Comedian Jon Lovitz is best known for his years on Saturday Night Live, but the Sherman Oaks native has also performed on Broadway and at Carnegie Hall. This month he will open the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club at Universal CityWalk. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
1 | ![]() | The ArboretumThe Arboretum in Arcadia is this giant park that’s got every kind of tree and plant you can imagine. There’s this Victorian house of some woman who used to live there, and you look inside and it’s still the 1880s. There are barns and animals and it’s amazing. |
2 | Paradise CoveI think Paradise Cove is great. It’s kinda timeless and feels like Malibu in the ‘50s. There’s a restaurant on the beach and there’s no traffic and you can see the cliffs of Point Dume. You can just hang out and it’s cool. |
3 | ![]() | The InfieldIf you like hot dogs, there’s a place on Ventura next to the car wash called The Infield. They have great hot dogs and one of the guys that owns it is the guy from Borat. You know, his sidekick, the heavy guy. He’s there, he owns it. They’ve got great hot dogs. |
4 | The PikeDown in Long Beach they have this boardwalk and they’ve got this new Laugh Factory down there and it’s the largest comedy club in the country. They’ve got all these restaurants, and the Queen Mary is pretty great. |
5 | Dodger StadiumI love Dodger Stadium, I’ve got season tickets to that. Gotta love the Dodgers. I love going to the games there. It’s nice. |
6 | ![]() | Laugh FactoryI signed a contract to perform at the Laugh Factory for the rest of my life, but I didn’t foresee that I was gonna be having my own club! [Owner] Jamie [Masada] was gracious to let me out of it. It’s a very intimate club and it’s got a great feel, a great energy. The upstairs section used to be the offices of Groucho Marx. If you pay extra you get to hang out up there. It’s dim lighting, like a lounge. |
7 | ![]() | Castle ParkA lot of stuff I grew up with in the valley is not there anymore. Flooky’s and the trampoline places are all gone but I still go to Castle Park on Sepulveda in Sherman Oaks. There’s the batting cage and miniature golf. It’s got all the classic miniature golf holes like the windmill and stuff like that. It’s fun. |
8 | ![]() | Mulberry Street PizzeriaMulberry Street Pizzeria is a great place. It’s the best pizza in the city. It’s fantastic if you like real New York City pizza. She imports the dough from New York. It’s the real flat thin crust. |
9 | ![]() | Wyland GalleryWyland has a great gallery down in Laguna. He’s got all those paintings and sculptures about the ocean and conservation and killer whales and dolphins. Some you can put on the coffee table but others are huge. He did one along the Great Wall of China to help with conservation concerning the ocean. He does those for free and now he’s doing a gigantic one on the water tank down in Long Beach. |
Images courtesy of (in order): (1) arboretum.org, (2) Flickr/MelB, (3)Flickr/TheBusyBrain,(4) mallimages.mallfinder, (5) Flickr/jondoeforty1, (6) Flickr/lbshopgirl, (7) castlepark.com, (8) mulberrypizza.com, (9) Flickr/gorik