Head over to Dirt to read my latest post about the house from Twisted Sister’s iconic We’re Not Gonna Take It music video.
Venice High from ” . . . Baby One More Time”
Head over to Dirt to read my new post about Venice High School from Britney Spears’ . . . Baby One More Time video.
The Southern Hotel from Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” Music Video
The Grim Cheaper often accuses me of beating a dead horse. While I typically don’t agree with him, today’s post is pretty concrete evidence that he’s right, because here I am yet again with yet another article about the diner from Michael Jackson’s 1983 “Beat It” music video. Today actually marks the fourth time I’ve written about this particular locale, making it the most covered spot ever featured on IAMNOTASTALKER. (To be fair, I’ve also written about the Walsh house from Beverly Hills, 90210 – my very favorite filming site – on four occasions, though one of the posts was a mash-up of several places from the Fox series.) This location has also been the most puzzling I’ve ever covered. I am happy to report, though, that the mystery surrounding it has finally, finally been put to rest thanks to a reader named Dave, who sent me an email in early July that just about made me fall off my chair.
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For those who haven’t been following along since the beginning, my coverage of the “Beat It” café started back in March 2010 when I wrote about the Monte Carlo Restaurant located at 109 East Fifth Street in downtown Los Angeles. I first came across the eatery via Google Street View while on a cyber-stalking mission to track down the locale and was struck by its resemblance to what had appeared onscreen. With its half-green/half-cream walls and curved counter, the Monte Carlo, which is still in operation today, looks like it was ripped straight out of the video. It is also located smack dab in the middle of Skid Row, where I knew “Beat It” had been lensed.
Despite those seeming connections, though, upon visiting the restaurant in person, I started to have doubts that it was the spot where MJ filmed. Not only is the Monte Carlo interior much smaller than that of the “Beat It” café, but an address number of 416 could also be seen in the video (it’s denoted with a pink circle below), which does not gibe with the Monte Carlo’s 109 address.
A sign reading “Special Café” was also visible in “Beat It,” as you can see via the pink arrows in both the screen capture and the photograph below, which was taken from Todd Gray’s book Michael Jackson: Before He Was King. (Please disregard the additional markings on the photo. They were added in reference to a since-solved mystery that my fellow stalkers were discussing in the comments section of my first Monte Carlo post). While it was entirely possibly the eatery’s name had been changed from “Special Café” to “Monte Carlo Restaurant” since filming took place, the discrepancy still gave me pause. So I opened the quest up to my fellow stalkers, asking for their opinions on the matter. Many chimed in, sharing their thoughts, but those thoughts didn’t lead to any sort of definitive conclusion. I re-stalked and re-blogged about the Monte Carlo later that same month in the hopes of clarifying things, but unfortunately, my second visit and post only provided more doubt and confusion – and more conversation amongst readers. Still though, no one was able to say with any sort of certainty whether or not we had found the right spot.
Cut to March 2013. An MJ fan named Justin, who had been following the hunt since the beginning, posted a comment on my original Monte Carlo post in which he shared a link to the 1955 photograph below. He came across the image via the USC Digital Library archives while searching for historic pictures of Skid Row and East Fifth Street and was floored to happen upon one of a restaurant with signage reading “Special Café,” located next door to a property with a 414 address number – all of which lined up with what was seen in “Beat It.” The windows and doorway of the eatery in the photograph were also a match to what appeared in the video.
Shortly thereafter, I learned how to search through old digitized Los Angeles phone records and found a listing for the Special Café at 416 East Fifth Street, which seemed to cement everything. Justin had solved the mystery! (Or so we thought – but more on that in a bit.)
As Justin informed me (incorrectly, as it turns out, but, again, more on that later), the café had been razed shortly after filming took place, much to my chagrin, and, after being utilized as a parking lot for close to three decades, a building was finally constructed on the site in 2013. I immediately ran out to stalk the locale and did a write-up on it, but, unfortunately, that post led to even more confusion thanks to the Historic Aerials website.
When I pulled up 1972 and 1980 views of the Special Café site while researching for the post, Historic Aerials showed that no building was located there during those years. Since I knew that the eatery was around from at least 1955 (the year the photograph Justin found was taken) to 1983 (the year “Beat It” was filmed), the building’s absence on Historic Aerials was absolutely mind-boggling! As my friend/fellow stalker David from Spain stated in the comments section of that post, “Oh my god, that’s a case for Mulder and Scully.”
Thankfully, Dave, an eagle-eyed fellow stalker from across the pond, figured things out. In his July email, he said, “Check out the attached image of the Southern Hotel, captured from the 1982 Charles Bronson movie Death Wish II. Compare it with your recent-ish photo of the site, paying particular attention to the red panels on the right hand side, i.e. the lower left of the Southern building. Everything should be clear! Do you see it?” Yes, I did see it – and just about fell out of my chair upon doing so!
As Dave’s email went on to explain, “The Special Café was never demolished as such – it’s still standing, and forms part of the main Southern building (which it always did). The storefront windows have been replaced with the red paneling and the door (or at least, a door) is still there, although it’s walled off with railings now.”
To say that I was in utter shock over Dave’s revelation would be an understatement. The Special Café site still stands? Say whaaa?
He broke things down further, pointing out, “As per the Death Wish II screencap: the doorway/entrance to the Southern Hotel was originally on the right-hand side of the building and classed as No. 412, the Café – on the left hand side of the building – was No. 416, the storefront in the middle – aka the ‘Church on Wheels Heartreach Mission’ – which has now been remodeled into the main entrance to the Southern, would have originally been No. 414.”
In researching the Southern Hotel, I learned that it had been completely gutted in 2000 – taken down to the studs, “its bones on display like a clanky skeleton,” according to a Los Angeles Times article – before being transformed into a 55-room apartment complex for homeless veterans. Despite that remodel, though, the building, which was originally constructed in 1920, is surprisingly still recognizable from Death Wish II.
In the movie, architect Paul Kersey (Bronson) books a room at the Southern while on the hunt for the five men who killed his daughter and housekeeper.
As Dave informed me, Death Wish II isn’t the first Charles Bronson movie to feature the hotel. Ten years earlier, the actor, playing the role of Arthur Bishop, walked on Fifth Street just west of the Southern in the 1972 thriller The Mechanic.
Dave also filled me in on, sent me links to, and provided screen captures of a myriad of the hotel’s other onscreen appearances and pop culture connections. As he informed me, photographer Sam Cherry snapped a picture of famed author Charles Bukowski on Skid Row standing across the street from the Southern in 1970. You can see the hotel, as well as the Special Café, on the right-hand side of the image below.
Chester (Harvey Gold) and Cooper (Jason Miller) walk by the Southern at the beginning of the 1974 drama The Nickel Ride. The Special Café exterior can even be seen in the second screen capture below.
In the Season 3 episode of Starsky & Hutch titled “The Heroes,” which aired in 1977, Det. Ken ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson (David Soul) and Det. Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) drive by the Special Café.
The eatery and hotel were also briefly seen in the Season 4 episode of Starsky & Hutch titled “Starsky vs. Hutch,” which aired in 1979.
When Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) and Adrian (Talia Shire) arrive at the Hotel Lorane (which, as Dave pointed out, is still intact!) in 1982’s Rocky III, the Southern is visible in the background.
The hotel is seen, briefly once again, in the opening montage of the Season 1 episode of Miami Vice titled “Glades,” which aired in 1984.
And in 1984’s Repo Man, the Southern and the Special Café are just barely visible from the window of Otto’s (Emilio Estevez) car during a driving scene.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Big, huge THANK YOU to fellow stalker Dave for finally putting an end to the “Beat It” café mystery, for doing all of the research for this post, and for providing the many screen captures! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Southern Hotel is located at 412 East Fifth Street in downtown Los Angeles. Special Café, aka the diner from Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” music video, was formerly situated in the eastern portion of the building’s ground floor, but is no longer there. This locale is not in the best of areas, so if you visit, please exercise caution.
Red Studios Hollywood – aka Kinograph Studios from “The Artist”
In early March, my friend Tony, the fellow stalker who has the amazeballs On Location in Los Angeles Flickr photostream, wrote a comment on my post about the duplex where George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) lived in The Artist alerting me to a blog named Silent Locations. The blog, which is authored by business lawyer/film historian John Bengtson, features a six-part column chronicling several locales that appeared in The Artist and their connection with various silent films made during Hollywood’s heyday. I highly recommend checking out the feature and the site in general. It is fabulous! Anyway, one of the places mentioned in the column was Red Studios Hollywood, the exterior of which stood in for both the exterior of Kinograph Studios in The Artist and Maroon Cartoons in 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place on a very windy Sunday afternoon two weekends ago.
The site where Red Studios Hollywood now stands was originally founded as Metro Pictures Back Lot #3 in 1915, long before the company joined forces with Goldwyn Pictures and became Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. During its Metro heyday, such films as Scaramouche, Little Robinson Crusoe and The Champ were filmed on the premises. Beginning in May 1946, the lot went through a series of different owners, the most prominent of whom were Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. The showbiz powerhouse couple leased the property in 1953 and turned it into the very first Desilu Studios, where they shot seasons 3 through 6 of I Love Lucy. In 1974, the lot became known as Ren-Mar Studios, an independently owned and operated facility where various production companies were able to rent out studio space. Legendary television producer David E. Kelley made his home there in the 80s and shot Picket Fences (one of my faves!), Chicago Hope, The Practice and the first two seasons of Ally McBeal. In January 2010, the lot was sold yet again, this time to Red Digital Camera Company, who renamed the place Red Studios Hollywood.
A few of the countless other productions that have been filmed on the premises over the years include The Golden Girls, The Dick Van Dyke Show, the first four episodes of Seinfeld, The Andy Griffith Show, Make Room for Daddy, Lizzie McGuire, NewsRadio, Empty Nest, Monk, and, most recently, True Blood. The series Weeds was also filmed on the lot, back when it was Ren-Mar, and during Season 4, after Agrestic burned down, producers had Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) move to a fictional seaside town named “Ren Mar” in honor of the historic studio. Love it!
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In The Artist, the back entrance of Red was used as the main entrance of Kinograph Studios, where George Valentin worked at the beginning of the flick.
As you can see above, that area was changed drastically for the movie – so much so that it is virtually unrecognizable today. A huge false front was built over the actual studio entrance for the filming and the Hollywood Rounder blog was lucky enough to get to watch it being constructed. You can check out some very cool pics of the construction here and here, the fake security guard kiosk here, and the finished product here.
Interestingly enough, when Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) is shown being dropped off at a location that is supposedly directly across the street from the Kinograph entrance, she is actually on New York Street at Paramount Studios, in front of the building that is used regularly as the Boston police station on Rizzoli & Isles.
At one point in The Artist, George is also shown walking in between some of the Red Studios Hollywood soundstages.
The area where he walked is denoted with a pink circle above.
In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Red’s main entrance on Cahuenga Boulevard stood in for the entrance to Maroon Cartoons, where the famous animated hare worked.
The courtyard just beyond that entrance was also used in the filming.
That area is denoted with a pink circle above.
On a Who Framed Roger Rabbit side-note – while doing research prior to writing this post, I came across a blurb in The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations book which, in reference to the flick’s title, stated, “No, there is no question mark, as it’s considered bad luck in a film title.” I had never before heard that bit of trivia and found it interesting, especially since my good friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong grammatical errors blog, had recently written a post which mentioned WFRR’s punctuation error. Superstition or not, I think the flick really needed the mark in its title and I found myself inadvertently adding one each time I typed “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” in this post. I guess some habits are hard to break.
The music video for Britney Spears’ hit 2000 song “Lucky” was also shot at Ren-Mar and the exterior of the studio is visible in the MTV Making the Video special about the production.
You can watch Part I of the Making the Video of “Lucky” by clicking above.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker John Bengtson, from the Silent Locations blog, for finding this location and to fellow stalker Tony, from the fantastic On Location in Los Angeles Flickr photostream, for pointing me to John’s site!
Stalk It: Red Studios Hollywood, aka Kinograph Studios from The Artist, is located at 846 North Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood. You can visit the official Red Studios Hollywood website here. The area of the studio used in The Artist can be found on Lillian Way, in between Willoughby and Waring Avenues. The studio’s main entrance on Cahuenga Boulevard is the entrance that stood in for Maroon Cartoons in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Red Studios Hollywood is not open to the public and does not currently offer a tour.
Farralone – Frank Sinatra’s Former House
While doing research on the Chaplin Court apartment complex, which I blogged about last Thursday, I came across some information about an oft-filmed-at Chatsworth-area estate formerly owned by Old Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra, that, for some inexplicable reason, I had somehow not previously known about. The mansion, which in most circles is known simply as Farralone, is a marvel of modern design that just came on the public market for the very first time in history a couple of weeks ago. And, let me tell you, I took one look at the photographs featured on the real estate listing and became just a wee-bit obsessed with stalking the place. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there last weekend to do just that.
Farralone, or the “Great Glass Mansion” or the “Sinatra Compound” as it is also sometimes called, was commissioned by Chase-Manhattan-Bank-heiress Dora Hutchison in 1951 and was designed by Pereira & Luckman, the architecture firm who also gave us the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, the Theme Building (aka The Encounter Restaurant & Bar) at the Los Angeles International Airport, and, my personal favorite, the Disneyland Hotel. Dora built the house to be used as a party pad and regularly hosted rousing soirees where she counted Ava Gardner, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, and Vincent Minnelli as guests. When Dora moved back to her native New York, she leased the property to none other than Frank Sinatra, who remained there for almost ten years. Sadly though, as you can see above, not much of the property is visible from the street.
But that’s why God created real estate listings! The estate, which was just put on the market earlier this month for a cool $12 million, boasts sweeping views, parking for over 200 cars, 10,000 square feet of living space, 4 bedrooms, 6 baths, 3 private offices, a conference room, a detached gym, a 50-foot swimming pool, 14 acres of land, a vineyard, a production studio, 16-foot ceilings, glass walls, and a 1,000-square-foot, 1-bedroom, 2-bath guest house (with its own separate pool) where my girl Miss Marilyn Monroe supposedly lived in for a time.
Farralone has seen so much filming over the years that, according to a December 2nd, 2011 Forbes article, it not only nets up to $2 million a year in location fees, but also “comes with a property manager who acts as a liaison with the studios, paid for by the studios.” The article further states that the “main house also boasts a lower level production studio equipped with conference room, edit bays, private office and a separate entrance, all paid for and maintained by the studios.” Ironically enough, when we showed up to stalk the property some filming was actually taking place. The super-nice security guard on duty informed us the the shoot was for a reality dating show of some sort, but she was unsure of the name.
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In the Season 4 episode of Californication titled “Lawyers, Guns, and Money”, Farralone showed up as the residence belonging to Stu Beggs (aka Stephen Tobolowsky), where Marcy Ellen Runkle (aka Pamela Adlon) made a house call to give Stu a “full Kardashian” body wax.
In the 2001 thriller Swordfish, Farralone was the house where Gabriel Shear (aka John Travolta) lived and where Halle Berry famously shed her top for the very first time onscreen – an act for which she was supposedly paid a whopping $500,000. Thanks to some crafty CGI, the Sinatra compound was made to appear as if it was located in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles for the film, instead of Chatsworth.
Farralone was also the home where Jack Wyatt (aka Will Ferrell) lived and threw his post-divorce party in the 2005 romantic comedy Bewitched.
In 2006’s Dreamgirls, Farralone stood in for the residence belonging to pop star Deena Jones (aka Beyonce Knowles) and her music-producer husband, Curtis Taylor Jr. (aka Jamie Foxx).
In the Season 2 episode of Mad Men titled “The Jet Set”, Farralone was used as the supposed-Palm-Springs-area home where Joy (aka Laura Ramsey) took Don Draper (aka Jon Hamm) while he was visiting California.
In the 2002 flick The Salton Sea, Farralone was the home where Nancy Plummer (aka Shirley Knight) and Verne Plummer (aka R. Lee Ermey) lived.
In 2001’s Tomcats, the Sinatra Compound was where Kyle Brenner (aka Jake Busey) lived.
The real estate listing mentioned that Farralone had been featured in an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and I really have to pat myself on the back for this one because as soon as I read those words I knew immediately that the episode in question was Season 9’s “Kill Me If You Can”. I was not even watching CSI regularly back in 2008 when the “Kill Me If You Can” episode aired, but I had caught it on TV at some point and when I saw CSI mentioned in the listing, my mind immediately flashed to an image of Lawrence Fishburne standing by the Farralone pool while investigating the death of an art dealer. Why these random, useless bits of location information remain stored in my head is beyond me, but they do. 
Thanks to commenter Becky on the Design Public blog, I learned that in the Season 1 episode of Six Feet Under titled “An Open Book”, Farralone stood in for the home belonging to the parents of Brenda Chenowith (aka Rachel Griffiths).
And thanks to the HGTV website, I learned that Farralone was where the Design Star contestants lived during Season 4 of the reality series.
Location manager Scott Trimble also let me know that Farralone was where Optimus Prime came out of the swimming pool in the first Transformers movie.
Fellow stalker Jason informed me that the estate also showed up as the party location at the very beginning of 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
Farralone also popped up in the 2004 music video for Usher’s hit song “Burn”.
Usher–Burn–filmed at Farralone in Chatsworth
You can watch the “Burn” video by clicking above.
Several articles have also claimed that the home appeared in the 2001 biopic Ali, but I scanned through that movie yesterday and did not seen anything resembling it pop up onscreen, so I am fairly certain that information is incorrect. I am thinking that the house might have instead been featured in the similarly-named television movie Ali: An American Hero, but because I have never seen it and was unable to find it anywhere online, I cannot verify that hunch. One rumor that I can put to rest is that the Farralone pool was not actually the site of Marilyn Monroe’s second-to-last photo shoot, as the real estate listing and several articles about the property have claimed. Truth be told, that photo shoot was not really a photo shoot at all, but simply consisted of photographer Lawrence Schiller snapping some stills of the starlet while she filmed scenes for her very last movie, Something’s Gotta Give. The shoot, which took place a few days before Marilyn’s death and featured her skinny-dipping while talking to co-star Dean Martin, was not actually shot on location, but on a set that was built inside of Stage 14 on the Fox Studios lot in Century City.
As you can see above, the pool from Something’s Gotta Give does not match the real estate listing photographs of the Farralone pool.
You can watch a YouTube video of the Something’s Gotta Give pool scene being shot, during which it is stated that filming took place on Stage 14 of the Fox lot, by clicking above.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Farralone, the former Frank Sinatra estate, is located at 9361 Farralone Avenue in Chatsworth. You can visit the home’s official real estate listing here and you can check out some fabulous interior pics of the property here.
Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant on Wilshire
Because I encountered so much filming location misinformation while researching my post on Bob’s Big Boy Broiler in Downey last week, I decided that I just had to write a blog about the place’s sister eatery, the now-defunct Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile District of Los Angeles, which has also appeared in countless productions over the years. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place this past Saturday afternoon.
Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant, which was originally named Romeo’s Time Square, was built in 1955 by Louis Armet and Eldon Davis, the Googie-style architecture firm that was once deemed the “Frank Lloyd Wright of ‘50s coffee shops” by author Merrill Shindler in a 2009 Daily Breeze article that is sadly no longer available online. The Armet and Davis duo was also responsible for creating the Norm’s Restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard, the iconic Schwab’s Pharmacy on Sunset Boulevard, the now-demolished Holiday Bowl bowling alley on Crenshaw Boulevard, and Twain’s Restaurant in Studio City, which was featured in fave movie A Lot Like Love. The sleek, bright, space-age construction of Romeo’s was designed to catch the attention of passing motorists and lure them – and their wallets – in for a bite to eat.
Romeo’s Time Square went through several changes in ownership and name in the ensuing years, becoming “Ram’s Restaurant” in the 1960s and then, finally, Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant shortly thereafter. In 1994, the property was purchased by the Gold family, owners of the 99 Cents Only Store chain, who sadly shuttered the eatery in 2000. The building has thankfully remained intact, though, and its parking lot is now being used by a 99 Cents Only Store located nearby. As you can see above, the store even made use of one of the original Johnie’s signs, which I think is so incredibly cool.
In 2003, the Gold family made a few restorations to the shuttered restaurant, including repainting the exterior, fixing the cantilevered roof, and repairing the many burnt-out lights on the exterior neon signage. According to this July 15th, 2004 article which appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Eric Schiffer, president of the 99 Cents Only Stores, would like to see the place re-open as a restaurant someday. He said, “This needs to be done in a special way. We’re open to hearing creative uses. We just don’t have time to go out and market the building.” Here’s hoping that a savior steps in soon, much like Bob’s Big Boy did with Johnie’s Broiler in Downey, and restores the historic eatery to its former 1950’s glory. Surprisingly, despite being closed for more than a decade, the restaurant appears to be in pretty good shape. I was able to snap the above photographs of Johnie’s interior through the many windows, on which the shades were, thankfully, not drawn.
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Thanks to its futuristic and streamlined design, Johnie’s has long been a location scout favorite. In a very prominent scene from 1988’s Miracle Mile, the eatery was where Harry Washello (aka Anthony Edwards) learned that the world was about to end.
In 1992’s Reservoir Dogs, Johnie’s was where Mr. Orange (aka Tim Roth) met up with his superior.
In the 1997 disaster flick Volcano, Johnie’s pops up very briefly in the scene in which the firefighters of Los Angeles stand off against the lava from a nearby volcano.
In 1998’s Very Bad Things, Johnie’s was where Michael Berkow (aka Jeremy Piven) announced to a roomful of confused diners that he had just killed his brother.
In 1998’s The Big Lebowski, Johnie’s was where The Dude (aka Jeff Bridges) and Walter Sobchak (aka John Goodman) discussed severed toes, victimless crime, and First Amendment rights.
Johnie’s popped up in 1998’s City of Angels as the spot where Nathaniel Messinger (aka Dennis Franz) told Seth (aka Nicolas Cage) how to become a human.
The diner was featured at the end of 1998’s American History X as the place where Derek Vinyard (aka Edward Norton) and his younger brother Danny Vinyard (aka Edward Furlong) stop to grab a bite to eat before heading over to Venice High School.
Johnie’s also appeared in the 1999 music video for the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ song “Swingin’”, which starred The Mentalist’s Robin Tunney and which you can watch by clicking here.
And the restaurant showed up in 2004 in Reba McEntire’s music video for her song “Somebody”.
Reba McEntire – Somebody Video Filmed at Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant
You can watch that video by clicking above.
The diner was featured prominently in the 2007 music video for Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girls”, which is SUCH a great song, by the way! I literally cannot stop listening to it!
Sean Kingston–Beautiful Girls Video filmed at Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant
You can watch that video by clicking above. But be forewarned – it is HIGHLY addictive!
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant is located at 6101 Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile District of Los Angeles.
The Cabazon Dinosaurs from “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure”
On our way out to visit my parents in Palm Springs two weekends ago, the Grim Cheaper and I made a little stalking stop at the Cabazon Dinosaurs – the two legendary roadside sculptures located just outside of Palm Springs which were featured in the 1985 movie Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, among countless other productions. And even though I had passed by the humongous prehistoric creatures countless times on my way too and from the Coachella Valley, for whatever reason, I had never thought to stalk them until just recently.
The infamous Cabazon Dinosaurs were originally designed by a Knott’s Berry Farm portrait artist/sculptor named Claude Bell who was looking for a way to attract diners to the Wheel Inn, his roadside restaurant which opened in 1958. He had visited Lucy the Elephant while growing up in Atlantic City and the image of the six-story tin elephant had stuck with him.
So in 1964, Claude set about building a 150-ton, 45-foot tall, 150-foot long Apatosaurus, whom he later dubbed “Dinny” (pronounced Dine-ee), directly behind his eatery. He first built a steel framework of the creature, then covered it over with a metal grid in the shape of a dinosaur, and then finally coated it all with spray concrete. Much of the materials used were procured from scraps left over from construction of the nearby Interstate 10 freeway. Legend has it that a friend of Bell’s painted the entire exterior of Dinny in exchange for $1 and a case of Dr. Pepper. And while I, too, love me some Dr. Pepper, I seriously doubt I would paint a 150-foot long dinosaur in exchange for a case of it. 
It took eleven years and over $250,000 to complete Dinny and, of his creation which housed a small gift shop, Bell said that it was “the first dinosaur in history, so far as I know, to be used as building”.
In 1981, Bell decided to give Dinny a friend and began construction on a 100-ton, 65-foot tall Tyrannosaurus Rex, whom he named “Rex”. His original plans called for a large slide to be installed on Rex’s back, but that idea never came to fruition. Steps were built leading up into the inside of the Tyrannosaurus’ mouth, though, enabling visitors to climb to the top of the creature. Bell had plans to add more reptiles to his roadside creation, but sadly passed away in 1988 before he could do so. In the mid 1990s, his heirs sold the dinosaurs for $1.2 million to an Orange County developer named Gary Kanter, who, along with a pastor named Robert Darwin Chiles, immediately set about turning the spot into children’s exhibit and museum which would promote the theory of creationism. They added several more dinosaurs, some robotic, to the 60-acre site, as well as an open-air museum, a sand pit where children can dig for fossils, and a non-denominational church. And while I wanted to venture inside the museum and up into Rex’s giant mouth, the GC was, of course, having none of it.
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In Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, truck driver Large Marge (aka Alice Nunn) drops Pee-wee Herman (aka Paul Reubens) off at the Wheel Inn restaurant, where he discovers that he has lost his wallet and ends up having to wash dishes in order to pay for his meal.
The real life interior of the Wheel Inn was used for the filming of the scene.
And, amazingly enough, it still looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did back in 1985 when Pee-wee’s Big Adventure was filmed.
It is while at the Wheel Inn that Pee-wee meets waitress Simone (aka my former acting teacher Diane Salinger), who invites him to watch the sun rise from the inside of Rex’s mouth. That scene was not actually shot inside of Rex’s mouth, though, but on a soundstage at Warner Brothers Studio in Burbank. You can see some great photographs of what Rex’s mouth actually looks like here. In real life, his mouth is not nearly as big as the set replica that Tim Burton created for the film, nor is there a large pink tongue on which to sit.
After watching the sun rise, Simone’s very large and very jealous boyfriend Andy (aka Jon Harris) shows up and chases Pee-wee around the dinosaurs.
Thanks to Diane, I actually got to meet some of the cast of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure a couple of years ago, while attending a screening of the movie at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Pictured above is Diane Salinger, Elizabeth Daily, and the man himself, Paul Reubens.
Thanks to Kim Potts’ fabulous write-up of the Cabazon Dinosaurs for the Moviefone website, I learned that the landmark was featured in quite a few other productions, as well. At the end of 1989’s The Wizard, while driving by the dinosaurs Jimmy Woods (aka Luke Edwards) recognizes them from a childhood visit and jumps out of his step-father’s car and up to Dinny.
The actual interior of the dinosaur was used for the filming of that scene.
Miraculously, little of Dinny’s interior has changed in the 22-plus years since The Wizard was filmed.
In 1984’s Paris, Texas, the Wheel Inn is the supposed-San-Bernardino-area restaurant where Travis Henderson (aka Harry Dean Stanton)and his son Hunter (aka Hunter Carson) stop to use a payphone.
The Cabazon Dinosaurs and Wheel Inn also appeared briefly in the 1985 music video for the Tears for Fears song “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”, in the scene in which the band’s lead singer Curt Smith stops his Austin-Healey 3000 by the side of the road in order to use a pay phone.
Everybody Wants to Rule the World music video –Filmed at the Cabazon Dinosaurs
You can watch that video by clicking above.
The dinosaurs were featured extensively in the music video for Tonio K’s 1988 single “Without Love”.
Without Love music video–Filmed at the Cabazon Dinosaurs
You can watch that video by clicking above.
They also appeared in the U.S. version of the music video for the 1994 Oasis song “Supersonic”.
Supersonic music video–Filmed at the Cabazon Dinosaurs
You can watch that video by clicking above.
And finally, they made a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance in the 2009 music video for Brad Paisley’s song “Welcome to the Future”.
Welcome to the Future music video–Filmed at the Cabazon Dinosaurs
You can watch that video by clicking above.
Until next time, Happy Stalking and Happy Voting – don’t forget to vote for me to be the new face of About Me! 
Stalk It: The Cabazon Dinosaurs, from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, are located at 50770 Seminole Drive in Cabazon. You can visit the official Cabazon Dinosaurs’ website here. While the museum charges an admission fee, the interior of Dinny houses a gift shop which is free to visit. The Wheel Inn restaurant is located directly in front of the dinosaurs at 50900 Seminole Drive in Cabazon.
Wattles Mansion from “Troop Beverly Hills”
After re-watching Troop Beverly Hills a couple of weeks back and subsequently stalking the mansion where the Nefler family lived, I became just a wee bit obsessed with tracking down some of the other locales featured in the 1989 flick. Thankfully IMDB had quite a few sites listed on its Troop Beverly Hills filming locations page, one of which was Wattles Mansion – a historic and oft-filmed at Hollywood estate that, amazingly enough, I had never before heard of. So I immediately dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place the following weekend.
Wattles Mansion was originally built in 1907 by Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey, the legendary Los Angeles-area architects who were also responsible for designing the Ambassador Hotel, the Huntington Art Gallery, Pasadena’s Wentworth Hotel (now the Langham), Occidental College (aka California University from fave show Beverly Hills, 90210), the California Institute of Technology, and the Beverly Hills Hotel. The large Mission Revival-style dwelling was commissioned by a wealthy Omaha, Nebraska native named Gurdon Wallace Wattles to be used as his family’s winter residence. The estate, which sat on 49 acres and was called“Jualita”, featured 6,167 square feet of living space, seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a wood-paneled library with a hand-painted ceiling, black-and-white checkerboard marble flooring, a terracotta tile terrace, wood-beamed ceilings, and a full basement. The home’s extensive 5-acre formal garden area consisted of a Japanese Garden, an Italian Rose garden, a Spanish garden, an American garden, a palm court, sparkling ponds, and several fruit orchards. In an amazing show of generosity, Gurdon opened his beloved gardens to the public upon moving into his new home and it was not long before they became a wildly popular tourist attraction.
After Gurdon passed away in 1932, his widow, Julia Vance, and their son, Gurdon Wallace Wattles Jr., continued to live at the mansion. In 1968, they sold the property to the City of Los Angeles and the Department of Parks and Recreation subsequently took over. Sadly, the city lacked the money necessary to maintain the large estate and it quickly fell into a serious state of disrepair. Gurdon’s formerly glorious gardens were taken over by drug dealers, squatters, and vandals, and what they didn’t destroy, a series of mudslides in the 1980s did. Thankfully, in 1983 the Hollywood Heritage preservation group leased the property and began a massive restoration project before moving in and using the historic mansion as their headquarters. It was at that time that the abode, which is a City of Los Angeles Cultural Monument, became a popular filming location. For reasons that are not entirely clear, Hollywood Heritage was served with an eviction notice in 2008 and finally vacated the property in May of 2009. The mansion is currently being maintained by the Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation once again. (I snapped the interior pictures through one of the estate’s front windows.)
The piece of property, which you can see in the above aerial view, is now made up of three separate areas.
The section denoted with a pink square above, which measures 4.2 acres, was turned into a community garden in 1975 and has been continuously maintained by local residents. It is private and not open to the public. The middle section, which is denoted with a blue square, is a park known as Wattles Garden Park. It is open to the public daily from dusk until dawn. The mansion and formal garden area, which is denoted with a purple square above, is not open to the public, but is available for use as a special event and wedding venue.
And although the formal gardens are not accessible to the public, from what was visible from the park, that area once again appears to be in a sad state of disrepair. According to sign a posted on the premises, a restoration is currently in progress, so hopefully they will not look that way for long.
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Wattles Mansion actually stood in for two different locations in Troop Beverly Hills. It first appeared as the Beverly Hills Rest Haven where Phyllis Nefler (aka Shelley Long) and her group of Wilderness Girls performed their community service requirement.
While there, Phyllis and her daughter, Hannah (aka Jenny Lewis), taught a group of senior citizens how to do the “Freddy” dance, so I, of course, just had to do a little recreation of that scene while I was stalking the place. 
In a later scene, the northern-facing side of Wattles Mansion and the formal garden area were used as the location of the “khaki” fashion show that was hosted by Robin Leach and featured cameos by Pia Zadora and Dr. Joyce Brothers.
Wattles Mansion was also used extensively as the demon-haunted home inherited by Jonathan Graves (aka Peter Liapis) in the 1985 horror-comedy Ghoulies.
The real life interior of the mansion, including the kitchen area and the formal library, appeared in Ghoulies, as well. You can check out some great interior photographs of the place here.
Randomly enough, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’s Mariska Hargitay made her feature film debut in Ghoulies. She is pictured in the grey sweater above. The actress was just 21 at the time that the movie was filmed.
Wattles Mansion also appeared in Diana Ross’ ultra-weird 1985 music video for her single “Eaten Alive”, which was co-written by none other than the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson.
Eaten Alive Music Video–Filmed at Wattles Mansion
You can watch that video by clicking above.
In the 1989 movie Rain Man, Wattles Mansion stood in for the institution where the psychiatric evaluation of Raymond Babbitt (aka Dustin Hoffman) took place.
Wattles was where Jose (aka Jacob Vargas) first met Maria (aka Jennifer Lopez) in the 1995 flick My Family.
And finally, the mansion popped up in the Season 3 episode of The O.C. titled “The Man of the Year” as the supposed Montecito-area boarding school attended by Marissa Cooper’s (aka Mischa Barton’s) sister, Kaitlin (aka Willa Holland).
Until next time, Happy Stalking – and Happy Voting! Don’t forget to vote for me today to be the new face of About Me! 
Stalk It: Wattles Mansion, from Troop Beverly Hills, is located at 1824 North Curson Avenue in Hollywood. The interior of the mansion and formal garden areas are not accessible to the public, but Wattles Park is open daily from dawn until dusk. You can visit the official Wattles Mansion website here.
Dwight’s Bar from “Burlesque”
One Burlesque filming location that I had been trying to track down for what seems like forever now was Dwight’s Bar, which was featured in the movie’s opening scene as the supposed small-town, Iowa-area watering hole where Ali (aka Christina Aguilera) worked. Even though the bar only appeared in one very brief, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it establishing shot, I was absolutely obsessed with stalking the place. For whatever reason, though, I just could not seem to find it. Then, like magic, just a couple of weeks ago fellow stalker Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, added the location to his Burlesque filming locations page and I just about died of excitement. The place was, of course, immediately added to the top of my To-Stalk list and I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there this past weekend.
As it turns out, Dwight’s Bar is actually a vacant storefront located in Piru, California, a small town (according to Wikipedia its population was only 1,196 as of a 2000 census!) situated about 50 miles north of Los Angeles in the Santa Clara River Valley. Piru (pronounced Pie-Roo) was originally founded in 1887 by a wealthy religious book publisher named David C. Cook. Thanks to its Anytown, U.S.A.-look and proximity to L.A., Piru is an oft-used filming locale and has appeared in hundreds upon hundreds of productions over the years, including Melrose Place, Charmed, Murder, She Wrote, Desert Fury, A Star is Born, Enough, The Dukes of Hazzard, The California Kid, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Torque, Van Helsing, Happy, Texas, Reno 911!, and Race to Witch Mountain. Piru’s historic downtown area, which consists of a tiny, one-and-a-half-block stretch of small brick buildings and which is the area of town most often seen onscreen, was reconstructed after being largely destroyed during the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. Since that time, many of the downtown storefronts have remained vacant, which only adds to the appeal of the place for location scouts as the area can be dressed to fit any sort of production.
Which was exactly what happened with Burlesque. For the opening scene of the movie, Downtown Piru was dressed to look like a small farming town in rural Iowa where Ali lives. And even though its appearance onscreen was brief, I cannot tell you how cool it was to see this location in person!
Amazingly enough, according to the DVD commentary with Burlesque director/writer Steve Antin, the interior of Dwight’s Bar, where Ali sang “Something’s Got A Hold On Me”, was actually a set created inside of a soundstage at Sony Studios in Culver City and was not built inside of the vacant Piru storefront as I had originally believed.
Because I had spent so many hours searching for Dwight’s Bar, I immediately recognized the place when it popped up recently in the Season 7 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Farewell Letter”, in the scene in which Gaby (aka Eva Longoria) and Carlos Solis (aka Ricardo Chavira) return to Gaby’s hometown of Las Colinas, Texas. In the episode, the two pull up in a taxi directly in front of the storefront that was used in Burlesque.
Later on in that same episode, Gaby and Carlos venture out to a restaurant where Gaby is fawned over as the local girl who made good.
In real life, that restaurant is known as the Railway Café and it has appeared in quite a few movies over the years, including 1984’s Rhinestone.
The actual interior of the Railway Café also appeared in the episode.
Sadly though, the place was closed when we showed up to stalk it, so I was only able to snap a few pictures of the interior through the front windows.
The Railway Café can also be seen in the background of Alicia Keys’ “Un-thinkable (I’m Ready)” music video, which starred cutie actor Chad Michael Murray.
Un-thinkable (I’m Ready) video–Piru
You can watch that video by clicking above.
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And, thanks to the Seeing Stars website, I learned that just across the street from Dwight’s Bar is Poncho’s Place, the eatery which stood in for the supposed Bon Temps, Louisiana-area Crawdad’s Family Style Restaurant where Sam Merlotte (aka Sam Trammell) took Sookie Stackhouse (aka Anna Paquin) for a slice of pie in the Season 1 episode of True Blood titled “Sparks Fly Out”.
And even though I have never seen even one episode of True Blood, since we were right there I just had to stalk it.
The real life interior of Poncho’s Place also appeared in the episode.
Although, as you can see in the above photographs, it was decorated rather differently for the filming.
Big THANK YOU to Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, for finding this location!
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Dwight’s Bar from Burlesque is located at 3951 East Center Street in Piru. Poncho’s Place, aka Crawdad’s Restaurant from the “Sparks Fly Out” episode of True Blood, is located just across the street at 3944 Center Street in Piru. And the Railway Café from the “Farewell Letter” episode of Desperate Housewives is located half a block down the road at 3989 Center Street in Piru.
Elevate Lounge from Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” Music Video
One location that has been at the top of my To-Stalk list for over two years now is Downtown L.A.’s Takami Sushi & Robata Restaurant and Elevate Lounge which were used extensively in Britney Spears’ music video for her 2008 hit song “Womanizer”. I first found out about this location while watching the ultra-depressing MTV special Britney: For the Record, which aired on November 30th, 2008 and chronicled 60 days in the pop star’s life, two of which were spent filming “Womanizer”. I, of course, immediately became obsessed with stalking the restaurant, but the Grim Cheaper objected every single time I suggested grabbing a bite to eat there, thinking it would be far too pricey for his tastes. It was not until this past Saturday afternoon when the two of us found ourselves hungry while doing some stalking in Downtown L.A. that I again suggested the restaurant and the GC decided it might be worth a try. Before agreeing completely, though, he first scoped the place out on Yelp and was absolutely DELIGHTED to discover a reviewer who had posted a comment with those three magic words – “fabulous happy hour”, which of course caused him to acquiesce and we immediately headed right on over there to grab a bite to eat and do some Britney stalking.
And I am very happy to report that we were NOT at all disappointed! Takami is one of the COOLEST restaurants that I have ever been to in my entire life! Located in the penthouse suite on the 21st floor of a Downtown L.A. office building, the indoor/outdoor, open-air restaurant boasts INCREDIBLE, 360-degree views of the infamous L.A. skyline.
Takami Sushi & Robata Restaurant and Elevate Lounge first opened in August of 2007 in what was a former office suite. The space was the brain-child of former Arthur Anderson financier Emil Eyvazoff who spent over five years touring over 100 different venues looking for the right location to build his dream restaurant. In a November 22, 2007 Los Angeles Times article, Emil is quoted as saying, “We told the two guys looking for us, ‘Make sure it’s jaw-droppingly unique.’ Then in April of ‘05 we saw [this] spot, and I think by the fourth step out of the elevator I said, ‘This is it.’” Tag Front, the design firm that was also responsible for the look of Boa, Geisha House, and Katana, was hired to design the space and, during an amazing two-year-process, gutted the 6,000-square-foot premises and brought in wood-paneled walling, a 25- by 40-foot sunken dance floor, 150 feet of sliding glass dooring, large modern couches, and a state-of-the-art DJ booth and sound system, transforming a drab office suite into the sleek, ultra-modern lounge and restaurant that it is today. And Emil was certainly spot on in his description of the place – it is most definitely “jaw-droppingly unique”. The food was out of this world, as well. And the Yelp reviewer had definitely been correct in his assessment – Takami does have a fabulous Happy Hour, which is, amazingly enough, also offered on Saturday and Sunday nights. During Happy Hour, all of the food served in the bar area of the restaurant is priced at $4 – not kidding! And the servings are huge, to boot! The GC and I tried almost everything on the menu and I just about died over the Japanese-style bruschetta, while the GC loved the Sushi Trio offering so much that he ordered a second serving of it immediately upon finishing the first.
Britney’s “Womanizer” music video was shot in Elevate Lounge, Takami Restaurant’s nightclub section, which was closed at the time we showed up to stalk the place. But our SUPER nice server asked the manager to take me on a private tour of the space when we finished dining. So incredibly cool!
Takami’s manager also could NOT have been nicer and gave me a very lengthy and in-depth tour of Elevate and pointed out where the filming of “Womanizer” had taken place. The video, which was shot on September 24th and 25th of 2008, was primarily filmed in one of Elevate’s three bar areas – the one located closest to the lounge’s main entrance.
As you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, the detailed mosaic design behind the bar area which appeared in the music video is actually there in real life. Love it!
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Takami’s kitchen area also appeared in “Womanizer”, but I, unfortunately, did not get a chance to stalk that part of the restaurant.
Some behind the scenes images from the video shoot are pictured above.
Elevate Lounge also hosted actresses Sophia Vergara and Natasha Henstridge and hairstylist Ken Paves for a “Beauty Roundtable” article which ran in the March 24, 2008 issue of US Weekly Magazine.
And OK Magazine held a photoshoot with singer Colbie Caillat for their February 28th, 2008 issue at the lounge. Elevate has also appeared in episodes of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Brothers and Sisters, and Millionaire Matchmaker. The restaurant is also something of a celebrity hot spot and such stars as Audrina Patridge, Jason Biggs, Omar Epps, Kat Von D, Brody Jenner, Frankie Delgado, and David Archuleta have all been spotted there.
Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” Music Video at Elevate Lounge
You can watch Britney’s “Womanizer” music video by clicking above.
Britney Spears: For the Record–with the Making of “Womanizer”
And you can watch Britney: For the Record by clicking above.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Takami Sushi & Robata Restaurant and Elevate Lounge from Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” music video is located on the Penthouse level of the building at 811 Wilshire Boulevard in Downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the Lounge’s official website here. While Takami Sushi & Robata Restaurant is open daily, Elevate Lounge is only open on Friday and Saturday nights, from 10 p.m. to 2:30 a.m.