Canoga Park – IAMNOTASTALKER

September 12, 2014September 11, 2014

The “Encino Man” House

Lately, I have been on a retro-movie watching kick. I think it has something to do with ”The ‘80s” issue of Los Angeles magazine that hit newsstands this past July. Reading through it got me in the mood to revisit decades past. So I was thrilled when my buddy Mike, from MovieShotsLA, took me by the residence that served as the Morgan family home in Encino Man (spoiler alert – it’s not actually in Encino!). I had not seen the 1992 comedy in ages and remembered very little about it. To be honest, I could not even recall what the house looked like at the time that Mike took me to stalk it. So I decided a re-watch was in order STAT and the Grim Cheaper and I sat down to view it earlier this week. The flick brought back some great memories. Man, I love me some Pauly Shore! “Meat group!”

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Mike found this location (sans help from a crew member, I might add) many years ago thanks to both this 1992 Los Angeles Daily News article, which stated that the Morgan home was located in West Hills, and an address number of 7511 that was visible on the curb of a neighboring residence in the scene in which newly-thawed caveman Link (Brendan Fraser) got into a fight with the mailman. He began searching all of the 7500 blocks in the West Hills area and, while it took him quite a bit of elbow grease, he eventually spotted the place at 7532 Sedgewick Court.

Amazingly, the Morgan house looks almost exactly the same today as it did onscreen 22 years ago when Encino Man first premiered!

The mailbox that appeared in the movie, which was modeled to look like the residence, is, sadly, not there in real life. I am guessing that it was a prop brought in for the shoot and not the home’s actual mailbox.

I so love that the front walkway, where Dave Morgan (Sean Astin) waited for Stoney Brown (Pauly Shore) and Link to return from Mega Mountain, is still in its 1992 state.

As you can see below, the house located next door to the Morgan’s looks completely different today than it did during filming. In 1992, the property was traditional in style and painted grey. It has since been transformed into a Spanish-style home, with a white exterior and red tile roof.

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In real life, the Morgan house boasts five bedrooms, five baths, 4,359 square feet and a 0.34-acre plot of land. It last sold in May 2009 for $970,000.

The property’s backyard – where Stoney and Dave discovered Link while digging a pool – was used extensively in the filming.

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An aerial view of the backyard in its current state is pictured below. You can also check out a real estate photograph of the backyard here.

As you can see, while the home does have a pool, it does not match the layout of the one that Dave and Stoney were digging in the movie. The real life pool sits horizontal to the home, while the pool in the movie was situated perpendicularly. The Morgan dwelling was originally built in 1988, only a couple of years before Encino Man was shot, so I am guessing that at the time of the filming the backyard was largely undeveloped, which is probably one of the reasons it was chosen for the movie. Once production wrapped, the hole was filled back in and then a pool with different positioning was later added.

The shed where Dave and Stoney left Link to thaw out after first discovering him was, I believe, not native to the residence, but a prop brought in for the shoot.

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And while I would have guessed that the real life interior of the home was used in the filming, the Los Angeles Daily News article that Mike found states that Encino Man’s interior sets were built inside of a warehouse in Sylmar.

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Encino Man house is located at 7532 Sedgewick Court in West Hills.

January 30, 2014January 29, 2014

Mr. Miyagi’s House from “The Karate Kid”

One of the greatest filming location mysteries to ever exist was that of the house where Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) lived in the 1984 classic The Karate Kid. It was common knowledge that the residence had been demolished in the late ‘80s, but no stalker had ever been able to track down its former whereabouts – until now that is. While I had long been aware of the enigma surrounding the locale, I had never actually seen The Karate Kid until two weeks ago. (Well, I saw it in the theatre when it first came out, but did not remember it at all.) The Grim Cheaper did not learn of this fact until two Saturdays ago and he was so upset when he did that I’m surprised he did not divorce me on the spot. He immediately purchased the flick on iTunes and forced me to watch it. Now that I have, I am in utter shock that the movie remained off my radar for so long. I absolutely LOVED it. And as soon as the credits started to roll, I became hell-bent on tracking down Mr. Miyagi’s house. I quickly sent out texts to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog and Chas, of It’sFilmedThere, asking them for any information they had. Those texts got everyone started on an intense search which led to the locale being found just a few days later! Woo to the hoo!

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Chas informed me that the best tip he had ever gotten regarding the location of Mr. Miyagi’s house was in June of last year when an anonymous commenter posted this on his site: “Mr. Miyagi’s house is torn down but was located on Gault St. between Independence Ave. and DeSoto in Canoga Park. My family has lived in the neighborhood forever and I remember as a kid being able to witness the filming of the movie.” While seemingly a great lead, because the area had changed so much in the ensuing years, Chas had a hard time verifying it. Then, the day after receiving my text, he managed to track down Karate Kid executive producer R.J. Lewis, who checked his files and reported back that Mr. Miyagi’s house was formerly located at 20924 Gault Street in Canoga Park. As it so happens, 20924 Gault lies smack dab between Independence and DeSoto Avenues, which fell in line with the comment on Chas’ site. Two unrelated people coming forward with the exact same information was enough to convince me, so since I was in L.A. at the time, I headed right on over there the following day.

Thankfully, the stalking gods were smiling down upon this particular venture because shortly after arriving at the location, I happened to spot a man pulling into a driveway down the street. Hoping he would be able to verify R.J.’s information, I asked how long he had lived on the premises and when he answered, “Since 1971,” I practically started salivating. Not wanting to alter or steer his memories in a certain direction, I decided to keep my questioning as vague as possible and asked if he happened to know if the movie The Karate Kid had been filmed in the area. He immediately pointed in the direction of 20924 Gault and said, “See that short palm tree there next to the three tall palm tress, that’s where Mr. Miyagi’s house used to be, but it was torn down a long time ago and a duplex has since been built in its place.” Upon hearing those words I almost passed out from excitement. The gentleman, who could NOT have been nicer, wound up speaking with me for a good twenty minutes or so filling me in on the filming. He told me that the railroad tracks and oil derricks seen in the movie were fake and that both the first and second Karate Kid movies had been shot on the premises.

With those three confirmations under our belt, Owen, Mike, Chas and I got to work in searching for any visual markers that might still be in existence at the site. According to The Karate Kid press kit, Mr. Miyagi’s house was “a rundown shack in a weedy yard until the construction crew descended upon it. When they were finished, the interior became a modest and beautifully austere Japanese dwelling with mats, screens and other authentic Oriental accoutrements. The yard itself was landscaped with miniature mountains, lanterns, decking, a pond complete with expensive koi (Japanese fish) and hundred-year old bonsai.” The section of the house shown most often in the film is pictured below. In real life, Mr. Miyagi’s property stretched from Gault to Vose Street. This portion of the house faced Vose Street. Knowing what I now know, I believe it was actually the rear of the residence, although it was made to look like the front in The Karate Kid.

The area shown as the backyard in the movie is pictured below. It faced Gault Street and was, I believe, the real life home’s front yard.

An unobstructed aerial view of the property circa 1980 from the Historic Aerials website is pictured below. Mr. Miyagi’s house is the residence surrounded by trees, located just south of Gault Street.

The home is circled in pink below.

In the first scene that features Mr. Miyagi’s house in The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi and Daniel Larusso (Ralph Macchio) are shown entering the property from Vose Street, not Gault. In the scene, they are initially heading east on Vose before turning north onto the vacant land located just southwest of the residence. The fake train tracks were set up in the spot denoted with two pink lines below. Daniel and Mr. Miyagi’s route is denoted with a blue arrow. The two make a right turn across the tracks, heading east, and then another left turn, heading north, towards the home. (Big THANK YOU to Chas for explaining this to me. I cannot read a map or figure out spatial directions for the life of me!)

The house seen in the background as Daniel and Miyagi first make the turn off of Vose is located at 20948 Vose Street. As you can see, it still looks much the same today as it did back in 1984 when The Karate Kid was filmed.

The garage with the pyramid-shaped roofline visible in the scene is located at 20941 Vose Street. A current aerial view of that garage as well as a 1980 aerial view are pictured below.

Mike happened to find videos of the entire movie being rehearsed on YouTube, which you can watch by clicking below. In the scene in which Miyagi and Daniel first arrive at the house, you can see that the fake railroad tracks have yet to be installed.

The Gault Street house was also used in a few scenes in the beginning of The Karate Kid, Part II.

In the movie, the house located across from Mr. Miyagi’s, at 20919 Gault Street, is visible. As you can see below, it looks much the same today as it did in 1986 when filming took place.

By the time that The Karate Kid, Part III was filmed in 1989, the Gault Street house had been torn down, so a replica of it was built for the shoot on the Warner Bros. Ranch backlot in Burbank. It was then demolished once filming was completed.

Thanks to a source Mike has at the Ranch, we now know that the house was built in the eastern portion of the lot, in the area denoted with a pink circle below. At the time, that space was vacant land. The building and parking structure visible in the current aerial view below were not constructed until later. The edifice that is visible in the upper right hand corner of the two screen captures above is denoted with a blue circle below.

Big, huge THANK YOU to R.J. Lewis for his information about this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, Owen, from When Write Is Wrong, and Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, for all of their work in helping to verify it.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Mr. Miyagi’s house from The Karate Kid was formerly located at 20924 Gault Street in Canoga Park. Sadly, it was demolished in the late ‘80s and no remnant of it remains.

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.

July 13, 2009July 13, 2009

The Blast from the Past Strip Mall

Since I was in the area this past week stalking a wedding venue, I decided to pay a little visit to the strip mall featured in fave romantic comedy Blast from the Past. In the flick, which opens up in the year 1962, a nuclear-war-fearing Christopher Walken builds a massive fallout shelter for his wife and unborn son directly underneath his suburban home. When a small plane fortuitously crashes onto his property, Walken fears a bomb has been dropped on America and immediately locks his family in the homemade shelter where they remain for the next 35 years. While the family is living underground, a strip mall comprised of a dive bar, an adult bookstore, and a 50s diner, is built on the spot where their home used to stand. That strip mall is what I set out to stalk last week.

And I am happy to report that it looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did in Blast from the Past. According to fave website Seeing Stars, which is how I originally found this location, all three storefronts used in the movie were vacant at the time of filming. And, after recently re-watching BFTP, I am fairly certain that filming not only took place outside of the empty shops, but inside of them, as well. Pictured above is the storefront used as the dilapidated 50s diner originally named “Mom’s” in the movie. It is this shop that is located directly above the fallout shelter and into which the shelter’s elevator rises through the floor, causing the loopy storeowner to believe an angel has come to save him. In reality, “Mom’s” diner is actually a tattoo parlor.

Directly next door to “Mom’s”, is the storefront that was used as the dive bar “Shangri Lodge” in the movie. Today it is a beauty parlor named “Unlimited Touch Salon” – I don’t even want to know what goes on in there!!! LOL LOL LOL

Next door to the salon is the storefront that was featured as the adult bookstore in the movie. Just before Brendan Fraser makes his first visit above ground, Christopher Walken warns him to stay away from the adult bookstore as there is “invisible, poisonous gas” inside of it. LOL LOL LOL In reality, that shop is now an antique clock store.

The tiki bar that Alicia Silverstone and Brendan Fraser kiss in front of at the end of the movie is in actuality a large bakery and pastry shop.

I find it kind of ironic that, in what is definitely a case of life imitating art, two of the empty storefronts eventually became seedy shops – a tattoo parlor and a salon with a highly suggestive name – much like was the case in the movie. And while I, of course, had fun stalking the strip mall, I can’t say I’d really recommend it to others. It’s kind of in a seedy area and unfortunately there isn’t all that much to see. For fans of the movie, like me, I’d instead recommend stalking Alicia Silverstone’s adorable little house from the film. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Blast from the Past strip mall is located at 7218-7222 Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Canoga Park. Mom’s diner, under which Brendan Fraser’s bomb shelter was located, can be found at 7222 Topanga Canyon Blvd. The Shangri Lodge Bar is really the Unlimited Touch Salon which is located at 7220 Topanga Canyon. And the “poison gas” adult bookstore is really Denny’s Clocks, which can be found at 7218 Topanga Canyon. Pastries by Edie, the bakery where Alicia Silverstone and Brendan Fraser kiss in the movie, is located next to the strip mall, at 7226 Topanga Canyon Blvd.