My incredible California trip was winding down rapidly as I hit the last day of the adventure: Saturday, July 18, 2009. I had stayed the night at David’s house in Burbank after our day in San Diego so that I would be closer to the first adventure of the day – the Hollywood Show at the Burbank Marriot. The show started at 10am, but David and I met Bob for breakfast before the show at the Coral Cafe. A bacon and cheese omelet hit the spot before Bob and I headed out.
David and Bob mop up the gravy
The Breakfast Club
We arrived shortly before the opening of the show and lined up and waited to get in. There I met up with my friend Steve Cox, whom I hadn’t seen since 2005. When we finally got in, I circled the room and remarked to Steve that I was reluctant to ‘break the seal’ – meaning tapping into my walletful of cash that was going to be exiting my person relatively soon.
With my pal Steve Cox
I’ve spent a good deal of energy reporting my disdain for the greed of many of the celebrities that attend these shows, but despite my initial fear that some of these has-beens were pricing themselves out of business, I was pleasantly surprised with some of the relatively decent deals on photos. $20 is the average going rate for signed photos, and if the celeb is generous, they will pose for a picture with you if you buy something. If I already have purchased their signature but never got a picture taken with them, I often employ the tactic of bringing my signed picture along in order to show them that I once gave them my business. This is a little stressful itself, to muster the energy to schmooze and persuade them to do this.
But soon enough, I had broken the seal, beginning with Greg Brady himself from The Brady Bunch. The reunion of the cast members here surpassed the one that I had in Chicago by adding Barry Williams to the three (plus Cousin Oliver) whom I had already met. But it wasn’t worth it for me to repeat the whole cast photo so I just got the solo picture with Greg.
Bob greets more Bradys than I did
I was pleased with the caliber of celebs at this show and of course you can follow the trail of stars that I got photos with (beginning here). There were of course several that I had met before: Richard Kiel, Lou Ferrigno (who again I tried to bargain with and was shot down. What a numbnut. I just won’t pay $30 to get a picture with this former green blob.), Erika Eleniak (I said hello and told her that I had seen her four times now over the last year), Cindy Pickett, Pat Harrington, and other minor stars.
Pat Harrington was in the Schneider costume, unlike when I met him at Chiller
I bypassed getting a photo with Serena Scott Thomas, although she played Faith’s watcher Gwendolyn Post in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Basically everyone on my list showed up except for Alan Young, who I think actually came on Sunday after I was long out of the state. And when I found out that Kathy Najimy was charging an extra fee to get a picture with her, I nixed her on my list. The show was fairly well run except for the organization of the Happy Days cast photo, which proved to be irritating to the fans and the celebs involved. One other rather cool reunion that occurred at the show was a gathering of pretty much every actor who played Jason in the Friday the 13th film (there were at least ten). I had already met Kane Hodder who starred in four of the films, so I was not about to start this collection. Nevertheless, it was a pretty cool thought.
Bob and I stayed at the show until about 3pm and then headed out. The next destination of the day was to meet up with my old friend from Springfield Jim Harwood. I had reunited with Jim around Christmas 2007 but hadn’t seen him since. Jim was kind enough to drive up to Burbank on his day off to meet us at his place of employ at Pro-Tek Media Preservation to give us a tour of the facility.
Many top studios store their film negatives here where they are routinely inspected and stored. The company also works in film restoration and preservation. It was amazing to see the sliding storage facility that houses thousands upon thousands of films and TV shows. Bob and I both really appreciated Jim showing us around for about 45 minutes.
Jim and I peruse the cache of films
Bob admires the Amos and Andy Show
With Epcot film loops used at the theme park
Walls and walls of film
Jim Harwood, Operations Manager
After we left Pro-Tek, Bob and I headed over to Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery. I have often visited this location as the final resting place of Oliver Hardy is located here. But this time Bob and I spent over an hour here looking for several other graves of the famous that I had never seen. I will highlighted these graves in the Valhalla posting.
At the grave of the legend Oliver Hardy
We left the cemetery a little after 6:00 and headed to Ristorante Bella Vista for a nice Italian dinner with Big Jimmy, Kris, Little Jimmy, Ellen, and David. It was nice for all of us to get together for my last dinner of the trip. I had the spaghetti carbonara to recall my days in Italy. We had to spend a little more time here than we typically would as Jimmy attempted to upload the photos from Bob’s memory card that I had been using for the last two days (due to the great battery charger fiasco that plagued me all week).
Jimmy and Ellen
Bob, Jimmy, Ellen, Kris, Big Jimmy, me, and David dig into the Italian delights
Finally we all bid a farewell until our next adventure and Jimmy and I headed back to his place. We didn’t stay up late watching any classic sitcoms because for the first time, I had a ridiculously early Sunday flight back home. We had to get up before 4am, get ready, and head out for LAX. My flight left at 6:20, landed in Denver at 9:39, took back off at 10:45, and landed in Dayton at 3:25, at which time I stepped off of my 22nd flight of the year. Dad and Vicki were nice enough to drive my car to the airport so that I could depart right from there.
Although it was a horrendous end to the trip to have to leave so early, I was glad to actually have some decompression time before going back to work. As I relaxed that evening, I watched some episodes of Three’s Company and the film The Goodbye Girl, both apropos considering some of the celebrity encounters of the previous week.
I’d have just five days before I would be leaving on my next – and final – weeklong vacation of 2009.
Return to the beginning of the trip here…
2009 will continue…
Follow the trail of the celebrities of the Hollywood Show here…
Oh, great picture of me with that toothy grin!
Jim Harwood
October 19th, 2009