Last week I got a challenge to find the house used in the 1980’s television series Mama’s Family. I had heard a while back that Mama’s house was in Pasadena, but had no idea of its exact location. After doing a simple Google search, though, I quickly found the address. Or so I thought. 🙂 According to IMDB, Mama’s house is located at 1019 Montrose Avenue in South Pasadena. But as I have mentioned before, IMDB has been known to post incorrect information. And this time was no different. Oh, Internet Movie Database, why do you so often lead me astray?? 🙂
After thinking I had found the correct location, I grabbed my camera and immediately drove out to South Pasadena to snap some photos of Mama’s house. But when I arrived at 1019 Montrose Avenue, it quite obviously wasn’t the home where the Harper Family had lived on the show. Feeling defeated, I got in my car to drive home. And that’s when I noticed a house just a few doors down from number 1019 that looked a whole lot like Mama’s. So, I snapped some pics and drove home to compare them to the screen captures I had from the show. Sure enough, it was the place!
The house in South Pasadena was used each week for establishing shots of the Harper home. The interiors existed only on a soundstage located about 15 miles away on the former KTTV/Fox Television Center lot on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Sadly, that studio has since been torn down. The home was also shown each week in the Mama’s Family opening credits, in which Mama would march to the end of her walkway, pick up the morning newspaper, and then proceed to dust it off . LOL You can watch the Mama’s Family intro here. This same house was also used very briefly as Lynda’s home in the original Halloween movie.
Even though I haven’t seen an episode of Mama’s Family in years, I was very excited to be stalking the home, as I have such fond memories of watching the show with my grandma when I was a little girl. I still remember not being able to wrap my six year old brain around the fact that, in real life, Mama wasn’t truly an old lady. 🙂 It is unbelievable to me that Mama’s house still looks almost EXACTLY the same as it appeared onscreen 26 years ago! Besides the white picket enclosure, which has since been removed from the porch area, and a blue trim which has been added, the house is pretty much identical to how it appeared on television back in 1983. And I highly recommend stalking it!
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: The Mama’s Family house is located at 1027 Montrose Avenue in South Pasadena.