In 2011, Aradani Studios went out to Los Angeles to visit family and friends. As a group we also got to visit the Movie Museum at Bob Burns. Ever since I was a kid I was lucky enough to be able to go and visit and check out all of his cool stuff. In fact in the 80’s he insisted that I wear one of the Alien heads from the movie Aliens and get a photo. He is an amazing guy – extremely friendly, always smiling and welcoming. He has worked on a lot of different movie projects over the years and hosts a large scale Halloween extravaganza since 1967 (it’s where my Uncle Denny met his wife!). But he is best known for collecting and archiving movie memorabilia, specifically sci fi and fantasy props.
As a kid this place was magic. As an adult this place IS magic. In a world were props are sold on Ebay by the production companies for so much it makes your head spin, Bob has collected stuff and allowed it to be seen by fans. He is what Hollywood should be, at 77 he is still heading out to conventions to talk to fans, mailing props to shows so visitors can see how things are made, and talking your ear off about how great it is to be inside an ape suit (he was often portraying apes in his earlier films).
Even though I got to visit his house many times over the years, this was the first time the whole family got to go. Bob brought us in and let us free to roam around the museum! Below is a photo tour of our visit. (Thanks to Laura for taking all of these pictures, if it wasn’t for her we would just have a ton of memories which are really hard to post to the internet).
[nggallery id=52]