The Stoned Private Eye will be back next month, so instead 00 decided to share this
once-in-a-lifetime three night experience that folks of all ages should enjoy.
EXPERIENCE A ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME TRUE PSYCHEDELIC TRIP!
M.G.M. STUDIO BACK-LOT #3 ADVENTURES – 1968
Back in the ’60s, psychedelic trips could come in many different ways – and not all were based on smoking Marijuana and Hash or taking psychedelic drugs like LSD and Mescaline to alter your perception, reality and environment – some were the environment.
The following is a true psychedelic trip that many have only dreamed of, and quite possibly none, other than 00individual and his small band of adventurers, on three consecutive nights, would ever actually experience. Surely, everyone (other than jaded people in the movie and entertainment park industry) who ever went to any of the Disney Parks or any of the Universal Movie Studio Tours at some time secretly imagined what it would be like to be able to wander and explore those parks, back-lots, and movie sets freely, after hours, with friends, and with no supervision.
Just to imagine what it would be like to experience the dream-like state where walking down the main street of a town in Victorian U.S.A. would, at the end of the street, and around the corner, switch the reality into a Western Town and around the end of that street corner it would magically turn into a New York-style city street, and then a Tarzan jungle, and then a Western Fortress, and then suddenly there is a Lake, and in that lake is a Pirate Ship and a Mississippi Riverboat – all of that would be a verified Psychedelic Trip for real! And it was!
At the intersection of Overland Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard in Culver City, California stood Lot 3, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s 65-acres of detailed and authentic exterior sets.
There were three western towns and streets; a prosperous town called “Western Street,” a deserted and faded “Ghost Town” and a frontier town called “Billy the Kid Street”. “Jungle Island” for the Tarzan series was at the southern end of a 63,000,000 gallon man-made lake that was used in “Show Boat” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. At the north end of the lake, across a stone bridge were buildings used in “Gone with the Wind”.
To the north of that set was a giant tank with a massive painted sky background used for filming large scale miniature ships. It was first used for “Mutiny on the Bounty” and as various backdrops for many other films. All of these were permanent sets that were used over and over, refurbished, and shot from multiple angles to represent nearly any place, anywhere. One of its last useage, as seen above, was in 1969 for the terrifuc thriller “Ice Station Zebra”.
But by 1970 the once powerful, creative and profitable M.G.M. studios were in decline due to many economic issues of the times and the glorious days of Back-Lot 3 were limited to the point of becoming an unused “ghost land”. The inevitable was approaching and M. G. M. was forced to hold an eighteen day auction of everything from costumes and props to eventually the back-lot land itself. Fortunately, just prior to all of that, while in a mind-altered state of Marijuana, 00individual and a few friends got the bright idea to try and explore M.G.M.’s Back-lot 3 after dark.
Now it needs to be understood that back then things were still “loose”, a world apart from the lock-down everything-one-does-is-a-terrorist-threat climate of today; one could do just about anything and it was not a big deal, the world was still innocent; so “sneaking in” to a major studio’s lot was considered a mischievous adventure, not a criminal act.
Likewise there were no alarms, electrical fences, motion detectors, closed-circuit cameras or anything like that; as a matter of fact the only security, as they soon found out, was just one older man who would drive around the entire lot and that would take him at least an hour to complete his 65 acre rounds.
It was a nearly-full-moon night when they first arrived and located easy access through a separation of chain-link fence at the back North East corner of the Lot. Once inside and through some outlying foliage they came upon one of the Western Town Main Streets and immediately the real-life psychedelic trip began.
Wisely realizing that taking LSD or any psychedelics would be a bit much to deal with in this unknown environment, they still made sure that they smoked some good weed before embarking on this adventure, as they figured that would be “psychedelic” enough.
The moonlight created an eerie cinematic-lit effect as they walked stealthily down the street watching out for any security guards or six-shootin’ outlaws that might ambush them.
There were about five in that night’s group and one was on the gym team at school; he walked through the saloon doors and disappeared inside as they swung back and forth behind him – then suddenly he came through the saloon doors holding his chest and did a flip over the hitchin’ rail into the street as if he was shot from inside the saloon! That move gave the rest of them the courage to take the fantasy, which was now a reality, to another level and soon they were just a bunch of kids in a teenage dream of role-playing shoot-’em-up ecstasy.
After much western fun and imaginary shoot-outs they walked to the end of the Western Main Street and once “out of town” they came upon a Victorian-era neighborhood. As they walked, the moonlight continued to cast an eerie Gothic spell over them and the Marijuana high greatly contributed to the psychedelic dream-world. It was easy to slip into character of being in that time and place, it became real spooky, but before they knew it the street ended and around that bend they came upon a fort and were back in the Western Frontier mode.
Around the backside of the fort was the beginning of the Tarzan Jungle, but finding no vines to swing from they continued on and crossed over a stone bridge. This led them to the huge backdrop which was still filled with fake snow and ice chunks that were recently used in the classic, highly-revealing political thriller movie “Ice Station Zebra”. This film became a repeat viewing obsession of Howard Hughes’ in his reclusive days with its “shocking truth” ending.
That night there were several full sized fighter jets and a half-track tank parked on the snowy set. They were about to climb up into the cockpits when they saw the headlights from a security car coming from off in the distance, so they took off back the way they came in and decided to play it safe and not push their luck and come back the next night to further explore.
On the second night they headed straight for the jets and tank. 00individual remembers climbing up into the cockpit and seeing all of the gauges and controls and looking out through the windows as if ready to take off from the snowy landscape. Unfortunately, someone in the half-track tank tried to start it up and it actually made some noise, enough that it must have certainly alerted the security guard.
00individual climbed out of the jet, met up with a good buddy and headed up the set of a “seaside” European cobble-stoned street past the store-front buildings that curved around the tip of the lake where a Pirate ship was docked. They crossed the plank onto the ship and were exploring the deck when they saw the security car headlights coming their way. They immediately climbed the rope ladder to one of the crow’s nests on the ship just in time to see the security guard’s car come into view below. This was really exciting; up until now they were only interacting with themselves, now there was a real adversary to their adventure!
They huddled down and 00individual clearly remembers seeing the security car below slowly making its way up around the same old world cobble-stoned street they were just on. They were pretty high up and the excitement of eluding “the enemy” was very cool indeed. This whole trip was escalating into a real-life psychedelic fantasy real-life adventure!
(See the Pirate ship bow above left, the shadow of the crow’s nest to the right, and cobblestone street. The full Pirate Ship and Riverboat can be seen at the bottom middle to the right in the main header photo.)
After the security guard passed on by they climbed back down the Pirate ship’s rope ladder and tried to explore the Riverboat but there was no boarding plank and the boat was too far from the dock’s edge to jump so they just messed around a while longer in their dream-like fantasy land before leaving.
Unfortunately, on the third night in a row of mind-bending surreal adventures their previous night’s fun must have alerted the “real” authorities because now some younger security guards were on the prowl.
They made the mistake of including a couple of “newbies” who wanted to join in the fun. They were enjoying themselves as usual but even though 00individual warned one of the newbies about his non-stealth clothing of off-white pants and a bright blue and green t-shirt, they were all feeling confident and overzealous and allowed him to come along. That was their undoing.
While really having a great time and role-playing like no Live Action Role Players will ever be able to do; they inadvertently allowed themselves to be seen by the “new” security guards and the chase was on! They all scattered and 00individual and another of the explorers dove under a dressing room trailer and scooted to the back, 00individual looked next to him and it was the “colorful” newbie – great. The security car pulled up and two younger guards got out and shined their flashlights around the area. Just when 00individual thought that they had eluded them, one of them shined their light under the trailer and the beams of light bouncing off of the newbie’s clothes lit the whole underside of the trailer. Sheesh, busted.
There was a certain ethic back then that when someone got caught they took it like a man. But then, when caught for things of this nature authorities didn’t pull the knee-jerk reaction and call the cops, they called their parents – and they complied. But that didn’t mean that when you arrived home that you couldn’t pull the old, “What?” “I was over at so and so’s and we went to a movie, party, whatever, and someone just gave them my name and phone number!” “I’m innocent!” And angrily allude to maybe knowing who used their name, and because there was no way to disprove their alibi, they’d stick with their story. It would just cause some negativity and ill will for a few days and then that would be it – basically, no harm, no foul – you didn’t vandalize or destroy property, you were just having some truly innocent once in a lifetime fun!
Today it would be considered a “terrorist act” and a gun would be held on you until the authorities came and took you away. Like the world of Lot 3, the world of the ’60s was like no other – ultimately the coolest!
Soon after, the fabulous back-lots were finally sold off for real estate development. Tract houses, apartments, and West L.A. College would replace those once wondrous lands of make believe; the history of the greatest of all movie studios was gone. With ever-changing global finances, ever-increasing sources of entertainment, computer technology and Computer Graphic Images replacing hand-built movie sets – the likelihood of such a magical empire ever being built again is highly improbable.
But for three nights of surreal fantasy and mind-blowing adventure, 00individual and his friends were able to freely experience a truly once in a lifetime event of magickal fun, psychedelic excitement, and a dream come true! Sigh.
