Tuesday, September 13, 2005

M*A*S*H

I was watching a M*A*S*H rerun and once again I remembered that I really miss So Cal from time to time. The opening shots were filmed at Malibu Creek State Park - not that far from where I spent most of my high school years.

I don't know...I got to like those ugly brown hills after a while. Of course, for us, those hills were something to drive through to reach the beaches - which are the true glory of Southern Califoria. Crowded as all hell, but man were days at the beach fun...

For trivia's sake, some stuff that was filmed right down the street was... The Fall Guy, Chips, and the special effects for a crappy movie called Meteor. The Fall Guy and Chips did car chases and crash stunts in my neighborhood. That was neat and a half. My friend's dad was prop master for the Chips show, so we got to go under the ropes and on set. That's right, I've seen Eric Estrada up close and personal. Go ahead and be jealous...

Come to think of it, Eric's dad (my friend Eric - not Estrada, who never had the chance in his illustrious and busy career to befriend me...poor guy) had some cool stuff. He had a box of pipes from the movie MacArthur, some cool blasters from Battlestar Galactica, and some Chips stuff. I bet he wishes he snagged more stuff now that eBay is so huge. Oh well...we had fun messing with blasters. The pipes were sort of off limits.

If I was drinking now, I would raise a toast to the brown, brown hills of California and a second to the matching brown air...

5 comments:

Laura said...

How the hell did you end up in Wisconsin? That's a far cry from So Cal...

Those old props were worth a TON of money I bet. Esp. with the rehashing of all the old TV shows. You think they'll make a CHIPS movie?

Miranda said...

*Grin* The Battle Star Galactica ones certainly are. At least to some of us.

kris said...

Any man making a Fall Guy reference in his post is a friend of mine.

The Zombieslayer said...

I'll tell you what Shawn. you find me a job that pays what I could make out here in Wisconsin and I'd gladly change places with you. I'll probably die in the winter though, but at least I'll be closer to my beloved (and falling fast) Packers. And I'm kind of getting tired of Southern California already. Too crowded, too much traffic.

Swordfish was filmed when I was living in Ventura. It was horrible, absolutely horrible. Even Halle Berry's gorgeous bare breasts couldn't save that film.

Shawn said...

L - I think I did some bad stuff in a former life. There's no other explanation.

K - Fall Guy rocks...in a cheesy jacked up four-by-four kind of way. My favorite was when he was chasing these guys in souped up beach buggie things and they jumped over an old shack and one of them crashed into it. Sweet.

ZS - Alas, there are none of those jobs here.

It's way too crowded out there...can't argue that.

I've got Swordfish beat... When I was living in Bend, Oregon, Kevin Costner was filming The Postman. Now that was truly a waste of film stock.