"Another one of these damn kids jumped in front of my car!"

As I have stated several times before, Back to the Future sparked this hobby of mine.  I want to devote an entire post to this magical street, but that will have to wait.  Busnell Ave in South Pasadena, CA is home to several classics including Back to the Future and Old School.  The house that was used in Old School is literally directly across the street from where I am sitting in the picture above.  In fact, I have a funny story to share about that Old School house.

For now, enjoy one of the most memorable moments of BTTF 1 when George M. has his bino's (see what I did there) and is peeping out his future wife changing in the window.  Marty quickly follows his dad from the diner and runs frantically onto this street.

George falls from the branch and Marty rushes the street pushing him out of the way.  Marty gets hit with the car instead of George.   Then there's the Calvin Klein confusion and bragging about owning two televisions.  Until next time, Bushnell awaits.

Mr. Strickland's House

As I continue to share this mini-obsession for Back to the Future, I will jump around to different spots.  There is something about traveling through time, forwards and backwards that fascinates me and millions of others.  That is what created this cult-like following for the BTTF trilogy.

This post will focus on a spot that is shown in the second Back to the Future movie (my favorite).  When Marty and Doc head to 2015 (which isn't too far away from present time) they run into some trouble.  Marty falls victim to greed and purchases a Sports Almanac that documents the scores for all sporting events from 1950-2000.  This would give him the winners that he could bet on and make mucho dinero.  He buys this almanac from a retro shop in 2015 and plans to take it back to 1985 and reap the benefits for another 15 years.  Instead, Doc Brown spots the almanac and talks Marty out of taking it back to 1985 because he "didn't invent the time machine to win at gambling" he "invented the time machine to travel through time."

When Marty abides by Doc's request, he tosses the almanac in the garbage.  Long story short, the Biff Tannen from 2015 finds the almanac, steals the DeLorean and heads back to November 12th, 1955 and gives the almanac to himself 60 years earlier.  This way, the younger version of himself can become rich by betting on winners and brighten his future.  This skews the entire future of Hill Valley and turns the city into ghetto-like ruins.

Marty and Doc encounter this reality when they head back to 1985.  Marty wanders aimlessly through this Hill Valley nightmare and stumbles upon a current newspaper on a porch.  Turns out, this porch belongs to the former Hill Valley High School principal Mr. Strickland. When Mr. Strickland pulls a shotgun on Marty, Marty tries to explain that he knows him from school.  However, we soon find out that the "school burned down six years ago."

Mr. Strickland's house is located down the street from Whittier High (aka Hill Valley High School) at:

12511 Bailey Street
Whittier, Ca

Great Scott! Another BTTF Filming Spot!

Well, actually four more spots.

The spots being revealed in this post are Doc's house (1985), the Burger King Marty skates by, Marty's house (1985) and Doc's house (1955).

In the very beginning of the first film we see Marty enter Doc's house in 1985.  In this classic scene, he hooks up his guitar to the amp and completely blows the speaker to pieces! "Rock and roll."  When Doc's thousand clocks go off Marty realizes he is late for school and heads out in a hurry.  From there, he exits Doc's house and skates past a Burger King on his way towards school.  We see him grabbing onto the back of several vehicles to speed up his trip. 

After a long day of trying out with the Pinheads for the Battle of the Bands at school and an afternoon of making out with Jennifer, Marty heads home.  We see him skate off while Huey Lewis and the News play Power of Love.  As he gets to his street we see the Lyon Estates signs for the first time.  This is the name of Marty's neighborhood and will be shown again several times in the trilogy. 

Marty skates up to his house to find his father's car being towed into the driveway.  As he heads into the house, George McFly is being verbally accosted by the Hall of Fame douchebag Biff Tannen.  But of course George takes it because after all, he's "not very good at confrontation."

Fast forward to later in the film when Marty goes back to 1955, he gets hit by his grandfather in the middle of the street (I will reveal this spot later), and he seeks out the only man who could help him, Doctor Emmett Brown.  After Marty finds the property which he discovered in the phone book, we see him running up the path to the house.  Doc answers the door wearing that strange psychic device on his head and can't believe that "future boy" is visiting him from 1985.

Before getting into the precise addresses of each of these spots, I just wanted to mention that BTTF did a great job of blending each location together.  And as casual viewers it never becomes evident to us that one scene is filmed in one location and another scene is filmed in a location 50 miles up the road.  Southern California is the filming mecca for a reason.  Great locations are fairly close and it isn't a huge ordeal if a movie is being filmed up the street.  When movies are filmed in places like Arkansas or Ohio the entire town would show up drinking their morning coffee trying to get a glimpse of the star.  In Southern California it becomes normal in some places to drive down the street and see flim crews.

Now that that's out of the way, let's look at these particular filming spots.  Marty visits Doc's house in 1985 before school.  He hears the clocks go off, talks to Doc on the phone and skates out in a hurry.  He skates past a Burger King on his way to school.  This is in Burbank, California.  Doc's house was actually a facade built for the movie.  There are no remnants of this building today but the Burger King is still going strong.  Marty skates to school through the Universal Studios backlot and onto Hill Valley High Schoolwhich is actually Whittier High School.  After school he meets up with Jennifer and skates home.  His street and home are located in the Arleta area of Los Angeles.  When Marty looks up the 1955 Doc and visits his house, he is visiting the famous Gamble House in Pasadena, California.

So now you can start to see how many different locations it actually took to create this fictional town of Hill Valley.  The exact locations can be seen below.

Doc's 1985 house and the Burger King are located at:
535 N. Victory Blvd
Burbank, CA

The Lyon Estates street markers were located at:
The corner of Sandusky and Kagel Canyon Street
Los Angeles, CA

Marty's house is located at:
9303 Roslyndale Ave
Los Angeles, CA

Doc's 1955 house aka The Gamble House is located at:
4 Westmoreland Place
Pasadena, CA

**Again, be respectful when driving by someone's home.  Also, Arleta isn't the best of areas so I would only recommend visiting this spot during the day.

Hill Valley High School

The fictional town of Hill Valley returns in another installment of Back to the Future filming spots.  This time we look at Marty's high school.  In the beginning of the first movie we see Marty race out of Doc's place because he is late for school.  He skates across the street in front of a Burger King restaurant and continues to make his way towards school grabbing onto the back of vehicles and whatever can speed him up.  He skates right on up to the front entrance where Jennifer tries to sneak him past the all-time schmuck, Mr. Strickland.

We also see Marty re-visit his high school in 1955 where he is tries to ignite the flickering flame between George McFly and Lorraine Baines.  If he doesn't succeed in doing this he ceases to exist, so it's pretty important.  He and Doc Brown (who is a hilarious character by the way) head back to Hill Valley High School to drop in on his folks.  Marty is instantly impressed by the graffiti-free and clean appearance of the school and how "they really cleaned this place up."

Many memorable scenes take place in and around this high school in the Back to the Future trilogy.  It turns out that Hill Valley High School isn't located in the city of Industry, but nearby in the city of Whittier.  You can now visit Whittier High School (aka Hill Valley High School) and snap some pictures yourself.  I will post more BTTF Whittier spots in the future as this was the location for the exterior scenes of the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance and Mr. Strickland's house (nearby).

Hill Valley High School is located at:
12417 E. Philadelphia St
Whittier, CA

How It All Started - The Back To The Future Parking Lot

Let me start off by telling you how this all got started. In the summer of 2010, I was watching one of my favorite movies of all time, Back to the Future 1 (I actually like the 2nd one better, but they're all good). Since I had seen the movie so many times up to that point, I decided to put the special feature captions on that gives you fun little facts about the scenes, characters and history of the movie. In the beginning of the movie where Marty meets up with Doc at the Twin Pines Mall parking lot a caption came on the screen saying that "Twin Pines Mall is actually Puente Hills Mall in City of Industry." And I thought to myself, "shoot, that's not too far away" and I would love to go snap some pictures of the actual parking lot that was a pivotal location for one of the greatest movies of all time.

So the very next day I was out and about, and after a good workout I headed down to Puente Hills which was only about 10 miles from where I was at. Now I spent a lot of time watching movies growing up and have always been fascinated with attractions like Universal Studios that make you feel like you're part of the movies. I have also been a fan of memorabilia from sports to celebrities in restaurants and museums. That said, this situation was different. I was actually going to drive up to where that epic chase scene took place and Marty went back to '55.

As I got off the freeway and drove towards the mall I kept replaying the scene back in my head looking for familiar landmarks. After a few minutes I had finally arrived, there it was! To the everyday patron this was just a massive parking lot that accommodated Burlington Coat Factory shoppers and 24 Hour Fitness exercisers. But to me, I was actually at the spot where a movie I have been watching since I was 8 was filmed! This is where I fell in love with the hunt, my first filming spot.

The parking lot is located at:
1600 S Azusa Ave
Industry, CA