Monday, April 14, 2008

THE OFFICE (US) FILMING LOCATIONS





WELCOME TO DUNDER MIFFLIN SCRANTON, Home of Michael Scott, Jim, Pam, Dwight Schrute, and the gang.

THE OFFICE (US) Is, in my book, one of the best shows on TV. I was introduced to it when I stayed with friends in Louisiana for a few days. I didn't catch the first season until I bought the DVD, because the commercials never interested me, largely because the whole show seemed to be filmed on one set. Once I did watch the show, however, I was hooked.

My years of sniffing out and visiting filming locations on my own prompted me to take my wife, one of the biggest OFFICE fans in the world, out to the filming location in Van Nuys, CA. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Chandler Valley Center Studios. Originally, the Dunder Mifflin offices were actually filmed in the offices facing the street, but were later recreated on a soundstage downstairs. However, if you watch new episodes closely, you can see they still use various rooms from the old site, mostly to film out the windows and onto the street.

Is the visit worth it? If you are obsessed with the Office, yes. CVC studios, really just a clump of soundstages-for-hire, is located at the western dead end of Saticoy street, which is crammed with old industrial buildings, so it's perfectly legal and safe for you to visit this location and even take pictures from outside the fence. However our sources have told us, when THE OFFICE does film exteriors here, the entire street is closed, and only local business traffic is permitted through between takes, so don't go thinking you're going to be able to see filming. In fact, you may not get to see the place at all if they are filming, so I would personally advise you to go on a weekend. There will be less chance of street closure for filming.

So there you are! We are the first to post a location, yet again. Not that it was a big secret. We added this information on Wikipedia a long time ago, but If you do visit this site, please send us some pictures to BTTFtour@gmail.com - and we'll feature them on an upcoming website! (With credit to you, of course!)








All Photos ©2007 RimfireStudios.com / BTTFtour.com

Monday, March 24, 2008

The "Skinny House" - Long Beach, CA


In an inconspicuous neighborhood in Long Beach, CA is one of the weirdest looking things - 708 Gladys Avenue doesn't pop out right away, but the double-take is astounding... It's the skinniest house in North America!

According to the city, this Three-Story house is "eight hundred sixty square feet, half-timber expression of Old English Tudor architecture exterior ... compressed onto a ten foot by fifty foot residential lot." Apparently, this 10x50 lot was created by accident when it was left out of a previous land sale. In 1931, some unlucky man had the misfortune to owe $100 to a Mr. Newton Rummond (in the height of the depression, no less!) - but luckily for them, Mr Rummond accepted the property in lieu of monies. To get back at all of his friends who scoffed at the little property, and on a dare, Newton built the "Skinny house" with out-of-work contractors who did so simply for the notoriety, on the chance it would lead to some real work.

The house was featured in the Guiness book of World Records, Ripley's Believe-it-or-not, and many other magazines, TV shows, etc. Walt Disney even visited the property at one of the many open houses the various owners have held. in 1959 it was discovered the house was leaning to one side, so it was straightened again, with no problems since! A search for the later whereabouts or last resting place of Mr. Rummond yielded no results for us, but we all know wherever he lies, he's resting comfortably.. with the last laugh!


Thursday, February 28, 2008

TOWER MART - Lathrop, CA

Okay, so we started this blog as a place for you to see things near BTTF sites. Well, this one qualifies a little bit - largely because this bad boy location.. oddity really.. is in between the NorCal sites and the SoCal sites, depending on which way you drive. Tower Mart is a series of little mini marts / gas stations in the bay area, and the one in Lathrop, CA does not fail to impress. I was in Northern California to play shows with my band, and Stumbled across this one while gassing up shortly before driving to Chinese Camp to see Hill Valley 1885 (BTTFtour.com for more on that!).

I'd never seen this before, but a Stockton local with me abesolutely took it in stride. "No big deal," he said, "Just aliens."

Well, you look at the photos and judge for yourself. This mini mart is sure busy, by universal standards!





Dunder Mifflin Teaser


We'll just tease you with this photo of the location for "THE OFFICE" (US version with Steve Carrel) - just as incentive to come back and check us out! Who knows, maybe we'll put sidetrips up as a seperate site. Don't hesitate to click on the ads here or on BTTFtour.com - They're a bit annoying to look at but it helps us pay for hosting and DNS registration

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Welcome

Welcome to BTTFtour.com's blog, which we like to call SideTrips. Here we'll post some other interesting sites within the range (Half an hour or so) of sites people visit using BTTFtour.com as their guide! Also be sure to check out our new site, Gnome Travel™, which is domain-less for the moment, but you can see the beta on BTTFtour.com!