Imagine walking onto the studio lot of one of America’s most beloved television shows. This is the home of the the eccentric, bubbly characters that come to life on television screens daily. The frames that appear to be houses, the falsified streets hammered to appear old and worn out, and delightfully decked-out small towns are a few features that make a television show or movie appear real through the camera.

Everything is constructed to trick the audience and engross them in the entertainment. This is one of the aspects of film-making that Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Studios and Universal Studios, located in California, inform their tourists of on studio tours. Whether it’s experiencing the town squares in-person of Pretty Little Liars, Gilmore Girls and Hart of Dixie at Warner Bros. Studios and finding out they are all the same set or immersing oneself into studio life on New York Street at Paramount Pictures and walking on the same streets Al Pacino did for the taping of The Godfather, California’s infamous studios have something for everyone.

At Paramount Pictures, Jamie Lee Curtis might be spotted during the new season of Scream Queens, and Martin Sheen may be seen driving during the taping of Grace and Frankie. Tour guides, known as pages, tell the visitors here that if the audience is ever bare on the set of Dr. Phil, they join the audience to fill up empty seats. These interesting quirks about studios are always interesting to hear.

The Universal Studios tour concentrates on special effects and shows the Bates Motel from Psycho and Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives. This tour includes traveling back in time and seeing the home of The Munsters and the house of Doris Day and Rock Hudson in the 1964 classic Send Me No Flowers. Sets that have been kept alive for years are very special.
On the Warner Bros. set, various wardrobes and accessories are displayed. The sets, props and stories are innumerable here.
The Big Bang Theory set is presented here, too. Pictures are not permitted, but tour guides let tourists in on some television-making secrets. The infamous broken elevator is the same set each floor up to Sheldon’s apartment, and each time the actors have finished filming the walk up to the apartment scene, the crew switches the numbers on the apartment doors to create the facade that the audience is indeed seeing a new floor. Every time a new episode is filmed, a random audience is chosen to watch the live taping, which may take anywhere from two to six hours. It is amazing to peek into Sheldon’s apartment and see every unique and special object and poster. This particular part of set brings in a mathematician to write down the equations in the apartment due to very observant viewers checking to see that the math problems are correct.
At the Friends section of the tour, Central Perk’s infamous couch and Phoebe’s guitar are available for visitors to view. Earlier on in the tour, visitors can see props from the Harry Potter movies, and the Batmobile is included, too.
Strolling the sets and spotting the water tanks of Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures is mesmerizing and breathtaking. Entering these studios is like entering another world, era and life story. It is truly fascinating and magical to see each quirk and characteristic of television life, and it is a spectacular mind souvenir to be able to see TV show-making at the heart. Studio tours are unforgettable experiences that leave tourists with the feeling of stepping into the shoes of their favorite television character.