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An Apollonaut travel guide
The place behind the detail.
A lot built in the silent era, streets made to stand in for distant places and stages still in use offer several ways into the story of Warner Bros. in Burbank.
On this page
A lot from 1926
First National Pictures built the Burbank lot in 1926. Warner Bros. bought a majority interest in First National in September 1928 and moved its productions there.
In December 1934 a fire destroyed 15 acres of the studio. From 1972 to 1990 the lot was shared with Columbia Pictures as The Burbank Studios.
Streets and stages
The backlot’s streets were built to stand in for other places: New York Street in 1930, Hennessy Street in 1937 and Midwest Street in 1939.
By 2015 the studio had 35 sound stages, where television series such as Friends and The Big Bang Theory were filmed.
A tour since 1973
The public tour began in 1973 as the VIP Tour. Today the Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood combines a guided tour of the lot with Stage 48: Script to Screen.
This history belongs to the place and the people who shaped it. The History page offers a longer introduction, and the timeline gives a short route through selected milestones.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
