The Never Been Kissed High School

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Yesterday, I dragged my mom out to a location I have been meaning to stalk for years now – the school that stood in for South Glen High School in the 1999 romantic comedy Never Been Kissed.   In actuality, though, the school where filming took place wasn’t a high school at all, but a huge middle school named John Burroughs located in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.  John Burroughs Middle School opened up way back in 1924 with a starting roster of only 400 students.  Today, that student body has grown to include a whopping 2,300 Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth graders!   John Burroughs, or “JB” as it is more commonly known, is absolutely HUGE in person, much larger than it appeared in Never Been Kissed.  So large, in fact, that I couldn’t step back far enough to fit its whole exterior in the lens of my camera!!  I so need to invest in that fish eye lens!  LOL   John Burroughs is a very beautiful, traditional style brick school that looks like it could be found in any city in America.  Because of its All-American feel, it’s not hard to see why it has been featured in countless movie and television productions.

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While my mom and I were stalking the school, we ran into a couple of faculty members who really could not have been nicer to us.  They gave us a brief rundown of some of the filming that has taken place on the JB campus, but inronically it seemed that I knew more about the school’s filming history than they did.  🙂   LOL  And, since school is not currently in session, they even let us walk around the campus to snap some pictures.  🙂  I am happy to report that John Burroughs Middle School looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen in Never Been Kissed.  Both the interior and the exterior of the middle school were used extensively in the filming.  Specific areas of the school featured in the movie include the exterior, where Drew Barrymore parked her brother’s car each morning;

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the school’s entryway, complete with metal detectors, which were put there specifically for the filming;

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the main stairwell;

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the hallways;

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and the main office, where Drew Barrymore got smacked in the face by a door. 

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From what I understand, some of JB’s classrooms were also used in the filming of the movie, most notably Room 108, which according to the faculty member I spoke with is a room which has been featured in numerous productions.

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Burroughs Middle School also popped us as Reese Witherspoon and Tobey Maguire’s 1950’s high school in Pleasantville . . .

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and as Michael J. Fox’s high school in Teen Wolf.

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The exterior of the middle school was also featured in Teaching Mrs. Tingle, Rex Buster, The Samurai of Strongsville, Ohio, Rebound, Beauty Shop, Agent Cody Banks, Casper: A Spirited Beginning, and the television series Family Matters.  The interiors of the school were used in The Haunting of Molly Hartley, Like Father, Like Son, and Meteor Man  and its auditorium was featured in the movie Deep Impact.  There are also reports that the school was used in both Pretty in Pink and A Nightmare on Elm Street, but I’m not sure that information is correct.  Filming for both of those moves took place extensively at John Marshall High School in Los Feliz.  That’s not to say, though, that some minor filming might have taken place at Burroughs Middle School, but so far I have not been able to verify that.

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   Famous alumni of John Burroughs Middle School include Laila Ali (Muhammad Ali’s daughter), Tyra Banks, author James Ellroy, and American Idol’s Frenchie Davis.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: John Burroughs Middle School is located at 600 South McCadden Place in Los Angeles.

13 Replies to “The Never Been Kissed High School”

  1. The interior of John Burroughs was used for Nightmare on Elm Street and Pretty and Pink. The exteriors for both of those films were John Marshall High.

  2. Hey, that is A HUGE MIDDLE SCHOOL. It’s really beautiful as well. I was an actress for a film they made there. I didn’t know they filmed any of those films there, but the school is amazing. And if you go up the main stairway and up to the right, to that very last window, you see an A.M.A.Z.I.N.G view of the HOLLYWOOD sign. It’s spectacular. We did a scene there. That’s awesome 🙂

  3. wow..so many stories so many history im proud to say that i went to that middle school i soo loved it and missed it too..wish I could go back in time ..so many memories..yEah!! JB rOXx!!

  4. This was aso use for the classic CBS show “Our Miss Brooks” in the 50’s,too! Disney Channel used this location for “Lizzie Mc Guire” and “Even Stevens”. And American Dreams used it when Loyla High School was not avaliable.John Marshall was used for the closing scenes in “Grease”.

  5. L- I happen to just finish watching Nightmare on Elm Street today before I saw this post and I can assure to you that the school interior used for Nightmare is in fact Burroughs, verified by your great interior shots. ( I didn’t get the same welcome wagon when I visited this school…). Additionally, Nightmare’s exterior, like Pink, as as you mentioned, was John Marshall.

  6. Love that you keep featuring so many Drew filming locations!! This is one that I’ve actually been too, but I didn’t go inside like you. So much fun!

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