Los Angeles Day 4- Paramount Studios

I forked over $159 for 3 tickets to the Paramount Studio tour. I hate spending that much but it was pretty cool.

The studio is on like 6 acres in the heart of Hollywood. It’s its own city with restaurants, coffee bar, little medical building and daycare. There were food trucks everywhere and the delicious smells were not doing anything to help my budding hunger. The tour began at 10:30. By 11:30 I contemplated hoping off the golf cart and pretend I was a crew member of The Doctors in order to eat off their food truck.

Star Sightings

There weren’t any, let’s just get that out into the open. We saw this kid actor walking with his parents of a Nickelodeon show. Really? Out of everything coming out of this lot, this is what I’m presented with? Pass.

When we stopped behind a medical building to be shown how the prop team used this area for a scene of Top Gun I saw what looked to be almost like a house next to it. The door was opened and the storm door kept the bugs out. I looked into the window of the house and there was a man writing on his laptop. I noticed a sign next to the door with a glass of wine.

“Wine country? What’s that all about?” I asked our page.

“That is Amy Poehler’s new show they are working on. I always hope for Amy to come out when I’m giving these tours.”

I flipped out. “Amy Poehler? Seriously? Oh my God! I love Amy Poehler! I’ve read,” I corrected myself, “I’ve listened to her book twice.” I too began to pray she would come out but alas, nothing.

Dr. Phil

Did you know Dr. Phil is in his 16th season? Me neither. We got to go on the set and sit where the audience sits. A few fun facts I learned about the production of Dr. Phil:

• His wife has a special chair and has attended every single taping. She also has a little bag of goodies next to her chair.
• Dr. Phil is obsessed with fresh breath. So much so that he has Altoids behind the stage everywhere. He even has an Altoid tin nailed to a desk. I know because I saw it. If I ever meet Dr. Phil I’ve decided I’m going to freak him out and pretend he has bad breath.
• Dr. Phil’s son works on the next stage over on The Doctors as a producer (I think a producer).
• The show films twice a day and begins around 7:30 a.m. It’s the same audience at both filmings but the crew just makes the audience sit in different seats to look like a new audience.
• He uses an enormous amount of lighting on the set. So much so that they have these huge funnels of air piped in.

Psychic?

After the tour we found ourselves back on Hollywood Blvd. F was going to pick us up and we had designated a side street “next to the cult” as the perfect place. The cult, as we nicknamed it was actually the scientology building.

On our walk to the spot, I heard,

“Hi Angela.”

I looked over to find your average hipster, leaned up against a car with his arms folded. I kept walking.

“How did he know my name?” I asked my boys. I took inventory of what I was wearing. Maybe I still had my tour lanyard still on that had my name. Nope. I did have my latte that had my name on it but 2/3 of it was covered by the sleeve and pointing the opposite direction.

“I am shocked,” I admitted. We have no idea how he knew my name. Perhaps he was psychic?