Can’t Hardly Wait – IAMNOTASTALKER

September 21, 2015September 18, 2015

The Convenience Store from “Can’t Hardly Wait”

My buddy, fellow stalker Owen of the When Write Is Wrong blog, is a huge Jennifer Love Hewitt fan. Like huge. He is also a fan of filming locations and, over the years, has managed to track down the vast majority of locales featured in his fave JLH movie, 1998’s Can’t Hardly Wait. One that had eluded him for some time, though, was the convenience store where Kenny Fisher (Seth Green) shopped at the beginning of the flick. He recently got a tip from a crew member that the market was in Altadena and, after some Google Street View sleuthing, surmised that it was most likely the Ezzz Stop Food Store on Lake Avenue. He asked me to confirm his hunch by doing some recognizance of the shop’s interior the next time I was in town. I was able to stop by shortly thereafter and, sure enough, he was right!

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As luck would have it, the owner of the Ezzz Stop Food Store happened to be onsite while we were stalking the place and could not have been nicer.

Not only did he confirm that Can’t Hardly Wait had been filmed on the premises, but he also let us take all of the photographs of the place that we wanted.

In Can’t Hardly Wait, Ezzz Stop Food Store is where Kenny unveils his “love kit” to his friends, Homeboy #1 (Branden Williams) and Homeboy #2 (Robert Jayne). The owner told us that he had a blast during the filming and that all of the actors were hilarious, especially Seth Green. He loved watching them ad-lib and goof off between takes.

Most of the scene was shot on the eastern side of the store, opposite from where the cash registers are, in the area pictured below.

Though some changes have been made to the Ezzz Stop Food Store’s interior, portions of it still look exactly the same as they did onscreen, including the yellow and blue “ICE” signage pictured below.

The wood paneling that used to run above the refrigerators is also still intact . . .

. . . but has since been painted white, as you can kind of see in the photographs above and below.

The fridges themselves haven’t changed at all and even have the same white-stickered lettering pasted on them.

The super-nice owner also informed us that the shop next door, Lindsey’s Liquors, belonged to him, as well, and that it had been featured in an episode of Weeds.

I was pretty stoked upon hearing the name of the liquor store (for obvious reasons) and quickly posted a pic of it to Instagram with the caption, “I’ll consider it a personal affront if they don’t sell champagne.” Thankfully, they do. Winking smile

Lindsey’s Liquors was featured in the series finale of Weeds, Season 8’s “In Time: Part I,” in the scene in which Silas (Hunter Parrish) and his wife shopped for goats milk, among other things, before heading to visit his mom, Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker).

On a JLH side-note – Jerry Ferrara, one of my faves, shared a pretty amazing story about the actress recently on his Bad 4 Business podcast. It is definitely worth a listen. You can do so here.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Ezzz Food Stop, from Can’t Hardly Wait, is located at 2427 Lake Avenue in Altadena. Lindsey’s Liquors, from Weeds, is located next door at 878 East Mariposa Street.

April 9, 2014July 22, 2014

Dutton’s Brentwood Bookstore from “The Wonder Years”

UPDATE – The Wonder Years is coming to DVD for the first time ever in October! The 26-disc boxed set includes all six seasons of the show, plus a cast reunion segment, over 15 hours of bonus footage, a collectible metal locker, two production booklets packed with behind-the-scenes information, a replica yearbook, and Wonder Years magnets. Sets can be pre-ordered here.

I recently received an extensive list of The Wonder Years filming locations from a fellow stalker named Mallory who lives in Iowa. Mallory is a huge fan of the series (she loved it so much that she put off watching the finale for ages as she couldn’t bear to see the show end – love that!) and over the years had managed to compile an index of over thirty locales featured on it. One of the locations, the book shop from the Season 1 episode titled “Swingers,” I had been trying to track down for a while. Said book shop turned out to be the historic Dutton’s Brentwood Bookstore, an L.A. institution that was shuttered in 2008. I decided the place was still worthy of a stalk, though, and headed over there when I was in the area a couple of weeks ago.

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The original Dutton’s Books & Prints was opened in 1961 by Bill and Thelma Dutton at 5146 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood. All four of the couple’s children worked onsite, including eldest son Davis who took over operations of the store in the 1970s. He opened a couple of sister shops shortly thereafter. Doug, the youngest Dutton child, decided to establish his own branch of the family business and in 1984 purchased Brentwood Book Shop in the Barry Building, which had been around since the ‘60s. He renamed the site Dutton’s Brentwood Bookstore and ran it independently of Davis’ outposts. Dutton’s Brentwood was an immediate success and Doug eventually expanded, taking over several adjacent storefronts, all of which surrounded a courtyard where patrons were encouraged to lounge over a good tome. In a 2008 Huffington Post article, author Tom Teicholz described the 5,000-square-foot space as such, “The whole place always had a ramshackle feel, with frayed carpets and crowded shelves. Each area is its own empire, and one felt free to wander among them, and trusted to take a book from one area to the other without being accused of running off.” The store even attracted its fare share of celebrities and such stars as Dustin Hoffman, Jamie Lee Curtis, Diane Keaton, Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck, Meg Ryan, John Lithgow, Nora Ephron, Randy Newman, Maria Shriver, and Calista Flockhart could often be seen perusing the crowded aisles.

In 2004, upon learning that the owner of the Barry Building was securing plans to tear down the property to make way for a new shopping center, Doug decided to open a sister store in Beverly Hills. He figured that if the Brentwood site did end up closing, he would still have a place to operate. Sadly though, the Beverly Hills store wound up hurting him financially and he closed it in 2006. Shortly thereafter, Davis shuttered the original Dutton’s in North Hollywood due to declining sales. Dutton’s Brentwood was soon suffering the same fate and that, coupled with the fact that Doug had never recovered fiscally from the Beverly Hills debacle, led to the decision to close the store. On April 30th, 2008, Dutton’s Brentwood made its last sale. In a cruel twist of fate, the Barry Building’s owner eventually withdrew his plans to tear down the property in 2013. Had Doug not opened the Beverly Hills store, it is quite possible that the Brentwood outpost would still be in operation. Today, the space houses Cisco Home, a sustainable furniture company.

In the “Swingers” episode of The Wonder Years, Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) and Paul Pfeiffer (Josh Saviano) headed to Dutton’s to pick up a copy of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex: But Were Afraid to Ask, upon the recommendation of Kevin’s older brother, Wayne Arnold (Jason Hervey). While the Dutton’s name was visible on the shop’s awning in the scene, because the façade of the Brentwood storefront did not match what was shown onscreen, I figured a different Dutton’s had been used in the filming. As you can see below, the shop that appeared in The Wonder Years had an entrance door located on its right hand side. Dutton’s (which you can see photographs of from the time that it was in operation here and here) did not. None of the other Dutton’s locations seemed to match up either, though. It wasn’t until Mallory mentioned that she thought a fake door had been added to the exterior for the shoot that things began to fall into place.

We now believe that a different book store was used for the interior filming and that a fake door was added to the exterior of Dutton’s so that it would match up to what was shown of that interior.

We still cannot figure out where interior filming took place, though. As you can see in the scene capture below (which I flipped), there appear to be the words “Harmon Books” along with some sort of initial (possibly an “A”) painted on the door behind Kevin and Paul. No amount of Google sleuthing has been able to unearth a Harmon Books in the L.A. area, though. Does the store happen to look familiar to any of my fellow stalkers?

Thanks to the Dear Old Hollywood website, I learned that the Dutton’s space was also featured in the 1965 film Sylvia, as the spot where Alan Macklin (George Maharis) first tracked down Sylvia (Carroll Baker). At the time, the shop was still operating as the Brentwood Book Shop.

Dutton’s North Hollywood location was the bookstore where Preston Meyers (Ethan Embry) worked in the original opening of Can’t Hardly Wait, which never made it to the screen. That opening is only visible briefly in the movie’s trailer.

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 fellow stalker Mallory for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Cisco Home, aka the former Dutton’s Brentwood Bookstore from the “Swingers” episode of The Wonder Years, is located at 11975 San Vicente Boulevard in Brentwood.

September 20, 2011September 19, 2011

Bob’s Big Boy Broiler in Downey from “License to Drive”

Hold onto your hats, my fellow stalkers, ‘cause today’s post is going to be a long one! Another Bob’s Big Boy location that the Grim Cheaper and I stalked recently was the legendary Bob’s Big Boy Broiler, aka Johnie’s Broiler, located on Firestone Boulevard in Downey. I had been longing to stalk the historic restaurant ever since 1988 when it stood in for Archie’s Atomic Drive-In in fave movie License to Drive. Sadly though, shortly after I moved to Southern California ten years ago, the eatery shuttered it doors and was then later partially – and illegally – demolished. It was not until this past year that the place re-opened and I was finally, finally able to drag the GC out there to see it in person.

Johnie’s Broiler was first founded in 1958 by former Clock-Broiler-restaurant-chain-partner Harvey Ortner and his wife, Minnie. In 1950, the couple purchased a poultry farm located at the corner of Firestone Boulevard and Old River School Road in Downtown Downey and hired architect Paul B. Clayton to design a Googie-style coffee shop on the 2-acre site. According to Clayton’s 2005 obituary in the Los Angeles Times, the architect later called the restaurant “the most important commercial design of his entire career”. Harvey’s Broiler, as it was then-named, was an immediate success, sometimes attracting over 5,000 patrons in a single weekend. Much as it was depicted in License to Drive, the spot was a popular high school hang-out where teens would come to grab a bite to eat and show off their cars. In 1965, the Ortners retired and sold their restaurant to a man with the last name of Johnson. He changed the eatery’s moniker to Johnie’s Broiler. Shortly thereafter, a former Harvey’s chef named Christos Smyrniotis purchased the property. He still owns the restaurant to this day. And while it continued to be successful, especially as a filming location, for whatever reason Johnie’s closed its doors in February of 2002. It was then transformed into a used car dealership and the interior was heavily remodeled to suit the needs of its new tenant.

When the car dealership’s lease expired a few years later, a new tenant named Aras Yanik moved in. Yanik immediately filed demolition permits with the City of Downey, but those permits were rejected. Local residents and area preservations were horrified at Yanik’s plans to level the historic site and quickly took action, having the property declared eligible for the California Register of Historical Places, which protected it, in theory at least, from any alterations. But despite the historical status and the city’s rejection of the demolition permits, at approximately 3 p.m. on the afternoon of Sunday, January 7th, 2007, Yanik illegally began to demolish the restaurant. Police were called in and Yanik was slapped with three misdemeanor charges and his lease on the property was revoked. Sadly though, the damage was done. The beloved coffee shop had been almost entirely destroyed.

You can watch a video which features numerous photographs of the destruction by clicking above.

In April 2008, Bob’s Big Boy franchise owner Jim Louder signed a lease with Smyrniotis and, along with help from Downey’s Redevelopment Agency and the Downey Historical Society, set about salvaging materials from the wreckage site and rebuilt the eatery in its entirety, using the original Harvey’s blueprints. The restoration project won the Los Angeles Conservancy’s prestigious President’s Award and the new Bob’s Big Boy Broiler opened to much fanfare on October 19, 2009.

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Johnie’s Broiler has been featured in countless productions over the years, many more so than I could ever dream of chronicling here. But I will do my best to try. In License to Drive, Les Anderson (aka Corey Haim) and his buddies, Dean (aka Corey Feldman) and Charles (aka Michael Manasseri), get into a scuffle with some punks while dining at the fictional high school hangout “Archie’s Atomic Drive-In”.

In 1988’s My Stepmother Is an Alien, Johnie’s is where Celeste Martin (aka Kim Basinger) goes to find breakfast recipes.

In 1989’s She’s Out of Control, Doug Simpson (aka Tony Danza) takes his daughter Katie (aka Ami Dolenz) and her boyfriend Joey (aka Dana Ashbrook) to Johnie’s for a bite to eat.

In 1989’s Earth Girls Are Easy, Valerie (aka Geena Davis), Candy (aka Julie Brown) and their new alien friends, Mac (aka Jeff Goldblum), Wiploc (aka Jim Carrey), and Zeebo (aka Damon Wayans), drive by Johnie’s Broiler in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene.

In 1993’s What’s Love Got to Do with It, Johnie’s is where Ike Turner (aka Laurence Fishburne) and Tina Turner (aka Angela Bassett) get into a fist-fight.

In 1993’s Short Cuts, Johnie’s is the restaurant where Doreen Piggot (aka Lily Tomlin) works.

Johnie’s shows up twice in the 1994 comedy Reality Bites. It first appears as the spot where Lelaina Pierce (aka Winona Ryder) runs into Troy Dyer (aka Ethan Hawke) after her disastrous job interview during which she is unable to define the word “irony”.

It later pops up in my very favorite scene in the entire movie as the restaurant where Lelaina and Vickie Miner (aka Janeane Garogalo) discuss the television series Melrose Place.

In 1995’s Heat, Johnie’s Broiler is where Neil McCauley (aka Robert De Niro) tries to kill one of his crew members, Waingro (aka Kevin Gage).

In 1997’s The Game, a destitute Nicholas Van Orton (aka Michael Douglas) stumbles into Johnie’s to ask patrons for a ride to San Francisco.

In 1998’s Can’t Hardly Wait, Johnie’s is where Preston Meyers (aka Ethan Embry) meets The Angel (aka Jenna Elfman) while trying to call Barry Manilow on a payphone.

In the Season 7 episode of The X-Files titled “Orison”, which aired in 1999, Johnie’s stood in for a supposed-bus stop/coffee shop in Harrisburg, Illinois where Fox Mulder (aka David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (aka Gillian Anderson) search for a murder suspect.

In the 1999 movie Jawbreaker, Johnie’s is where Courtney (aka Rose McGowan), Julie (aka Rebecca Gayheart), and Marcie (aka a pre-Dexter Julie Benz) discover that they have accidentally killed their friend.

In my favorite scene from 2000’s Bounce, the diner was where Abby Janello (aka Gwyneth Paltrow) removed toilet paper off of the shoe of an unknowing woman.

Supposedly the restaurant also appeared in Mission: Impossible II, but I scanned through the movie earlier today and did not see it anywhere. It did however appear in Limp Bizkit’s 2000 video for the song “Take A Look Around”, which was featured on the Mission: Impossible II soundtrack.

You can watch that video by clicking above.

Johnie’s was also used in the 2000 music video for the Bob Dylan song “Things Have Changed”.

You can watch that video by clicking above.

Johnie’s was also used extensively in the music video for the 2001 Staind song “For You”.

You can watch that video by clicking above.

It also popped up in the 2001 Kurupt “It’s Over” music video.

A cartoon rendering of the restaurant was even made for that video . . .

. . . which you can watch by clicking above.

The diner was featured in the 2001 music video for Madonna’s “What It Feels Like For a Girl”.

Which you can watch by clicking above.

It was also used in Knoc-turn’al’s “The Knoc” music video in 2002.

You can watch that video by clicking above.

In the ultra-creepy 2002 movie One Hour Photo, Johnie’s is the coffee shop where Seymour Parrish (aka Robin Williams) ate a late-night dinner after getting off work at the local photo lab.

Most recently, Bob’s Big Boy Broiler appeared in the Season 4 episode of Mad Men titled “Tomorrowland”, in the scene in which Sally Draper (aka Kiernan Shipka) spills a milkshake and her father, Don Draper (aka Jon Hamm), is shocked to discover that his girlfriend, Megan Calvet (aka Jessica Pare), is not upset by it.

That scene was shot in a booth located in Johnie’s side room, which was the same room that appeared in the Melrose Place scene in Reality Bites.

There is quite a bit of erroneous information out there about Johnie’s Broiler’s filming history. For instance, the 2003 flick Matchstick Men was not filmed at Johnie’s, but at KJ’s Diner & Restaurant near LAX; 1998’s American History X was not filmed at Johnie’s in Downey, but at the Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile District of L.A.; 1980’s Midnight Madness was also shot at Johnie’s Wilshire, not at the Broiler; as was the Sean Kingston video for the song “Beautiful Girls”.

Until next time, Happy Stalking and Happy Voting – don’t forget to vote for me to be the face of About Me! Today is the VERY LAST day to vote, so please get those votes in! Smile

Stalk It: Bob’s Big Boy Broiler, aka Johnie’s Broiler, aka Archie’s Atomic Drive-In from License to Drive, is located at 7447 Firestone Boulevard in Downey. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

December 23, 2009December 23, 2009

Christmas Tree Lane

Last December, I blogged about a house in Altadena known as the Balian Mansion, or, as I like to call it, the real Clark W. Griswold house (pictured above). And even though the mansion has appeared only briefly onscreen – in the movie Obsessed and in an early episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 – the house is somewhat of an institution in these parts due mainly to something that happens there each December. During the Christmas season, the Balian Family decorates their mansion with THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of twinkle lights. People literally drive from miles around to see the spectacle and, last year, the place was even written up as one of AOL’s Top Twelve Festive Holiday Homes. Anyway, in last December’s post on the Balian Mansion, I happened to mention another display of Christmas lights in the Altadena area – a one mile stretch of road named Christmas Tree Lane, which, while not a filming location, is definitely a holiday must-see. Well, one very astute reader named Allyn contacted me shortly after that post was published to let me know that Christmas Tree Lane actually is a filming location, appearing in, among other things, the 1998 teen comedy Can’t Hardly Wait. Allyn told me that the Lane popped in a scene in which the two nerd characters are shown walking along a cedar tree lined street. Ironically enough, though, even though Allyn had described the exact location AND the movie in which it was featured, this proved to be a rather difficult stalk for me. It all started yesterday morning when I popped in my Can’t Hardly Wait DVD and scanned through it TWICE, both times coming up completely empty-handed. I couldn’t seem to find a scene featuring Christmas Tree Lane ANYWHERE! It then occured to me that Allyn had perhaps mistakenly told me the wrong movie. So, I promptly started scanning through a few other teen comedies that I thought Allyn might have confused with Can’t Hardly Wait. After skipping through Not Another Teen Movie, She’s All That, and the first two American Pie flicks with absolutely no luck, I became completely perplexed. And then, like a beacon, it hit me! I needed to consult with fellow stalker Owen. Because Owen has long had a penchant for actress Jennifer Love Hewitt (JLove, are you listening??), I figured he would know the movie Can’t Hardly Wait like the back of his hand. And, sure enough, he did!

While my first instinct was that the Christmas Tree Lane segment might only have appeared in a deleted scene or an extended version of Can’t Hardly Wait, fellow stalker Owen clued me in to the fact that it actually pops up about 15 seconds after the credits start rolling at the very end of the movie. Which explains why I missed it even though I scanned through the movie TWICE! LOL In the scene, the two X-Philes, so named because they are huge X-Files fans :), are shown walking along a tree lined street in the early morning. And just as one X-Phile says to the other, “This town is so lame. Nothing exciting ever happens here.”, a UFO appears and beams the two right up. THANK YOU, OWEN! 🙂

Christmas Tree Lane is, in actuality, a mile long stretch of Santa Rosa Avenue, in between Woodbury Road and Altadena Drive, in Altadena. The road is lined with over 150 towering deodar trees which were planted by Altadena’s founder, John P. Woodbury, in 1885. Woodbury had originally seen the large-scale deodar trees during a trip to Italy and returned home to Altadena with several hundred of their seeds, which he immediately planted. After being cultivated at a ranch for two years, the trees were then deposited all along the mile long driveway leading up to Woodbury’s yet-to-built Altadena mansion. And while the mansion was never actually completed, that mile long stretch of driveway eventually became Santa Rosa Avenue, a main thoroughfare in Altadena. In 1920, a rather festive Altadena gentleman named Frederick C. Nash, along with The Pasadena Kiwanis Club, decided to light one small section of Santa Rosa Avenue during the holiday season. Over the years, more and more trees were added to the spectacle, finally resulting in a one mile stretch of land encompassing 150 trees, which are lit with over 10,000 twinkle lights. The street was eventually dubbed Christmas Tree Lane and was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on September 13, 1990. According to the official Christmas Tree Lane website, the display is “the oldest large-scale Christmas lighting spectacle in the United States” and each December more than 50,000 motorists venture out to Altadena to view it. The lights on the trees are hung each year by a group of hard-working, dogged volunteers and members of the Board of the Christmas Tree Lane Association. Up until the year 2000, the electricity costs were paid for by Southern California Edison, but after the deregulation of California utilities, the financial obligation of keeping the trees lit fell to the Christmas Tree Lane Association. The tree lighting tradition has only been able to continue thanks to the many generous donations received each year. If you would like to donate your time or money to the Christmas Tree Lane Association, you may do so here. I honestly can’t recommend stalking Christmas Tree Lane enough! It is an absolutely magical display of Christmas lights, the likes of which I have never seen duplicated. On a side note – the fact is not lost on me that I am wearing a tank top in one of the above photographs, despite the fact that it was taken after dark in late December. LOL That’s Los Angeles for you, though! And while I am usually a big fan of L.A.’s warm climate, during Christmastime I actually prefer there to be a chill in the air. As Kevin McAllister said in Home Alone 2, “Who wants to spend Christmas in a tropical climate, anyway?” 😉 Come December 26th, though, I am all about the heat! 🙂

I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t take the time here to mention two other Pasadena area homes which, while not filming locations, are definitely holiday must-sees. The two houses are actually located on neighboring streets and, let me tell you, both are a site to behold! The first one is pictured above.

Not only do both houses feature a myriad of multi-colored twinkle lights, but they also boast musical animatronic displays starring such characters as Mickey Mouse, Snoopy, and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, among countless others! Not kidding! I can’t even tell you how much fun it is to visit these two homes each year and to see what new Christmas decorations have been added to the already over-the-top spectacles. LOVE IT!

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Big THANK YOU to Allyn and Owen for helping me out with this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Christmas Tree Lane is a mile long section of Santa Rosa Avenue located between Woodbury Road and Altadena Drive in Altadena. This year, the lights will be turned on nightly from dusk until midnight through January 6th. If you would like to donate time or money to the Christmas Tree Lane Association, you can do so here. At the end of Can’t Hardly Wait, the two X-Philes are shown walking north on Santa Rosa Avenue, directly in front of the house numbered 2287. The Balian Mansion is located at 1960 Mendocino Lane in Altadena, just a short distance from Christmas Tree Lane. The other two must-see houses in the area are located at 1776 Las Lunas Street and 1775 Monte Vista Street in Pasadena, just north of the 210 Freeway.

November 24, 2008February 17, 2009

The Rubio House

One of my new favorite shows of the television season is the CBS series The Mentalist. Simon Baker’s acting on the show is truly incredible and I absolutely love watching his character! Anyway, while watching last week’s episode, I recognized not one, but two filming locations! The first location I recognized is a home that is used fairly often in movie and television productions and is known to us stalkers as “the Rubio house”. While watching the episode on Tuesday night, I turned to my boyfriend and screamed “Oh my god, that’s the Rubio house!” to which he replied “What’s the Rubio house?” and I realized I had yet to blog about it. So here goes. 🙂

The Rubio house is a large colonial style home located on Rubio Street in Altadena, just a few miles north of Pasadena. On Tuesday night’s Mentalist episode, which was entitled “Seeing Red”, the home belonged to millionaire murder victim Rosemary Tennant. The interior and exterior of the home, especially the front porch area, were featured several times in the episode. According to the Movieland Directory, the Rubio house has also been featured in the pilot episode of 7th Heaven (as the Camden family home), How Stella Got Her Groove Back, The Babysitter’s Club, Can’t Hardly Wait (as the party location), Bye Bye Love, V: The Final Battle, and The Great Mom Swap. According to Seeing Stars the first two American Pie movies also used the interior of the Rubio house – Stiffler’s parties at the beginning of both flicks were filmed there. There are some conflicting reports and ongoing debates among stalkers that the home was also used as Tom Cruise’s house in the movie Risky Business. But according to one of my fave tour books, it has been confirmed through several location scouts who worked on the 1983 movie that the entirety of Risky Business was shot on location in Chicago, Illinois and that the Rubio house was not, in fact, used. I am sure it is something stalkers will continue to debate about for years to come, though. 🙂

Note – Just got a comment from Timothy over at Altadenablog that the Rubio house was also used as Lindsay Lohan’s residence in the movie I Know Who Killed Me. Thanks for the info and the shout out Altadenablog!

The Rubio house is HUGE in person – much, much larger than it appears onscreen. It is easy to see why producers choose to use this home again and again in productions, as it looks like a very typical American home that could be found anywhere in the Midwest.

The next location I recognized from The Mentalist was the swamp area from the Warner Brothers Lot, which Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I had just visited a few weeks beforehand. In The Mentalist, the car that killed murder victim Rosemary Tennant is found in the WB swamp and a short scene takes place there as Simon Baker and his crew watch as the car is being removed from the water. As I mentioned in last week’s post about our WB tour, the swamp has been used in numerous productions over the years including ER, Million Dollar Baby, and Gilligan’s Island.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Mentalist house is located at 1090 Rubio Street in Altadena. The swamp is located on the Warner Brothers backlot and can only viewed while on a WB tour. 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 cost $45 per person. You can learn more about the tour here .