Thom Zahler Art Studios: Con Reports

COYOTE UG-L.A.

The first thing I noticed about Los Angeles is that the city really wanted me to see Coyote Ugly. Coyote Ugly, near as I can can tell is a movie about female empowerment through revealing leather outfits and tequila shooters. I’m a big believer in equal rights for women, so I support this movement wholeheartedly.

Everywhere I turned the women of Coyote Ugly were staring at me, telling me that “Tonight they call the shots,” and, occasionally, “August 4.” I’m not kidding about this. The media buy for this movie makes the Elian Gonzales coverage pale in comparison. I swear they are putting up a Coyote Ugly building on Sunset.

The site of the future Coyote Ugly building.

WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS...
AND VOYAGER, TOO

Bob Ingersoll managed to secure the three of us the VIP Paramount Tour. Bob and Tony Isabella wrote a really spiffy Star Trek comic, “All of Me” a few months back. (See guys, I plug your stuff. Don’t forget I’m inking Adventures of Aaron.) If you take the regular tour, they tell you that you see the same tour the VIPs do, just not from a cart.

Motumbo, in the Paramount Page Protection Program

Yeah, and first class is not that much different from coach.

This may have been due to our tour guide, Motumbo. He let us do a lot of things we shouldn’t have, I’m guessing, so to protect his identity, I’m going to refer to him as Jean-Claude. (Motumbo’s not his real name either, I’m just going for the cheap joke.)

Roger, me, and Bob at the Paramount Arch. Behind us, the place where they film Angel, Star Trek... even Soul Train!

Jean-Claude wasn’t familiar with every aspect of the studio, but that’s fine. I don’t know every comic from every company I’ve worked for, either. And he wasn’t one of those smooth Jungle Cruise type of tour guides. He was, however exceedingly nice. His theory was that, if the red light wasn’t on, and the door was open, the stage was fair game for us.

First we saw the set of Soul Train, which is pretty much as you expect, except for the presence of Bob. Bob has lovingly been referred to as “The Whitest Man in America.” By lovingly, I of course, mean to tease him as mercilessly as possible. To see Mr. I Make Pat Boone Look Street on the set of Soul Train... well, let’s just say that if either of them spontaneously burst into flames, no one would have been surprised.

Paramount, is of course the location of the Star Trek franchise, being represented by Voyager in the same way that Don Knotts represents the ideal male physique. We were told that getting onto the set was next to impossible. But this didn’t stop Jean-Claude.

First he told us that as they were moving stuff from out of storage to create Borg Central for the season premiere, we could see some set pieces on the lot. I did take a picture of one, and then was told that I wasn’t allowed to do that. So I dutifully deleted the image out of my digital camera. The image you see here of a Borg regeneration chamber taken in direct California sunllight is culled from some other website.

There was a door open, and sure enough, Jean-Claude let us look in and see what we think is the cargo bay of the Voyager, no doubt where they store all the shuttlecraft parts to build new ones after ace pilot Tom Paris crashes. Man, do those things even have landing gear?

Sorry, I have a tendency to rant about Voyager. It’s just, well, it sucks.

This is a piece of California architecture. It is not a Borg Regeneration Chamber.

CITY OF ANGEL

Angel's swanky bachelor digs

Beyond this door, David and Charisma were filming the season opener. If it weren't for a foot of concrete and some security guards...

It turns out that Angel, starring the broody and often shirtless David Boreancz films on the Paramount lot. So get this: Angel airs on the Warner Brothers network, is owned by 20th Century Fox and films at Paramount. That’s what I like about LA, it’s charming simplicity.

We, of course, told Jean-Claude that we were big fans of Angel, and that something terrible might happen to his family if we didn’t see something from the show. Jean-Claude, realizing that this was no idle threat, took us around the sets. They were filming in some one of the Angel soundstages, so we couldn’t enter. We did see a vampire or demon leaving a stage... and then he turned a corner and disappeared, I can only guess that, to save money, Angel employs actually demons.

But some fool left another one of the Angel soundstages open, and this was just the vent shaft that our little snub nose tour needed to get in. So we were walking around part of what I think was Angel’s basement and then we entered an actual standing set from the show. Cordelia’s apartment.

I, as any red-blooded male with a pulse am desperately in love with Charisma Carpenter, so to get to walk around her apartment, kitchen, even her bedroom... let’s be honest, it’ll be as close as I get to dating her. But it’s closer than you’ve gotten, isn’t it?

The little touches were really nice. Cordy’s got a number of awards, including Most Vogue and Best Dressed Cheerleader on her mantle. You’d never see these on TV but trust me, they’re there.
It’s only out of loyalty to Jean-Claude that I didn’t snap a picture of me in Cordelia’s bedroom. Well, that and I couldn’t figure out how to disable the flash on my camera. But let’s focus on that loyalty thing.

I gotta tell you though, if I could have gotten one photo, either me in Cordelia’s bedroom or Bob on Soul Train, I still think I would have gone with Bob on Soul Train. Some things are just too weird.
We got to go on the gym set of Resurrection Blvd., a drama about a boxing family that airs on Showtime. I don’t watch the show, but I was certainly reveling in the coolness of being on an actual set, including being in the boxing ring. Mostly, though, I was impressing two smaller kids on our tour by lifting up the real fifty-pound weights Heck, I impressed myself with that.

BITS AND PIECES
We saw a bunch of the outdoor sets. We saw Angel’s apartment and office. He wasn’t there, but it was daylight after all. We saw the Soup Nazi’s place and a number of other Seinfeld places.
And we saw the set of Entertainment Tonight, which was pretty cool, too, Their lead story was over the battle for Michael J. Fox’s memoirs. However, that was days ago so it’s probably not the piece of insider trading that it was then, but do with it what you will.

LOS ANGELES ADVENTURES, PART TWO | BACK TO SDCC