Los Angeles / Burbank / Disney Studio October 2019

Sometimes interests/hobbies/obsessions can pay off in dividends. It is my love for films and Disney which lead to scheduling of this trip so many months ago. If you are not aware, when you purchase Disney DVDs or Blu Rays they come with codes. Earn code is worth a certain number of points (usually ranging from 75 -150) and the points can be used for different rewards. You can get more information on their new website (disneymovieinsiders.com) but the long short of it is that I accumulated a ton of points between purchasing movies over the past 10 plus years and seeing Disney-related films in the theater. Approximately 1.5 years ago I cashed in a lot of them to attend a Disney VIP Studio Tour, which was for 4 people and included another group of 4. I took my dad and sons on that tour. This time around I cashed in points for an 8 person tour in which I was able to choose all participants. Entering the Disney Studio is a bit of a privilege as it is a closed lot with no public tours so to see all of the buildings in person is a pretty cool (and rare) experience. Anyway, I set this up awhile ago to coincide with my sons' fall break from college. I'll get into the tour a bit later but you first have to bear with me through the rest of my trip happenings (or scroll down to the bottom but be forewarned, I have a way of tracking such things and will know who you skimmers/scroller are...).

Los Angeles is fascinating for me. Each time I visit I leave appreciating it a little bit more but I still am not sure if I actually "like" it. Regardless, I will be the first to admit it has a vibe that few other cities I've visited possess. If any of you follow me on Facebook you'll know that I post sporadic movie reviews and one of my most recent ones was for a screening of the South Korean film Parasite which had a Q&A afterwards with the director (Bong Joon-ho) and actors Park So-dam and Kang-Ho Song. The short summary is see this film as soon as it becomes available in your area. I also mentioned in my review that if I did live in L.A. anything and everything movie-related would occupy all of my free time. I would be at Q&As, special screenings, meet and greets, sleepovers...well, you get the idea. I had actually never been to the Cinerama Dome so seeing Parasite there checked off two large boxes on my to-do list. I still have it on my bucket list to see films at the Egyptian Theater, The Chinese Theater, New Beverly Cinema, The El Capitan and Aero Theatre, so needless to say I have a few reasons to head back to the city.

I'm going a bit out of order with the happenings of my trip so let me backtrack a bit. After our surreal experience at Club 33 (see prior post) we headed to Burbank the following morning to drop off our luggage. I have stayed at a few different hotels in the Burbank/Los Angeles area and as far as location goes The Sheraton Universal Hotel is probably my favorite. It is in walking distance to Universal Studios and close to a lot of the movie studios (many are actually in Burbank and not LA) but is also not too far from Downtown LA (if you plan on going to the other side of the hill). This was our 3rd time staying at this hotel. The rest of my family stayed here as well. Our check-in process versus theirs brings me to a suggestion for anyone who chooses to travel. Although the rest of my family got to the hotel earlier than me and my sons (around 10am) when we showed up around 10:30 they were all waiting in the lobby / noted that their rooms were not yet ready and that they had to check-in their luggage. Anticipating the same response at the front desk I was pleasantly advised that my room was ready. Although it could have been for many reasons that my room was ready before my family's, I attribute it to either us being repeat customers or me having a current VIP Gold status through Expedia. Of course, it also could be my air of awesomeness and/or that I was wearing a newly-purchased Club 33 hat (the front desk person probably knew the weight of importance of us Club 33-ers) but presuming it was one of the earlier noted items, my suggestion it to find a hotel platform (Expedia, Orbitz, etc.) and hotel you like in an area and just continue to use it/them. Although you may be able to find a few little savings here and there using different hotel platforms (understandably sometimes they are too significant to ignore) if you use the same company over and over they more than likely will remember your brand loyalty, even if it is just a few fringe benefits here and there like early check-in or heightened customer service.

So, to bring you up to speed, my sons and I have our bags comfortably in our room at this point while my family is astray in the lobby, room-less and bags checked into the bell hop.

To keep in the vein of a Disney-related trip as much as possible we all headed to Tam O' Shanter's for lunch. I had read about the restaurant a few years ago as being included in an extensive (and very expensive) Disney tour, as it was one of Walt Disney's favorite places to eat and likewise was a hangout area for the Disney Imagineers. The building is pretty impressive aesthetically and had beautiful, well-maintained grounds.

Doodles from an Imagineer on a table. 

The inside gave a very comfortable, homey vibe. The food was really good as well so I highly recommend checking it out if you are in the area, even if you aren't a fan of Disney. An interesting side note is that the waiter pointed out that a table near ours was the favorite table of John Wayne. In a somewhat appalling moment my youngest son and niece asked who he was. I was never a huge fan of westerns but for them to not even know who he was is putting up a red flag for classic cinema. Luckily, I shoved old movies with actors like James Stewart, Cary Grant, and Charlie Chaplin down the throats of my sons at an early age (obviously not John Wayne films) so they aren't completely without hope but I implore all of you to introduce classic cinema to younger generations as I fear it will otherwise be forgotten/lost with the decades (The Criterion Collection is a good place to start to find some good choices). Ok, my cinema preservation tirade it over, for now.

After lunch we met up with my best friend and his wife at the Warner Brothers Studio Tour. My sons and I had been on this tour 2 times previously and I cannot recommend it enough for anyone who is into film and/or television history. It is an immersive experience in which you are driven around in a large golf cart by a tour guide to different sound stages while the guide gives history / stories about the studio. Seeing that it is over 95 years old they have more than sufficient movie history to work off of. There are some cool stops during the tour, including an area with vehicles from the Batman franchise, and ends at "Stage 48" which has a lot of film / television items on display and also has a Friends-themed coffee shop and the obligatory studio store. The whole experience takes about 3 hours and even though it was our 3rd visit we saw things we had never seen previously. I'm extremely curious to check out the Paramount Studio tour as well, which is also a bucket list item for a future visit.

These steps were used in the old Batman show with Adam West

This was the entrance to the orphanage in the old version of Annie...this made my sister extremely giddy.

Each sound stage had a plaque listing all of the films / shows filmed in it.

After the tour all of us somewhat went our separate ways with me and my dad heading to the Parasite screening (see beginning of post).

The following day my eldest son headed to Universal Studios with my sister and her family while my youngest son and I went to a few other places I had never seen (but were on my to-do list) with my parents. Our first stop was The Beverly Hills Hotel for breakfast. I am not completely in tune with the history of the hotel but it has been open since 1912 and has been a hot spot for celebrities and used in a handful of films. When I looked up the Fountain Coffee Room on their website I was not expecting it to be a counter service only but this somewhat added to the experience as it felt like we were back in 1949 (I don't believe the restaurant has really changed since it opened). My son and I were seated near the chef, which was pretty cool in itself as his cooking harmony was mesmerizing to watch. The waiter and waitress who were behind the counter with him pretty much just kept out of his way as he worked his magic. As you can expect, it was a ridiculously expensive meal but I knew beforehand that we were paying more for the experience (although the food was good).

After walking around the hotel grounds for a bit we then headed to The Getty. I actually had plans to visit The Getty about 5 years ago with my sons but some struggles with the parking garage made me throw-up my hands and just head to something else. We took a share-drive service there this time, which was a bit of an adventure in itself as the driver was holding her phone with one hand for navigation and using the other to turn at the numerous curves on Sunset Boulevard at speeds much too fast for the area. You may or may not know but The Getty has free admission; however, they clearly make it up through the parking as they charge $20 a car for the garage. Regardless, it is worth the cost. From the parking garage area you take a light-rail/shuttle to the top of the hill, which has all of The Getty buildings. The buildings / grounds were beautiful and if one wanted to, she/he could easily spend a day there. Since my son had no really interest in being there (he was on our excursion solely for the breakfast) we limited our viewings to a few galleries and the garden.

Vincent van Gogh's Irises

That evening closed with a collective dinner with friends and family at the Universal City Walk. There really isn't a great deal of things to do in the walk area aside from eating and shopping (or grab a movie at an AMC if you are so inclined) but I still enjoy checking it out each trip as it has enough hustle and bustle to make one feel like they are on a sugar high. Speaking of such, they actually have an It's Diabetes...I mean, It's Sugar there.

Our final day in the area was actually the original reason we all headed to Burbank / set-up the trip in the first place - a Disney VIP studio tour. As mentioned earlier, I accumulated a ridiculous amount of Disney points over the years and decided to cash in a bulk of them so that friends and family could experience the awesomeness of the studio. I am a bit of a glutton for Disney history / have read a bunch of different books on different aspects of such (check out my Goodreads profile for a listing of the books I've read) so being on the grounds of where a lot of the history took place is a bit surreal. It may just be me but I could feel the aura of creativity just being within the building walls. It really is a cool experience.

Legends Plaza has plaques for all of the Disney legends. There is actually a great documentary about Floyd on Netflix right now (An Animated Life) which leaves on November 1. Check it out before it's gone.

Our tour guide (Drew Hayashida) was absolutely amazing (check out his Instagram (@pointofdrew) and Facebook page (Point of Drew)) / definitely made us feel like VIPs with his friendliness and sense of humor and offered some awesome historical background and stories about the lot. If you ever get enough points / the chance to go on this tour it is an absolute must for Disney aficionados.

Propellers from Island at the Top of the World

I love this under-seen Disney film so seeing props up close was awesome. Check it out if you haven't seen it.

Chest from Pirates of the Caribbean movies

We already know my love for Tokyo so it was great to see a lot of their old merchandise.

We got to walk by sound stages, where such films like Mary Poppins and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (one of my favorites) were filmed, and also went to the Disney Archives and other nooks and crannies of the studio. They actually rotate the items in the Archives as last time the theme was Tomorrowland and this time it was Adventureland.

If you are not familiar with the Sherman Brothers but love Disney, I question your dedication...

For a fascinating insight / look at the studio back in the 1940s watch The Reluctant Dragon. It was filmed on the lot and is a great time capsule for Disney history. 

Note Pluto's paw prints in the cement near the fire hydrant.

Fantasia glass etchings in the lobby area of the theater

It was noted that sound mixing was done in this theater back in the Mary Poppins days. Incidentally my sister and I saw Mary Poppins here last year during a D23 Studio Lot screening.

Only one of a few multi-plane cameras remaining. Probably the most famous shot using it is the opening to Pinocchio in which the camera pans across the top of the village. Even if you don't like the film re-watch that scene just to see how amazing it is. 

Although it isn't confirmed, we are pretty sure that Ryan Reynolds was on the 2nd floor of the Frank G. Wells building (Marvel is on that floor and the Archives is on the 1st floor) while we were in the Archives as he actually posted a photo of himself in front of the Marvel sign on Instagram around the same time we were there. We choose to believe he was there so we are going with that.

Extremely detailed Cars mural inside a building

Some of the specific buildings we visited along with the ones noted above are The Animation building and Inking and Painting building. I am currently reading Ink & Paint : The Women of Walt Disney's Animation by Mindy Johnson, which is a fantastic look at the history of inking and painting and makes a great companion piece to the tour. Along with the aforementioned Reluctant Dragon, if you are interested in watching some other films which used the buildings, check out Saving Mr. Banks and The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (which has a young Kurt Russell).

Frank G Wells Building. Can anyone see Ryan Reynolds?

The tour ends with a visit to the Disney Store, which has items only available at the studio, including items from a separate Employee Center section.

My sister summed up the tour pretty well afterwards saying it was "amazing".

Next up : Chicago