After the museum, went back out into the sunshine for the rest of the tour. After touring around some of the sound stages, we even went in one where they were filming for a TV show but I didn’t know any of the actors. Eventually we did the most memorable bit of the tour - the backlot, where we could get off the cars and have a good look around and take photos of all the outdoor sets and facades (false fronts) of the houses and buildings. There were old American style houses such as those featured in Friends (Phoebe’s house), and the same house was used in Gremlins, with Phoebe Cates, so it is affectionately known as "Phoebe’s House"! The stairs where Ross fell down in Friends were in another house. Then we walked across a green, with a big town hall like building at one end and a church at the other, and then there was a street with shops which will all be dressed and redressed according to which film or show they are making and what shop is required. All the different film studios also rent out parts of their backlots (and also props!) to other film studios, much to our surprise, but I suppose it makes sense, and makes for a rather nice feeling of camaraderie, not rivalry between the different studios. We got back on the car, and were taken to another part of the backlot, where they film E.R. We saw the back entrance, with an emergency ambulance parked, and although today was glorious sunshine, our tour guide showed us above a system of sprinkler pipes which they use to make Chicago style rain! We also saw two or three Chicago police cars - Ian and I joked we could tell everyone we went to Chicago as well! Across the street was an Art Deco style diner called Doc Magoo’s. It was really cool and we took loads of photos of the backlot.
The final part of the tour was up close to the Warner Bros. water tower. The funny thing was, Ian had asked Tony earlier whether it still contained water, or what was in it now? Tony had said, "Gee, I don’t know! I’d sure like to know what’s in there. You should ask your tour guide. Heck, they’ll probably tell you the Animaniacs live in there or something!" And so Ian asked the tour guide, and he said, "Its where the Animaniacs live, of course!" Finally, we got some free coffee and we went in the Warner gift shop, but we didn’t buy anything.
Next, we came out of the tour, and got back in the car, and I was expecting to drive straight back to the apartment, but Ian and Vince had other ideas. I have to be honest, I was very worried about driving throughout the whole time I was there, except the drive to San Francisco was OK, once we were out of L.A. the road was a lot less busy and it was literally just put your foot down and go, and otherwise, it wasn’t too bad when Nick or Tony were sat beside me directing, as they knew where they were going. So, when Ian said, as we got back in the car, "don’t lets go back to the apartment just yet, let’s give Nick and Lulu some more time to themselves in the apartment, we could even go downtown L.A. if you like!" I said, "I don’t like - we don’t have a clue where we’re going and we’ll get lost!" And so I was quite agitated because its one thing following directions as we had done that morning, but quite another when you’re driving in a strange country with all different rules, on the other side of the car and road. And so I didn’t feel at all competent, as all I wanted was a chance to get used to it. Heck, I was still looking for a gear stick on my left and looking the wrong way for the rear-view mirror! So, to please them, I carried on driving past the apartment, and up the road. I had gone no more than two blocks further when this police car appeared out of nowhere, behind me with his lights flashing, so I was really scared and squeaked "Shit - is he pulling me over?" I pulled into the side of the road and Ian was saying "turn off the engine and keep your hands where he can see them!" which terrified me even more! So the policeman got out and came over, writing down the number plate and radioing it through to his office, and I was frantically finding out this was not a good time to be learning how to get the electric windows to go up and down. I managed to get it about a third of the way down, and he asked to see my driving licence. I was babbling that this was a hire car and only the day after I had picked it up, and only about the third time I had driven it, and wondering what on earth could I have done wrong? He was writing down my licence no. and by this time had realised that we weren’t local, that we were tourists, and then he became quite pleasant. He was a big, burly Spanish guy with a gun! The office radioed that the car owned by Budget Rentacar (well, that confirmed our story). And then, several minutes after he first stopped us, he told us why: "Well, the reason I have stopped you is, you see that STOP sign back there, well, you didn’t allow your vehicle to come to a complete stop." Well, I guess I just did what you would do in this country at a GIVE WAY line - you slow down, but if you can see nothing is coming, you keep going, so he was probably right. I thought I had stopped, but our definitions of stop were not the same! I was apologising profusely, and Ian and Vince were both saying we don’t have to do that in England. "What, you don’t have STOP signs in England?" said the policeman, and they were saying, "no, we have GIVE WAY, or a roundabout", and he was saying "a roundabout, what’s that?" At this point he was also discovering Vince is Scottish (we think he thought Vince was a local, because he has quite dark hair and eyes - although he is Scottish, he is of Italian descent!) So the policeman was like "What, you too?!! You guys kill me! What are you doing up here in Burbank, Burbank is just a media centre - you wanna go down Hollywood, that’s where you’ll see all the freaks!" So Ian told him we were staying at our friend’s apartment. "Well", he said, "I’m not going to give you a ticket this time, but be sure you allow the car to come to a complete stop in future at a STOP sign." I asked him what he would consider to be a complete stop, how many seconds, but he just kept saying it must be a complete stop. And so he let us go on our way. But I was a complete nervous wreck by this time so Ian said we’d better go back to the apartment. I managed to drive around the block and park the car and we went inside and regaled Nick and Lulu with the whole sorry tale. Nick said not to worry about it, but I felt totally incompetent!
Later, Nick said he’d take us to the Galleria, but I was saying that Tony said we weren’t to go without him, but he said he had cleared it with Tony. It wasn’t far to the Galleria, and it actually helped to bring my confidence back a bit because I drove there without a single hitch. We went in the Warner store, and Ian picked up a large (about 2 feet long), soft, cuddly, squishy Scooby Doo, looked at the price and said, "I’m going to buy this for you" and I said, "you can’t, it’s far too expensive, how on earth will we get it home?" he threw it onto me and I was cuddling it and he was saying "isn’t it nice and soft, you want him, don’t you?" And then I looked at the price and it was $19.00! I couldn’t believe it! I thought it must be marked up wrong! But at $19.00 I wasn’t going to argue, so I let Ian buy it for me!
So we wandered around a few more shops, me with this giant Warner carrier bag, we bought a few more things, but we only covered about a quarter of the Glendale Galleria, it was massive! I’d say it’s at least twice the size of Meadowhall! One shop we saw, however, disgusted us all. It was a pet shop, and there were these poor little dogs in glass (or Perspex) fronted Formica boxes about 2 feet square, if that. These boxes ran the whole length of one wall of the store, so all we could see were all these "windows" with animals inside, and there was a bright light in each one. The poor animals were either so bored they were either playing with or even eating their own excrement, but one little dog was frantically gnawing at the glass, desperately trying to get out. Vince pointed out that the trouble is, that poor dog would probably be completely psycho by the time someone bought him and took him home, a mad dog. We were utterly dismayed by it and we wished we could have let them all out. It was one of the few things I really didn’t like about America, and we told Nick and Lulu that this wouldn’t be allowed in our country - it would be considered animal cruelty to have them in those conditions, let alone any safety restrictions - a shop like that would not be allowed in an enclosed shopping mall - if there was a fire, the animals would not get out. Nick and Lulu felt the same as us - it was awful.
By this time, Tony would be home from work, so we went back to the apartment.
Unfortunately, the con turned out to be a bit of a let down. The dealer’s room was about the size of our lounge - with about six tables! However, Ian got a CD he had wanted for ages. He paid $50 for it, but he had seen it for much more that that on Ebay. The Art room was closed, and you needed a ticket to go in (you got one ticket in your con pack - which meant you could only go in it once). We hung around for the opening ceremony, (which was quite nice - we basked in the sunshine on a terrace looking at our con packs - deciding where to go and eat later). The opening ceremony was really good, though. The doors to the main hall stayed closed for ages, and we could hear the music from the theme starting inside, and as the intro finished and the fast part started, all the doors were flung open at once, and we all poured in. At the front of the hall was a life-size replica of the Space: 1999 command centre set, apparently this had been built by a fan who actually had it in their house (must have been a big house!), but this weekend it was up for auction. The member of the con committee who was introducing the con had some stirring stuff to say about how wonderful the show is, how it has remained popular for over twenty years, how it has brought the fans together time and again, and now, it’s day has come, the date when the show is set. Most of the cast members were introduced one by one, making grand entrances from behind the set doors. Nick Tate (Alan Carter), Prentis Hancock (Paul Morrow), Zenia Merton (Sandra), Anton Phillips (Dr. Mathias), Barry Morse (Professor Bergman), and Johnny Byrne, one of the writers from the show. Barbara Bain and Martin Landau weren’t there, and neither were Tony Anholt (Tony Verdeschi) or Catherine Schell (Maya). I would have thought that this being a one-off date, 13th September 1999, that they would all have wanted to be there, but I guess that wasn’t the case. Barbara Bain was scheduled to appear later on in the weekend, but we later found out that she didn’t sign any autographs, and only stayed for this play she was doing with Barry Morse, and Martin Landau never turned up at all due to work commitments.
By this time, Ian had a headache, because it was way past time for us to eat (it was about 3 p.m. by this time), and so we went back out on the terrace for a few moments, and Anton Phillips actually came out and started talking to us! Some of the cast had said they would be mingling during the weekend to talk to the fans, but it was a shame - we didn’t stop to talk long as we were all starving! From the con packs we had found details of the local places to eat, and so we went out of the hotel, and down and across the road to "Dinah’s Diner". We were really looking forward to this meal, as it was the first time we had eaten out, and we were not disappointed! We ordered drinks and were most impressed to get "free refills" (standard American practise), and we all ordered salads. I ordered a "Cobb Salad", which consisted of chicken, bacon, crumbled blue cheese, lettuce, hard-boiled egg, avocado, tomato, cucumber, and dressing. The salads came in huge, deep salad bowls with bread rolls and potato salad on the side, and they were absolutely delicious! We have been eating our salads "American Style" in a deep bowl ever since we got back! And the portions were huge! I couldn’t finish mine, let alone eat a starter or a dessert!
After our meal, we returned to the con. The Art room was now open, so we had a look around in there. There were some original crew uniforms, models, paintings and artwork, and also original memorabilia such as toys and books. After that we went to queue for the autograph session. However, Nick Tate wasn’t in there, and Barry Morse came out before we got there. So we got Prentis, Zenia, Anton, and Johnny Byrne. Prentis had hardly changed - he just looked a bit older, and we told Zenia we had seen her in "The Bill" some months earlier. She said, "oh, you didn’t blink then!" I got autographs on my 1999 calendar and some postcards I had bought in the dealer’s room. While we were stood in the queue we phoned Tony back at the apartment to let him know we were safe and still at the con. It was just as well we did as he had been wondering where we were!
After we got our autographs and grumbled about the ones we didn’t get, we went back to the car for the return journey. After studying the map for several minutes, I couldn’t work out for sure where the return entrance to the freeway was, so I decided we had to take the plunge and just try reversing all the directions and see if the return entrance just happened to be well enough signposted, and right beside the exit we had come off earlier (which I hadn’t been able to tell from the map). Luckily, I found it easily enough. We knew we were still going the right way when we passed Coldwater Canyon Avenue (I remembered passing that on the way there). It was only when we were back at Burbank that we found out that the off exit wasn’t the same as the one where we got on (they are all denoted by road names) and so after deciding we had gone too far we came off at the next exit and made our way back on the normal roads. One landmark we had seen, and were looking out for was the Disney building - one of the tallest buildings in Burbank. As it was dark by now, we could see the Disney logo and writing all lit up at the top of it. But first, we came upon this junction which I thought was a crossroads as I saw cars coming out opposite. So, when the lights turned green I went straight across, and quickly realised we now weren’t on the public road but had gone inside somewhere. We think it was Universal Studios, in Universal City. So we did a quick U-turn, came out and turned left. As luck would have it, this road took us straight past the Disney and Warner buildings, so then we could easily find our way back, the same way we had gone on Thursday. So we got back to the apartment and told Tony, Nick and Lulu all about our day.