Month: September 2008

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Sex In My City

To promote her new book, One Fifth Avenue, Sex and the City author and creator Candace Bushnell made an appearance at my fave bookstore, Vroman’s, in Pasadena last night. I could not have been more excited for this event!!! I was absolutely dying to see the real life Carrie Bradshaw in person. For those not in the know, much like her on-screen alter-ego, in real life Candace Bushnell authored a column entitled Sex and the City which appeared weekly in the New York Observer newspaper during the early 90s. In 1996, she published a book of her greatest columns and due to that book’s popularity, a television show based upon her life was created. The rest, as they say, is history. 🙂

Last night before the event began, I was literally on the edge of my seat waiting to see Candace in person. I was dying to know how alike she was to the character portrayed by SJP. I couldn’t help but wonder . . . Does she talk like SJP, dress like SJP, and most of all, what kind of shoes would she be wearing????

The reading turned out to be fabulous and I had a blast being there!!! Candace is SUPER tiny in person (much like SJP) and not at all as flashy as I expected her to be. Although her feet were clad in super high Manolo’s, her outfit was pretty tame compared with Carrie Bradshaw’s avant garde wardrobe. (Unfortunately, Candace wouldn’t allow any photographs to be taken during the reading, so I had to wait until she was finished to snaps pics.) Candace read a bit of the first chapter of her new book (where I discovered that she doesn’t talk like SJP) and then there was a short question and answer session, where we learned little tidbits like Candace’s favorite book out of all the novels she has written is One Fifth Avenue, she thinks SJP is an “absolute doll”, and she was floored to meet Mary Tyler Moore recently when the actress guest starred on the television show Lipstick Jungle, which is also based on one of Candace’s books. I think the audience was slightly intimidated by the real CB, because barely anyone asked questions, which led Candace to say “Doesn’t anyone want to know if there is a real Mr. Big or what brand of shoes I am wearing?” LOL Love it!!! 🙂 She told us that there was in fact a real Mr. Big, whom she dated for a year and a half and who did dump her for another woman after a trip to Europe, just like on the series. The real Mr. Big ended up marrying the woman he met in Europe after only four months of dating and, like Carrie, Candace was absolutely devastated. Unlike on the series, however, the real Mr. Big is still happily married to this day. He now lives in Vermont with his wife and kids and several horses. Candace is also now happily married, as well, and I must say her wedding band is absolutely gorgeous – but surprisingly simple. It is a very understated, very modest eternity band with pave diamonds that sparkle like no other. I LOVED it. 🙂 Anyway, Candace also told us that she did just sign a contract to pen a series of young adult novels about the early life of Miss Carrie Bradshaw. YAY! She has not begun writing these novels as of yet, but she is very excited to start. I asked her how closely she worked on the Sex and the City series and she said that was very involved as a consultant during the first two seasons, but not at all after that and not at all on the movie. She said that after the first two seasons she entrusted her story to Michael Patrick King, who she thinks is an absolute genius. She also said that she felt that being a part of the series was like “magic”.

After the question and answer session, Candace signed books (but no DVDs or SATC memorabilia) for the audience. She would not, however, pose for any photographs with the fans, so I didn’t get a pic with her. 🙁 She was very nice in person, though, and I could not have been more excited to meet her! It was a truly fabulous evening!!!! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: You can purchase Candace Bushnell’s new book here. Vroman’s Bookstore is located at 695 E. Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. You can view their upcoming author events here.

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“De Plane, De Plane!”

This weekend my boyfriend and I hung out with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and his fiance Jen, and we all sat down to watch some Season 3 episodes of the original 90210. I became a bit obsessed with finding the location that stood in for the Paris garden where Brenda takes “Reek” in the episode entitled “Shooting Star/An American In Paris”. I knew, from the Universal Studios tour, that most of the Paris scenes on 90210 were filmed in the Little Europe section of the Universal backlot, but the garden area used in the episode we watched on Saturday was definitely not a backlot. Mike and I figured out that the scenes had to have been shot in one of three places – the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia, the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in Pasadena, or Descanso Gardens in La Canada. I decided if I really wanted to find Brenda’s garden, I was just going to have to hit up all three (I told you I was a bit obsessed!), so yesterday I dragged my boyfriend out to the Arboretum for a little 90210 stalking. Unfortunately, after walking pretty much every square foot of the 127 acre property, I realized that 90210 was not in fact filmed at the Arboretum. But since countless other productions have been filmed there, I still felt it was blog-worthy. 🙂

The Arboretum was originally the private ranch of real estate tycoon Elias Jackson Baldwin, who first purchased the land in 1875. He lived on the property, which at the time was called Rancho Santa Anita, and eventually built a guest home, called the Queen Anne Cottage, to house his many guests. In 1936, the land was purchased by a group of investors led by Harry Chandler, publisher of the LA Times newspaper. That same year Hollywood came a knockin’ on the Arboretum’s door when producers of the film Tarzan Escapes chose to film much of their movie on the vast property. In 1947, the property was purchased by both the State of California and the City of Los Angeles, who turned it into a public arboretum and botanical garden.

Since Tarzan Escapes, literally hundreds upon hundreds of film, television and commercial productions have shot at the Arboretum. The most notable credit on the Arboretum’s resume is the television series Fantasy Island, which showcased Elias Baldwin’s former guest house, the Queen Anne Cottage, each week in its opening credits. The Cottage was none other than the location where Tatoo proclaimed “De plane, de plane!” at the beginning of each episode. The first few episodes of Fantasy Island were actually filmed on location at the Arboretum, but after that a replica of the cottage was built on a soundstage to be used for filming. You can watch the intro to Fantasy Island below

The Queen Anne Cottage was also featured in Meet the Fockers as Ben Stiller’s parents’ home. In Meet the Fockers the Cottage was painted brown and looks very different than it does in real life.

Besides Fantasy Island, the Arboretum shows up in The African Queen, The Road to Singapore, Roots, Wonder Woman, The American President, Anaconda, Bedazzled, Battle of Shaker Heights, Terminator 2, as well as a recent episode of Heroes, where it stood in for the Peruvian jungle. The waterfall and bamboo park area of the Arboretum were also featured in the Destiny’s Child Survivor video (pictured above).

The Arboretum is an absolutely beautiful place to visit, with a very reasonable $7 entrance fee. Even though I was seriously dissapointed that it was not the location used in 90210, I still had a great time spending my day there. The Arboretum features over 127 acres of gardens, ponds, lakes, waterfalls, meandering pathways and forests to explore. I highly recommend stalking it!

Perhaps the best feature of the Arboretum, though, are the hundreds of peacocks that make their home there and walk the property freely. The peacocks are extremely tame (I even saw them eating grapes right out of a little girl’s hand) and walk right next to you, as if exploring the Arboretum themselves. They were so much fun to see!!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!! 🙂

Stalk It: The Los Angeles State and County Arboretum and Botanical Garden is located at 301 N. Baldwin Avenue in Arcadia. The Arboretum is open from 9am to 5pm. Tickets will cost you $7 per person, but you can get in free each third Tuesday of the month.

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Stalking In Pink

Got a challenge the other day from Niki all the way over in Greece to stalk some of the locations from her favorite 80s flick Pretty In Pink. I have to admit that before I got the challenge I had never actually seen the movie, so this week I made a special trip to Blockbuster to rent it. After watching it I was in shock that I had somehow missed seeing this movie during the 80s – Pretty In Pink is pretty much right up my alley and I have no idea why I had never watched it before this week. Better late than never, though, right? Anyway, thanks to Mike over at MovieShotsLA, who located all of the Pretty In Pink locations long ago, I was able to stalk one of the houses from the movie yesterday.

In Pretty In Pink, Molly Ringwald plays Andie, a girl who is literally from the wrong side of the tracks. In the movie, Andie’s tiny home is located directly next to a set of train tracks supposedly in the Chicago area. In reality, her home can be found just outside of L.A., in South Pasadena, right next to the Metro Gold Line tracks. Andie’s train tracks looks much the same today as they did back during the filming of the movie. I was actually pretty surprised to discover that the majority of the filming of Pretty In Pink took place in Los Angeles, as John Hughes usually prefers to film on location in Chicago.

Anyway, I was absolutely amazed to discover that Andie’s house also looks EXACTLY the same today as it did back in 1985 when filming for Pretty In Pink took place. The only major difference I noticed is that there is now much more foliage located in front of the house than there was 23 years ago. Otherwise the home is exactly as it was portrayed onscreen. It is always amazing for me to stalk a location from a movie or television show that was filmed over two decades ago only to find that little to nothing has changed over the years. I’ve never been a big fan of change. : )

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Andie’s house is located at 1010 Hope Street in South Pasadena. Literally directly around the corner from Andie’s house is Michael Meyer’s house from the original Halloween movie.

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Doc Brown’s House

Back to the Future has always been one of my very favorite movies, so when I found out that the interiors of Doc Brown’s house were filmed at a home in Pasadena, I had to run right out to stalk it. The exteriors of Doc’s house were also filmed at a home in Pasadena, a very famous Craftsman style home named the Gamble House. The Gamble House was built by the famous Greene & Greene architecture firm for the Gamble Family (of Proctor and Gamble). Formerly the Gamble family’s summer home, the Gamble House is now a museum which is open daily to the public. But I’ll save the history of the Gamble House for another post. Being that no filming is allowed to take place on the inside of the Gamble home, producers had to find a similar home to shoot the interiors of Doc’s house. The home they chose is called the Robert R. Blacker Home and it is considered by many to be the finest example of Craftsman architecture ever built by the Greene Brothers.

Built in 1907 for more than $100,000, the Blacker House was originally situated on over seven acres of land and included a seperate garage and a caretaker’s home. Originally built for Robert Rowe Blacker and his wife Nellie, sadly the home and its land was parceled off and sold after their death. While the caretaker’s house and the seven acres of land are now gone, the Blacker House still sits on a significant amount of property and it is absolutely breathtaking to view in person. Besides being featured in Back to the Future, the Blacker House also shows up in a deleted scene from the movie Armageddon, as the location where Bruce Willis says goodbye to his father before going off to save the world. I highly recommend stalking the Blacker House if you are at all a fan of Back to the Future or architecture in general. The house is absolutely striking in person and pictures simply do not do it justice.

On a side note, last summer, while vacationing in San Diego with my family, we stopped in at the Lodge at Torrey Pines for a bite to eat. I could not believe my eyes as we drove up to the resort as the exterior is the spitting image of the Blacker House. The concierge was shocked when I asked him if the hotel was modeled after the Blacker House – he said that no guest he’d ever talked to in the two years he’d been working at the hotel had ever even heard of the Blacker House. Apparently he didn’t realize he was talking to a stalker. 🙂 LOL The Lodge at Torrey Pines is a beautiful hotel and another breathtaking example of Craftsman architecture. Although no movies have been filmed there, I highly recommend stalking the hotel if you find yourself in the area.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Gamble House is located at 4 Westmoreland Place in Pasadena. The R. R. Blacker House is located at 1177 Hillcrest Avenue, at the corner of Hillcrest and Wentworth Ave., also in Pasadena. The Lodge at Torrey Pines can be found at 11480 North Torrey Pines Road in La Jolla.

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Brenda and Dylan’s First Kiss

I think the new 90210 has been making me nostalgic for the original series, because lately I have found myself re-watching old episodes of the 90s show. The other night, while watching one of my fave episodes from the first season, the episode where Brenda and Dylan first get together, I noticed a filming location that I had yet to stalk. In the episode, entitled “Isn’t It Romantic”, Dylan has moved out of his suite at the BelAge Hotel and into what looks like a ritzy apartment building. After a date at the former Fox Studio City Theatre, Dylan brings Brenda back to that apartment building only to find his father waiting for him inside – and, of course, drama ensues.

While watching the episode, I happened to notice the word “L’Ermitage” spelled out on the side of the apartment building’s entrance (pictured in the above screen capture).

So I got to Googling and quickly discovered that there used to be a “members only” hotel called the L’Ermitage located in Bevelry Hills once upon a time. Sadly, the L’Ermitage was purchased by the Raffles hotel chain in October of 2000 and was completely renovated, remodeled, and renamed. The new hotel, called the Raffles L’Ermitage, does not look very much like Dylan’s former apartment building. Even the front entrance of the hotel, which was the site of Brenda and Dylan’s dramatic first kiss, was gutted and changed. But while the L’Ermitage does look very different than it did during the 90210 days, something about it is still vaguely reminiscent. Especially familiar is the sidewalk in front of the hotel where Brenda runs after Dylan’s meltdown where he throws a potted plant on the ground. Gotta love it!! 🙂 Standing there brought back such fond memories for me and I highly recommend stalking the L’Ermitage if you were at all a fan of Brenda and Dylan. 🙂

The L’Ermitage is an absolutely beautiful place and I cannot wait to drag my boyfriend back there on a Friday or Saturday night to grab a drink in one of the hotel’s many bars. The hotel’s rooftop terrace has been ranked one of the top three rooftop bars in the country. The hotel’s Writer’s Bar, where the walls are decorated with screenplays and scripts, is also supposed to be a fabulous place to grab a drink. The exclusive hotel is also a big time celeb hotspot – so if you visit be sure to keep your eyes peeled! Julia Roberts, Georgio Armani, Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, Keira Knightley, Penelope Cruz, and Angelina Jolie have all stayed at the L’Ermitage in the past. While stalking the L’Ermitage yesterday, I saw James Woods, who was hanging out in front of the hotel. I absolutely LOVE me some James Woods and the TV show Shark, so I was floored to see him in person. I would have asked him to take a pic with me, but he was busy talking on his cell phone and then his friend drove up, so I didn’t want to bother him. I did snap a pic of him from far away, though. He is in the above photo leaning against the Porsche. SO COOL! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Raffles L’Ermitage is located at 9291 Burton Way in Beverly Hills, not far from Rodeo Drive.

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The Standard Hotel

My friend Stephanie, who is even more obsessed with Sex and the City than I am, has a birthday coming up this Friday, so I decided to do a little post today in her honor. In Stephanie’s favorite SATC episodes, entitled “Escape from New York” and “Sex in Another City”, Carrie and the Girls take a little vacay to the West Coast. While there, they stay at the uber-trendy Standard Hotel on the Sunset Strip, and it is that location that I set out to stalk yesterday. So Steffi – this one’s for you! 🙂

The Standard Hotel was featured prominently in both of the L.A. episodes of SATC. The Standard’s rooftop pool shows up in several scenes – most memorably it is the location where Carrie discusses a rather painful bikini wax.

The lobby area – complete with its live performance art – is also shown several times.

But most memorable for me is the scene that takes place at the hotel’s front entrance – when Carrie is reprimanded for smoking.

The Standard Hotel is an ultra-trendy, ultra-modern hot spot, with a huge celebrity following. Originally opened in 1999, with celeb investors such as Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio (sigh!), the hotel was considered a less expensive alternative to the many other pricey West Hollywood hotels. The Standard is a truly unique hotel – it’s sort of like a W Hotel, only amplified to the power of a hundred. The Standard features ghost chairs and floor-to-wall-to-ceiling shag carpeting in the lobby, blue astro-turfed patios, live nude performance art showcased in a glass case behind the front desk, a roof-top pool/dessert bar, DJ’s spinning tunes nightly in the lobby, and, most famous of all, upside-down signage. The whole thing is not really my cup of tea, but if you are into modern decor and the avant-garde, I highly recommend stalking the place. Today there are four hotels in the Standard chain, with branches in Downtown L.A., Miami Beach and New York. The Downtown L.A. Standard was featured repeatedly in the 2005 movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

BIG THANK YOU to Mike, over at MovieShotsLA, for sending me the above screen captures!!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Standard Hotel is located at 8300 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can visit the hotel’s website here. A room there will run you $240 and up per night.

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West Beverly?

A few weeks ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, sent me some screen captures from a Season One episode of the original Beverly Hills, 90210 series entitled “Fame Is Where You Find It.” In the episode Brandon “goes Hollywood” after landing a role on Brenda’s favorite television series Keep It Together. In one scene in the episode, Keep It Together’s star, Lydia Leeds, picks Brandon up from West Beverly High in her limousine during lunch. While watching the episode, Mike noticed that the high school shown in that scene did not look like Torrance High School, the real life locale which was used to portray West Beverly High during the first three seasons of 90210. Mike made it his mission to find out exactly what school was used in that scene.

I tried to help him out in this stalking mission, but as usual he was one step ahead of me. 🙂 It didn’t take long at all before Mike found some online photos of Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks and recognized it as the place that stood in for West Beverly in the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode. I have visited and blogged about this location once before, but I just had to run right out to re-stalk it so that I could see the exact spot that was used in 90210. 🙂 And standing there at Notre Dame High, it was easy to see that, without a doubt, it was definitely the location used in the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode. It is so strange to me that producers filmed Brandon’s limousine pickup at a different location than Torrance High School, especially since there were a few other scenes from that same episode that were filmed at Torrance High. What was it that caused producers to shoot this scene elsewhere when in ever other instance I know of, all exteriors of West Beverly were shot at Torrance? Were they looking for a specific look for that particular scene that Torrance just didn’t have? Did they run out of time and decide to shoot the brief limo scene at Notre Dame because it is about 20 miles closer to the 90210 studios than Torrance High School? Perhaps we will never know, but it is these little idiosyncrasies that absolutely fascinate me when it comes to filming locations – and that will keep me stalking day after day for years to come. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Notre Dame High School is located at 13645 Riverside Drive in Sherman Oaks. The exterior of the school’s chapel area was used for the filming of Brandon’s limousine pickup.

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The Paramount Pictures Studio Tour

After our morning over at the WB, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I made our way to Hollywood for a tour of Paramount Pictures and I have to say we had even more fun there than we did at Warner Brothers! The Paramount tour is very similar to the WB tour, in that tour guides take around a very small group of people – our group had only eight in it – which allows for a very intimate and personalized experience.

Our tour was led by a FABULOUS guide named Ian and I HIGHLY recommend requesting him if you are interested in taking a Paramount tour. Ian was personality PLUS and the tour would not have been nearly as great without him.

Like at the WB, the Paramount tour also starts in the studio’s gift shop, where there is also a coffee shop. Alas, it’s not a Starbucks like over at the WB, instead Paramount has a Coffee Bean, which ranks a close second in my book. Ian started out the tour by giving us a brief history of Paramount Pictures and was pretty shocked to see that Mike and I actually knew more about Paramount, and film locations in general, than he did and he ended up giving me his tour guide badge to wear. LOL 🙂 (Notice how you can see the Hollywood Sign in the above photo? It’s a testament to Paramount being one of the last few remaining movie studios actually located IN Hollywood. SO COOL!)

After Ian told us that while seeing a celeb on the tour is possible it is not necessarily likely, who should walk by but Molly Shannon, on her way to her trailer during a break from filming Kath and Kim. Molly was SUPER pretty in person, but unfortunately we did not get a pic of her face. 🙁

Literally not ten seconds after seeing Molly Shannon, who should walk by but Donald Sutherland and Jill Clayburgh! (You can see Donald in the picture above, wearing a black suit and walking next to a man. He is on the right hand side. Jill is the woman in grey next to the limo.) From that point on we literally saw one star after another!!!!!!!!!! Ian said in his entire history at Paramount he had never led a tour where so many celebs were spotted! I like to think I brought our group a little stalking luck. 🙂

After Jill, who should walk by but John Michael Higgins, who is currently starring on Kath and Kim. John is probably best known, though, for his hilarious spontaneous dinner choir performance in The Break-Up. If you never saw the movie, you can watch the dinner scene below:

And that’s Gary on the kick drum . . . And Gary on the kick drum . . .” LOL! John was nice enough to take a pic with Mike and the two of them even broke out into a random performance of “Owner of a Lonely Heart” – it was GREAT!

After snapping some pics with John, Ian led us over to a golf cart and drove us by both Molly AND Selma Blair’s trailers. Selma’s door was open and she actually leaned out and said hi and waved to us. I was shocked at how beautiful Selma was. From what I saw in my very brief view of her, she was striking. Much prettier in person than on screen. We didn’t get a pic, though. 🙁

After seeing Selma, we were taken over to “Lucy Park”, a small park built by Lucille Ball for her children back when that part of the studio was owned by Desilu Productions. Apparently it was built as an exact replica of the backyard in Lucy’s Beverly Hills home and she built it so that she could take media photographs with her children and pretend she was at home when she was actually at work. According to our tour guide, Miss Ball was something of a workaholic. To the side of Lucy Park is a New York apartment style facade that was apparently modeled after Lucy’s East Coast home, built for the very same purpose as the park. LOL

Lucy Park has an even better claim to fame, though – it is the location of the tree under which Greg Brady smoked his first cigarette on The Brady Bunch!

Behind Lucy Park is the location of the building that served as the high school on the television series Happy Days.

Next up we headed over to Paramount’s New York Street, which I found out can actually be rented for private parties! How fun would that be????? 🙂 I was ESPECIALLY excited to see New York Street because of a challenge I received a few months ago. Jenna challenged me to find a city street used repeatedly on the television series Charmed. I was pretty sure that a street on the Paramount lot was used for the television series, but I couldn’t be positive. When we got to New York Street, though, I was able to verify with absolute certainty that it was the street used in Charmed, as you can see in the above screen captures. YAY!

Going to New York Street was VERY cool because we were allowed to walk around and explore the entire area, including the facade pictured above which is currently being used in Dirty Sexy Money as an art gallery and was also used in Spiderman 3 as a cafe.

Next we were taken to the “Financial District” section of the New York back lot. The above building was used as the “Life Extension” company headquarters from the Tom Cruise movie Vanilla Sky. You will notice that in real life the building is only three stories high, but in the movie it appeared to be a skyscraper. The extra floors were added in post production using CG technology.

After seeing the New York back lot, we happened to run into another bunch of celebs!! First, a golf cart came by with an actress (whose name I can’t for the life of me remember) riding in the front, and James Cromwell and Alfie Woodard in the back. And if that wasn’t enough, right after they drove by, Tyler James Williams from Everybody Hates Chris walked by! I am telling you, we were on fire!!! 🙂

After seeing that group of stars, Ian took us over to the high school set of Everybody Hates Chris, where we were given a tour of everything from the hallways and classrooms to the principal’s office.

One of our last stops was the building used as the high school on The Brady Bunch. SO COOL! I absolutely LOVED that show growing up, so I was in heaven stalking this spot.

The final stop on our Paramount tour was the famous wooden bench from the movie Forrest Gump, which was transported to Paramount after filming was completed.

I cannot tell you what an amazing experience Mike and I had on the Paramount Tour. I truly cannot recommend stalking it enough! If you are going to do a studio tour, this is the one I recommend. I can’t say enough good things about our afternoon there. 🙂

Another BIG THANK YOU to Mike for taking all of the above photos! I think I need to get me a camera like Mike’s – his takes much better pictures than mine! But mine is pink and I doubt his camera comes in pastel colors, so I guess I have to make some concessions. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! : )

Stalk It:Paramount Studios is located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Tickets will cost you $35 per person and advance reservations are required. DO NOT BE LATE! Mike and I got held up on our way to Paramount, and our reservations were almost given away! 🙁 You can find out more about the studio tour here.

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Stalking the WB!

This past Monday, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I took a little stalking field strip to both Warner Brothers Studios and the Paramount Lot. I’ll get to the Paramount tour tomorrow, but today it’s all about the WB. What can I say – the Warner Brothers tour was awesome! It is nothing at all like the Universal Studios back lot tour. The WB tour is far more intimate and personal. A maximum of twelve people is allowed in each tour group, which makes for a far more flexible, personalized tour. The WB tour also lacks the cheesiness that is pretty much ever-present over at Universal. Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast on my Universal birthday tour, but if I had to choose between the two, I’d much prefer stalking the WB. Anyway, Mike and I arrived bright and early at about 8:30AM and I must admit I was as giddy as a schoolgirl! 🙂 Before the tour began, we got to do some shopping in the WB gift shop. The gift shop sells some great souvenirs like t-shirts, key chains, mugs, and even lip gloss, from hit shows like Entourage, Gossip Girl, Gilmore Girls and, my personal fave, Friends.

There is also a lot of movie memorabilia to stalk inside the gift shop, such as Daniel Radcliffe’s costume from the original Harry Potter movie and Will Smith’s outfit from I Am Legend (pictured above).

There is even a Starbucks located right inside the gift shop, so I was in heaven!! Movie memorabilia AND a Starbucks?? What more could a girl ask for? 🙂

After getting our shopping on at the gift shop, we were instructed to move into a small movie theatre where we were shown a short movie about the many productions that have been filmed on the lot. The movie definitely got me pumped up and excited for the tour and I was literally on the edge of my seat ready for the tour to begin. After the 15 minute movie, our tour group boarded a small tram and headed for the famous WB back-lot.

The first movie site stalked on our tour was the location of one of the most well-known screen kisses in cinema history – the famous upsidedown kiss between Spiderman and Mary Jane that took place on a fire escape in the pouring rain. That fire escape is located on the WB’s back-lot in an area that is now called “Spiderman Alley”. 🙂 Apparently the scene was not very fun, or romantic, to film, as Tobey Maguire had to hang upside down for over eight hours, giving him a massive headache, not to mention all the water running up his nose from the fake rain. That kiss was later emulated by Seth and Summer in one of my favorite O.C. scenes ever!

Our next stop on the tour was the exterior set of ER ‘s Cooke County General Hospital. This set was very cool to see as I was a big fan of ER during its first few seasons.

While 95% of the sets for ERare located inside a soundstage, the exterior set includes the hospital’s ambulance entrance, a small portion of the waiting room,

The Jumbo Mart where the doctors eat,

the “L” tracks from the Chicago railway system,

and even George Clooney’s former basketball hoop left over from the days he starred on ER.

Next up our tour guide took us to a small stretch of grass that often doubles for Central Park in Warner Brothers movies and television shows. The patch of lawn is so small, I have no idea how it can possibly double for a park, but it does. The small park was featured on Friends as the place where Phoebe “runs weird” and also as the location of Rory’s “study tree” on the Gilmore Girls.

Next up was Lorelai’s house from Gilmore Girls which looks pretty much exactly as it did during the filming of the show.

In actuality, the entire town of Sleepy Hollow from Gilmore Girls is located on the WB lot, and it, too, looks pretty much exactly as it did during filming. This set is usually called Anytown, USA and has been used in countless productions, most prominently as Hazzard County in the Dukes of Hazzard television series.

Pictured above is Luke’s restaurant from Gilmore Girls,

and the Hazzard County Courthouse from Dukes of Hazzard.

I think I was most excited of all to see the house from one of my fave 80s sitcoms – Growing Pains (pictured above). I used to seriously love me some Kirk Cameron. 🙂 The house looks a bit different now, but it is still pretty recognizable as the Seaver Family home. As we drove up upon the house, our tour guide asked if anyone could still remember the words to the show’s theme song and I am proud to say, I still could. 🙂 You can watch the Growing Pains intro here. Cue theme song – “Show me that smile again, don’t waste another minute on your crying . . .” 🙂

The side of the Seaver house was also used as Lane’s house on Gilmore Girls. Apparently many houses on the WB lot have double, or even triple, fronts so that they can be used for multiple houses at a time.

We also got to see crew members setting up a scene for Ghost Whisperer on the WB’s Paris Street. Ghost Whisperer used to be filmed at Universal Studios, but due to the recent fire, production has since moved to Warner Brothers. Paris Street was also used in the filming of Casablanca, as the location of Rick and Ilsa’s Parisian tryst.

The building pictured above was featured as the location of Rick and Isla’s teary Paris goodbye. Ahhh, we’ll always have Paris! 🙂

Also included in the tour was a walk through of the set of Two and a Half Men– which was VERY cool as I watch that show all the time; an up-close and personal view of many cars used in major motion pictures – ie. the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard movie, the Batmobile, and Keanu’s car from the Matrix; a tour of the Warner Brothers Museum which displays numerous costumes and other movie memorabilia from such films as Harry Potter, Fools Gold, The Matrix, and The Dark Knight;and a walk through of the third biggest soundstage in the US which has been used in productions such as Ocean’s 13 and The Perfect Storm. We were not allowed to take any photographs while inside the soundstages or the museum which was a total bummer! 🙁

My favorite part of the tour, hands down, had to be when we got to see the original Central Perk set from Friends. SO COOL! After the final season of Friends, the entire Central Perk set was moved to an empty soundstage preserved for us fans to visit. 🙂 The set pieces are a little tweaked and aren’t set up exactly as they were during filming, but it still looks pretty much as it did on TV. SO COOL!

Mike and I had an absolute blast on the WB tour and I HIGHLY recommend stalking it!!!! No two tours are ever the same, and I am seriously considering doing it again soon. 🙂

BIG THANK YOU to Mike for taking all of the above pictures – would you believe my camera died at the very beginning of the WB tour cause this stalker forgot to charge it the night before. I am such a blond sometimes!!! LOL

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Warner Brothers Studios is located at 3400 Riverside Drive in Burbank. Tours run every 30 minutes Monday through Friday from 8:20am to 4:00pm. Advance reservations are recommended. Tickets will cost you $45 per person – and I assure you, it is $45 well spent! You can learn more about the tour here.

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"I Don’t Need the BMW Anymore, I Already Have A Mercedes!"

This past weekend while out stalking Les Anderson’s house from my fave 80s movie License to Drive , I randomly found the house of his girlfriend Mercedes from the movie. This was another location that Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I were obsessed with finding. We had been doing some cyber-stalking of Mercedes’ house for a few weeks with no luck. We both had an inkling, though, that the house was somewhere right around Les’ house. And then, this weekend, fate stepped in. As my boyfriend pulled the car away from Les Anderson’s house, he took a turn onto Loring Drive and I literally started screaming “STOP THE CAR!” Out of the corner of my eye, I had spotted the house!

Truth be told, I didn’t so much spot the house, as I did the street in front of the house. While watching License to Drive trying to find Mercedes’ house, I noticed that three streets joined and became one right at her front door (shown in the above screen capture). I had been cyberstalking all week, trying to find three streets that came together in front of a large brick house, but to no avail. Until my boyfriend took a turn onto Loring on Sunday, and I noticed the exact same street set-up that I had seen so many times in the movie. When my boyfriend backed the car up, I looked at the house located where the three streets meet and sure enough, there was Mercedes’ house! YAY!

I must say it was very exciting to be standing there in my teenage idol’s footsteps, even all these years later. 🙂 Especially since the house looks exactly like it did back when License to Drive was filmed.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Mercedes house is located at 485 Loring Drive in Los Angeles, just a few blocks from Corey Haim’s house in the movie.