Where do I even begin on this tour? It was beyond awesome! Lauren and I wanted to do something different when we visited Southern California, and Lauren was interested in doing a studio tour. We looked around at the different studios that offered tours, but Warner Brothers was the only one that offered tours on the weekends. Plus, they had a coupon code, and the tour price was less than $50. You can’t beat that! That morning, we arrived a little early, and moseyed around the gift shop, deciding on what to buy when we finished the tour. The gift shop was also the waiting area for the tours, as well as Starbucks. For the Harry Potter fans out there, they had some costumes worn by the stars, and movie props in the waiting area as well. Once it was our turn for the tour, we went into a small movie theater to see a brief video on the history of Warner Brothers and see clips of what movies and shows have been filmed on the lot. Once the movie finished, we headed off to our golf cart to head to the lot.
Since it was a Saturday, no one was filming and we could go just about anywhere! Our first stop was “the jungle” which is where they have an abundance of trees for filming jungle and woods scenes. Some highlighted spots were the bar from ‘True Blood’, the road where the T-Rex chase scene from ‘Jurassic Park’ was filmed, and the “swamp” where Kermit the Frog sang the original ‘Rainbow Connection’. We then made our way to the town square, where countless movies and shows are filmed, including the most recent ‘Muppets’ and the show ‘Gilmore Girls’. At that moment, they were all set up for the show ‘Pretty Little Liars’ that would be filming the next week. We toured more backlot areas, like residential and city streets. We even got to go in a house that had been used in ‘Friends’ and ‘Gilmore Girls’. After spending quite a bit of time driving around, we made a stop and were told we were going to go into a sound stage. If that wasn’t exciting enough, our tour guide told us we’d be going on ‘The Big Bang Theory’ sound stage. If you don’t know, that is one of my favorite shows! I was beyond excited, and I can’t remember anything the tour guide said when we were inside because I kept looking at everything on the set! What a thrill!
Our next stop was at the car museum, which housed most of the Batmobiles, as well as other vehicles from popular movies and TV shows. The stop after that was the ‘Ellen’ soundstage, which Lauren was super excited about! We made two more stops before completing the tour,
and one of them was to the costume museum, featuring costumes of movies and shows from past and present. Their most recent addition was a series of costumes and props from ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. Our last stop was probably my favorite, where we were headed to the prop building, but we had no idea what we were going to see. Our tour guide told us that we were going to see a set that had been saved for tour guests, rather than be dismantled and sent to a museum. Little did we expect to walk into the Central Perk set from ‘Friends’. Since Lauren and I both love ‘Friends’, we couldn’t believe we were there! Not only was that amazing, but we even got to sit on the orange couch they sat on in almost every episode.
We finished the tour with a little more driving around the lot, before we ended back at the gift shop. We had a blast on the studio tour, and I would totally do it again! For the price, amount of people on the tour (13), and the amount of things we got to see, I would do it again and recommend it to anyone looking for something fun to do in the LA area.
Thanks for reading friends!
Until next time,
Caitlyn
Follow me on twitter and instagram; @caitlynnoel
