burbank

We woke up in Anaheim, and headed straight for Burbank. We're staying in the Marriot Convention
Center near Bob Hope airport. Through six years of roadtripping, this is our nicest hotel by far. Aside from the free massages offered by physical therapists, poolside cabanas, and outdoor stone fire pits, there are little outdoor TV lounges. I can't imagine why. First of all who wants to watch TV when you have free massages and poolside cabanas? But more important, where we come from, the only reason anyone would be crazy enough to put a TV outside is for a garage sale. apparently it never rains here, or hails, or tornadoes, or five foot blizzards.

While Rico and Yoda napped, the rest of us headed to Warner Brothers for a V.I.P. studio tour. 

Wow.

It was like a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Batman and Joker for Punk. Pretty Little Liars for Kooka. Harry Potter for me. 

Our tour guide was Parker, and she was fabulous. She took a special interest in Punk's Batman obsession. "Don't touch anything Noah. Don't ride anything Noah. Oh, and don't pass out Noah," she said as she opened the door that housed all if the original bat-mobiles and bat signals. 

We visited the hall of Batman/Harry Potter props and costumes. We were sorted by the sorting hat into our respective houses (Slytherin for Punk, which he was way too excited about, Hufflepuff for Kooka which she was understandably disappointed by, and Griffyndor for me - yes!), took pictures with Aragog the giant spider, and saw the real Joker costumes, which nearly sent punk into cardiac arrest. (Imagine Cookie Monster in an Oreo factory and you've pretty much got it.)

We visited the working set of The Big Bang Theory, the Central Perk set from Friends (where we got to take our pictures on the couch), cruised past Ellen's set (don't think I didn't consider some ninja bush revenge of my own - see 2011 trip for more info on my love/hate situation with Ellen), saw where they shot scenes for The Mask, Gremlins, Batman, Annie, Casablanca, Goonies and hundreds of other films. We saw TV neighborhoods, the original Hall Of Justice, and Hollywood's version of Central Park.

Dinner was a trip to downtown LA for Pink's famous hotdogs. Yes, they were everything we hoped, but they are still hotdogs. Kooka munched the Mullholland drive dog with bacon, mushrooms,nacho cheese and onions, Punk went with a straight up chili-cheese dog, Rico had the Pastrami dog, I had a Today Show dog with chili, mushrooms, onions and guacamole, and Yoda had fries and the ends of our dogs with "no yucky sauce on it."

We're back in the hotel watching reruns of our favorite couch. Never gets old.