Google Maps, The Movie

     Guess what I am addicted to in my spare time.  I love to just get on Google Maps and do street views all over the place.  I love to just explore the towns by clicking down all of the streets.  Particularly fascinating to me is doing this in Mexico.  By doing this, I have pretty much concluded that no matter where you street view in Mexico, every town looks the same.  

     I am amazed at some of the areas these people drove down in Mexico to get these shots, yet Clinton, IL only has one street view down Grant.  I know if I ever move to Mexico, I am going to be a spray paint salesman.  I would live in a big mansion. Tourists would come down and say, "Who lives in that huge estate?  Drug kingpin?" "No, ees spray paint salesman."

Cabo, Mexico on the West side.

Cancun, Mexico on the East side on the Yucatan Peninsula.

     Cuidad Juarez, Mexico  on the North side right across the border from Texas.  Yes, this is where all of the murders take place.

And lastly, Mazatlan, Mexico on the Southern side.  

     See what I mean about looking the same.  It's all bars on windows and graffiti. Never the less, I loved visiting there.  You know what I always thought would be wild. What if someone was just randomly street viewing trying to find the way to the Piggly Wiggly by their house and happened to stumble upon a cheating spouse.  It would be like, "Okay, let's see.  Out my front door, turn right on Water Street.  Work my way down to Elm. Wait a minute."  

"What's that in that restaurant window?  Ulp. . . . Margaret?"

     Or what if you were a detective assigned to solve a homicide and you decided to just street view the crime scene to see what kind of neighborhood it was.  As you work your way down the street, "Hmmm, head up White street, past the Palms apartments. Whoah.  Hold up.  What's that?"

     "Well, looky there.  Tim did it.  I knew it was that bastard.  APB on Tim."  This should be a movie of the week.  I guess that would be a pretty short movie though.

Corey in Cali #2 (Universal Studios)

This is my video of the Universal Studio Tour in Hollywood.  It is just treated as a ride in the amusement park.  The studio and the park are connected and there are giant escalators taking you from the top to the bottom of the park.  Sorry the quality isn't the greatest.  I took the video from a camera.  I love how of all the frames in the video, my video editor chose the shot of my knee as the still frame.  I'm sure I could change it but I found this funny.

The breakdown of the video is:

00:00-00:43     Movie autos such as the Magnum P.I. Ferrari, Lovely footage of my knee, The Fast and The Furious cars, a car wreck show, and Jurassic Park vehicle.    

00:44-01:05     Flood.

01:06                Lyon Estates entrance from Back to the Future.

01:07-01:45     Old street, Port Royal from The Pirates of the Carribean.

01:46-02:51     Earthquake where the street collapses into the subway.

02:52-03:01     Jaws.

03:02-05:42     Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives or the street from The Burbs, whichever is your poison.

05:43-06:10     Whoville.

06:11-07:02     The Bate's Motel from Psycho.

07:03-07:20     Norman Bate's house from Psycho.

07:21-08:08     Airplane crash from Tom Cruise's War of the Worlds.

08:09-09:00     Cabin from The Great Outdoors.

Now for some stills from around the park and tour.

The capsule from Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks.  You could just walk right up to it.

Johnny Carson's desk.  Imagine the people that sat in front of this.  Oh, if that desk could only talk.

One of Biff's goons hover boards from "Back to the Future".  It had pie tins on the bottom of it to hold it off the ground.

Universal Studios from the upper part of the amusement park.

Stock city street.

What those fake facade buildings look like on the back.  Pretty cool, huh?

The "Deathmobile" from an all-time classic "Animal House".  Can't you just see Belushi popping up out of that in his pirate costume.

A car from the Marx Brothers and of course Tom Selleck's Ferrari from "Magnum, P.I.".

The infamous Delorean from "Back to the Future".  I can't believe these just sit outdoors and not under cover.

A vehicle from "Jurassic Park".

A timed flood in the Mexican village at Universal.  This has been used in Fletch Lives and several other movies.

Just a random, ethnic looking building.  They said on the tour that they can change the supposed "country" of these buildings just by changing the signs on the buildings.

Old west part of the studio.  This is where a lot of John Wayne westerns were filmed.  They said that every old west street on the lot had a saloon, bank, hotel, and sheriff's office.  This was because in the silent movie days, they might have 8 different movies shooting at the same time on the different streets.

Several of the doors were just open with no one around.  I thought this was odd.  You could see in from the tram and I was dying to hop off and go explore.

Courtyard area from "The Scorpion King" and Genovia from "The Princess Diairies".

More Genovia from "The Princess Diairies".

The Earthquake ride where the street collapses into the subway.  This is where the gas tanker from the street above slides down the collapsed road towards our tram and bursts into flames.

From the same ride, this is where the subway comes in and hits the collapsed road.  This forces it to buckle and careen right at our tram.

See Jaws popping up right by our tram?

The house from Burt Reynold's and Dolly Parton's "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas".  They said that this house was rare because it was built like an actual house so they could film inside and outside of it.  Usually, inside shooting is done on a soundstage.

This was one of the coolest things on the tour even though I had never seen the show (I forced myself to watch parts of a few episodes when I got home).  Yes, it is Wisteria Lane from "Desperate Housewives".  These houses and street have been used multitudes of times over the years.  My favorites are "The Burbs" and "The Munsters".

The former Munster's house on Wisteria and The Klopek's house from "The Burbs".

Tom Hank's house from "The Burbs" and "Leave it to Beaver" house.

Walter's house from "The Burb's".

The outdoor set for Whoville from Jim Carrey's "Then Grinch".  The strange thing about Whoville is that it is literally about 3 feet from . . .

The Bate's Motel from "Psycho".  See Whoville behind it?

Norman Bates put a body in the trunk and then came out to attack the tram.  Too bad he couldn't have snuck around back and taken care of that mean mayor from Whoville.

We drove right through the airplane crash from Tom Cruise's "War of the Worlds".  They bought a real plane, cut it up, and brought it in in pieces. 

The wreckage was strewn clear to the back of the Psycho house.  See it in the background?  Norman could have had all of the bodies he wanted.

The house from one of my favorite movies "The Great Outdoors".  Can't you just see Dan Akroyd and John Candy standing right there trying to figure out how to get rid of the bat.  If you watch the movie where they are looking out over the forest and lake.  That was not real but projected on a GIANT screen behind the cabin which they used for backgrounds in other movies as well. RIP John Candy.

Lastly, another iconic car from one of the greatest movies ever, "The Blues Brothers".  The sun glasses and half a pack of smokes were on the dash.  RIP John Belushi.

Corey in Cali #1

Andi used to get sent all over by State Farm and while she had to work, I often tagged along for a free hotel room.  This led to a lot of me "doing my own thang".  Which as a 2nd shift worker, doesn't bother me to do things by myself.  You get used to it.  Last year, they sent her to California and since I had never been, I jumped on that one.  We were staying in San Diego in a very nice hotel on the bay, but my sightseeing heart belonged to Los Angeles.  So, I rented a car, pardon me-a sweet car, for the 2 hour drive to L.A. that I did twice.  Today, I will just cover the San Diego part of the trip and the Los Angeles sights that I saw not at Universal Studios.

                                       

This is me in the Mustang Convertible.  I originally was too cheap to pay for that the whole time.  The plan was to take the cheap rental back half way through the trip and then just have the good car for the last half.  When I saw how far the car rental place was from the hotel, I talked myself into the convertible the whole time (I wasn't too hard to convince).  

The Manchester Grand Hyatt on the Bay in San Diego.  There was a Navy base across from it and I was able to plop myself in front of the window with beer and watch war ships go in and out all day.  It was a beautiful hotel that overlooked a decommissioned aircraft carrier that was turned into a museum.

Now for the wild part.  This is the exact aircraft carrier that Andi's dad served on for 4 years in the late 1950's and early 1960's.  Everything we saw and touched, we wondered if he had saw and touched the same things so long ago.

The museum actually just let you wander around through all of the little tunnels all by yourself.  That was really a cool way to see all of the little nooks and crannies.  Did I just say "nooks and crannies?".  This was one of the several mess halls.

These were the tiniest bunks EVER!  I can guarantee that I would barely have fit on this and ALL of your belongings had to fit below the mattress.

They were filming an episode of "What Not To Wear" on the deck while we were there.  I don't know.  She looked okay in that.  Me?  I'm not so sure.

We thought this sign was funny.

I went to the Beach by San Diego while Andi was working.  The concierge directed me to Coronado Beach at the Coronado Hotel on Coronado Island.  The water was freezing in May so I just got in for little spells.  The hotel was a really old-time looking, fancy hotel with lots of history.  I didn't find out until I got back that this is where Marilyn Monroe's "Some Like It Hot" was filmed.  Other than losing the convertible underground for an hour (I couldn't find the underground garage-yes, I am a dork), it was a great day. At the end of the trip, Andi was finally done working so we headed to L.A. for one night. It was tough leaving the Hyatt for the Motel 6.  Don't ask about that one.  The check-in desk was behind bullet proof glass.  We survived.

This is the Capitol Records building.  They say that everyone has recorded there from the Beatles to Everclear.  It was just a hop, skip, and a jump from our 1 night in L.A. hotel. 

How would you like to own this house?  It really looked like the sign was almost sitting on top of it in person.  That song where they say "There's a party on the rooftop.  Top of the world tonight, tonight.  And we're dancin' on the edge of the Hollywood sign" always makes me think of this house.

This look familiar to anyone?  It's from "The Naked Gun" when Frank Dreben tells Ed that everything reminds him of Jane.  HA HA.  It actually is the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Clemente, CA.

Of course, we had to go to Grauman's Chinese Theatre and see the footprints and handprints.

You would think he could have left a little room for his costar in his square (see "The Informant" post).

They should have put a cuckoo on there instead of a record.

I wasn't always this cool.  It's taken me years to reach this level of coolness.

And now for the highlight of this and anyone's trip.  It is me at the REAL Brady Bunch house.  No, there was no real filming done there.  It is just the house that they show between shots.  In fact if you look at the picture and then watch the show, the layout on the inside doesn't match the design of the outside.  On the show, the front door opens to be facing the stairs to go upstairs but as you see here, the door opens to face the back of the house (which in real life was the Los Angeles river or the giant concrete storm sewer).  Also, the window on the front on the upstairs was just a fake that they tacked on for the shot for the show (they thought it looked like it needed one there).  If you ever go, the address is revealed on my last photo of the "Now and Then" shot.

We drove for what seemed like forever to get to this and actually find it.  Andi was less than thrilled and impressed to see the "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" house (maybe it's our 5 year age difference).  Now this house is where a large portion of the film was actually filmed.  It was amazing that they could pull this off as this was in a very tight residential area.  Right in front of that white car is where Mark and Damone peeked over the fence to go back and swim.  I would have killed to go back and see the pool where Phoebe Cates took her . . . uh, never mind.  The window right there is where Jennifer Jason Leigh crawled out to go meet Ron Johnson the stereo salesman.  The following picture is a montage of "Then and Now" Brady and Fast Times houses with the addresses.