What Movies Were Shot At The Japanese Garden In Van Nuys

Seeing Stars: Where the Movies Were Shot (on Location)

The 1990's - part 2

Filming locations of TV Shows,
Made-for-TV Movies & Music Videos.

Likewise, the high school episodes of the hot TV '90-s series " BEVERLY HILLS 90210 " weren't filmed at Beverly Hills High, as you might expect.
Instead, the exterior scenes were shot at the very same Torrance High (at 2200 W. Carson Street) in Torrance, where they filmed "Buffy". Torrance is a middle-class town in the South Bay, far removed from the glitz of Beverly Hills.

(The 2009 remake, "90210", used the same high school.)

And once the cast of " BEVERLY HILLS 90210 " graduated from high school to the campus of "California University," the shooting site moved to the actual campus of Occidental College , located between Pasadena and Glendale (at 1600 Campus Road), in the L.A. suburb of Eagle Rock.

(They also filmed the 1995 movie " CLUELESS " there).

Also, the 'Walsh' house from " BEVERLY HILLS 90210 ," where 'Brenda and Brandon' lived. ( Shannen Doherty and Jason Priestley ) is actually 1675 E. Altadena Drive, in Altadena (just north of Pasadena.) You'll find the house about seven blocks east of Lake Avenue, and just before Tanople Drive. (It's only a few blocks from the "7th Heaven" home.)

The arched doorway to the "90210" house looks a bit like the house used as the Lawrence family home in the popular 1970's series, " FAMILY ", starring Kristy McNichol , Meredith Baxter and Gary Frank , but obviously it's not the same house.

The actual "Family" house is located at 1230 Milan Ave , in South Pasadena , in the same general vicinity (the San Gabriel Valley), but about seven miles south of Altadena.

Speaking of " BEVERLY HILLS 90210 ," remember the beachfront apartment where Donna ( Tori Spelling ), Kelly ( Jennie Garth ) and David ( Brian Austin Green ) lived? You'll find the pale-blue, three story building on the west side Hermosa Beach Strand (a popular seaside path running parallel to the coastline in that beach town), near the Manhattan Beach border. It gets a lot of attention from the cyclists and skaters passing by on hot summer days. The exact address is 3500 The Strand , in Hermosa Beach. It's at the very end of 35th Street, facing the beach.

(Another bit of trivia: the same house was featured in the 1988 movie, " My Stepmother is an Alien ," a comedy starring Kim Basinger and Dan Akyroyd .You'll spot the house in the scene where Kim lands her spaceship on the beach and runs into a party at the house.)

Remember the bar called "Shooters" where the gang hung out on TV's " MELROSE PLACE ?" Well, it's actually a small restaurant/lounge called "Fellini's," and it's located on Melrose. 6810 Melrose Avenue , to be precise, just east of La Brea, in Hollywood.

Meanwhile, you can find the real apartment building which was at the center of TV's " MELROSE PLACE " in the humble Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, at 4616 Greenwood Place (just east of Vermont Ave., four blocks north of Franklin Ave.)
It's not far from ABC Television Center Studios.
[Buy the CD's]

The TV series " POPULAR " chronicled the teenage social politics at the fictional 'Kennedy High'. But the campus scenes were actually shot at Palisades High School , located at 15777 Bowdoin St., in the wealthy seaside community of Pacific Palisades. (Quite a few other movies and TV commercials have also been shot on this campus.)

Remember the episode of " THE X-FILES ," where Mulder & Scully time-travel back to Nazi Germany while on an ocean liner? (It's also the episode where they first kissed.)

Well, that episode (like so many other movies and TV shows) was filmed aboard the ocean liner the Queen Mary , now permanently docked in Long Beach, California.

[Buy the video]

If you're a Star Trek fan, you may remember a 1998 episode of" STAR TREK: VOYAGER " titled " In the Flesh ," where the crew discovers a simulation of Earth, only to learn tha t the "humans" there are really Species 8472. The tranquil garden which was supposed to be Star Fleet Headquarters in San Francisco was actually the Japanese Garden in Van Nuys , CA (in the San Fernando Valley). The "lab" and garden are part of the Donald Tillman water reclamation plant (at 6100 Woodley Avenue ).

The same garden was also featured in an episode of TV's " STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE ," " Homefront ", where the earth was infiltrated by Dominion changelings.

And it was also used as the Star Fleet Academy campus in " The First Duty " episode of " STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION ," wherein cadet Wesley Crusher gets into serious trouble at the Academy. (In that episode, the Golden Gate Bridge was inserted into the skyline behind the garden.) Tours of the garden are available to the public.

Baywatch

In between Santa Monica and Malibu, , where Temsecal Canyon Road meets Pacific Coast Highway, is Will Rogers State Beach and its lifeguard tower, where they shot the popular TV series " BAYWATCH " (before they moved the show to Hawaii).

Scenes from the show were also shot up and down the coast, on local beaches from Long Beach to Malibu.

[Buy the videos]

The TV series " PROVIDENCE " was supposed to be filmed in Rhode Island. Although quite a few establishing views were taken in the real Providence, many of the seaside shots are actually filmed right here in Southern California, at Ports O'Call Village , a Cape Cod-themed shopping center that borders the main channel of the Los Angeles Harbor, at Berth 76 in San Pedro . Often, when you see Sydney and her dad sailing past what appears to be a charming New England fishing village, that's actually Ports O'Call. Most of the shooting there takes place down at the south end of the village, in a (now mostly empty) area known as Whaler's Wharf.
" O'Neill's Bar & Grill ", a popular hangout on "Providence" (where Sydney's brother worked), was actually a San Pedro bar known as " The Whale & Ale ", an authentic British pub, which you can find at 327 W. 7th Street , less than a mile northwest of Ports O'Call, in San Pedro .
The home where Sydney and the Hansen family live actually exists in two different places. The original house, used for exterior shots when the TV series started, was actually a private home in Providence, RI (on the corner of Taber Street & Freeman Parkway, on the city's East Side). Later, though, they built a replica of that house on the back lot of Universal Studios Hollywood , where the show was filmed. You may be able to see the home on the studio's tram tour.

Speaking of beaches, if you watched the NBC soap opera " SUNSET BEACH " in the late 1990's, you may be surprised to learn that even though there is an actual town called Sunset Beach in Southern California, the show's beach scenes aren't shot there. Instead, they're shot at neighboring Seal Beach (just one town to the north of Sunset Beach, and just south of Long Beach.) The producers loved the small town atmosphere of the town's quaint Main Street .
The familiar "Sunset Beach" pier (where legend has it that two people who meet there will fall in love) is actually the Seal Beach Pier , located at the ocean end of Main Street.