Mike’s House from “Say Anything . . . “

Say Anything - Mike's House-1050010

As I mentioned in last Thursday’s post about North Hollywood Park – aka the location of the iconic Boombox scene from Say Anything . . .  – Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I recently went on a mission to track down some missing locales from the classic 1989 flick.  And I am very happy to report that our hunt was successful!  One location that Mike found was the house where Mike Cameron (Jason Gould) lived in the movie.  So he took me right on over there to stalk the place way back in early June, shortly after we had stalked both North Hollywood Park and the 7-Eleven from the flick (which I blogged about on Friday).

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In Say Anything . . . , Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) becomes the unwitting “key-master” – aka the designated driver who holds onto all of the partygoers’ car keys and then judges who is able to drive home and who is not – for a high school graduation party that he has brought his dream girl, Diane Court (Ione Skye), to on their first date.  After the party, he winds up having to take a drunk classmate named Mike home.  The only trouble is that Mike cannot remember where he lives and the drive to his house winds up taking over three hours.  When they do finally drop him off, Mike stands on the curb and says, “You guys are the best!  Give me a call or uh – “, but before he can finish the sentence, Lloyd cuts him off by speeding away.  LOL

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Say Anything - Mike's House-1050011

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Mike found this location thanks to an address number of 4936 that was visible on the curb in the scene.  He figured that the residence was most likely located in the same general vicinity as North Hollywood Park and the 7-Eleven from the flick and started looking in the NoHo area before working his way outward until he found the right spot.

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It is absolutely mind-boggling to me (in a good way) that the house looks exactly – and when I say exactly, I mean EXACTLY – the same today as it did back in 1989 when Say Anything . . . was filmed.  Even the tree in the front yard appears just as it did onscreen – albeit slightly taller, but not by much.  In real life, the residence, which was originally built in 1947, measures 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, and 1,473 square feet, and sits on a 0.17-acre plot of land.

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Say Anything - Mike's House-1050009

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.  And be sure to check out my my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

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

Say Anything - Mike's House-1050012

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Mike Cameron’s house from Say Anything . . . is located at 4936 Sunnyslope Avenue in Sherman Oaks.

The 7-Eleven from “Say Anything . . . “

7-Eleven Say Anything-1989

Located directly across the street from North Hollywood Park – aka the spot where the iconic Boombox scene from Say Anything . . . was filmed, which I blogged about yesterday – is the 7-Eleven that appeared in the 1989 flick.  Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I found out about this locale once again thanks to Mike’s fiancé, Ame, who grew up in the North Hollywood area and had heard about the filming when it took place 24 years ago (yikes, has it really been that long?!?!).  So, after stopping by the park – where we, of course, re-enacted the Boombox scene – Mike and I headed right across the street to stalk the 7-Eleven.

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At the beginning of Say Anything . . . , Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) takes Diane Court (Ione Skye) to a supposed Seattle, Washington-area 7-Eleven convenience store to grab a Big Gulp and some coffee on their way home from a high school graduation party in the wee hours of the morning.

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7-Eleven Say Anything-1999

Amazingly enough, despite a fairly minor roof alteration, the store looks very much the same today as it did when Say Anything . . . was filmed almost two-and-a-half decades ago.

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7-Eleven Say Anything-1986

While we were there, Mike pointed out that even the brick border separating the parking lot from the sidewalk that Lloyd and Diane walked over in the flick is still there to this day – albeit a little worse for the wear.  Love it, love it, love it!

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In the movie, while leaving the 7-Eleven, Lloyd spots some broken glass on the ground and, almost instinctively, brushes it out of Diane’s way so that she does not walk through it.  Now that’s chivalry at its finest!

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So I, of course, just had to pretend to step on broken glass while we were there.  Smile

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7-Eleven Say Anything-1995

North Hollywood Park  – pretty much the exact spot where Lloyd stood during the Boombox scene, in fact – is visible in the background behind Lloyd and Diane as they walk off-screen after leaving the 7-Eleven.

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7-Eleven Say Anything-2001

Say Anything . . . is not the 7-Eleven’s only claim to fame.  According to the Rob Dyrdek Foundation website, on May 18th, 2010 the convenience store was converted into an urban skate shop for the day in conjunction with the grand opening of the charity’s third Safe Spot Skate Spot – a state-of-the-art skating plaza located inside of North Hollywood Park.

7-Eleven Say Anything-1982

7-Eleven Say Anything-2009

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here.  You can also follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER and you can take a look at my my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and his fiancé, Ame, for finding this location!

7-Eleven Say Anything-1983

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

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Stalk It: The Say Anything . . . 7-Eleven is located at 11340 Magnolia Boulevard in North HollywoodNorth Hollywood Park, where the iconic Say Anything . . . Boombox scene was filmed, is located directly across the street at 11455 Magnolia Boulevard.

North Hollywood Park from “Say Anything . . . “

Say Anything Boombox Scene-1966

A few months back, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, informed me that his fiancé, Ame (who grew up in North Hollywood), had just told him that the iconic Boombox scene from the 1989 classic Say Anything . . . was filmed at, of all places, a park – North Hollywood Park in North Hollywood to be exact.  I was absolutely shocked to hear this information because, not only had I always assumed that the flick was filmed in its entirety in Seattle, Washington, but the scene was made to look as if it took place in a residential area, directly outside of the house where Diane Court (Ione Skye) lived, and not at a public park.  As we both came to find out, though, thanks to the Washington State Film Locations website, while the vast majority of the movie’s establishing shots were lensed in the Pacific Northwest, all actual filming took place right here in Southern California!  Well, believe you me, once Mike and I learned that bit of information, we set about tracking down some other locales from the flick and had quite a bit of success.  And we also ran right out to stalk North Hollywood Park.

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In the brief, but iconic Say Anything . . . scene, shortly after Diane breaks up with him, a heartsick Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) stands outside of Diane’s bedroom window (or so producers would have us believe) at night, holding a large Boombox that is playing Peter Gabriel’s hit 1986 song “In Your Eyes”.  The memorable scene has been duplicated and parodied countless times since, on everything from Saturday Night Live and South Park to The Colbert Report and fave movie Easy A.

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Say Anything Boombox Scene-1903

In an interesting twist, Peter Gabriel came thisclose to turning down director Cameron Crowe’s request for “In Your Eyes” to be featured in the movie.  In a November 2009 Entertainment Weekly article, Crowe explains that he was on the phone with Gabriel a few days after sending him a Say Anything . . . screener, but Gabriel refused to sign off on the song’s use.  Of the call, he says, “I just remember being in the kitchen and just going, ‘Oh man.’  I said I understood and I appreciated it and was he sure and he said yes, he was sure, and I was saying goodbye to him and I remember the phone was like on its way to the cradle, I think we’d already even said goodbye.  And I just, like, was seized with this thing and I pulled the phone back up and I go, ‘Why?  I got to ask you why.  Why can’t we have the song?  Why was it wrong?’  And he said, ‘Well when he takes the overdose it just didn’t feel like the right kind of use of the song.’  And I’m like, ‘When he takes the overdose?’  He said, ‘Yeah, you’re making the John Belushi story [Wired], right?’  I said, ‘No, no, no.  It’s a movie about the guy in high school with the trench coat.’  And he’s like, ‘Oh, the high school movie.  We haven’t watched that yet.’  Hallelujah!  ‘Please watch the high school movie and let me know if it works in the high school movie.’  And he said, ‘Oh yeah yeah yeah, okay, great.’  And then we got the word back that he said yes.”  And the rest is (very often re-enacted) history.

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Say Anything Boombox Scene-1902

Before heading out to the park, Mike had told me to wear a trench coat and that he would be bringing along a Boombox from work so that I could recreate the iconic scene.  As fate would have it, though, the Boombox went missing a few days before our stalk, but Mike was thankfully able to work his magic by digitally adding the stereo into the below picture.  Love it!

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Say Anything Boombox Scene-

I would venture a guess that North Hollywood Park was also the park featured in the Say Anything . . . montage scene, but I, unfortunately, have not been able to verify that hunch.

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And thanks to the Hollywood Lost and Found blog, I learned that Pee-wee Herman (Paul Ruebens) rode his beloved red bike through North Hollywood Park – in almost the exact same spot that appeared in Say Anything . . . – at the very beginning of 1985’s Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.

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Sadly, I can’t say that I would really recommend stalking North Hollywood Park.  While the tree-lined, 99-acre space, which was originally founded in 1927, is quite beautiful and boasts countless amenities, including a library, three baseball diamonds, a public pool, tennis courts, a playground, a skate park, and a recreation center, the place seemed to be a haven for the homeless and a den of criminal activity.  The police were actually called and wound up arresting someone in the brief ten minutes that we were there.

Say Anything Boombox Scene-1961

Say Anything Boombox Scene-1906

And let me tell you, when you’re standing around in shorts, wedges and a trench coat and holding a non-existent Boombox above your head, the “locals” tend to get just a wee-bit rowdy.  LOL

Say Anything Boombox Scene-1914

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here.  You can also follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER and you can take a look at my latest post – about low-carb chicken noodle soup – on my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and his fiancé, Ame, for finding this location!

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

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Stalk It: North Hollywood Park, where the iconic Say Anything . . . Boombox scene was filmed, is located at 11455 Magnolia Boulevard in North Hollywood.  In the scene, Lloyd Dobler was standing on the southwest corner of Magnolia Boulevard and Tujunga Avenue, in the area denoted with a pink arrow above.