Spinner and Teresa's Excellent Monk Adventure

This year at the 2nd annual Monkfest in Lake Ozark, Missouri in March, they auctioned off a couple of Monk set visits. They were donated by Tony Shalhoub courtesy of Monkfest guest, Michael Shalhoub ("Mr. Monk and the Missing Granny," and "Mr. Monk Bumps His Head") Michael's also, not so coincidentally, Tony’s brother. I was one of two winning bidders. I mailed in my bid. The other winner, Diana, a.k.a. Spinner on the Monk USA message board, was a Monkfest attendee.

The auction proceeds went to one of Tony Shalhoub's favorite charities, The Imus Ranch for Kids. After getting our input, the Monkfest organizer, Lee Hutton and Monk co-producer, Doug Nabors, scheduled our set visit for June 5th. We had a little less than three months to prepare. I don’t know about Spinner, but for most of that time I found it hard to think about anything else.

Lee and Michael Shalhoub

If you'd like to skip right to the part where we get to the Monk set, click here.
South Park figues by Liv have been substituted when and where photos were unavailable and sometimes just when I felt like it..

DAY ONE: LOCATIONS, LOCATIONS, LOCATIONS

We couldn’t bring guests to the set visit, but a couple of old friends of mine, Seth and Tony, made the six hour drive, in the mega-van we'd rented, down the coast (we live in San Francisco) with me to L.A., where Monk is filmed. The Monk production offices, as of March 2007, are now at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. Spinner brought her husband Ralph along all the way from Missouri. (I’d like to say thank you to all the guys for exhibiting such patience with our nerves and fan-ish behavior.)

Seth

Tony

Ralph

When we arrived on Saturday we had yet to hear from the Monk people confirming our visit on the Tuesday. We had no contact information and I couldn’t get a hold of Lee either. (It wasn’t until the morning after our visit that we learned Lee had passed away.) I had an unpleasant feeling the set visit might not happen, but everyone was trying to stay positive.

9:30am on Saturday morning my entourage and I picked up Spinner and Ralph at LAX. We'd only met virtually, so we needed a way to recognize each other. We both wore our Monk t-shirts and I carried a sign that said SPINNER in the Monk font. Lucky for us no one else in the airport decided to wear their Monk t-shirt that morning and we had no trouble finding each other.

It was a little while before we could check into our hotel, so we found a local Hollywood coffee shop and became a little better acquainted. I pulled out my screen shots of Monk L.A. locations. We settled on Astro Family Restaurant ("Mr. Monk and the Kid") in the nearby Silver Lake district as our first destination, after the motel and a nap, of course.

Our motel was the beautiful Econo Lodge in downtown Hollywood. Well, not exactly beautiful, but it was the closet accommodation to Paramount that I could find and it certainly lived up to its name. The motel was acceptably clean and the staff was enchantingly brusque.

Above: me, Ralph, Spinner and Tony in front of the Hollywood Econo Lodge
Below: my buddy Tony flaunts the motel's finest attribute.

After we'd all had a chance to freshen up and do a quick bed bug check, we hit the road again and headed for Astro Family Restaurant which was only about ten minutes away. We took some exterior shots, including the gas station across the way, and then went in and ordered a little food as a pretense for the interior shots.

From "Mr. Monk and the Kid"
Astro Family Restaurant
2300 Fletcher Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90039

From "Mr. Monk and the Kid"
The gas station across the street

Tommy and Monk
from "Mr. Monk and the Kid"

We had a little time to kill before our reservations at Miceli's that evening, so we decided to make a quick trip to the closest Home Depot. I had some reliable information that we could find Monk's favorite Sierra Springs bottled water there. Sure enough right at the front of the store was a huge end stand of Sierra Springs water just waiting for us. We each grabbed a case. Our second Monk mission had been accomplished.

Then we were off to Miceli's, the Hollywood Italian bistro featured in "Mr. Monk and the Godfather." Seth and I had dined there and taken pictures last July when we went down for the Monk Episode Guide and Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii book signings. We were warmly greeted this time by the same singing waiter, Sargis, who had served us on the first occasion. He even remembered us. He seated us in the 3rd floor balcony where we had a great view of the performances. Miceli's is decorated with chianti bottles signed by guests which hang from the ceiling... sort of like ketchup bottles. During the meal, Tony, who's something of an artist, asked for his own bottle to decorate. He created a Monk motif. We all signed it and Sargis hung it up for us.

Miceli's
1646 N. Las Palmas Ave
Hollywood CA 90028

We took a quick walk up nearby Hollywood Blvd. to work off the food and the wine, before heading back to our hotel.

Spinner and Teresa Do Hollywood!

DAY TWO: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

We hit the two major Southern California tourist attractions, Universal Studios and Disneyland, one after the other starting with Universal on the Sunday.

Monk has some Universal connections. First and foremost USA Network comes under the NBC Universal umbrella. Second Monk frequently films on Universal's humungous back lot. One of the easiest to find locations, because it's on the studio tour, is the Mexican town from "Mr. Monk Goes to Mexico."

"Mr. Monk Goes to Mexico"

On our studio tour there was a brief mention of Monk as we drove past Universal's New York Street. Our tour guide Brian said that "Monk starring Tony Shalhoub" was scheduled to film soon on the street. I couldn't just let that go by. I had to have more details. I tracked down our guide when the tour was over and demanded to know more... I mean... um, graciously asked for more information. Apparently he'd misspoke (or more likely he was adhering to an outdated script.) Monk wasn't going to be filming soon. They already had filmed there a few weeks ago on New York Street. "There was a fire engine," Brian recalled. "So look for the episode with a fire engine."

Seth and I

Brian our tour guide

On tour: I'm in the Shark seat

Besides the glimpse of Mexico and the fire engine tip on the studio tour, there wasn't much Monk on the lot. We had some fun anyway, particularly at the Blues Brothers' Show. Seth just loves that show and he took the stage when they invited him to join them. Spinner got an invitation of her own and took a spin on the dance floor with Elwood Blues.

Fred (Ralph) and Wilma (Spinner)

Tony trying to get us all lost

Seth takes a bow

The park closed at 6:00pm. They were holding the MTV Awards Show, hosted by none other than Monk guest star Sarah Silverman (Marci Maven, "TV Star," "Biggest Fan") who I understand said something really mean about Paris Hilton during the event, but we missed all that because they kicked out us regular folks. We did some shopping on the Universal City Walk, then went back to the motel.

Once there, we decided to do a little reconnaissance mission. Our little group, minus Ralph who decided to kick back at the hotel, walked the four blocks over to Paramount. It was almost dark and it was Sunday so there was nothing much going on and no outward visible signs of a Monk presence, but we checked out the different gates, wondering which, if any, we'd be going through on Tuesday.

This cheered us up so much that we stopped at the Pavilions grocery store next to our hotel to pick up a couple of bottles of wine. One of those bottles was a cabernet from the Firestone winery, where "Mr. Monk Gets Drunk" was filmed. After all, we had to stay with the theme of the weekend.

Ralph joined us and we sat on the balcony of our hotel room, drank our wine, ate the homemade cookies I'd brought and talked about Monk and music and acting and John Wayne and I'm a little fuzzy on the other topics. On the balcony next door a dance troop was apparently rehearsing and we listened to the choreographer bark out his instructions. It gave the evening a surreal touch. Next to the actual set visit, that may have been the most fun I had all weekend.

DAY THREE: DISNEYLAND

Honestly, Disneyland was sort of a blur for me on the Monday. With California Adventure thrown in, it's like two theme parks in one and there's really no hope of doing everything in one day (especially considering the Disneyland railroad was shut down for the day.) Still we squeezed in as much as we could. I know Spinner and I were both fretting over the lack of communication from the Monk people and not enjoying ourselves as wholeheartedly as we might have. However, I did pick up some lovely Eeyore earrings.

Spinner, Teresa, Tony, Ralph and Seth do Disneyland!

Tony, Goofy & Ralph at Goofy's Kitchen

Dale and Ralph share a bonding moment.

The Jungle Cruise

The Palace of Fine Arts Disney-Style

Center: Ralph, Spinner, me & Seth
Left: The Tower of Terror
Right: The Matterhorn

DAY FOUR: PARAMOUNT STUDIOS

Saturday (locations), Sunday (Universal) and Monday (Disneyland) came and went: still no word from the Monk people telling us when to show up or where to go or any acknowledgement at all. I wasn’t too hopeful, and I don’t think Spinner was either, by the time we got back to the motel Monday night. Neither of us slept much. Nevertheless, Tuesday morning we showed up at 8:00am (a time we choose arbitrarily) bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and expecting to be sent away with that tail between our legs.

My friend, chauffeur and Monk Fun Page photographer, Seth, who was in charge of the mega-van, drove us up to the famous Paramount Melrose gate. We presented our I.D.s and I gave the speech, "We're here to see Doug Nabors with the Monk Production."

The guard at the gate did not have our names on his list. My heart sank. I’ve always wanted a major studio to put my name on their list… you know, in a good way. He directed us to a parking space and to the guest services kiosk across the way, where we could plead our case. Seth stuck around in case we needed a ride back to the motel, which at that moment seemed a likely outcome. We gave the guest services kiosk guard, a tall tough looking bald man, our names and I gave our spiel again: "We're here to see Doug Nabors with the Monk Production."

The guard gave Seth a questioning look. “I’m just dropping them off,” Seth told him. “I want to make sure they get in before I leave.”

The guard called the Monk offices as we anxiously awaited word on our fate. I still expected to be thrown out and I was thinking about leading an expedition to the Bronson Caves in Griffith Park where some scenes from “Mr. Monk Gets Married” were filmed. After a very long moment the guard was put on hold. He looked over at Seth. "You can go," he said. "They're definitely getting on."

Spinner and the guest kiosk
in the background

That declaration was all it took to make our hearts soar. I don’t know if I even said thank you to Seth for driving us over. I do know I missed him during the visit (or, more specifically, I missed his photographic skills.) The guard, who didn't look nearly as tough now, gave us each a guest pass with a map and a list of rules. He drew on Spinner’s map to show us where to go. We followed his directions past the administration building and through another gate.

Here's the map the guard gave us.
Click to enlarge

A much nicer map of the Paramount lot in PDF format

I took a couple of pictures before Spinner noticed the rule on our passes that said No, pictures allowed without prior written permission. Oops.

We managed to find the Monk offices without getting lost. The large Monk sign in the back of a nearby truck and the little Monk signs on the building and by the elevator were easy clues to follow.

Spinner at the gate

We were greeted by office manager Nancy Lopez. She was there with only one other office worker, whose name I didn’t catch. I don’t think Nancy had any idea who we were, so it was really nice that she’d told the guard to let us in anyway. We told her we were there to see Doug Nabors, because, after all, his name had gotten us that far.

She explained that Doug wasn’t due in until 9:30 and then she put in a call to Doug. He wasn’t answering his cell phone, so she left a message. She asked us if we wanted to wait. Needless to say, we did want to wait. She told us to take a seat.

FYI the Monk production offices at Paramount aren’t exactly luxurious. The furniture was older and merely functional. The floors were concrete, except in our little lounge area, which was carpeted.

Approximately what it might
have looked like if Seth had gone in
with us and taken pictures.

There wasn’t much in the way of décor, perhaps because they’d only recently moved in. (Their previous digs, for seasons two through five, had been at the nearby Ren Mar Studios.)

They had a few industry magazines spread out on the coffee table. I pretended to read the latest issue of Variety while we waited, but I was really just keeping my ears and eyes open and hoping no one came to the conclusion that we really shouldn’t be there. Spinner later told me she had no such qualms at that point. We were in and that was that.