that scene!!!! I have GOT to get me a pair of those! 🙂

In Serendipity – one of my fave romcoms of all time! – Jonathan (aka John Cusack) and Sara (aka Kate Beckinsale) go for a late night skate at Wollman Rink after sharing a Frrrozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity 3 Restaurant.

After their skate, Jonathan draws the constellation of Cassiopeia on Sara’s arm while sitting on the rink’s benches.

And at the end of the movie, the two star-crossed lovers finally reunite at the rink. Wollman Rink has also been featured in Stepmom, Autumn in New York, Love Story, The January Man, The Devil’s Own, Odds Against Tomorrow, Carnal Knowledge, August Rush, A Journey That Wasn’t, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, and the 2005 version of King Kong.

Celebrities also often visit Wollman Rink. In December of 2005, Tom Cruise took his then-pregnant girlfriend Katie Holmes there to celebrate her 27th birthday.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Wollman Rink is located inside Central Park, near the corner of Central Park South and 5th Avenue, in New York. Follow the footpath from the Park’s 59th Street entrance over Gapstow Bridge and the rink will be visible on the west. Wollman Rink is open from November through March. You can visit its official website here.

December 21, 2009January 12, 2011

Bullocks Wilshire – The Department Store from “Christmas Vacation”

One location that I have been dying to stalk for months now is the former Bullocks Wilshire department store located just outside of Downtown Los Angeles – a spot which has been featured in countless productions since its grand opening way back in 1929. And, even though I am usually a big fan of immediate gratification, I waited to stalk this location until just recently as I wanted to blog about it in December, along with my other Christmas movie posts. So, what holiday movie was the building featured in, you ask? One of my very favorite Christmas flicks of all time – the 1989 holiday classic Christmas Vacation. In the movie, Bullocks Wilshire stood in for the Chicago area department store where Clark Griswold (aka Chevy Chase), accompanied by his son, Rusty (aka The Big Bang Theory’s Johnny Galecki), shopped for lingerie. I found this location thanks to fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who, as luck would have it, just happened to be driving right by the department store on the day filming took place way back in 1989. Once Mike noticed the production trucks, he, of course, immediately pulled over to inquire about what was being filmed and to watch some of the action. And, let me tell you, when Mike told me about the location a few months back, I just about passed out from excitement as I had always wanted to know where that scene had taken place! Thank you, Mike! 🙂

The Bullocks Wilshire building was originally built in 1929 by the father and son architecture firm of John and Donald Parkinson, a team who was also responsible for designing the Continental Building, which is better known as Los Angeles’ first skyscraper, Union Station, L.A.’s City Hall and the Memorial Coliseum. Department store magnate John G. Bullock commissioned the building in the hopes of creating the most luxurious and upscale shopping experience Angelinos had ever seen. The interior, which was designed by Eleanor Lemaire and Jock Peters, was the utmost in splendor, featuring travertine flooring, marble walls, ornate elevators, and rosewood display cases.

For the design of the relief located above the department store’s Wilshire Boulevard entrance, which reads, “To build a business that will never known completion”, Bullock looked to MGM art director Cedric Gibbons, who is best known for designing the first ever Oscar statue.

Because Bullock wanted to cater to the growing number of motorists in the L.A. area, the department store was the first in Los Angeles ever to feature a porte cochere, aka a covered driveway under which shoppers could hand over their vehicles to waiting valets.

The building’s most remarkable feature – in my mind, at least – has to be the highly elaborate mural painted on the ceiling of the porte cochere. Romanian painter Herman Sachs designed the brightly colored fresco secco as a tribute to Mercury, the god of travel. The painting features renderings of different forms of modern-day transportation, including airplanes, trains, and ships.

Upon its opening on September 26, 1929, the 241 foot tall Bullocks Wilshire encompassed over 230,000 square feet of retail space which included a perfume hall, a penthouse tea room, a “doggery” which sold trinkets for shoppers’ furry companions, a saddle shop, a Louis XVI room, a furrier, live mannequins, a salon, and a private suite where the truly elite could shop in complete privacy, all the while sipping martinis and snacking on the finest hors d’oeuvres. Years later, Bullock added a Chanel Room, a photography studio operated by celebrity photographer Neil Gittings, and a Ladies Custom Salon, run by future Hollywood costume designer Irene Lentz. Thanks to Bullock’s incredible attention to detail, the department store quickly became the place to see and be seen in Los Angeles. Such stars as Mae West, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Alfred Hitchcock, John Wayne, and Marlene Dietrich all visited Bullocks Wilshire at one time or another. And actresses June Lockhart and Angela Lansbury and former First Lady Patricia Nixon even worked there in their early years. Thanks to the building’s architectural detail and rich history, Bullocks Wilshire was added to the National Registry of Historic Places on May 25, 1978. Sadly, in the late 80s, the store began a precipitous decline, eventually being sold to the Macy’s chain. A few years later, the historic building was heavily vandalized both inside and out during the riots of 1992, with looters destroying display cases, prized artifacts, and even setting fire to the property. Bullocks Wilshire ended up closing its doors for the last time in 1993. But its story doesn’t end there. About a year later, the property was purchased by Southwestern Law School, which had long occupied a neighboring building. The school then set out on a ten year, $29 million restoration project which completely restored the historic building back to its original state. For this endeavor, Southwestern Law School received a National Preservation Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Today, Bullocks Wilshire is used as a part of the Southwestern Law School campus, where, coincidentally, actor Jerry O’Connell (husband of Rebecca Romijn) is currently a student. 🙂

And, while the building is not actually opened to the public, while stalking the place, I ventured inside and asked the security guard on duty if I might be allowed to take a quick peek. The guard truly could NOT have been nicer and allowed my fiancé and me to walk around the school. Unfortunately, though, photography is not allowed indoors, so I couldn’t take any pictures, other than the two pictured above, which I snapped through the building’s front window. But, take my word for it, the interior – which you can see photographs of here – is nothing short of magnificent. Walking into Bullocks Wilshire is like stepping back in time to a more glamorous era. The cafe, the lounge area, even the bathrooms have all been restored to their original state and I couldn’t have been more excited to be seeing it all with my own two eyes. And, even though the building is now technically a college campus, the interior still looks much as it did when it operated as an upscale department store. I was so mesmerized with the place, in fact, that I am just dying to get my hands on a copy of this book to learn more about the building’s rich history!

Bullocks Wilshire shows up just briefly in Christmas Vacation in the very memorable scene in which, while out shopping with his son Rusty, Clark Griswold meets and flirts with a lingerie saleswoman named Mary and utters that famous line, “It’s a bit nipply out”. LOL LOL LOL When I was a Senior in high school – and I should mention here that I went to a Catholic high school – one of my classmates, Marcus, came up with the inspired idea of reading a surf report to the entire school each morning during our daily announcements. Marcus’ little experiment was going well, too, until one particularly cold morning, when he announced to the student body that the ocean “was a bit nipply” that day. Needless to say, that was the end of that morning’s announcements – and our daily surf report. But, ever since that fateful day, even all these years later, I can’t help but think of Marcus and laugh every time I watch the Christmas Vacation shopping scene. 🙂

Bullocks Wilshire was also the store where Benjamin Siegel shopped at the beginning of the movie Bugsy;

its La Directoire room was the site of the ”Romantic Dinner” Taco Bell commercial featuring Gidget, the talking Chihuahua;

it was where Angela Chase (aka Claire Danes) shopped with her mother Patty (aka Bess Armstrong) in the Season 1 episode of My So-Called Life titled “The Zit”;

and the Louis XVI Room was where the Mother/Daughter Fashion Show was filmed in that same episode.

it was the location of the eponymous elevator in Aerosmith’s “Love in an Elevator” music video;

the exterior was featured briefly in Public Enemy’s “By The Time I Get to Arizona” music video;

and in The Aviator, it stood in for the nightclub where Howard Hughes and Ava Gardner got attacked by Hughes’ former girlfriend.

Supposedly, the final scene in Ghostbusters was filmed on the roof of Bullocks Wilshire, but as you can see in the above screen captures and photograph, the Ghostbusters roof and the Bullocks Wilshire roof look nothing alike. And, while it’s entirely possible that some close-up filming for that scene did take place on top of the Bullocks Wilshire tower, my best guess is that the entire scene was filmed on a studio soundstage somewhere in Hollywood. Bullocks Wilshire has also been featured in the movies Topper (where it stood in for the luxurious Connecticut area Seabreeze Hotel), Tarzan’s New York Adventure (where it was used as a New York hotel), Dunston Checks In (where it again stood in for a New York hotel), Fist of the North Star, On Deadly Ground, Family Plot, The Tie That Binds, Rough Magic, and in episodes of Murder, She Wrote, Judging Amy, and The Agency.

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Big THANK YOU to Mike for finding this location! 🙂

On a very sad side note – My thoughts and prayers go out to Brittany Murphy’s friends and loved ones today. I can’t even imagine losing someone so young, especially this close to the holidays. 🙁 Rest in peace, Brittany.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Bullocks Wilshire is located at 3050 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. You can visit the building’s official website and see interior photographs of it here. Because Bullocks Wilshire is part of the Southwestern Law School campus, it is not open to the public. Once a year, though, tours of the property are given. You can check the Southwestern Law School website for further tour information.

December 18, 2009December 18, 2009

Nakatomi Plaza from “Die Hard”

Because we are currently knee deep in the middle of the Christmas Season – which just so happens to be my favorite season 🙂 – I decided to focus my next few blog posts on locations featured in holiday movies. And what better way to start off those Christmas posts than to blog about Nakatomi Plaza, the main building featured in the 1988 movie Die Hard. OK OK, so yes, it can be argued that Die Hard is not your traditional holiday flick, but because the entire movie takes place on the night of Christmas Eve and because Christmas music is played throughout, I deemed the production to be holiday-blog-worthy. 🙂 As surprising as it may sound, I had actually never seen Die Hard until just this past October, when my friend Robin came to visit and pretty much forced me to sit through the movie in its entirety. And, let me tell you, after it was over, I was just itching to stalk the Fox Plaza building in Century City, which stood in for Nakatomi Plaza in the flick. Fox Plaza, which measures 492 feet tall and houses a whopping 900,000 square feet of office space!!!, is the current headquarters for the 20th Century Fox film corporation. The Plaza was designed in 1987 by architects William L. Pereira, Scott Johnson, and Bill Fain. Pereira was also responsible for designing such landmarks as the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim (LOVE IT!), and the Geisel Library – named after Theodore Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss – on the campus of UC San Diego, which just so happens to be my alma mater! 🙂 Geisel Library has actually been featured in several productions, including the movie Killer Tomatoes Strike Back, but I’ll save that information for a future post 🙂

Die Hard takes place, pretty much in its entirety, on location at Fox Plaza. For the movie, both the interiors and the exteriors of the building were used. I am fairly certain, though, that the interiors of the actual Nakatomi offices, where the holiday party scenes took place, were sets that were built on a studio soundstage on the 20th Century Fox lot.

Unfortunately, most areas of the building that were featured in Die Hard are not accessible to the public. In the second aerial image of Fox Plaza pictured above, the pink arrow depicts the entrance to the building that can be viewed from the street and from where I took the photographs featured in this post, while the purple arrow denotes where most of the filming of Die Hard took place. As you can see, they are on opposite sides of the property.

The areas of Fox Plaza used in Die Hard include the building’s porte-cochere,

the revolving front doors of the main entrance;

the front desk;

the elevator bay;

and the main lobby, which we were able to snap a few photographs of through the building’s front windows. While taking said photographs, my fiancé and I were confronted by a VERY angry security guard who was obviously wearing his underpants too tight that day, because he literally came running after us to inform us, not so politely I might add, that if we did not vacate the premises immediately, we would be escorted off the property and our camera confiscated!!! I’ll never understand why people like that get so bent out of shape at us stalkers! If you’re going to put your building in a movie – in what is arguably the most famous action flick of all time, no less! – then you’ve gotta expect that people are going to want to stalk the place! It’s only natural. Geez! 😉

And, while the roof of Nakatomi Plaza was completely blown off at the end of Die Hard, that, of course, did not take place in real life. A scale model was used during the filming of the explosion scene and I am happy to report that the real Fox Plaza roof is one hundred percent intact. 😉

According to Wikipedia, the lobby of the Fox Plaza building was also used in the beginning elevator scene from the movie Speed, but that information is actually incorrect. After recently re-watching Speed, it is clear that both the interior and exterior of the Gas Company Building in Downtown Los Angeles were used for that scene. If you compare the above pictured screen captures to these photographs of the Gas Company Building, you can see that they are a perfect match. I must say that I was more than just slightly peeved to discover this erroneous information on Wikipedia, being that the encyclopedia website has apparently banned my blog from being cited as a source, deeming me “unreliable”! LOL So let me get this straight – I’m considered unreliable, but the douche bag who put up the Speed information is completely credible! Nice job, Wikipedia! Way to sift through your sources! 😉 Also according to Wikipedia (so who knows if this information is correct), Fox Plaza was featured in the 1994 movie Airheads and a cartoon rendering of it was shown in the Season 7 episode of Family Guy entitled “Fox-y Lady”. The building was also used as the law firm where Anthony LaPaglia worked in the television series Murder One. And, in real life, Ronald Reagan set up his main offices in the 34th floor penthouse of Fox Plaza following his presidency.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Fox Plaza, aka Nakatomi Plaza, is located at 2121 Avenue of the Stars in Century City. Please remember that Fox Plaza is private property, so if you decide to stalk this location, DO NOT trespass, or you will be escorted off the premises and your camera confiscated. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya! 🙂 The Gas Company Tower from the beginning of Speed is located at 555 West 5th Street in Downtown Los Angeles.

December 15, 2009December 15, 2009

Chelsea Lately’s “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor”

Those of you who are regular visitors to my site will remember that, back in May, my good friend Blaze Foster was hired to be part of a “Detective Lately” skit on the Chelsea Lately show. His scene was originally scheduled to be filmed on May 8th and I, of course, tagged along with him to the set, where I got to meet Chelsea’s assistant Chuy Bravo and “Staff Homosexual” Guy Branum. YAY! As fate would have it, though, Chelsea and crew ended up running out of time that day and Blaze’s segment was shelved. And while Blaze was devastated over not being able to shoot his scene, I actually considered the whole thing to be a blessing in disguise – as they so often are! – as I had a feeling he would be invited back to do it all over again – with me tagging along! Which is pretty much exactly what happened! 🙂 Blaze ended up filming his Detective Lately segment just a few weeks later on May 27th, and I, again, accompanied him to the studio. I have yet to blog about my experiences that day, though, as I wanted to wait until the segment aired on TV, which FINALLY happened this past Thursday night – a full SIX MONTHS after it was actually taped! So, without further ado, here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of Blaze’s segment, aka “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor”!

On our first visit to the Chelsea Lately set, Blaze and I spent most of our time in the show’s main green room. On our second visit, though, we were seated in the studio’s alternate green room, which I could NOT have been more excited about, as that meant that I actually got to see BOTH of the Chelsea Lately green rooms in person!!!! I mean, just how lucky can one girl get? 🙂

Chelsea’s second green room looks very much like her first and I, of course, had to take photographs of EVERYTHING, including the door, which had Twilight actor Peter Facinelli’s name written on it as he was the last actor to hang out there pre-show,

the modern-style couches and coffee tables, which hold several entertainment magazines for actors to peruse while they wait to go on camera,

the ubiquitous make-up chair,

and a large television set. I was actually most excited about the TV because an episode of Chelsea was being taped when we arrived at the studio and, thanks to a live feed, we were able to watch it as it was being filmed. LOVE IT! The guest that day was former Blossom star Mayim Bialik, but unfortunately we didn’t spot her at all while we were on the set. 🙁

Pretty much immediately after that day’s episode was finished being taped, Blaze was called into the studio. I, unfortunately, was not allowed to watch the filming and had to stay behind in the green room. Thankfully, though, the green room was situated just a few feet away from the Detective Lately set and I could hear almost everything as it happened. 🙂 Blaze was informed prior to the taping that the original mystery idea he had pitched – “Why Isn’t My Agent Getting Me Any Auditions?” – had been changed to “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor” LOL LOL LOL, in which Blaze would be hiring Chelsea to investigate his acting teacher to see if she was defrauding him. No script had been written for the segment and, although I am fairly certain that Chelsea and the writers had created a brief outline of what they wanted to occur during the scene, for the most part the whole thing was improvised. Blaze’s only instruction prior to filming was to play things straight and not to try to be funny. Because Chelsea is the star of the show, they didn’t want Blaze pulling focus away from her. Which strikes me as absolutely HILARIOUS because if anyone is going to steal the spotlight in a scene, it’s Blaze! I’ve been in acting class with the guy for over a year now and, let me tell you, pulling focus is just something he does. Blaze is very flamboyant, very hyper, very funny, and attention is just drawn to him naturally. So, they really couldn’t have picked a worse man for the job in this particular case!!!! I can’t tell you the number of times I heard the producer tell him to “Stop being funny!” during the filming. 🙂 I also heard the direction “Blaze, stop laughing!” on quite a few occasions. 🙂 Blaze said that Chelsea was absolutely HILARIOUS during the scene and that he had a very hard time keeping a straight face while filming with her.

The entire segment only took about 90 minutes to shoot. Because I had a sinking feeling that I wouldn’t be able to meet Chelsea while there, I was really hoping that Blaze would be able to pose for a photo with her after the taping had been completed. Amazingly enough, though, outside of the actual filming of the scene, Blaze had absolutely no interaction with Chelsea whatsoever! When he was initially brought onto the set, Chelsea was not yet there. The first time Blaze actually saw her was when she walked into the detective office at the top of the scene, after the cameras had already started rolling. She also left the set before filming had been completed. As soon as producers thought they had gotten enough footage of Chelsea, she was rushed off the stage and Blaze didn’t even get a chance to say thank you or shake her hand. After she left, Blaze had to stay behind to shoot some brief close-ups of him saying “Yes” and “No” to Chelsea’s empty chair. LOL Such a bummer, as I had so wanted a photograph of the two of them. 🙁 Randomly enough, though, Chelsea did poke her head into the green room to say “Hi” to me as she walked by on her way off the set. 🙂 It was a very quick exchange, but I was SUPER excited nonetheless.

Blaze’s skit, which you can watch above, was absolutely hilarious. I was really impressed with the amount of screen time he got, too. The only thing I was really disappointed about was the fact that my favorite line ended up on the cutting room floor. 🙁 At one point during the scene Chelsea asks Blaze, “What do you think, you’re some sort of Tony Danza?” to which Blaze says nothing. In reality, though, when Chelsea asked Blaze that question during the filming, he responded with, “Who’s Tony Danza?”, to which she said, “You know GOD DAMN WELL who Tony Danza is!” LOL LOL LOL I literally could not stop laughing when I heard her say that during the filming and was extremely impressed at how well she and Blaze played off of each other while improvising. I am not a person who thinks well on her feet, so I am always in awe of people who have the ability to be funny off the cuff like that. That’s why I was completely shocked when I saw the finished product and realized it was lacking Blaze and Chelsea’s little Tony Danza exchange. 🙁 I am guessing the reasoning behind the cut had to do with the fact that producers wanted Chelsea to be the one delivering the funny lines, so even though her line trumped Blaze’s, they just decided to cut out the entire segment. Such a bummer. Otherwise though, “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor” skit was great! And, for those who are wondering, everything Blaze said in the scene was true – he is 24 years old, he really did play a bad guy in The Brave One, and he also played a drug dealer in a commercial starring Carmen Electra.

On a side note – When my fiancé I watched “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor” this past Thursday night, one of the first things out of his mouth was, “How did Chelsea come up with the idea of making Blaze’s hair stick straight up like that?” Well, I just about fell off my chair laughing at his question because, in actuality, the There’s Something About Mary style ‘do just happened to be how Blaze was wearing his hair at that time. The guy is nothing if not flamboyant! 🙂 I can only imagine what Chelsea was thinking when she walked onto the set and saw Blaze – and his hair – for the first time. I’m surprised she didn’t bow down right then and there and start thanking God for bringing in an actor who had so much, er, material for her to work with. 🙂

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Chelsea Lately is filmed at the Digital Media Center, which is located at 12312 West Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles. You can get tickets to watch a live taping here. If you don’t live in the area, you can still catch Chelsea weeknights at 11 p.m. on E! And you can watch Blaze’s skit, “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor”, here.

December 11, 2009January 2, 2011

Courteney Cox’s House from “Cougar Town”

While on the West Side of L.A. doing some stalking this past weekend, I dragged my fiancé out to see a few of the houses featured on one of my favorite new shows of the fall season, Cougar Town. Now I know I’ve used the word “favorite” to describe more than one new show recently, but in all honesty there are just SO many fabulous series on TV right now that I almost need two TiVo’s to keep up with them all! Between my new must-sees like Glee, Modern Family, Cougar Town, and Flash Forward, and my old staples of 90210, The Big Bang Theory, Chelsea Lately, and Gossip Girl, my television viewing schedule is completely FULL!! Anyway, for those who have yet to watch, Cougar Town is an absolutely HILARIOUS show, thanks mostly to the characters of Grayson Ellis and Bobby Cobb, played by Josh Hopkins and Brian Van Holt, respectively. If you’re not watching it yet, you really must tune in! So, when I found the address of Jules Cobb’s (aka Courteney Cox’s) house on the series, thanks to fave website Seeing Stars, I immediately dragged my fiancé right out to stalk the place!

On Cougar Town, Jules lives in a red-roofed house at the end of a cul-de-sac in the fictional Sarasota County, Florida suburb of Gulf Haven. In reality, though, her house and cul-de-sac (pictured above) are not located anywhere near the Sunshine State, but right here in Los Angeles. Well, in Culver City, to be exact, just around the corner from Sony Pictures Studios. The neighborhood where Cougar Town is filmed actually reminds me a lot of a video game I used to play as a kid named “Paperboy”. In the game, the player, acting as a paperboy, must deliver daily newspapers to a neighborhood full of homes that look exactly alike – there are maybe five different house styles that are repeated over and over again on each street. And that’s pretty much what the Cougar Town neighborhood looks like. It is a labyrinth of countless cul-de-sacs containing very similar-looking red-roofed homes. In fact, the streets are so similar looking in Jules’ neighborhood that my fiancé and I actually got lost while there. LOL

The Cougar Town cul-de-sac is featured weekly in each episode’s set-up shots and in the numerous scenes which are filmed on-location in the neighborhood. In fact, filming takes place there so often that my fiancé was absolutely convinced that the entire cul-de-sac was a set that had been built inside of a studio soundstage somewhere in Hollywood. It wasn’t until we drove up to the actual houses and he saw them with his own two eyes that he believed they were real! LOL And I am very happy to report that Jules’ house looks exactly the same in person as it does on the show!

In fact, the only difference I noticed was her front door, which on the show is a single glass door, but in real life is a double wooden door. My guess is that producers put a false front with a fake glass door over the porch area during filming.

The house where Jules’ cutie neighbor, Grayson, lives also looks exactly the same in person as it does onscreen. YAY!

Eillie Torres (aka Christa Miller) and her husband Andy (Ian Gomez) live just down the street from Jules and Grayson, but unfortunately I didn’t snap a pic of their particular house because at the time I wasn’t sure exactly which one it was. 🙁 Oh well, it looks as if I’ll just have to go back and re-stalk the place someday. 🙂

On Cougar Town, Jules’ backyard and pool area have also been featured numerous times.

But, as you can see in the above aerial image, the real life house does not have a pool. So, I am guessing that the scenes in Jules’ backyard were either filmed at a nearby house that has a pool or on a studio soundstage where a backyard set was built for the filming.

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On a side note – Last week, while on an intense hunt for the circle necklace Kristin Cavallari recently sported in the episode of The Hills entitled “Can’t Always Get What You Want”, I came across a fab website named Seen On that I wanted to share with all of my fellow stalkers. The website, which details where to purchase clothing and jewelry worn on popular television shows and movies and by your favorite celebrities, is simply A-MA-ZING! I literally can’t get enough of it! And I figured that if my readers were interested in stalking locations that appear onscreen, they’d also likely be interested in stalking clothing that has appeared onscreen. 😉 So, check it out!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Courteney Cox’s house from Cougar Town is located at 4033 Lamarr Avenue in Culver City. Josh Hopkins’ house is located directly across the street at 4034 Lamarr Avenue. Christa Miller and Ian Gomez’s house is just down the street at 4027 Lamarr Avenue.