Jason Priestley – Page 2

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.

August 7, 2009February 18, 2010

The Walsh House – Circa August 2009

UPDATE 2/18/10 – The Casa Walsh garage has been torn down in the months since I wrote this post. You can see pictures of the rubble here. And to see the inside of the real Walsh house, click here.

My fiance tried to talk me out of writing this post today, but it just seemed to be too important of an item for me to ignore. As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, last week, while giving a stalking tour of Pasadena to my good friend Kerry and her husband Jim, I drove by the Walsh House from fave TV show Beverly Hills, 90210 and almost had a full blown panic attack right there in my car! While cruising down Altadena Drive, I, Lindsay Blake, almost passed right by my favorite stalking location of all time without even recognizing it!!!!! I actually turned to Kerry at one point and said, “Wait a minute! Where’s the 90210 house???” What I didn’t realize at that time was that some pretty major changes had been made to the exterior of the house rendering it almost unrecognizable to me. OK, OK, maybe I’m being slighty melodramatic here, but, let me tell you, the whole experience was pretty JARRING. I mean, not only had a large hedge been removed from the Walsh’s driveway, but their entire house had been PAINTED PINK! Oh, Jack, say it ain’t so!

Ironically enough, when I showed my fiance photographs of the newly painted 90210 house, he said “What are you talking about?? It looks exactly the same as it always did! You CANNOT write a post about that!” LOL LOL LOL It’s amazing to me how two people can have such differing views of the same exact thing. To me, the difference in the house’s appearance was absolutely STAGGERING, yet my fiance didn’t even notice it! Men! LOL I also showed the photos to my mom, though, who said “THAT’S what you’re so upset about? From the way you were talking, I thought they had painted the house black or something!” LOL OK, OK, I will concede that the paint color isn’t that different, but I guess because the 90210 house is so cemented in my memory, any change in its appearance, no matter how minor, is going to seem huge. And, to be fair, the paint color doesn’t show up well in pictures. In person, the house is PINK! Anyway, against my fiance’s better judgement, I just had to write a post today about the house and how it looks post-paint.

Also altering the appearance of the house was the removal of the large hedge which used to stand along the West side of the Walsh’s driveway. As you can see in the two screen captures pictured above, the hedge used to run the length of the driveway, separating the Walsh property from that of their neighbor’s.

But, as you can see in the above photographs, that hedge has been completely removed, which only adds to the difference in the home’s appearance, especially if you approach it from the West.

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At least the garage still looks pretty much the same as it always did – minus Brandon’s basketball hoop, of course. Last November, when Mike and I met Jack, the owner of the house, he told us that he was in the process of remodeling his garage and we both got looks of absolute HORROR on our faces! Jack laughed and said “What? Is it a crime to change the Walsh garage or something?” To which both Mike and I replied with a resounding “YES!” LOL Obviously Jack didn’t heed our words of wisdown, though! SUCH A BUMMER!

I guess it’s really true what they say – the only constant is change. But this is one filming location I was convinced would stay as fixed in real life as it is in my memory. 🙁

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Walsh house from Beverly Hills, 90210 is located at 1675 East Altadena Drive in Altadena, CA.

March 5, 2009March 5, 2009

The Pilot House!

One filming location that has pretty much been the bane of Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and my existence for quite some time now is the home that the Walsh family lived in during the very first of episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. Mike and I fondly, and sometimes not so fondly – LOL – refer to this location as “The Pilot House” since it was used in one episode and one episode only of our favorite 90’s series – the pilot episode. The home was never seen again on the series and the question as to why the Walshes lived in a different house when the show began than in later episodes has remained a location mystery for the past twenty years. It’s actually quite common, though, for certain elements of a television series, i.e. locations or actors, to be changed after a pilot episode is filmed. Pilots are usually filmed with extremely small budgets months before regular series filming begins. After a pilot is filmed, it is then shopped around to different networks in the hopes of being sold. The sad truth is that less than twenty five percent of the television pilots that are filmed ever get picked up by the networks, so producers aren’t usually willing to spend a boatload of money to shoot them. But even so the questions as to where the original Walsh home was located and as to why the Walsh home changed from the traditional style home pictured above to the famous Spanish style home that we all know and love have never been answered. Until now! 🙂

A few weeks ago while Mike was watching the pilot episode of 90210 he noticed the number 130 located above the front door of the Walsh home – a little location clue neither of us had picked up on before. (Pictured above). So pretty much immediately the two of us started searching 100 blocks in Los Angeles and its surrounding areas. We must have scrutinized almost every single square inch of L.A. looking for this house! With no luck, I might add. Mike’s instincts kept telling him that the house was located in a gated community due to the fact that the street in front of the home appeared extremely narrow on TV. But, knowing that the shooting budget for the pilot was most likely meager and that filming on a private road is usually a whole lot more costly than filming on your average city street, I disagreed with him. Until last week, that is.

While driving through Brentwood with my boyfriend last week I saw a gated community that I had never noticed before. I could tell just by driving by that it bore a striking resemblance to the 90210 pilot neighborhood. So when I got home that night I did some cyberstalking and quickly found a house in the community with a 130 address that looked a whole lot like the Walsh’s first Beverly Hills home. But I couldn’t be certain it was the Pilot House until I saw the property with my own two eyes. And I was really worried that, being that the home is located in a gated community, I would never get that chance. Well, I must have a guardian angel watching over me, because on a whim, last weekend, I asked my boyfriend to drive by the neighborhood. I knew there was a house for sale just up the road from the pilot house and I had a bit of a hunch. Sure enough – right as we drove up to the community, there on a sign in big red letters were the words I was hoping beyond all hope to see – OPEN HOUSE! 🙂 YAY! And that was my ticket in!

Let me tell you, as we came around the corner and the Pilot House came into view, I was so excited I thought my heart was going to beat right out of my chest!!!! 🙂 I was pinching myself the whole time! It was so surreal to finally be standing there in front of a filming location I had wondered about for almost twenty years! I almost felt as if any second I would wake up at home in bed only to realize that none of it was real. LOL The Pilot House is a lot smaller in person than it appeared on the show, but otherwise, even twenty years later, it looks EXACTLY the same as it did on 90210! And I could not have been more ecstatic to finally be seeing it with my own two eyes!!!!! The neighborhood where the Pilot House is located is really beautiful, too, with towering trees, huge lawns, and hilly, winding roads. The house for sale wasn’t too shabby, either – yes, of course, we went to go see it! 🙂

And once I determined that the home was located in a gated community, the other part of the 90210 pilot house mystery was solved, too. Upon entering, I just happened to ask the guard on duty at the guard shack if the community allowed filming of any sort to take place on the premises. He told me that in fact filming is not allowed and he laughed as if he gets asked that question all the time. I am sure location scouts come a-knockin’ at the guard shack door all too often. My best guess is that back in 1990, when the pilot episode was filmed, there was no ban on filming in the neighborhood. The pilot house was probably the first home on the premises ever used for filming of any sort. And I am pretty sure it must have belonged to someone on the production team – ie. the director, producer, art director, etc. It actually happens more often than you’d think that someone involved with a lower budget production will offer up their home for filming to keep costs down. Because the Pilot House is a beautiful home located in an upscale community, and since the 90210 pilot budget was most likely quite small, I think that is exactly what happened. Otherwise I just don’t see how they could have afforded to film there. If you’ve seen the pilot episode as many times as I have, you’ll remember that most of the location shooting at the Walsh house took place at night, which I am sure angered quite a few neighbors. Night shoots usually last from sunset to sunrise and can be loud, messy, and annoying to anyone whose house is nearby. So I am gonna go out on a limb and say that during the production of 90210, a few of the neighbors probably got a little miffed about the filming and as soon as the pilot wrapped, members of the small community (there are only 67 houses on the property) made certain nothing like that would ever happen again. So when Beverly Hills, 90210 got picked up as a series three to six months later, the producers were left without a home to use for filming. And that’s how we ended up with Casa Walsh. 🙂

Now we can FINALLY put to bed one of the greatest filming location mysteries of all time. Now if only I could find that darn Girls Just Want To Have Fun apartment! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The 90210 Pilot House is located at 130 North Gunston Drive in the Brentwood Circle community. Please remember that this home is located in a private, gated community, and unless they open their gates for a reason (ie. an open house), you should not be on the property.