Films n' stuff that take place in my home town

Being located so near Hollywood, Simi Valley has long been convenient location for the film industry. Simi Valley and the surrounding hills have been the site of several television series, including the long running televsion series Gunsmoke and M*A*S*H.

The popular 70s television show Little House on the Prairie was filmed at extensive sets built up in the hilly landscapes of the Big Sky Ranch in the Tapo Canyon hills north of Simi Valley. In addition to the Little House itself, the entire set for the town of Walnut Grove was built atop the hills.

The 1982 motion picture Poltergeist addresses the issue of ghosts, with an oblique treatise on the rampant development and buried history of suburban Southern California.

In 1983, Colleen McCullough's TV mini-series, The Thorn Birds, was brought to life in a remote corner of the Simi Valley. Australia proved to have too many obstacles for the producers to handle, including that there could only be two American actors in any movie filmed there. All the rest had to be Australian. Location scouts were sent out, and Simi Valley, which looks very similar in parts to the Australian countryside, was chosen to build the set of the famous Cleary ranch and sheep station, Drogheda.

In the 1984 film "Bachelor Party" starring Tom Hanks, the MANN 6 Movie Theater formerly located within the Sycamore Shopping Center was used for the movie theater scene.

The Brandeis-Bardin Institute's House of the Book is the location of the original Power Ranger Power Chamber.

The finale toy company and its car park scenes from Sneakers were filmed at the Countrywide Loans Data Processing - Admin Plant at 400 Countrywide Way.

The delivery of the ransom money in The Big Lebowski shows a highway sign naming Simi Valley.

The video for Bullet with Butterfly Wings by The Smashing Pumpkins was filmed in Simi Valley.

In the 1999 comedy Joe Dirt, the character found his long-lost parents in a trailer home park in Simi Valley (but on some versions, it was changed to Yucca Valley, California).

Most of the 2003 film adaptation of The Cat in the Hat starring Mike Myers and Dakota Fanning was filmed in Simi Valley. The elaborate faux suburb where most of the film takes place was built on vacant land in a hilly area in West Simi Valley.

The video for "Hexagram," by The Deftones was filmed with fans watching the band play the song in an indoor skatepark in Simi Valley.

The skatepark in the 2005 movie Bad News Bears is in Simi Valley.

The "Retail Rodeo" scenes from the Jennifer Aniston movie The Good Girl were filmed in the Ralph's shopping center on L.A. Ave. The set was constructed inside a vacant retail space.

Nu-Metal band Limp Bizkit filmed the music video for the single "Break Stuff" at Skatelab, a skate park in Simi Valley.

The 2006 comedy The Benchwarmers was filmed on location in Knolls park and Santa Susana park, both located in Simi Valley.

The upcoming movie "Transformers 2" filmed scenes over summer in the parking lot of Simi Valley High School.



-Yeah... now why have I never seen any of this stuff? Minus the "Cat and the Hat" I did see that set.