Warner Bros. Studio Tour- Backlot & Sound Stages
I had been wanting to go to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour ever since I first found about it. It was one of the things I really wanted to do the last time we went to Disneyland, but other than the first day, we ended up not having time for anything else. JT also wasn’t quite old enough then. He was about 3 months short of the minimum age, which was 8 at the time. The current minimum age is 5. So, I made sure to include this along with a couple of other places I wanted to visit in JT’s birthday trip in June.
On the day of our tour, we were doing well with time and then all of a sudden, we weren’t. I don’t know what happened, but I think maybe we had about 5 minutes until our tour time when we pulled up to the parking attendant to pay for parking.
After paying, we drove into the parking garage and took the Looney Tunes elevator to get to the building for the tour. We checked in and then headed over to the first part of the tour which turned out to be self-guided, so it didn’t matter that we were running a little late. The first part is the Storytelling Showcase and is an exhibit about the studio’s history. An employee also advised to use the restroom first because once you’re done looking through the exhibit you head over to check in for the guided portion of the tour and won’t have access to a restroom for a while.
We took a quick look through the Storytelling Showcase and then went to check in for the guided portion. Guides come continuously throughout the day, so you don’t have to worry about taking too long looking through the exhibit. Once you’re checked in, you are lined up to wait for the tour guide. Upon the guide’s arrival, they take you into the next room which is a theater room where you are shown a short introductory film before hopping on a tour cart to explore the backlot.
Our tour of the backlot was about an hour long and we saw a lot. I should have taken some notes because I have a lot of pictures but I’m not sure what most of it is. We drove by lots of sets. Some looked like residential neighborhoods and others looked like city/downtown streets. We also made some stops. We went inside 2 of the houses and toured one of the sound stages.
Our tour guide started us off in The Jungle. This is the last remaining jungle set in Hollywood so other studios will come use it as well. This can actually be said for some of the other sets as well.
The bottom left picture is a little portion of road that was used in Jurassic Park to film the T-Rex chasing the jeep scene.
The bottom right picture is actually a lagoon that can be filled with water.
This building can be anything they need it to be. It can be offices, a hospital, or the site of the E3Game Design Camp like in Space Jam: A New Legacy.
Our next stop on the tour was Midwest Street. This is where we got off the cart to check out the insides of some of the houses.
If you’ve seen Gilmore Girls, this should probably look pretty familiar. Pretty Little Liars was also filmed in this area as well, but I’ve never seen it so I’m not sure what’s what.
The top pictures are Mrs. Kim’s shop on the very left and Sooki’s house on the right. The middle left picture is Luke’s Diner and below that is Lorelai’s house.
The large picture on the right with the boys is the gazebo in the middle of the town square.
Next up we drove through the more city/downtown looking areas.
The top left corner is the alley where the upside-down kiss scene from Spiderman took place. The building with the pillars on the top right picture was used in the 1960s Batman series. The bottom right picture was used in Batman Returns.
After exploring the sets, we drove through the sound stages. We stopped in the sound stage where filming takes place for All American Homecoming. We walked through the lobby (?) of the school, the gym, and a classroom. There were no pictures allowed inside though.
Once the guided tour was over, our tour guide drove us to Stage 48 where we would continue the rest of the self-guided tour.
Have you ever been on a studio tour? What set would you be excited to see?
This looks so much fun. I can’t wait to take my son to Disney in the next few years.
It was a lot of fun; there was so much to see! How fun! I’m sure your son will love Disney.