The “Thriller” House

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Today, in honor of Halloween, I thought I’d blog about what is arguably the most famous haunted house of all time – the Victorian-style residence that was featured in the 1983 music video “Michael Jackson’s Thriller”.  Even though I’ve actually already blogged about this location once before (way back in December of 2007 when I first started my site!), because I mixed it in with a post about Halliwell Manor from Charmed which is located on the same street, I thought it was about time that the “Thriller” house was given proper recognition with its very own post.  Especially since my dad recently transferred our VHS recording of “The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller” onto a DVD so that we could finally watch it again, being that neither of us has owned a working VCR in about five years time.  I used to watch the “Making Of” special almost weekly as a child and was absolutely ENTRALLED with it.  And I am very happy to report that over twenty-seven years later, the behind-the-scenes special is JUST as enthralling.  🙂  I wish the Jackson family would release it on DVD as I’d love to have a copy that wasn’t taped off of television.

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In real life, the property is known as the Sanders House and it was originally built in 1887!  Yes, you read that right – the residence is over 123 years old!  It was commissioned by a man named Michael Sanders who ran a storage warehouse in Los Angeles at the time.  The Queen Anne/Eastlake-style home boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and 3,532 square feet of living space – which I was shocked to discover as the residence looks to be much smaller from the street.  The property was originally a single family residence, but has since been converted into a duplex-type dwelling, and has been undergoing an extensive restoration project for the past decade.  In 1971, the home was declared a cultural historic monument and the entire 1300 block of Carroll Avenue, where the “Thriller” house is located, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  You can see some fabulous historic photographs of the “Thriller” house and its neighboring homes here.  And you can read a more in-depth write-up on the history of the Sanders House on fave website Big Orange Landmarks here.

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I was only at the “Thriller” house for about ten minutes yesterday and no less than three different groups of fellow stalkers showed up to take pictures of the place while I was there – and it was in the middle of the day no less!  Simply amazing!  I was really hoping that the “Thriller” homeowners would have decorated their abode for Halloween, but as it turns out they are not currently very thrilled about the publicity that their property’s famous history generates.  According to a SUPER nice neighbor whom I spoke with while I was stalking the place yesterday, shortly after Michael Jackson passed away in June of last year, a deplorable fan stole the mailbox from the “Thriller” house and the homeowner is still pretty upset about it – especially being that the mailbox was the original one which was installed when the residence was first built over 123 years ago!  I can’t even believe that a person would have the audacity to not only trespass on someone else’s property, but to then steal something from that property while doing so.  It is people like that who give us harmless stalkers a bad name and it makes me madder and madder the more I think about it.  Not only did that thief sour the residents on the magic of owning and living in the “Thriller” house, but they also destroyed part of a historic landmark in the process.  UGH!  Don’t even get me started! 
 
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The super nice neighbor also informed me that the 1300 block of Carroll Avenue is THE place to be on Halloween.  One year he counted over 2,000 trick-or-treaters knocking on his front door alone!  Halliwell Manor from Charmed (pictured above) is already decked out for the occasion, but the neighbor said that all of the houses on the block – not just the famous ones – typically have lines of about twenty to thirty people standing out in front of them all night long.  Amazing!  I would SO love to stalk the neighborhood on Halloween, but I already have plans to spend the holiday in Santa Barbara this year.  Ah well, there’s always next year.
 
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Only the exterior of the “Thriller” house was used in the filming of the music video.
 
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All of the interior scenes were shot on a soundstage somewhere in Los Angeles.
 

You can watch the video “Michael Jackson’s Thriller” by clicking above.

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The “Thriller” house was also used as the residence of Finn (aka Reynaldo Rosales) in the Season 4 episode of Charmed titled “Size Matters’”.

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And fellow stalker Angela from Florida alerted me to the fact that the dwelling was also used as the residence of Madam Serena (aka Zelda Rubinstein) in the 1989 movie Teen Witch. It is quite ironic that the house belonged to a woman named Serena in the flick, as the star of Teen Witch was none other than Robin Lively – real life sister of Blake Lively, who plays the famous Serena van der Woodsen on TV’s Gossip Girl.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The house from “Michael Jackson’s Thriller” is located at 1345 Carroll Avenue in the Angelino Heights section of Los Angeles, just a few miles north of Downtown.  The Halliwell sisters’ house from Charmed is located two doors east of the “Thriller” house at 1329 Carroll Avenue.  And Holly’s Nashua house from the “Employee Transfer” episode of The Office is located just around the corner at 1347 Kellam Avenue.  If you stalk any of these locations, please, please do not trespass and, for God’s sake, do NOT steal, touch, or destroy ANYTHING while there!

Mountain View Cemetery from “The Office”

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Since my favorite holiday, Halloween, is fast approaching, I thought it would only be appropriate to devote the next few blog posts to some filming locations of a spookier nature.  So, this past Sunday morning, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, the Grim Cheaper, and I went on a joint stalking venture up to Altadena to stalk Mountain View Cemetery which appeared in the Season 4 episode of The Office titled “The Chair Model”, among countless other productions.  I first found out about this locale from my parents’ neighbor, Julie, who owns The Coffee Gallery in Altadena – a location which was also used in “The Chair Model” episode and which I blogged about this past July.  According to Julie, while scouting locations for the “Chair Model” episode, location managers sought out a coffee shop that was in close proximity to Mountain View Cemetery where they were also shooting scenes, which is how they came to use her cafe.  Like the old saying goes, it’s all about location, location, location.  😉  Anyway, once Julie told me about the place, I started doing some research on it and discovered that Mountain View Cemetery has been featured in hundreds upon hundreds of productions over the years.  Apparently, the 60-acre cemetery is used for filming an average of 150 days out of EACH AND EVERY year, which is absolutely incredible to me!  Upon finding out that fact, I promptly informed both Mike and the GC that Mountain View Cemetery was the ONLY place I wanted to be buried.  Spending my hereafter at a site that is in use as a filming location almost half of each year sounds like absolute heaven to me (pun intended).  Mike jokingly said that if I did end up being buried there, my tombstone should read, “Lindsay Blake, from IAMNOTASTALKER –Still Stalking Filming Sites From Beyond the Grave”.  🙂

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Mountain View Cemetery, which is one of the oldest cemeteries in the San Gabriel Valley, was first established in 1882 when a man named Levi W. Giddings designated a plot of his family’s land to be used as a site for burials for the citizens of Pasadena.  His descendants still own and operate the cemetery to this day, over 128 years later.  Mountain View, which as the name implies does boast picturesque views of the San Gabriel Mountains, is an absolutely enormous and quite beautiful property, with sprawling lawns, stately trees from all over the world, an art collection, two chapels, and two mausoleums.  Besides being a filming location, Mountain View is also the final resting place of several notables, including actor George Reeves, who played TV’s original Superman in the 1950s television series of the same name. George is entombed in the cemetery’s Pasadena Mausoleum.  Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe, one of the original founders of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and builder of the Mount Lowe Railway, is also buried at Mountain View, in the cemetery’s Royal Oak’s section.

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The yet-to-be released show Franklin & Bash was setting up to do some filming while we were stalking the cemetery on Sunday, and as you can see in the above photographs, had fake tombstones, floodlights, a generator, and a mock funeral assembled, which was very cool to see.

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There was also a fake crypt set up on the property, which none of us actually realized was a fake . . .

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. . . until we got around to the back of it and saw the prop door.  So, of course, I just had to get inside of it to snap a quick picture.  🙂  I am not sure if the fake crypt was a prop for Franklin & Bash or for Wicked Literature: A Halloween Theatre Festival – a Halloween-themed live theatre event which is running at the cemetery now through the end of October.  But being that Franklin & Bash is a series about a law firm, I am going to go out on a limb and guess that the crypt was set up for the Wicked Literature show.

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In “The Chair Model” episode of The Office, Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) falls in love with a chair model whom he sees in an office supply catalog.  He sends Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) on a recognizance mission to track down the model and is crushed when he learns that she was recently killed in a car accident.  Dwight and Michael later visit the cemetery where she is buried in order to pay their respects.  While there, they break into a rousing rendition of the song “American Pie”.

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While stalking Mountain View on Sunday, I was absolutely dying to find the exact spot where The Office had been filmed.  Unfortunately though, I was unable to figure it out at the time.  It wasn’t until after I got home and re-watched “The Chair Model” episode that I was able to discern the correct location.  So, bright and early yesterday morning, I dragged my dad out to re-stalk the place so that I could get some photos of the spot where Michael and Dwight had mourned, ahem, sang.  That spot can be found in the northeastern section of the cemetery.

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In the Season 1 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “There Won’t Be Trumpets”, Mountain View was the site of Mama Solis’ (aka Lupe Ontiveros’) funeral.  In the scene filmed at the cemetery, Gaby Solis (aka Eva Longoria Parker) flies into a rage after discovering that her destitute husband Carlos (aka Ricardo Antonio Chavira) has purchased a large crypt for his dead mother.  It was during the filming of that scene that Eva Longoria Parker accidentally (and hilariously) got the heel of her stiletto stuck in the cemetery’s grass.  Some paparazzi who were on hand managed to snap pictures of the event and those pictures later made their way onto the pages of US Magazine, but unfortunately I cannot find copies of those photographs anywhere online.

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While watching the “There Won’t Be Trumpets” episode, I was convinced that Mama Solis’ crypt had been a prop put into place for the filming.  As I discovered yesterday morning, though, her burial site is an actual crypt belonging to the Buckley family.  So darn cool!  I would like to let it be known here and now that, upon my death, filmmakers have my permission to use whatever it is I end up being buried in – whether it be a crypt, a mausoleum, or a simple grave – whenever and in as many productions as they so desire!  😉

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The cemetery was also used in the Season 8 episode of Seinfeld titled “The Foundation” as the final resting place of Susan Ross (aka Heidi Swedberg), George Costanza’s (aka Jason Alexander’s) former fiancé, who died after ingesting toxic glue while licking the envelopes of their wedding invitations.

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Mountain View also appeared in the Season 11 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “Shock Waves” as the site of the funeral of Officer Franklin Clark (aka Reggie Von Watkins), during which a bomb explodes.  Fave website Altadenablog was on hand during the filming of that episode and took some great photographs of the crew setting up the extensive rigging for the explosion scene.

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The cemetery also popped up in the pilot episode of the HBO series Six Feet Under as the site of the funeral of Nathaniel Fisher (aka Richard Jenkins).

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The cemetery was also used in Ozzy Osbourne’s video for his 2010 song “Life Won’t Wait” . . .

. . . which you can watch by clicking above.

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Ironically enough, after visiting the cemetery, I had a feeling that it might have been the very cemetery used in fave movie A Lot Like Love, so after I got home I re-watched the flick and noticed the large, open-air grave-marker located in the background behind Oliver Martin (aka Ashton Kutcher) in the scene pictured above.

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I could also just make out the last name “Holmes” written on the marker.  So, yesterday morning, while re-stalking the cemetery with my dad, I walked around to see if I could spot that open air crypt.

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And, amazingly enough, I did!  As it turns out, the filming of A Lot Like Love had taken place just due west of where The Office had filmed.  The grave where Emily Friehl’s (aka Amanda Peet’s) mother was buried in the movie was a fake that was put into place solely for the filming.  In real life, her grave is just empty space.  Ironically enough, Ashton Kutcher returned to the cemetery once again this past May to film scenes for the yet-to-be released comedy No Strings, along with co-star Natalie Portman.  You can check out some photographs of them filming here.  The 2007 remake of the classic horror film Halloween was also filmed at Mountain View Cemetery.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Mountain View Cemetery Locations II Mountain View Cemetery Locations

Stalk It: Mountain View Cemetery is located at 2400 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Altadena.  The area which appeared in The Office is in the northeastern portion of the cemetery and is denoted with a pink circle and a pink “X” in the above aerial views.  A Lot Like Love filmed just due west of where The Office was filmed in the area of the cemetery numbered 4474, which is denoted with a purple circle in the above aerial views. Desperate Housewives was filmed in front of the Buckley crypt, which is located in the section of the cemetery numbered 4386, directly across from the Vista Del Monte mausoleum, which is denoted with a blue circle and a blue arrow in the above aerial views.

The Glen Capri Inn & Suites from “The Good Girl”

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A few weeks ago, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk the Glen Capri Inn & Suites – a historic and oft-filmed Glendale-area motel that has appeared in over twenty movie and television productions in the past six years alone.  I was most interested in stalking the property due to its appearance in the 2002 flick The Good Girl, which starred my girl Jen Aniston.  And even though I didn’t like The Good Girl AT ALL (it was just far too dark and depressing for my taste), because JA had filmed there, I was dying to see the motel which was featured in it in person.

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The Glen Capri is famous not only for its vast motion picture history, but for its distinct architectural style, as well.  The property was originally built in 1949 by Louis Armet and Eldon Davis, the architectural team who, according to an August 1999 Los Angeles Times article written by Ed Leibowitz, “defined ‘50s Googie architecture” – Googie being the unique mid-century modern-style of design which had its roots in the now-defunct, John Lautner-constructed Googies Coffee Shop.  At the time of its grand opening, the Glen Capri Inn & Suites was called simply the Glen Capri Motel.  In 2000, the interior of the property underwent an extensive remodel at which point it was given its more upscale-sounding moniker.  Fortunately, the exterior of the property was left intact during the recent remodel and looks almost exactly the same today as it did when it was first built over six decades ago.  It is thanks to the motel’s historic facade and authentic 60’s neon signage that location scouts have returned to film there time and time again.

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Before arriving at the Glen Capri Inn & Suites, I was a little nervous that the place would not be very stalker-friendly and that taking photographs of the premises would be a big no-no.  As it turns out, though, I needn’t have worried.  The man working at the front desk was very nice and said that we could take all of the pictures that we wanted.  AND there was even a “Wall of Fame” located in the main office, with signed headshots of all of the actors who had filmed at the motel on display.

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As you can imagine, I just about died when I saw my girl Jen’s autographed picture hanging on the wall.  SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

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In The Good Girl, the Glen Capri stood in for the Texas-area motel where Justine Last (aka Jennifer Aniston) and Holden Worther (aka Jake Gyllenhaal) conducted their on-going affair.

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Both the main office .  . .

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. . . and Room 8 were used in the flick.  I don’t want to give away the ending, but Room 8 also featured significantly in the movie’s climactic finale.  On a Good Girl side note – Mike, from MovieShotsLA, recently stalked Retail Rodeo, the discount store where Justine and Holden worked in the movie.  You can see pics of it on his site here.

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In 2004’s Raising Helen, the Glen Capri stood in for the New York-area motel where Helen Harris (aka Kate Hudson) and Jenny Portman (aka Joan Cusack) catch their underage niece Audrey Davis (aka Hayden Panettiere) on prom night.  Audrey’s room was number 205.

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In the 2004 teen comedy The Girl Next Door, Matthew Kidman (aka Emile Hirsch) took Danielle (aka Elisha Cuthbert) to the Glen Capri with the hopes of seducing her while there.

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Ironically enough, Emile Hirsch returned to the Glen Capri two years later to film a scene for the 2006 drama Alpha Dog. In the flick, the Glen Capri stood in for the Albuquerque motel where Johnny Truelove and his girlfriend Angela Holden (aka Olivia Wilde) hid out after police had discovered the body of Zack Mazursky (aka Anton Yelchin).

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In 2007’s Georgia Rule, the Glen Capri stood in for the Hull, Ohio-area motel where Arnold (aka Cary Elwes) stays while in town visiting his wife, Lily (aka Felicity Huffman), and his step-daughter, Rachel Wilcox (aka Lindsay Lohan).  In the movie, Arnold stays in Room 206.

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Other movies that have filmed at the Glen Capri include The Country Bears, Diamonds & Guns, and Janky Promoters. Episodes of Without a Trace, Parks and Recreation, Cold Case, Saving Grace, Night Stalker, Close to Home, Day Break, Windfall, Lovespring International, Mad Men, and Nip/Tuck have also been shot at the Glen Capri.  You can check out the hotel’s very thorough filming page, which chronicles all of the productions that have been filmed on the premises over the past ten years, on its website here.  Love it!  There are actually several different motels in the Glen Capri chain and the one located at 326 Colorado Street, also in Glendale, has been used for filming, as well.  It has appeared in episodes of Life and The Surreal Life and in a 2007 Smash Mouth music video.

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On a Jennifer Aniston side note – my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry recently gifted me with the new Jennifer Aniston Perfume and I have to say that it is absolutely DIVINE.  It is honestly the best scented perfume that I’ve ever smelled in my entire life!  All of the literature written about it says that it has a “beachy” scent, but to me it seems to have more of a floral feel to it and is a bit reminiscent of Michael Kors signature fragrance, which I also love.  Jennifer Aniston perfume smells so amazing that I literally cannot stop smelling my wrists when I wear it – I wouldn’t be surprised if I subconsciously gnaw my arm off in the coming weeks.  😉  Because the perfume is only available at Harrods in London (contrary to what Jen reported during her most recent Chelsea Lately appearance, it cannot be shipped outside of the UK), Kerry had to go through hell and high water to get it for me.  So, I’ve had to resort to rationing it out in very small portions each day as I simply do not know WHAT I am going to do when I run out.  🙁  I am hoping that by that time it will be available in the US.  (Are you listening, Jen?)  Anyway, if you live in London or have plans to travel there, I HIGHLY recommend stopping by Harrods to pick up some JA perfume.  Take my word for it, you will NOT be disappointed.  And a HUGE thank you to Kerry for getting it for me!  🙂

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Glen Capri Inn & Suites is located at 6700 San Fernando Road in Glendale.  You can visit the hotel’s official website hereThe Good Girl was filmed in the main office and in Room 8; Raising Helen also used the main office and Room 205; and Georgia Rule was filmed in Room 206.

Eagle Rock Plaza from “Glee” and Michael Buble’s “Crazy Love” Photoshoot

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This past Monday morning, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, called me up to ask if I wanted to do some stalking with him in the San Gabriel Valley.  As it turns out, Monday was a holiday – although I hadn’t realized it beforehand – and Mike had the day off from work.  So, after first loading up on some Starbucks coffee (but of course) the two of us headed right on over to Eagle Rock, where the first item on our stalking agenda – Eagle Rock Plaza mall – was located.  I had been dying to stalk the mall ever since May 18th of this year when it appeared in the Season 1 episode of Glee titled “Dream On”, in the scene in which Artie Adams (aka Kevin McHale) starts a flash mob in the middle of a supposed Ohio-area shopping center.  My good friend and fellow stalker Kerry’s daughter, Jen – who is a total Gleek – had challenged me to find this location the day after the episode aired and, amazingly enough, it wasn’t too hard to track down at all.  I just simply used Google Images to search through interior photographs of Los Angeles-area malls and fairly quickly came upon one of Eagle Rock Plaza, which I recognized immediately.  And even though I live only a few miles outside of Eagle Rock, for whatever reason it has taken me this long to get out there to stalk the place.  Oh well, better late than never, right?  [And yes, I am pretending to dance like Artie in the above picture.  ;)]

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In the “Dream On” episode of Glee, Artie visits a local mall with his girlfriend Tina Cohen-Chang (aka Jenna Ushkowitz), and while she is in line buying a hot pretzel, he daydreams about being able to get up out of his wheelchair and dance.  He ends up starting a huge flash mob to the 80’s song “Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats. 

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As it turns out, Eagle Rock Plaza is a very tiny mall and it wasn’t hard at all to track down the exact spot where filming had taken place.   Artie’s flash mob scene was shot in the very center of the property, right in between the mall’s two main escalators and directly in front of the Seafood City Supermarket. 

 

You can watch the “Safety Dance” number by clicking above.

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While we were there, Mike and I stopped by the Eagle Rock Plaza’s management office to ask about the filming that has taken place there over the years and the woman on duty literally could NOT have been nicer!  She spent quite a bit of time chatting with us and filling us in on some of the productions that have been shot on the premises, including the Season 4 episode of The Closer titled “Time Bomb”, in which Brenda Leigh Johnson (aka Kyra Sedgwick) and her fellow members of the L.A.P.D.’s Major Crimes Division investigate a bomb threat at a local mall.

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Ironically enough, only the interior of Eagle Rock Plaza appeared in that episode.  All of the exterior scenes were filmed at Los Angeles City College, in front of the campus’ Communications Center, which does actually look quite a bit like a mall.

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Eagle Rock Plaza was also featured in Avril Lavigne’s music video for the 2002 hit song “Complicated” . . .

 

. . . which you can watch by clicking above.

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One production that shot on location at Eagle Rock Plaza that the management didn’t know about, but that I recognized immediately was Michael Buble’s 2009 behind-the-scenes DVD titled “The Making of Crazy Love”.  In the documentary, Michael is shown posing for a photo shoot outside of a Macy’s department store during which he is made to run back and forth through a large parking lot.  Michael is a total goofball and EXTREMELY funny during the shoot, announcing to one passerby who drives by, “Welcome to Macy’s!”  LOL  I can only imagine if I had arrived at the mall on a random day to do some shopping only to find MICHAEL BUBLE standing at the entrance welcoming me!  I probably would have had a heart attack right on the spot.  But I digress.  Anyway, for whatever reason (most likely because MB was so darn funny in the spot – at one point he says, “The next shot is of me shopping at Macy’s . . . finding discounts . . . there is a pillow set that is to die for!”  LOL LOL LOL), I have been literally hell-bent on stalking that parking lot ever since watching the DVD late last year.  Trouble was, I couldn’t seem to find the darn place anywhere. 

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Until this past Monday that is, when Mike just happened to drive through the part of the Plaza’s parking lot that is located directly behind Macy’s and I recognized it immediately.  YAY!  Thank you, Mike! 

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And I, of course, just had to imitate MB running while I was there.  🙂

You can watch Michael’s absolutely hilarious photo shoot in the Macy’s parking lot by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Jen for challenging me to find this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for taking me there!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Eagle Rock Map

Stalk It: Eagle Rock Plaza is located at 2700 Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock.  You can visit the mall’s official website here.  Michael Buble posed for his running photographs in the southwestern portion of the Plaza’s parking lot, directly behind Macy’s department store, in the area depicted with the pink circle in the above aerial view.  The “Dream On” episode of Glee was filmed in the center-most point of the mall, in between the property’s two main escalators and directly in front of the Seafood City Supermarket.

The “Poison Ivy” Mansion

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Back in early August, Drew Barrymore aficionado Ashley, from the Drewseum website, challenged me to find the large pink mansion belonging to the  Cooper family – Sylvie (aka Sara Gilbert), Darryl (aka Tom Skerritt), and Georgie (aka Cheryl Ladd) – in the 1992 thriller Poison Ivy.  But because I was just a few weeks away from my upcoming wedding at the time, I didn’t get a chance to do any research on it.  Thankfully though, fellow stalker Terri stepped in and managed to track down the location for us!  Terri had discovered a message board thread on the IMDB Poison Ivy page on which a commenter had stated that the Cooper mansion was located in a “section of Los Feliz called the Oaks”.  She then used Google Street View and managed to track down the massively large residence, which amazingly enough looks very much the same today as it did back in 1992 when the movie was filmed!  Thank you, Terri!

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In real life, the 13,000-square foot, 5 bedroom, 9 bathroom home, which sits on over a half acre of land, was first built in 1926 and, according to my buddy E.J. over at The MovielandDirectory, belonged to Geena Davis in the early 90s, although that is a claim that the Thelma & Louise actress denies.  The Geena Davis rumor was actually featured in a small blurb in the September 1997 issue of Los Angeles Magazine, which states that the extensive property was purchased for $1.3 million in 1992 by the “Sav-On Trust” (believed to be created by Geena) and that an extensive remodel of the residence was subsequently begun.  After the roof, windows, and doors had been removed from the estate, though, the remodel was abruptly stopped and the property left in ruins.  At one point, squatters even moved into the residence, which is located in a very affluent neighborhood.  Sav-On Trust sold the decrepit property to a new owner in 1995 for $1,050,000, with the trust actually carrying the majority of the loan.  When the new buyer defaulted on his payments, the home went into foreclosure, with Geena still denying that she had anything to do with the property.  Why she didn’t want to be associated with the home, I don’t know, but she doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on being that the trustee of the Sav-On Trust is none other than Greg Kress – Geena Davis’ business manager.  Hmmmm.  Anyway, the remodel on the property was finally completed in the late 1990s and the mansion is absolutely beautiful today.  The home, which you can see some fabulous interior photographs of here, currently boasts a 1,000-bottle wine cellar, a private gym, a game room, an infinity pool, a movie theatre, TWO elevators, a cigar room, a grotto, a spa, a library, and striking views of Los Angeles.  Talk about living the high life!

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The Cooper mansion figured quite prominently in Poison Ivy and both the interior and the exterior of the property appeared in the flick.

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The mansion’s garage area . . .

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. . . and main balcony were also used repeatedly in the movie, although both look quite a bit different now.  An addition to the house has since been added on to the garage area and a turret has been added next to the balcony.

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The exterior stairwell that was formerly located next to the garage has also since been removed.

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And the stairs that led to the front of the property in the movie have now been replaced by a sloping driveway.  Even with all of those changes, though, the home still looks almost exactly the same today as it did in Poison Ivy.  And I so love that it is still almost the same color pink!

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Randomly enough, just a few days after stalking it, I spotted this very same location while watching the pilot episode of the new series Law & Order: Los Angeles.  The residence showed up in the very beginning of the episode, which was titled “Hollywood”, as the burgled home of teenaged actor Colin Blakely (aka Travis Van Winkle) .  Being that I had just stalked the place a few days beforehand, I literally just about fell over when I saw it. 

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Especially when I noticed the home’s real life address plaque pass by in the background of one of the scenes.  So darn cool!

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The real life interior of the estate was also used in the episode.

Big THANK YOU to Ashley, from the Drewseum website, for challenging me to find this location and to Terri for actually tracking it down!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Poison Ivy mansion is located at 2208 West Live Oak Drive in Los Feliz.

The Restaurant Where Brenda and Donna Ate Veal Brains on “Beverly Hills, 90210”

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One location that I have been on the lookout for for over eighteen years now is the Paris restaurant where Donna Martin (aka Tori Spelling) and Brenda Walsh (aka Shannen Doherty) ate veal brains in the Season 3 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Too Little, Too Late/Paris, 75001”.  Because almost two decades have passed since filming took place, though, and because there were virtually no clues visible in the background of the veal-brains-eating scene, this one proved to be a VERY tough find.  So, a few weeks back I finally decided to call in the team – Mike, from MovieShotsLA, Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, and fellow stalker Owen – and, amazingly enough, Owen found the restaurant in record time – in less than an hour, in fact!  Not joking!  I really need to start taking lessons from Owen, as he always comes up with extremely innovative ways of tracking locations down.  In this particular case, he decided to contact a few of the guest star actors who appeared in the episode, one of them being a girl named Lindsey Rosin.  Now, to someone like Owen who has never in his life watched an episode of 90210, the name Lindsey Rosin doesn’t mean a whole lot, but to all of us diehard fans out there, the girl is a celebrity!  For those who are not in the know, Lindsey just happens to be the daughter of 90210’s longtime executive producer Charles Rosin and, as a child, she appeared in several episodes of the series, including the “Too Little, Too Late/Paris, 75001” episode.  When Owen told me he had contacted her, let me tell you, I just about died from excitement!  Even more exciting, though, was the fact that not only did she write him back almost immediately, but she also knew exactly where the filming of the veal brains scene had taken place.  YAY!

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As it turns out, Brenda and Donna’s Paris restaurant was named Le Chardonnay and it used to be located on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood.  Sadly, though, the eatery closed its doors for good just about a decade ago.  Since that time, the property has undergone several renovations and has re-opened as a few different restaurants, including the now-defunct French bistro Carafe and the Danny Masterson/Wilmer Valderrama/Ashton Kutcher-owned eatery Dolce.  Today, the space which once housed Le Chardonnay is an upscale Chinese food restaurant named Philippe Chow and even though it no longer looks anything like it did when it appeared on 90210, I just HAD to stalk the place.  So, this past Friday afternoon, since we were in the area running some errands, I dragged my dad there to grab some lunch.

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Philippe Chow is a SUPER cute little restaurant that serves up some FABULOUS food!  Especially the chicken satay in cream sauce, which the restaurant is famous for.  The food is pricey, though – a bottle of sparkling water cost me a whopping $10!!!!!!!! – but, as they say, you get what you pay for, and the grub at Philippe Chow is EXTREMELY good!  The service was also fabulous and definitely lacking in the typical hoity-toity attitude one comes to expect from upscale L.A. eateries.  I honestly can’t recommend the place enough! 

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In the “Too Little, Too Late/Paris, 75001” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, Brenda and Donna go out for dinner on one of their very first nights in Paris, France.  Neither one can speak the language very well and they end up ordering the one item on the menu that contains a word they recognize, Cerveaux de Veau – “veau” meaning veal.  As it turns out, though, Cerveaux de Veau actually translates to veal brains – something they don’t discover until after they have already sampled the dish.  The scene is absolutely hilarious, mostly due to the comedic antics of Tori Spelling, who spits a bite of the brains out onto her plate and then proceeds to gargle with a glass of water.  And they say Tori Spelling can’t act!  In my never-to-be-humble opinion, I think she was FABULOUS in that particular scene –

– which can watch by clicking above.

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And while there is absolutely no trace of Le Chardonnay left on the Philippe Chow premises, there is some good news about this location.  After doing some research online, I discovered that Le Chardonnay was actually an almost-exact replica of the famous Restaurant Vagenende in Paris, France, which is still open, and as you can see in the above photographs, looks VERY similar to the restaurant which appeared on 90210.  So, while Le Chardonnay is no longer stalk-able, Vagenende thankfully is!  And, believe you me, if I ever go back to Paris, I am FOR SURE going to stalk the place!

 

Beverly Hills, 90210 is not the only production to have filmed on the Le Chardonnay premises.  Back when the restaurant had first been purchased by Wilmer Valderrama, Ashton Kutcher, and Danny Masterson, it was used in the Punk’d episode in which Ashton plays a prank on Wilmer by having a jealous boyfriend pretend to destroy his beloved Escalade – which you can watch by clicking above.

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At the time Punk’d was filmed, Dolce had yet to open and was undergoing an extensive renovation process, and, as you can see in the above screen capture, the walls had yet to be painted and were still the same color pink that they were on 90210.  Love it!

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Philippe Chow also recently appeared in the Season 5 episode of The Hills titled “Can’t Always Get What You Want” as the spot where Kristin Cavallari and Brody Jenner meet up and discuss his wanting to get back together with ex-girlfriend Jayde Nicole.

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Philippe Chow is also something of a celebrity magnet.  Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there include Charlize Theron, Rihanna, Nick Nolte, Matt Kemp, Stephanie Pratt, Kelly Osbourne, Paris and Nicky Hilton, Lauren Conrad, Lindsay Lohan, Nick Jonas, Sofia Vergara, Selena Gomez, Lamar Odom, Kobe Bryant, and Kim and Khloe Kardashian.  Unfortunately, we didn’t spot any celebs while we were there, though.

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Big THANK YOU to Owen – and to Lindsey Rosin! – for finding this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Philippe Chow, the former Le Chardonnay restaurant where Brenda and Donna ate veal brains on Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 8284 Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood.  You can visit the Philippe Chow website here.  Vagenende, the restaurant that Le Chardonnay was modeled after, is located at 142, boulevard Saint-Germain, in Paris, France.  You can visit the Vagenende website here.

Pickwick’s Pub from “The Office”

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This past weekend, I dragged my husband (that is SO weird to say!) out to stalk Pickwick’s Pub – the Woodland Hills watering hole that stands in for the Dunder Mifflin gang’s favorite local hangout, Poor Richard’s Pub, on fave show The Office.  And while there is actually a real life Poor Richard’s Pub located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where the series is based, thankfully, both the interiors and exteriors which appear on the show can be found right here in Los Angeles, just about ten miles away from Chandler Valley Studios where the series is taped.  I am ashamed to admit that I spent more than a few hours online trying to track down this locale and came up completely empty-handed.  Thankfully though, fellow stalker Lavonna was also in on the hunt and managed to find this Poor Richard’s page on the Dunderpedia website, which led us to the right place.  And while Poor Richard’s Pub is referred to almost weekly on The Office, Pickwick’s has actually only been used for filming twice. 

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Pickwick’s Pub has been a San Fernando Valley staple for over three and a half decades, ever since it first opened way back in 1974.  The watering hole suffered a brief set-back in 2004 when it burned to the ground after a disgruntled customer set fire to the place.  The rebuilding project took a full year to complete, but in 2005 the bar reopened and has been going strong ever since.  And, let me tell you, the place is not your ordinary, everyday pub.  The menu is quite extensive and features everything from traditional British fare such as bangers & mash and Irish beef stew to Indian delicacies like chicken curry and pork korma to such American favorites as chicken pot pie and homemade mac and cheese.  There is also an extensive breakfast menu, which is available all day.  And, let me tell you, the food was excellent!  Our waitress was also extremely nice and answered all of my silly little questions about the filming of The Office.  Unfortunately, she didn’t work at Pickwick’s at the time either of the episodes was filmed, so she didn’t have much insider information to share with me.  🙁  Pickwick’s is a super cute and cozy little place and seems to be mostly inhabited by regulars.  It definitely has a hometown feel to it and is exactly the kind of place I picture Pam and Jim grabbing a drink after work.  🙂  Pickwick’s also features a trivia night every Wednesday starting at 8 p.m. and an 80’s acoustic band which plays live every Saturday night – both of which sound like an absolute blast!  🙂

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As I mentioned above, Pickwick’s Pub has appeared twice on The Office – first in the Season 3 episode titled “Cocktails”, in which Pam Beesly (aka Jenna Fischer), Roy Anderson (aka David Denman), Kelly Kapoor (aka Mindy Kaling), and the rest of the Dunder Mifflin crew cut out of work early in order to grab drinks together at their favorite local hangout.  It is at Pickwick’s that Pam admits to Roy that she and Jim once kissed.

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The mirror which Roy subsequently breaks in a fit of anger is, of course, not there in real life.

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Neither is the Toy Chest game machine where Toby Flenderson (aka Paul Lieberstein) spends the evening trying to win Pam a duck.

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The bar showed up again in the Season 4 episode titled “Local Ad”, in which the Dunder Mifflin gang gathers together to watch the airing of their recently-filmed local television commercial.

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A picture of Steve Carell during the filming of that episode is even on display on the official Pickwick Pub website.  So darn cool!

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The exterior that is shown on The Office is actually Pickwick’s back entrance, which looks EXACTLY the same in person as it does on the show, except for the Poor Richard’s signage, of course.  Love it!

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Fellow stalker and Office aficionado Owen, who I am EXTREMELY jealous of!, recently made a stalking pilgrimage to Scranton, Pennsylvania where he got to visit the real life Poor Richard’s Pub, which in reality is located inside of a bowling alley.  As Owen wrote when he emailed me the above pictures, “Does that carpet not scream bowling alley?!?!”  LOL 

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Sadly, the bar was closed when Owen showed up to stalk it, but as you can see in the above photograph, which I got off of the Poor Richard’s website, the place does bear a striking resemblance to Pickwick’s.  Both bars have a very British/Tudor-style look to them and both also appear to display Christmas lights year-round.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Lavonna for finding this location and to fellow stalker Owen for loaning me his photographs of the real Poor Richard’s Pub to display in this post!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Pickwick’s Pub from The Office is located at 21010 Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills.  You can visit the bar’s official website here.  The real Poor Richard’s Pub is located in Scranton, Pennsylvania at 125 Beech Street, inside of South Side Bowl.  You can visit the official Poor Richard’s website here.

Griffith Observatory

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A couple of months ago I dragged my parents and my then-fiancé/now husband out to Los Feliz to do some stalking of the Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park – a place which I had never before visited despite having lived in Los Angeles for over a decade.  I had actually wanted to stalk the Observatory for close to 18 years –  ever since November of 1992, to be exact – thanks to the fact that it was featured in a Season 3 episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210.  But more on that later.

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The land that now encompasses Griffith Park was donated to the City of Los Angeles by Welsh industrialist Colonel Griffith J. Griffith (and no, that was not a typo – the guy’s first name was actually the same as his last!) on December 16, 1896.  Griffith stipulated that the donated parcel of land, which measured 3,015 acres, was to be used as a public park.  He said, “It must be made a place of rest and relaxation for the masses, a resort for the rank and file, for the plain people.  I consider it my obligation to make Los Angeles a happy, cleaner, and finer city.  I wish to pay my debt of duty in this way to the community in which I have prospered.”  When Griffith passed away 26 years later, in 1919, he bequeathed the majority of his $1.5 million estate to the city for the purposes of building a theatre and an observatory inside of the park.  Construction on the observatory, which was designed by architect John C. Austin and engineer Russell W. Porter, began on June 20th, 1933 and the building opened to the public just under two years later, on May 14, 1935.  

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The Griffith Observatory, which sits high atop Mount Hollywood, features a 300-seat state-of-the-art planetarium, a 2,700-square foot multimedia theatre, a Zeiss refracting telescope, an exhibit hall, and, as you can see above, views which are nothing short of incredible.

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Hollywood location scouts took notice of the property right from the very beginning when it was chosen to appear in the 1935 movie The Phantom Empire shortly after its opening.  Since that time, the Observatory has been featured in hundreds upon hundreds of productions – far too many for me to be able to properly catalog here, but I’ll do my best to give my fellow stalkers a broad overview.

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As I mentioned above, the Observatory was featured in a Season 3 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.  That episode was titled “Rebel With A Cause” and it was, ironically enough, one of my least favorite episodes in the entire history of the series.  The episode centers around the break-up of longtime couple Dylan McKay (aka Luke Perry) and Brenda Walsh (aka my girl Shannen Doherty), immediately after which Dylan puts the moves on Brenda’s best friend Kelly Taylor (aka Jennie Garth).  Mind you, Dylan and Kelly had also been seeing each other behind Brenda’s back for an entire summer at that point in the series.  Dylan then decides to take Kelly out on a date – just two nights after his break-up with Brenda! – and when Brenda randomly catches the two of them together in a restaurant, she calls Kelly a “bimbo” and Kelly actually has the nerve to be mad at Brenda.  I mean, HELLO, Kelly!  Not only did you spend an entire summer making out with your BEST FRIEND’S boyfriend, but when said best friend and said boyfriend break-up, it’s not 48 hours later that you are out on a date with him.  With friends like that, who needs enemies??  Let me tell you, had that happened to me, I would have been calling Kelly a whole lot worse things than “bimbo”.  And yes, I realize Beverly Hills, 90210 is just a television show and that the “Rebel With A Cause” episode aired almost two decades ago, but the whole thing still seriously upsets me!  But I digress.  Anyway, in the episode, before taking her out to dinner, Dylan brings Kelly to the Griffith Observatory, where they watch a show in the planetarium.

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After the show, the two little home-wreckers head outside for a heart-to-heart chat and, even though I was strongly opposed to the whole Kelly/Dylan romance, for whatever reason, it was the location of that chat that I was most interested in stalking. 

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I had a very difficult time locating the wall where Dylan and Kelly sat, though, as it is not in an easily-visible part of the building.  It actually wasn’t until we were heading back to our car that I finally spotted the right place.

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As it turns out, Kelly and Dylan’s wall is located in the eastern-most section of the Observatory.  It is actually the wall to a ramp which leads to the back of the building and is located on the left-hand side of the Observatory (as you are facing it) and is denoted with a pink arrow in the above aerial view.

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The Observatory’s most famous onscreen appearance was, of course, in the 1955 James Dean classic Rebel Without a Cause, which, amazingly enough, I have never actually seen!  In the beginning of the flick, Jim (aka James Dean) and Judy (aka Natalie Wood), along with the rest of their high school class, go on a field trip to the Observatory where they watch a show in the planetarium.

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And the very same wall from 90210 also appears in that scene. 

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Rebel’s final scene also takes place at the Observatory, but I do not want to post any screen caps of that scene as they would spoil the ending.

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There is a statue of James Dean on display on the Observatory’s front lawn which commemorates the historic filming that took place there in 1955.  So darn cool!

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Griffith Observatory was also the site of the climatic scene in 1999’s hilarious comedy Bowfinger, in which renegade, wanna-be movie director Bowfinger (aka Steve Martin) and his ragamuffin film crew secretly tape Daisy (aka Heather Graham) and Kit Ramsey (aka Eddie Murphy) fighting off a fictitious band of aliens.

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In the first Transformers movie, Mikaela Banes (aka Megan Fox) and Sam Witwicky (aka Shia LaBeouf) are at the Observatory when they witness a group of Transformers crash landing on earth in the form of meteorites.

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In The Terminator, the Observatory is the spot where the Terminator (aka Arnold Schwarzenegger) first emerges from a time warp and begins his mission to kill Sarah Conner (aka Linda Hamilton).

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In 2008’s Yes Man, the Observatory is the location of Allison’s (aka Zooey Deschanel’s) weekly jogging/photo class, during which Carl (aka Jim Carrey) crashes after drinking waaaaaaay too many Red Bull energy drinks.

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It is also where Carl professes his love to Allison at the very end of the movie.

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And it is during that ending scene that Carl and Allison run right by the exact spot where Beverly Hills, 90210 was filmed 16 years beforehand.  🙂

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The scene in which Natalie Cook (aka Cameron Diaz), Dylan Sanders (aka Drew Barrymore) and Alex Munday (aka Lucy Liu) discover that Madison Lee (aka Demi Moore) is actually a fallen angel in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle takes place at the Observatory.

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The observatory was also featured in the music video for Paula Abdul’s hit single “Rush Rush”, which was an homage to the movie Rebel Without a Cause.

You can watch the full video, which starred Keanu Reeves, by clicking above.

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Griffith Observatory has also appeared in the movies Dragnet, Devil in a Blue Dress, The Rocketeer, House on Haunted Hill, Nancy Drew, and Earth Girls are Easy, and in episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles, 24, Star Trek Voyager, Alias, MacGyver, Melrose Place, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Colbys.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Griffith Observatory is located at 2800 East Observatory Road, inside of Griffith Park, in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles.  You can visit the observatory’s official website here.  Admission is free.  The observatory is closed to the public on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Oscar’s House from “The Office”

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Another filming location from The Office that I stalked recently was the ranch-style abode where accounting executive Oscar Martinez (aka Oscar Nunez) lives on the show.  I found this location, as always, thanks to fellow stalker Owen who, along with a bit of assistance from fellow stalker Chas, of ItsFilmedThere, has somehow managed to track down pretty much every single locale that ever appeared on the show.  Thank you, Owen!

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While watching the Season 2 episode of the series titled “The Secret” a few years back, Owen spotted an address number of 5232 in the background of a scene.  He immediately set about searching aerial views of neighborhoods near Chandler Valley Center Studios in Van Nuys, where the series is lensed, for homes with a 5232 address number, and, sure enough, it wasn’t long before he had found the right place.  YAY!  So, while I was in the area with my fiancé – ahem, my husband 🙂 – a few weeks ago, I dragged him right out to stalk Oscar’s abode!

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Oscar’s house actually only appeared in “The Secret” episode and has yet to show up again on the series.  In the episode, Oscar calls in sick to work on a Friday and his co-worker and part-time volunteer sheriff’s deputy Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) becomes convinced that Oscar is not truly ill.  Dwight decides to investigate the matter further and, after first conducting interviews with everyone in the office to get their take on whether Oscar is faking or not, he heads over to “the perp’s” house to see if he is actually ill.  When he catches the not-yet-out-of-the-closet Oscar with another man in his driveway, he becomes ecstatic, drives up to the couple and proclaims, “Man, you are so busted!  Ice skates, shopping bags!  I think I know what’s going on here . . . you weren’t sick at all!”  Not realizing that he has stumbled upon a much larger secret, Dwight blackmails Oscar into owing him “one great, big, giant favor redeemable by me at a time and place of my choosing.”  Have I mentioned how much I love this show?  😉

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I am very happy to report that, minus a few trees in the front yard, Oscar’s house looks exactly the same in person as it did on the show.  Love it!

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Located less than a block away from Oscar’s house is the residence where Pam bought a lamp during “Michael Scott’s Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run Race For the Cure” (and yes, that was the race’s actual name) in the Season 4 episode of the series titled “Fun Run”.  During the race, Jim and Pam happen upon an estate sale at a local residence and instead of continuing on with the run in order to “prevent a disease that’s already been cured” (LOL), they decide to do some shopping.  I know this probably goes without saying, but I also found this location thanks to fellow stalker Owen.  And even though it only appeared very briefly in one episode of the series, because I was already in the area, I just had to stalk it!

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And it, too, looks much the same in person as it did on the series, even though very little of it was ever actually seen in the episode.

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Ironically enough, the “Fun Run” house looks like it could almost be a twin to Oscar’s house!  Many homes in the area actually have that extra little roof gable above the garage and, therefore look quite a bit alike, so it is truly a feat that Owen was able to track down the houses which were used on the show.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding both of these locations!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Oscar’s house from The Office is located at 5232 Longridge Avenue in Van Nuys.  The house where Pam buys the lamp in the “Fun Run” episode is located a few blocks north of Oscar’s house at 5306 Longridge Avenue.

Nate ‘n Al’s Delicatessen

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One location that I have been wanting to stalk for quite some time now is the historic Nate ‘n Al Delicatessen in Beverly Hills, but because I don’t get out to that area very often, the restaurant had remained an unchecked item on my extremely long “To-Stalk” list for over a year.  Until a couple of weeks ago, that is, when I finally dragged my fiancé to grab a bite to eat there after we had stalked Will Rogers Memorial Park from 90210, which is located nearby.  And I have to say that the place was definitely worth the wait!  Although rather pricey (despite what some online reviews might state), the landmark restaurant serves up some FABULOUS food.  And thanks to its huge deli counter, brown leather booths, and pastrami sandwiches stacked as high as the eye can see, eating there was like visiting a little slice of New York City right here in Southern California.

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Nate ‘n Al’s has been a veritable institution in Beverly Hills ever since it first opened way back on May 24, 1945.  The deli was founded by Al Mendelson and Nate Reimer, who originally met while working at Boesky’s Deli in Chicago.  The two entrepreneurs eventually decided to open their very own deli-style restaurant a few years later and figured LaLaLand was just the place to do so.  At the time of its founding, the restaurant was Beverly Hills’ sole delicatessen and could only accommodate a scant 30 patrons.  It became such an immediate success, though, that it was later expanded to its current, larger size which can hold up to 120 diners. Nate retired just a few years after the restaurant’s opening, but Al stayed on to helm the place and it is his ancestors who are still running it today.  And I am happy to report that the restaurant is still going strong.  According to this 2005 Daily News article, each year Nate ‘n Al’s serves up 130,000 matzo balls, 16,000 gallons of chicken noodle soup, and 80,000 pounds of corned beef!  As I stated above, the food is phenomenal, but it’s also fairly expensive, so be prepared.   

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Because of its fabulous food and laid-back attitude, Nate ‘n Al’s has long been a celebrity magnet.  You won’t find any autographed pictures decorating the establishment’s walls, though, because as founder Al Mendelson advised: “If you want them in the booths, keep them off the walls.”  😉  Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there over the years include Max Mutchnick (one of the co-creators of Will & Grace), Lew Wasserman, Suzanne Pleshette, Tom Poston, Robert Wagner, Neil Diamond, Jon Voight, Doris Day, Nicollette Sheridan, Jay Leno, Roseanne Bar, Adam Sandler, Dick Van Dyke, Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Jodie Foster, Nancy Sinatra, Courteney Cox, Rodney Dangerfield, Kareem Abdul Jabar, Tony Curtis, Sharon Osbourne, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Television host Larry King loves the place so much that he not only dines there every single morning (not kidding!), but he also purchased his house in Beverly Hills for the sole reason that it was within walking distance of the deli!  Love it!

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And while we didn’t spot any celebs while dining there, fellow stalker Karen was lucky enough to be seated next to Jason Reitman on a recent visit to the deli.  Her daughter snapped the above photo of the Juno director on the down-low during their meal.  Love it!  Jason wasn’t the only celeb that Karen and her daughter spotted at Nate ‘n Al’s that day, though – Larry King and Clint Howard were also dining at the time.  Lucky girls!  As Karen said, talk about “hitting a trifecta”!  From what I’ve heard, the best time to spot celebs at Nate ‘n Al’s is in the morning, which means I’ve gotta go back there sometime soon to grab some breakfast!

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And the place is also a filming location!  In the Season 5 episode of Entourage titled “The All Out Fall Out”, Nate ‘n Al’s is the spot where Vinnie Chase (aka Adrian Grenier) finds out from his business manager that he may need to file for bankruptcy.  The 1957 flick Pal Joey, which starred Frank Sinatra and Rita Hayworth, was also filmed at the historic restaurant. 

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Nate ‘n Al Delicatessen, from Entourage, is located at 414 North Beverly Boulevard in Beverly Hills.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.