Mayberry Hotel History

This four story building is like a ice core sample of studio backlot history. It’s presentable from the outside. The interior is hospitable. The surface floor is an easy touch up to film a needed scene.

The view of the backlot is as good as it gets, and each level has curtains from another era. Some are felt, some are dried out so bad the only thing holding them together is the decades of dirt. The roof is where the sample ends, it is much to risky to walk on this top level. There are only partial floors at these windows. They wrap around to each window, the center of this building is a like an elevator chute without an elevator. If something your standing on gives way, there is a chance you can fall several stories. There is a large space where nothing can break your fall.

Andy Griffith had some really battered sets in use in a town we call Mayberry. That show inherited this town built as Atlanta, and dubbed it Carolina. This was spanking new in the thirties, and aged like an old car that never saw a garage. What’s metal is rusted solid, and what’s wood is splintered and rotted.

This section was built for a show- Gone With the Wind. It was not constructed to be the focal point of the studio for the next forty years. It’s like checking on your Lincoln Log house you left outside for 4 decades, you can’t sell it as new. This street was not part of a forty year plan.

This studio has worked with wild, rogue filmmakers. They used this destination because it satisfied their urges for a brief period. The difference is night and day between Desilu, a true wild child, and MGM. The latter had a well planned long term scope. It efficiently used every square foot, planned every corner, and built sets to last by giving them roofs and backs. MGM’s New York street was an absolute gem, thought out by all MGM’s Art Directors.

Redd Foxx filmed a Colt 45 commercial. The set was a hotel built in the street in front of this same hotel. The building is the same size with interiors also. The reason, the front collapses as Redd drinks a beer at an outdoor table. It was all calculated to fall in a way that table never gets hit. So, the inside of several hotel rooms will be needed, as the dust settles. But, just in case… Redd is replaced after the establishing shot of him drinking his beverage. A stunt double takes over in case it does not go as planned.

But it falls perfectly around two stuntmen just sitting at a table. I watched the grand finale from a window across the street. Those old Colt 45 commercials are legendary. The last 45 years on the only paved road at this wild back lot ranch were also legendary. A backlot fit for a Bull!

This hotel set could easily be seen and was from beyond the studio. The second tallest building on the backlot, the church steeple is the highest vantage point on this lot. These two structures stared down at you inside and out this studio.

This set could easily be seen from beyond the studio chain link fences. The second tallest building on the backlot, the church steeple is the highest vantage point on this lot.

I was standing with Roger Corman at camera for this sequence. Read “Tommy Guns,Bootleggers & L.S.D” Proudly in my book one ‘Hole in the Fence.” Roger granted us permission to stay put when security questioned us. “They have been here all week!” was his quote to the security guy brandishing a note pad. We became part of the crew, I was 15-Thanks ROG!!!

For years, The Pony Inn sign was nailed to my house, in my backyard. 4 Bullet Holes detonated. Taken off the hotel at Desilu by me. Another marvelous decoration was hung up alongside this sign… Leonadro Funeral Home.That was used in in ally at MGM Lot 2. This film used both my backlots, I even scored a Fedora. “I was the most gangster kid you could possibly know.”

What are these guys dressed for?

Time travelers- they landed in Mayberry.

Emmitt’s Radio and T.V repairs and Floyd’s Barber Shop...”don’t look so close” said one Art Director!

There is a stairway to take to a fake cellar Otis has been seen coming out of. Of course, I needed to see what he saw and…it was a closet to fit two people at the most and still get the door shut. 12 steps take you back up to street level as we go backside this structure. Tall licorice plants greet you head high, distributing a wonderful fragrance, and even better, it doesn’t have stickers. Slither through these and look inside, what you see is a wall to block this open backside. A front hotel window is visible from the this area of grown over antiquities. Stuff so old you barely make it out, a wagon wheel sits seperated from it’s carriage, apparently for decades.

The Mayberry Theater and this Hotel are separated by a tiny dirt alley. This alley has had more gangster battles than any other in Hollywood. Elliott Ness was involved in most, I met Robert Stack at the Warner Brothers 100 Year rededication party. He rode on my tram on the Warner Lot.

We are now at the front door of a set. It has been used in TV Land on such shows as Batman, The Green Hornet, Superman, and Lassie. It was also used in- Gomer Pyle, Andy Griffith, The Untouchables, and Star Trek, to name a few.

These two guys film all over this backlot.

The Green Hornet uses this backlot.

Let’s go inside the wooden double door entrance. A couple of walls go in different directions. They frame the reservation desk. A stained wood stairway provides a nicely presented path. It rises surreptitiously upwards. The higher you climb, the more dilapidated these stairs become. Only a couple of nails hold up the non-supported final climb to the roof. It’s not “if” this stairway collapses, “it’s when!”

RKO, Selznick, DeMille, Howard Hughes, and Desi Arnaz each took turns as head of this place. Meanwhile, one guy, a mogul, ran MGM with an iron fist and a plan. 40 acres had no plan for longevity. It’s a garage with left over movie parts. Use what you need, if you can find it. MGM cataloged and stored everything, like a department store.

The plaster fake brick fronts chip off and can be used as chalk to write on the sidewalk. Bricks also are made from resin and come in sheets like plywood. Fabricated composites poured into a fiberglass mold. It’s these false fronts that offer the little protection these sets get. These iconic sets are really built as simply and cost effective as possible.

“Why we don’t ever use the Paramount backlot?...How did we get stuck in Mayberry?”

Los Angeles …2024–typical street scene.

This lot was where wild beer commercials involving bulls tend be filmed…both Schlitz and Colt 45 compete against each other. Once the bull got loose and ran down Lucerne Ave, after exiting the main gate. Actors can be so temperamental…

“You better run kids!”

The hotel/bar suddenly crashed down to the patrons at the table. Redd had a limo on set being polished up. It had a bar in the backseat and smelled like a box of cigars inside. As soon as the dust settled and the “Gate was checked,” he exited our backlot “stage right.”

Written and lived by Donnie Norden…

I finally got this tram rolling again in time for the upcoming tourism season – Follow- TheGlamourTram, on WordPress