If you have taken the Warner Bros. VIP Studio Tour I believe that you will be quite disappointed by the Sony Studio Tour as I was.  The Sony lot is extremely small compared to Warner Bros. and there is very little to see.  Getting there was an interesting challenge for my friend and I as the address they give you for the parking lot is not actually where the parking lot is.  The website and the people reserving your tour on the phone will say that you will park on Washington Blvd but the parking lot is actually under the Sony Pictures building off of Madison.  The only option for parking is valet so keep in mind that it is free but since it’s valet be prepared to have some ones on you for a tip.  Once you leave your car and head to the elevators you will get off at the lobby where you will see the glass room where you check in for tours.

If you have a large bag or purse you will have to check it in so I would encourage you to bring a small bag or leave it in your car.  When you check in you will receive a Sony tour card to hang around your neck which is a nice souvenir.  You will also get to take a picture in front of a green screen which will be given to you for free at the end of the tour and the green screen will be replaced with the set from Wheel of Fortune.  After everyone in the tour group has taken a picture you will be taken to a screening room to watch a film on the history of the studio.  At the end of this we saw a preview for a new Bradley Cooper movie called Aloha which my friend and I later decided was our favorite part of the tour.

Unlike the Warner Bros. tour your Sony guide will not ask what shows or movies you like that Sony has done as there is not much that they are able to show you.  Also unlike Warner Bros. I did not get the feeling that every tour is different.  We walked across the street and onto the Sony lot.  We were brought to the Columbia Pictures building which had a different name on the front for the day since it was being used in Ray Donovan that day.  You will be taken inside the lobby where all the Oscars are held for the movies that have won the studio the Best Picture award.  The Oscars are in shadow box displays with the movie posters behind them which looks really nice.  You are not allowed to take pictures inside that room though which is unfortunate.  Right outside the building is a gigantic rainbow and our tour guide explained that Culver City asks that companies building in the city give back by creating public pieces of art.  The rainbow pays tribute to the Wizard of Oz and serves as a public piece of art since is large enough to easily be seen from off the lot.

Next we walked to through the studios main street which was also being used for Ray Donovan.  They stopped filming long enough that we could walk through and I was excited because I had worked on Ray Donovan a few weeks ago so I was happy to see Liev Schreiber again.  This is one positive to the Sony tour compared to Warner Bros. is that my friend and I did see actors on the lot.  If you read reviews of the tour elsewhere online you will see that this is quite common for Sony tours so if you want to see a celebrity your odds will be better at Sony but of course this cannot be guaranteed.  At the end of main street we were taken to a spot where they keep some of the cars used in movies.  Currently they have the RV from Breaking Bad, the car from Ghostbusters, a car from Talladega Nights and a golf cart from 22 Jump Street.  You are able to take as many pictures as you want of them but you cannot get inside them.

After looking at the vehicles we were taken into an area where we were not allowed to take pictures.  We went inside a soundstage that has been at Sony for a very long time.  It is the studio where Judy Garland recorded Somewhere Over the Rainbow and where orchestras are brought in to provide the music for movies.  The room looks very plain and old which our guide said is due to the fact that the room is well known for being wonderful to record in and they are afraid if they change anything it will ruin the sound.  There were some fun things to see inside the room like framed Hawaiian shirts that belong to John Lasseter who you may know for his Pixar movies.  Since the music for Pixar movies are always recorded in the studio John sends them a Hawaiian shirt that he wore during production and most of the time the shirt he wears to premieres.  Another fun thing we saw in the room was a bicycle hanging from the roof.  The story is that a man kept showing up late for working with the excuse that he could not find his bicycle.  Finally his coworkers hung it from the roof so he would always know where it was.

From there we were taken to a building where young stars like Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney went to school but we did not get to go inside.  Next we went to the outside of the Happy Madison offices where Adam Sandler does work for his production company.  We also got to see his incredibly nice customized golf carts.  From there we went inside a soundstage and walked around the house used on The Goldbergs, we were not able to take pictures since it is still a working set on air but it was cool to see.  We went inside the soundstage that they use for Wheel of Fortune and saw their hallways which is loaded with pictures of the show throughout the years.  You are able to take pictures in the hallway if you want but not inside the set.  I honestly do not know why we were in there since everything was covered up on the set so we sat in the studio audience section and saw nothing.

Name an actor who should have won an Oscar? Who is Leonardo DiCaprio

After we left the Wheel of Fortune set we headed over to check out the set of another popular game show Jeopardy!  For Jeopardy they have three podiums set up for you to take pictures with which I really enjoyed.  I picked the podium in the middle to get my picture with because it had the highest amount of money so I stood behind it holding the buzzer.  The hallways at Jeopardy! were impressive since it had all the Emmys that the show has won over the years.  It was interesting to see how Alex Trebek has aged over the years.  We went and sat in the studio audience which was nice because nothing was covered up though we still could not take pictures of that part.  Our guide went on to talk about how difficult it is to make it on Jeopardy!.  He said that only about sixteen percent of people who take the required quiz to be considered for the show will pass it.  I have already searched for the quiz because the competitive side of me really wants to see if I can pass it.  For now the quiz is not open since they are not currently seeking participants but if I pass it I’ll be sure to let you know.

Our guide may have said a few things after that but there was nothing else we saw that is worth mentioning.  We did have two wheel chairs on our tour and from watching them I want to warn you that it is very difficult to push a wheelchair through the lot.  You will get a chance of course to stop inside their gift shop which has decent options for merchandise from Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune and Breaking Bad.  There is nothing incredibly special or exciting about this tour though I would not say it was a waste of time.  If you are only able to ever take one studio tour I would recommend the Warner Bros. Studio Tour hands down and I would encourage you to read my blog post on that as well.  If you purchase a GO LA card then I would say yes take the tour as you will see a few cool things.

After I took the Warner Bros. VIP Studio Tour for the first time I was very interested in taking tours of all the studios that offered them.  The only other studios that offer tours at the moment are Sony and Paramount.  I went on a trip with some friends last spring to New England and I had discovered a money saving card called the Go Boston card.  After getting great use out of that card I decided to see if there was a card for Los Angeles.  I was pleased to find out there was a Los Angeles go card and that it included the Warner Bros. Vip Studio Tour as well as the Sony Studio Tour.  Now if only it had included the Paramount tour it would have been perfect.  I had a friend in town last week who wanted to take the Warner Bros. Studio Tour which is around $70 so we decided to buy the one day GO LA card for $69 which would also include the $40 Sony Tour.  If you are interested in taking the Sony tour I highly encourage you to find a way to pay a discounted price as my friend and I do not believe it is worth $40.

For more information on the Sony Tour please visit: http://www.sonypicturesstudiostours.com

For more information on the Go LA card please visit: http://www.smartdestinations.com/los-angeles-attractions-and-tours/_d_Lax-p1.html?pass=Lax_Prod_Go