Hollywood on Location (1996)

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

1996

The 1996 Tom Hanks movie, "THAT THING YOU DO" was filmed at the traffic circle in the City of Orange. This historic Old Town neighborhood already has a turn-of-the-century look, but the movie's producers weren't satisfied: they fixed up the vintage storefronts to look like Erie, Pennsylvania in 1964 (i.e. the local Wells Fargo Bank was transformed into the Erie Public Library). They even stripped the autumn leaves off the trees and replaced them with silk green leaves, like those found in Erie during the Spring time.

The Orange traffic circle is located at the intersection of Chapman Avenue & Glassell Street, two and a half miles east of the Crystal Cathedral, and about four miles southeast of Disneyland. The main filming location, "Patterson's Appliances," was located on the east side of Glassell, just a few stores north of Chapman. Another key filming location was the landmark Watson Drug Store, just east of the traffic circle, 100-years-old, the drug store is a wonderful bit of nostalgia in its own right. In fact, the song "That Thing You Do" is the #1 choice on their old-fashioned juke box. [Buy the Movie.]
The carnival / state fair scenes in "THAT THING YOU DO" (where the band, managed by Tom Hanks, plays on stage) were shot at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds (known as Fairplex), in Pomona, CA. [Buy the Movie.]

(Click here to hear the song!)

Basketball superstar Michael Jordan & Bugs Bunny co-starred in Warner Bros' "SPACE JAM" (1996), a unique mix of cartoon animation & live action. The baseball scenes from that movie were really shot at Blair Field in Long Beach. Blair Field is located in Recreation Park, at 4700 E. 10th Street, between Park Ave. and Pacific Coast Highway, in east Long Beach. Many scenes from the 1998 spoof "BASEketball" were also shot at Blair Field. [Buy the Movie.]
The basketball scenes from "SPACE JAM" were shot inside the Long Beach Arena, part of the Long Beach Convention Center complex, at 300 E. Ocean Blvd., in downtown Long Beach. [Buy the Movie.]

In the 1996 fantasy "MATILDA" (starring Danny DeVito & Rhea Perlman), there is a scene where young Matilda (Mara Wilson) is almost run over by a cement truck. This scene was shot in downtown Long Beach, at the corner of Third Street and Pine Avenue, near the southwest corner of the Long Beach Plaza mall.

(Pine Avenue was also used for scenes from 1999's "BOFINGER," starring Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin.) [Buy the Movie.]

In the 1996 sequel to "The Brady Bunch Movie," "A VERY BRADY SEQUEL," Shelly Long and the kids take Carol's long-lost husband (Tim Mattheson) on a musical shopping spree to get him "hip" to their retro 70's styles.

That outdoor musical number was shot on Santa Monica's popular Third Street Promenade (Third Street, between Wilshire & Colorado - not far from the Santa Monica Pier). You might notice the Promenade's famous topiary dinosaur fountains in the background... [Buy the Movie.]

In the 1996 comedy "THE CABLE GUY," cable TV installer Jim Carrey takes customer Matthew Broderick out for a colorful dinner at a medieval theatre/restaurant, where Carrey ends up battling with the knights in shining armor. Those scenes were actually shot at Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament (7662 Beach Blvd., in Buena Park; just north of Knott's Berry Farm). [Buy the Movie.]

* Locations marked by an asterisk (*) may be located in areas with high crime rates.
Exercise reasonable caution.

[Note: Double-underlined GREEN links are advertisements from IntelliTXT.]

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