Raising Our Wild Things

Southern Living - Red Wine Sippin' - Wife - Mom of 3 - Jesus Follower- Mompreneur

Welcome to Hollywood! (and haunted hotels)

As promised here is my second post on my recent trip to California. If you missed the first one you can check it out here.


I started out my visit to Hollywood with a tour of Warner Brother Studios. I would highly recommend this tour! It costs $55 but it lasts a little over two hours and you get to see some really cool things! If you are really lucky you will even get to see an actress/actor as this is not a theme park but their actual studio where they film many, many movies and TV shows. While I was there they were filming Pretty Little Liars, Two and Half Men, Big Bang, Ellen, and a few movies. 

Below are some of the highlights of things I saw while on the tour:

This alley has been the background for many scenes in movies but the one I remembered was Batman.

Do I have any Friend fans in the audience? 😉
As you can see this is the stage that Friends was filmed on for all those years and after it’s great success the stage has now been forever named as the Friends Stage. If you are a Friends fan you are going to like this next pic because it is ON THE SET OF FRIENDS. It is forever a permanent set that keep up due to the success of the show. I even got to sit on the notorious couch:

Another really cool part of the studio tour was getting to see all the props for sets. They literally have warehouses full of anything and everything you can rent for a set for a movie or TV show. The set warehouses are set up a like a big shop (I wold LOVE to do some picking in them) and the prop manger literally walks around and tags the items he/she wants to rent. There is everything from mega buck antiques from over seas to new modern furniture and accessories to the candies pictured below to every lighting fixture you could ever image:


Fun fact about these candies? Yes, they are real but they are sprayed with some kind of deadly adhesive to make them “pop” in movie sets. My tour guide was telling me that he was in this warehouse a few weeks ago when he saw a prop manager open the jar and pop a hand full of jelly beans into her mouth before he could say anything. Not good.

After the tour of course I HAD to go see and get a quick picture of the Hollywood sign. 

I then spent some time enjoying walking up and down Hollywood Blvd. Man, wasn’t exactly what I was expecting to be totally honest. Of course seeing the “stars” was fun but I was giggling at the amount of spidermans, star wars characters, and fake mickey mouses all up and down the street. Don’t believe me?  Check out this picture of one of the Spidermans scaling a light pole. Fun right?


Of course I had to see the Kodak theater while I was there…it was so fun to imagine I was walking where all the stars have walked. And of course I had to take a picture next to the star of my childhood fav!

Another highlight of the trip was the spur of the moment decision to watch a live tapping of Jimmy Kimmel. Which ended up being so. much. fun. It was so interesting to see a show recorded. It was not was I expected but I loved it and really enjoyed going back and watching the show on TV. The guest stars were Mark Ruffalo and the two child Scramble winners. Unfortunately you have to check your camera at the door so people like me can’t take pictures inside the studio but I was able to snap this photo outside the entrance. 


The last highlight I will share with you is that my co-worker I was traveling with was smart enough to suggest we stay at the Roosevelt Hotel. What a great idea. This hotel is full of Hollywood history. Here’s a few fun facts about the hotel where I stayed:

1. The elevator in the hotel is the elevator they modeled Tower of Terror after at Disney World
2. This hotel was the original location of the Academy Awards
3.  Marilyn Monroe was a resident at the Hollywood Roosevelt for two years when her modeling career took off. Her first magazine shoot was taken on the diving board on the pool behind the hotel.
4. There have been many rumors of hauntings at this hotel. Some involve celebrities, such as Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift, who lived at the hotel in the past. Others involve a little girl in a blue dress. There have also been reports of cold spots, photographic “orbs”, and mysterious phone calls to the hotel operator.
5. My other childhood fav, Shirley Temple, filmed her famous tap dancing on the stairs scene on the staircase in the lobby. 

I’m telling you…this hotel is full of cool Hollywood history!


All in all I had an AWESOME time in Hollywood and wish I would have had more than a day to spend there. I will most def have to go back! What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever done in CA?

Comments

  1. been to Hollywood several times but would you believe I never did the tour?!! I should now after reading this and of course, that hotel is a must-stop for me next time! Thanks for sharing chelsea!

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  2. My husband and I have been to California several times but I never actually was closer than the famous sign! (Husband didn't want to deal with the traffic) We got to the LaBrea tar pits and that was all we had time to do before rush hour. Your trip sounds awesome. Maybe well go back and do the studio tour sometimes in the future.

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  5. It sounds like a fun trip! I've been to LA many times but never stayed at the Roosevelt. I love shopping in LA, mostly on Melrose, and just enjoying the warm weather and good food!
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  6. What a fun tour! I stayed at the Roosevelt Hotel one time and loved all the history. This was before it became the swank nightspot or had been renovated. I think it was back in 1998 that I was there. Loved seeing all of this.

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