Paramount Studio Tours - Fantastic!

Since Zak had never been to Los Angeles, I wanted to do something touristy. Disneyland is a lot of fun, but it is a lot of effort when you are staying in Santa Monica... And it is a full day adventure. So a friend of my cousin (@kmedmay) suggested the tour at Paramount Studios and we weren't disappointed (sadly, Brad was stuck in an office all day working so he wasn't able to join us).

There are two tours you can take, a 2 hour or 4 hour (that includes lunch). We opted for the 2 hour tour not knowing what to expect. The two hour tour was more suitable with the chilly rainy weather... And it was awesome. 

Paramount is less of a studio and more of a rental space for productions to film their shows. Some of them you may know... Glee, American Horror Story, NCIS and my favourite Happy Endings. The property is also steeped with history from the time when Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez had their own production studio. Each sound stage has a list of productions that have been filmed... Shows like Star Trek, Family Ties, and many many more. So it was so cool to drive by and see the lists of shows that have been filmed there.

If you are lucky, and we were, there may even be some star sightings. We saw LL Cool J getting it of his Maserati. And shortly after we saw Chris O'Donnell. Both working on NCIS. But Zak and I were probably more excited to see the trailers for the Happy Endings cast. 

Speaking of Happy Endings, we saw the cafe where they hang out, Wing Wongs and Xela, Alex's store. Our tour guide also stopped near the Glee stage door that was filming in hopes the Gleeks on our tour would see someone coming out of the door. But alas, we just saw some sad looking extras. 

What was also cool was the anecdotes that the guide gave us.  I won't tell them all since I highly recommend the tour, but here are a few:

• Lucille Ball had a garden built because she was criticized that she didn't spend any time with her kids. So she would visit them at the garden. It is the same green space that was used when Fin screams at the end of a football game and it zooms out to space. It was also used in Brady Bunch when Greg was caught smoking. 
• Tom Hanks, while filming got a the costume department to make him a Forrest Gump costume made. He sat on the Forrest Gump bench and whenever a tour group came by, they would point out the bench and he would be sitting there. For the entire day he would only talk as Forrest Gump and answer questions as Forrest Gump. He even had chocolates to give out!

The bench used in the movie!

Jane from Happy Endings' trailer. 

This is the cafeteria set that folds up nicely when not used!

So you never know what you may see on these tours. Next time I'm in LA, I will definitely book the 4 hour tour because I want to see more! Plus it is always changing with new shows being filmed and more stars to be seen!