I always feel bad for the tourists who take these excursions because 90% of the attractions are bullshit. You can’t REALLY see the stars’ homes, you can’t get ONTO the soundstages where classic movies were made. You can’t take your picture in front of Schwab’s Drug Store where Lana Turner was discovered because it no longer exists.
Hollywood Blvd. itself is seedy. The only time actual Hollywood stars go to Hollywood is for the Oscars and they get out of limos and walk red carpets surrounded by a phalanx of security. They're not at the T-shirt emporium. Maybe Cary Grant used to eat at Musso & Frank’s, and if you want to go there for the food I recommend it highly, but good luck seeing Emma Stone there.
Not to mention, once on the bus, out-of-towners are subjected to stand-still traffic like everybody else. So they wind up spending most of their day looking at Jiffy Lubes and Taco Bells (Emma Stone doesn’t eat there either).
One community if finally trying to do something about this. The Hollywood Hills have many winding narrow streets, and residents are forever inconvenienced by the tour bus monsters clogging up the roads. Now the city is considering regulations that would prevent tour buses from entering these narrow streets. And again, it’s not like the tourists are gong to be missing anything. Tom Hanks is not going to be shooting hoops in the driveway.
Of course, what that means is instead of the Hollywood Hills, these buses will now be in Westwood, slowing my commute, and making passage through UCLA impossible so tourists can see where Tim Robbins once bought an apple at the student union.
"Schwab’s Drug Store [...] no longer exists." B-but there's still a Pioneer Chicken Stand on Alverado Street, right?
ReplyDeleteIs Jack Nicholson's house included in the tour?
ReplyDeleteFriday Question:
ReplyDeleteCould you write about how budgets are set for shows? Is it a negotiation? You'll say what sets you need and they'll give you some of them to start? Is hiring actors like getting an NFL team under the salary cap, so maybe you can't hire as many regulars as you'd like because the cost is too high? Do they put new shows on the small soundstage in the bad part of town until they make good and then move them to a better location? Would, say, the number of trips to Hawaii for Big Wave Dave's be something also negotiated?
I'm sure it's different now that networks now own the shows?
Thanks, Ken!
Tourism is now one of the main drivers of a variety of bad shit on earth. Not only slowing your commute but clogging the one lane path up Half Dome, partying until dawn on Bora Bora, screwing with the penguins on Antarctica and on and on. Humanity is starting to fuck up every square inch of the earth for their pleasure and amusement. Pretty soon everywhere will be like Mainstreet at DisneyLand: a bunch of fat, pasty white people taking selfies and spewing trash. Maybe the Corona Virus plague is a good thing. #HappyMonday
ReplyDeleteThe foot and hand prints in the concrete at Grauman's were fascinating when I first visited.
ReplyDeleteI can not fathom the attraction of these LA bus tours. Conversely, I did the bus tour of Manhattan. 6 hours long if you never get off. I would highly recommend for any first time NYC visitor to take the bus tour first. Then you will have a fantastic data base for where you want to actually spend time. No way an LA bus tour could accomplish that.
ReplyDeleteNot only does Schwab's no longer exist, but many of the homes of the famous movie starts of yesteryear no longer exist in Beverly Hills. They'v been torn down and replaced by McMansions that take up the entire lots.
ReplyDeletebtw, Ken- Friday question: I just re-watched The Odd Couple and still find myself wondering why people thought Neil Simon's works were so good. I don't but I see that as a fault in myself rather than a fault with Neil Simon. I know you saw him as a master playwright and wonder if you could give some details about why that is. What made him so good, and what am I missing?
Way back in 1979 my buddy and I took a trip to Los Angeles, naively expecting to bump into TV and movie stars everywhere. When we realized how massive LA really is, and how much driving and how many freeways it took it to get anywhere, we were completely overwhelmed.
ReplyDeleteBut on the first night we had a true "dumb luck" experience. We decided to drive to the NBC studios in Burbank, just to see how to get there for the next day's tour. We drove around back and there was a line of people waiting to get in. We rolled down the car window to ask what for, and a guy said it was to a taping of Hollywood Squares. He said he had two extra tickers if we wanted them. So we had woken up in Buffalo that morning, and by the evening we saw NINE famous stars in person! (Ten if you count Peter Marshall.)
Later in the trip we got to see The Tonight Show, and Johnny Carson was actually there that night! So overall the trip was a success, but I will NEVER forget that traffic and the hassles of all those freeways!
If people want to see where current stars live wouldn’t it be better for the busses to drive through Calabasas?
ReplyDeleteAccording to the story I read, one night, Jack Benny's radio show began with a voice welcoming people to the tour bus that would show them the homes of Hollywood stars. Then it went by Don Wilson's house, and he did the commercial. Then Dennis Day, and he did a skit and then sang. Then Phil Harris, and they did a skit, and played. Then Rochester and so on. Each skit was about Benny, but no sign of him. Then at the end the guide says, "This is the home of Jack Benny," and you hear Benny say, "Excuse me, driver, this is where I get off."
ReplyDeleteDo any of the tours visit the stairway used by Laurel and Hardy in "The Music Box"?
ReplyDeleteIf you go to Niles (near Fremont, California), you can take a walking tour and see storefronts that appeared in Essenay silents and the modest houses where Ben Turpin and Edna Purviance lived. Just don't disturb the current residents.
I've never understood why people move near a major attraction and then complain about the tourists that come to visit said attraction. It's like when people move in next to the airport and then complain about airplane noise. Besides, if one can afford a house in the Hollywood hills (Unless they inherited it from their grandparents) he or she could probably afford to live somewhere where there are no tourists. Why not try South Bend, Indiana? I really don't think there are that many people heading there to see Pete Buttigieg's house.
ReplyDeleteI know that if I moved to the beach you wouldn't hear me complaining that there are too many girls in bikinis going by.
But seriously, I'm not totally unsympathetic. But, come on. It's just part of the cost of living in Los Angeles.
M.B.
I have a Friday question related to your weekend post, but since I didn't get around to reading it until Monday, I'll leave the question here.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the Colonel who "went Hollywood" as your technical adviser: There was an episode of MASH where Hawkeye and BJ were scheming to get their hands on a movie (The Moon is Blue, if memory serves) and came across a Lieutenant (maybe a different rank, I forget) who was in charge of sending the films who had himself "gone Hollywood." Was your technical adviser perhaps an inspiration for this character?
Reminds me of an episode of the Jack Benny radio show set on a tour bus. As I recall, the bus went by the houses of the various cast. I think they did something like having the guide go "And here's the house of Phil Harris and Alice Faye. I suppose they're having lunch now" and then dissolved into a scene of them having lunch inside (which of course the bus passengers couldn't see).
ReplyDeleteNear the end of the show, there's been no lines by Jack Benny. A couple of lines establish 1) the tour has been going for several hours now and 2) it's a free bus paid for by the Chamber of Commerce. The guide announces they're pulling up to the CBS Radio Studios. And you hear Jack Benny say something like "Driver, this is my stop. Please open the door." to thunderous applause.
The joke of course, being Benny was famously cheap enough that he'd spend several hours on a tour bus because it gave him a free ride to work. [Note: for those not familiar with Benny, the person Jack Benny played a character Jack Benny on his show. The character was not necessarily like the person. Among other things, the character was famously cheap, while the person was not]
The older I get the more I hate traffic. I'm short enough, I don't need to feel crowded. My only desire to see anything in LA is to see the music studios...and the Capitol Building. Beyond that, I'd rather do the touristy thing in Banff National Park again one day.
ReplyDeleteI’ll be heading to L.A. in a couple weeks and I’m looking forward to having a beef boogaloo at Wolfman Jack’s.
ReplyDeleteSo...where DOES Emma Stone eat?
ReplyDeleteThere used to be a San Francisco tour devoted exclusively to Hitchcock's VERTIGO. I wonder if it still happens.
ReplyDeleteI once rode an ordinary New York City bus with Spalding Gray. He was shorter than I expected.
I hope to visit LA this summer. Any tips on what to do now that I know to avoid the bus tour :)?
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of San Francisco, I did take a bus tour there and was glad I did it. I saw some things I never would have thought to go see on my own like City hall and the "painted ladies" houses. The bus did go into Chinatown where I thought the street was pretty narrow for a bus. No, it didn't go down Lombard street.
So, WHERE does Emma Stone eat? BTW, went to Musso and Frank's when I was in LA a couple years back and thoroughly enjoyed the food and the ambiance. Would have had the meat loaf, which came highly recommended, but I don't eat meat any more.
ReplyDeleteI thought something would have been done after Michael Jackson's death- when the ambulance had trouble getting to the hospital because a tour bus was in the way.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, I saw Will Ferrell & Danny McBride eating lunch at Musso & Frank's a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter spotted "the guy who played the young Solo" at Canter's Deli one evening recently. True, the guy has good taste, but no adoring mob of fans. Hollywood can be so unforgiving.
ReplyDeleteEmma Stone and all other stars do not eat. When necessary for cameras, they might pick at food and nibble for effect. One actor used to pre-chew it for her young children because it was trendy. Hollywood can be so daffy.
I sat at the next table to Peter Falk at Musso & Franks. But since that was at least 25 years ago it rather proves your point.
ReplyDelete