THE UNCLASSIFIED GET SMART SITE

Hollywood!

Day One

It took a pretty good hour to get from LAX to the Holliday Inn Express I was staying at. It was more the traffic than the distance. After I hopped out of the Super Shuttle and paid the driver I noticed a couple standing in the driveway... it was Jodi Goldfinger from the GS mailing list! Talk about good luck and timing. Jodi and her husband Larry invited me to check out beautiful downtown Hollywood with them after I had checked in. Larry was a real sport -he drove us around L.A. the whole weekend!

Keep in mind that I had never met Jodi face to face before, but that didn't matter -we couldn't stop talking about Get Smart, the list serves we were on and anything else for that matter. Meeting the rest of our fan group worked out the same way... no awkward silence, just a whole lot of fun.

Hollywood Boulevard had a plethora of neat things to see... including a life-size Homer Simpson. What the area is great for is souvenir shops and collectible shops. We went into one, Starworld, where the guy had a nice supply of Get Smart memorabilia. Jodi got a lunchbox ( yes the 1966 original tin box) and I was able to fulfill my Get Smart souvenir request by purchasing a copy of the first GS paperback. We also checked out this really neat costume shop... it was the prop stuff they used in the movies. High quality stuff, but if you were buying a prop gun you had to have a license.

We also checked out Gromann's Chinese Theater.... Way awesome. Aside from the Hollywood Sign and the Walk of Fame, this is one of the top attractions that epitomize the area. I actually wound up going there twice during my trip. I was pleased to find that Donald Duck has a spot as does Mr. Peter Sellers!

Later Thursday evening Jodi, Larry and I met up with fellow Smartians Sue Kesler and Lisa Fulfs. Sue suggested we eat at a Mexican restaurant, which I unfortunately forgot the name of. Still it was a pretty good place -a lot like the Mexican restaurant in New Buffalo, Mich. which I also forgot the name of.

After filling our stomachs we returned to Jodi and Larry's room and spent time chatting about Get Smart, animals and a lot of other things. Now, at this point the time change had gotten to me as I was still two hours ahead of the world. At 10 p.m. Pacific I wanted to drop -especially considering I had been awake since 3:30 a.m. in that time zone!

Day Two

The next morning we decided it was time to check out more shops so we went to Universal Studio's City Walk. To me the place was like a glorified outlet mall only more touristy. Still, it had a very fun and happy atmosphere -kinda like walking around in a cartoon. Check out the pic at the left to see what I mean. The pics below are of Jodi and Larry and the last one is moi.

We bought a bunch of cool stuff -although the bulk of mine was given to other people. Cat in the Hat stuff was rampant and one shop was all bobble heads. I think our only disappointment was that we couldn't find Tennessee Tuxedo.

The whole time I was amazed at California's vegetation. Palm trees and mountains -coexisting in one place! Yeah, I guess I was a bit of a gawker, but all we have in Indiana is corn, chunks of highway and a sand dune that looks like a hunk of broccoli in the summer. Furthermore, I had never seen a palm tree before.

In the pictures above, the first two are at Universal Studios and the others are from the In & Out on Cahuenga Boulevard. In & Out btw makes a great burger -I think they use real meat! Too bad the chain is located only in California, Nevada and Arizona.

Go to the next page and read about the Get Smart Gathering.