The 818 Now

A volunteer works on the La Canada Flintridge Tournament of Roses Association float on Tuesday. The float, titled "Scizzored Wizard," is the city's 32nd entry in the Rose Parade. (photo/Megan O'Neil)

While young volunteers applied the finishing touches to the La Cañada Flintridge Tournament of Roses Assn. Float, more than 100 people gathered Tuesday for the Under the Bridge Major Donor Party.

The event honors donors who contributed $125 or more to the association, and serves as an annual reunion for all La Cañada float participants.

Don Ziehl, the first association president and a former La Cañada Unified School District superintendent, said assembling the inaugural float in 1978 was a whirlwind. 

“It was a real scramble to get that float down the parade route that first year,” he said. “It turns out it is a bit of a scramble every year.”

The best part about being involved with the association is the joy of seeing people work together on a project that at some points seems impossible, he added.

“I don’t know anything else that was going on during the 25 years I was here that brought three generations together like building this float does,” Ziehl said. “That alone [makes] it very worthwhile.”

Brittany Murphy is photographed by The Times in 2001, the year she appeared in the Michael Douglas thriller "Don't Say a Word." (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Brittany Murphy, who died Sunday at the age of 32, moved to Burbank from Atlanta with her mother when she was 13, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times where, according to IMDB, she landed her first television role on the show 1990s television series “Blossom,” starring opposite Joey Lawrence and Melissa Manchester.

The actress died in the home she shared with her husband, British screenwriter Simon Monjack.

The actress also attended John Burroughs High School, where she briefly attended but did not graduate, according to IMBD, and San Fernando Valley Professional School, according to the school’s alumni page.

The cause of death is under investigation, The Times reported Sunday, and an autopsy is planned for Tuesday, a coroner’s official said. Funeral arrangements are pending.

(Photo via Flickr user Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the BPL)

A new mapping and database site tracks historical maps through Google Earth. Old maps are scanned in then laid over with current street names and landmarks. 

Basically, you get to see what’s changed and what’s stayed. 

The San Fernando map dates back to 1880 when a state engineer surveyed water routes. The topographer drew in city land divisions, mountains, rivers, railroads and roads.

Credit: Creative Commons

From Christmas Tree Lane in Altadena to the DWP Holiday Light Festival at Griffith Park, there are some spectacular viewing options for those who love Christmas decorations.

To find the most festive neighborhoods in Southern California, or to suggest one or two of your own, check out this post on L.A. Now.

(Image via Creative Commons)

Party on, Marshall Elementary School. 

The 11th annual Jingle Jam Winter Holiday Concert is set for Thursday at 6:30 p.m.
Teachers and staff will play and sing-a-long to seasonal favorites from multiple cultures and in several languages. 

The concert is open to the public for $3 per person. 

Parents listen up! 

Friday morning will feature all grade levels performing songs they’ve rehearsed for weeks. It is among the most memorable events of the year, organizers say. 

Be there… I just might make it myself.

When NBC dedicated an hour of its nightly prime-time lineup to “The Jay Leno Show,” filmed in a Burbank studio, it made a gamble that its move would pay off by replacing expensive scripted dramas with a lower-cost ratings grabber.

But prime-time shows may have got the last laugh, Los Angeles Times television critic Mary McNamara writes.

There they sit with “The Jay Leno Show,” TV’s equivalent of that famous “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline, having called time of death on scripted drama and indeed traditional network television while all around them great new shows are popping up like the plague victim in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” “I’m not dead,” says ABC with its new comedy lineup; “I’m getting better,” says CBS with “The Good Wife” and “NCIS: Los Angeles.” “I think I’ll go for a walk,” adds Fox with the runaway buzz generator “Glee.”

Meanwhile, NBC is hanging on with critical-maybe “Community” and on-the-bubble “Mercy”; the network was forced to “cancel” “Trauma,” even though it’s not really canceled per se, because there is literally nothing to replace it.

This is what happens when you panic — you leave your combat buddy for dead only to find he wasn’t, and then he comes back for revenge. Network TV — it’s aaalllliiiivvvee.

Read the rest of the story here.

Teen actor Debby Ryan, from Glendale, strikes a pose at the Americana at Brand on Friday, Nov. 20 Ryan, 16, plays Bailey Pickett on Disney Channel's The Suite Life on Deck. (Raul Roa/News-Press)

Teen actress Debby Ryan was all poise and enthusiasm when I interviewed her this week for an upcoming edition. I asked her about her character Bailey Pickett and she was candid about how she portrays her.

Ryan said working for Disney, she is allowed to have a lot of fun in her portrayal, but the character still has dimension and is someone the audience can relate to, she said.

It was difficult finding all of Bailey’s levels because Ryan didn’t have a lot of background to go on, she said. Basically, they told her that the character was a farm girl from Kettlecorn, Kan.

“Bailey’s dreams were too big for the town she was from,” she said. “She spent time in the library. She’s intellectual. Being from a small town, she’s used to smaller things and she knows how to be in relationships, but she’s still growing and learning about herself.”

It’s a lot like the fish who goes from a small tank to a pond, she added.

“They grow as big as they can dream,” she said.

Now Bailey is in a pond and growing to her surroundings and there’s no end in sight to how far she will go, she said.

“She’s got a world to conquer,” Ryan said.

The first-ever Creative Talent Network Animation Expo in Burbank this weekend gave industry professionals a chance to showcase their work and learn about new trends, but some took the opportunity to push their colleagues into new territory.

Gary Goldman, who worked with colleagues Don Bluth and John Pomeroy to privately fund and produce “The Secret of NIMH” in 1982, argued that animators needed to ditch studios that seemed reluctant to support hand-drawn projects over the last decade.

Instead, animators should learn how to be entrepreneurs, he said.

Although Disney animation will release its first major hand-drawn animated feature in years this month, called “The Princess and the Frog,” artists brimming with creativity should not leave themselves at the whims of studio executives and should instead take their skills to investors to develop their own projects, he argued.

Thousands of industry professionals from across the country are expected to descend on Burbank this weekend for the Creative Talent Network’s Animation Expo.

The event — which features workshops, presentations and networking opportunities designed to connect animation artists, studio executives and industry leaders — is scheduled for Friday through Sunday at the Marriott Hotel and Convention Center.

The city has declared it Animation Week  for the Creative Talent Network while the conference is underway, according to a statement.

“Our city is known around the world for its state-of-the-art studios and production facilities,” Deputy City Manager Joy Forbes said. “This will be such a tremendous occasion for the most talented animators in the country and we look forward to their arrival.”

The Creative Talent Network  is an online community of professional artists from the animation, film and video and gaming industries.

One of the cooler things about living in Los Angeles is getting  to see a movie or TV set.  It’s kind of cool in its own right — “Hey!  That’s my street!” — but sometimes the filming crews congest traffic and make it hard to get around the city.

Well here’s a cool blog.  On Location Vacations lists television and film set locations for Los Angeles, New York, Boston and other areas.  You can read it before you go to work to find out what streets to avoid or you can read it after seeing a movie set outside your office building to see what they’re filming.

For today, CBS’ television show “The Mentalist” is filming at Descanso Gardens. Christopher Nolan’s new movie “Inception” is filming all around the  west side of Pasadena, just to name a couple.

Ryan Itagaki, Dave Serpas, and Karen Vo compete in the Cartoon Network show "Destroy, Build, Destroy." (Photo courtesy of Linda Takahashi)

Three Burbank High School students will compete in a Cartoon Network episode of “Destroy, Build, Destroy,”  scheduled to air Wednesday at 8:30 p.m.

In this episode, teens from the BHS marching band will go head-to-head with football players from Cathedral High School.

Ryan Itagaki, Dave Serpas and Karen Vo represented the Burbank band.

In the episode, participants destroy a school bus, build a boat from the remaining parts and carry a dune buggy across a lake. Then it’s time for a dune buggy race.

The winning team gets to destroy the losers’ boat, and each competitor receives a $1,000 prize.

Tune in to see who wins.

There’s an app for that.

The Apple App Store (image via Flickr by jeffwilcox)

For .99 cents you can beat up bankers and obliterate them with a laser cannon and a tank.

The No. 23 most popular paid app boasts, “Take revenge on bankers … Defend the White House and save the U.S. taxpayers’ money before it gets stolen! It’s time for you to give them what they deserve.”

Anti-bailout sentiment is popular on the app store. There’s iStimulus, also for .99 cents, where gamers catch free-flowing money with a barrel.

Obsessed with the national debt? The National Debt & Bailout app provides a live ticker of the national debt, bailout allocations, payouts and repayments.

And for the wonks, $1.99 will get you the actual text of the 2008 bank bailout bill, the granddaddy of them all.

Have plans for Halloween? You will.

Creative Commons

Glendale is hosting events for the holiday.

• FRIDAY
  The Maple Park Costume Contest will be from 5 to 7 p.m. at the center, 820 E. Maple St., Glendale. Prizes will be awarded. All participants will receive goody bags and refreshments. Admission is free.
• SATURDAY
  Decorated cars with trunks full of Halloween candy will be parked in the First Baptist Church of Glendale parking lot, 209 N. Louise St. For more information, call (818) 242-2113.

For more Halloween fun, dozens of events are planned throughout Los Angeles, from Trashy Lingerie’s annual costume ball to West Hollywood’s Halloween carnival.

Still don’t have a costume? Check out The Rundown L.A. Ideas include: The Death of Print Media (scythe, suit made of pages from Men’s Vogue, Gourmet, etc.). Touché.

I was curious how Drew Barrymore would do as a director on the new film ”Whip It,” so I saw it last Saturday night at the Burbank AMC. I’m still in shock that I liked it so much. It has a good message for teens as well as overly doting moms. The ensemble cast was terrific. And Barrymore kept enough distance on screen to give the other actors a lot of breathing room. I’ve seen Barrymore in other films and although they were not as heart-warming, she’s always a kick to watch. I really recommend it.

I could have done without all the promos before the feature presentation. I don’t mind one or two but I think they showed like closer to eight or 10, way past my patience level.

Also I recommend the place I went for dinner prior to the movie. Pinocchio’s Restaurant on Magnolia Boulevard. I have a difficult time deciding between the spaghetti marinara and the eggplant. The tomato sauce is thick and rich — the perfect accompaniment to any pasta. And the colorful gelato case is hard to pass up, but so far I’ve succeeded. Delicioso!

On the heels of a $10,000 donation from Allstate, more donations are coming in for the Love Ride, what organizers say is the single largest one-day motorcycle charity event in the world.

The 26th annual Love Ride was canceled due to lack of sponsorships, fewer participants and the overall weak economy. Organizers are holding a scaled down event featuring an autograph signing with actor Peter Fonda and a special screening of “Easy Rider.”

Courtesy Creative Commons

It isn’t Love Ride lite, organizers said. The event is expected to draw lots of people, and they won’t go hungry.

Organizers said people have come forward in recent weeks to supply the event. One cook will bring 330 lbs. of tri-tip to BBQ and another man said he’d supply roasted corn.

A cigar shop said they’d donate 2,500 cigars.

“It’s pretty amazing, we’re getting phone calls like crazy, people saying they are coming out Saturday and Sunday and asking, ‘Do you have any room for us?’” Steve Fisher, a spokesman for the Love Ride Foundation said.

The Love Ride Foundation, which supports about a dozen charities, accepts donations year-round. More information is available at: http://www.loveride.org/lr26/category/news/

Mitchell Haaseth / NBC Universal

“The Jay Leno Show” is set to air its first episode tonight and it has entertainment industry experts and professionals on the edge of their seats.

The show will take up a prime-time spot in NBC’s nightly lineup and, if successful, may prove to be a low-cost alternative to scripted dramas that employ actors, creative staffs and a host of other workers and service providers, experts have said.

“The big worry that I have is much like when reality shows started to get big and networks started to realize they could get ratings while spending minimal money,” Golan Ramras, manager of industry outreach and a career development advisor for the Los Angeles Film School, said of the show’s debut, which he feared could start a job-killing trend.

As the Los Angeles Times’ Scott Collins writes, Ramras isn’t the only one hoping Leno’s new show falls flat.

Creative Commons

Joan McCarthy, community outreach coordinator for the Walt Disney Co., brought a big check to the Burbank Unified School District Board of Education meeting Thursday, both physically and financially.

The company’s $50,000 donation was printed onto a large, photo-friendly check.

The only problem: no one had a camera.

McCarthy had given her presentation to the board, telling them how excited Disney was to offer the check to the district to fund a scoreboard at Memorial Field and Supt. Kevin Jolly had approached the podium to thank her and shake her hand.

Board President Dave Kemp did the same. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s hard to tell who’s more excited about the new Picture Car Museum that can be seen on the Warner Bros. Studio VIP Studio Tour– the public or the folks who give the tours.

Danny Kahn, director of the tour, loves to watch the reactions of people as they walk through the door and light up upon seeing recognizable cars from their favorite TV shows and movies.

Some of those not mentioned in our printed story in today’s Leader are the Shag Jag from “Austin Powers Goldmember,” Nerd Herd Car from “Chuck,” and the hover copter from “AI: Artificial Intelligence.” Read the rest of this entry »

Alex Bram of Studio City has produced, directed and co-written a film “Body of Work” that premiered at a film festival last Thursday in Westwood.

The thriller,  about a husband and wife who move into their dream house only to find it a nightmare, stars Burbank resident Yasmine Zapp of Burbank. Zapp has several credits in the horror genre, she said, and while he has written several thriller scripts and served as a production assistant on a couple indy horror films, this is Bram’s first time out directing.

And he organized his first international film festival where his film was premiered.  The film was shot at  Vera Miles house in Calabasas, Bram said.

For more on the story, check out the story in the entertainment section of the Leader website and in print Wednesday morning.