Hollywood feels so good.
A sub-trope of Vacation Episode, where the characters visit Hollywood in Los Angeles, California.
This trope frequently involves at least one of the characters getting a (usually temporary) gig in the entertainment industrynote , it's likely a case of the writers writing what they know. Other stuff than can happen with this trope:
- It allows for potential celebrity cameos and advertising for the studio or network.
- Since most American movies and TV-shows are filmed and/or recorded within Southern California, primarily in the Greater Los Angeles Areanote , this trope allows the show to use actual locations not only in the Greater Los Angeles Area (including those within Hollywood), but other parts of Southern California instead of just faking other parts of the United States.
Sister trope of Viva Las Vegas!, another major touristy areas in the USA. Compare Who Would Want to Watch Us? for the inverse situation (Hollywood comes to the characters to adapt their adventures into an in-universe movie or TV show).
Examples:
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Anime
- Pokémon: The Original Series did this with the episode "Go West Young Meowth", where Ash and friends travel to Hollywood to see the world premiere of Cleavon Schpielbunk's Pokémon in Love movie, which they had helped made in the previous episode. While the English dub implies this is the same Hollywood of California, the original Japanese version actually downplays it by stating "Hollywood" is just a local town named after the original Hollywood.
Comic Books
- Surprisingly popular in old Silver Age comics, especially Marvel.
- Fantastic Four: Issue #10 of Fantastic Four (1961) has Namor pretending to make a movie out of the Fantastic Four as a ruse to try to win Sue over.
- Spider-Man: Issue #14 of The Amazing Spider-Man (Lee & Ditko) note has Spider-Man agreeing to star in a movie with The Hulk.
- The 10th arc of Ultimate Spider-Man, in which a movie is made about Spider-Man without his consent (and featuring several celebrity cameos).
- Issue #10 of Marvel's Mighty Mouse series takes place at CBS studios in Hollywood where a typical episode of the Bakshi series (including a caricature of Bakshi as the director) is presumably being made. The story takes place in Hollywood where a mysterious figure is stealing the "hipness" out of prominent talk show hosts (all caricatured as funny animals).
- The Avengers: Many Avengers stories involving Wonder Man drift into this territory since Simon is an actor.
- Strikeforce: Morituri : The normally somber dipped into this with issue #6, "Foray For Holowood!"
Fan Works
- The Bolt Chronicles: In “The Cameo,” Penny and Bolt return to Los Angeles to film a brief Continuity Cameo role in the movie version of their old TV show, which becomes a blooperfest. Along the way, the pair does extensive sightseeing in the city, Bolt is reunited with his father, and the 16-year-old girl has her first sexual experience with a teen heartthrob she has long had a crush on (this last turns out to be a bad one-night-stand experience for her).
Film
- Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is this for the The View Askewniverse.
- Boston Blackie Goes Hollywood.
- The Three Stooges short Movie Maniacs has the boys wreaking havoc at a movie studio.
- The plot of The Muppet Movie is how Kermit and the gang went to Hollywood to become rich and famous and make millions of people happy.
Live-Action TV
- Seinfeld: "The Trip"
- Boy Meets World: "Eric Hollywood"
- Married... with Children: "Kelly Does Hollywood"
- CSI, oddly enough, in "Hollywood Brass"
- Likewise, "Two and a Half Dead," where the death of an actress on a popular sitcom results in the investigators being called in and the show's writers taking a look around the lab.
- Happy Days: the three-parter "Hollywood" where the infamous Jumping the Shark happened.
- I Love Lucy had a season-long arc set in Hollywood where Ricky gets a part in movie.
- Supernatural: "Hollywood Babylon".
- Kenan & Kel: "Aw, Here It Goes to Hollywood"
- Drake & Josh Go Hollywood.
- Degrassi Goes Hollywood, a television special that is basically The Movie of the series, where the gang visits Hollywood and some of the students even try out for a musical.
- Friends has "The One After the Superbowl".
- Bones: In "The Suit on the Set", Bones and Booth visit the set of the film of one of Bones' novels, where they discover an actual dead body that is mistaken for a prop dead body.
- The Suite Life of Zack & Cody has the episode "The Suite Life Goes Hollywood"
- Cougar Town: Season 4 finale "Have Love Will Travel", where the gang tries to make Jules' father's fantasy of meeting Tippi Hedren come true.
- Castle: In "Nikki Heat", Natalie Rhodes, the actress cast as the lead in the movie based on Castle's first Nikki Heat novel, rode along with Beckett(much to her chagrin), and not only morphed into a Beckett clone, but completely deconstructed the Unresolved Sexual Tension between Beckett and Castle. Later, in "To Love and Die in L.A.", Castle and Beckett visit the set of the Nikki Heat movie, and Nikki and the cast impersonate real cops to help Beckett with her investigation.
- The X-Files: "Hollywood A.D."
- Wonder Woman: "Wonder Woman in Hollywood" ended the first season and the adventures during World War II. As an added bonus Wonder Girl protects pre-Airplane Robert Hayes from malt shop mooks
- Ellery Queen: "The Adventure of the Sinister Scenario" has Ellery and a vacationing Inspector out west on the set of an Ellery Queen movie.
Newspaper Comics
- The Dick Tracy movie came out during Max Allan Collins's celebrated run as writer on the comic strip, and he accordingly did a storyline involving a studio making a movie based on Tracy's life. Ex-actor-turned-psychopath Putty Puss shows up on the set, and Hilarity Ensues.
- Also, any story involving long-time supporting character Vitamin Flintheart is likely to involve his job as an actor.
Video Games
- Brawl Stars: The whole point of Season 9, with the Pun-Based Title of Brawlywood, featuring movie themed skins and a Hispanic actress brawler.
Western Animation
- Family Guy: "Brian Does Hollywood", where Brian goes to Los Angeles to become a writer but ends up becoming a porn director.
- The Simpsons have done this several times. One example is "Beyond Blunderdome".
- Futurama: "That's Lobstertainment!"
- The Flintstones had a few episodes where they go to Hollyrock, including the television special "Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby" (which includes Bamm-Bamm pursuing a career as a screenwriter).
- Felix the Cat had a short film where he goes to Hollywood.
- Flip the Frog has a Hollywood episode.
- The Looney Tunes short "You Ought to Be in Pictures."
- Also, "A Star Is Hatched," "Daffy Duck In Hollywood," "What's Cookin', Doc?" "Hollywood Daffy," "The Scarlet Pumpernickel," and "A Star Is Bored."
- South Park has had several: The episode "AWESOME-O" has a third act in Hollywood. In another episode Cartman, pursued by Kyle, went there to try and get Family Guy canceled. In another, the boys went there as talent agents to try and get their client on American Idol.
- The television special Scooby-Doo Goes Hollywood.
- The Jackie Chan Adventures episode "And He Does His Own Stunts" involves the heroes visiting Hollywood, while they're on a mission to stop the latest Monster of the Week (another one of Shendu's brothers) from showing up in that town. Unsurprisingly, there's multiple pop-culture references in this episode, including allusions to the movie career of the real-life Jackie Chan.
- Men in Black: The Series has one called "The Star System Syndrome", where Agents J and K visit Hollywood to investigate the disappearances of several alien actors (who play roles in Earth movies while undisguised in their true forms). Meanwhile, the Worms secretly tag-a-long, and they try to pitch a film script about a secret government organization that deals with aliens on Earth.
- A few Classic Disney Shorts:
- Mickey's Polo Team: Mickey and his fellow cartoon stars Goofy, Donald Duck, and the Big Bad Wolf play polo against a team composed of Laurel and Hardy, Harpo Marx, and Charlie Chaplin.
- Mickey's Gala Premiere: A host of movie stars attend the premiere of Mickey Mouse's newest cartoon, after which they offer congrats to Mickey himself, and Greta Garbo covering him in kisses. Turns out, Mickey was just dreaming of being a movie star on the same plane as the others in reality.
- Mother Goose Goes Hollywood: A Silly Symphony in which various movie stars are cast in the roles of various nursery rhyme characters (i.e., Katherine Hepburn as Little Bo Peep, W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty, Laurel and Hardy as Simple Simon and the Pieman, etc.).
- The Autograph Hound: Donald Duck sneaks into a Hollywood studio lot in order to get autographs of movie stars. He runs into the likes of Mickey Rooney, Sonja Henie, the Ritz Brothers, and Shirley Temple, the last of whom gives him an autograph in exchange for his own.
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: "The Sweet Stench of Success", where Bloo becomes famous after becoming a deodorant mascot, though his manager treats him badly and won't let him see Mac. Famous for the Tear Jerkers.
- The Powerpuff Girls: "Film Flam". Shortly after the episode first aired, The Movie was announced.
- Duck Dodgers in "Hooray for Hollywood Planet".
- The Bakshi Mighty Mouse episode "A Star Is Milked."
- The last season of Gargoyles had "Broadway Goes Hollywood." (One wonders why they never made "Broadway Goes Broadway." Oh well.)
- The Transformers had "Hoist Goes Hollywood," which involved several of the Autobots getting hired to star in an action movie — first as stunt vehicles, later as "evil alien robots."
- Rocky and Bullwinkle, "The Last Angry Moose" arc involved Bullwinkle producing a movie for director Alfred Hitchhike (who bore a striking resemblance to Boris Badenov).
- Garfield Goes Hollywood has Garfield, Odie, and Jon putting together an act for the talent show Pet Search that gets them to the national finals in Hollywood.
- The Real Ghostbusters has the guys travelling to Hollywood to be consultants on the filming of a movie based on their adventures (which turns out to be actual original Ghostbusters (1984) film) and dealing with a ghost infestation on the set (although having some trouble at first because an assistant mixes their Proton Packs with the film prop ones).
- Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! has the four-part special "Wubb Idol" in which popular girl group the Wubb Girlz visit Wuzzleburg where they hold a talent show contest that has the grand prize: a chance to perform with them in Wuzzlewood. Wubbzy wins the contest by being himself and later suffers Performance Anxiety so the Wubb Girlz help him feel better by having his friends perform with him, making the concert a success.
- Inverted with the Heckle and Jeckle cartoon "Messed Up Movie Makers." A movie studio leases the two birds' hotel so they can film a TV series there. The collateral damage the studio causes prompt Heckle and Jeckle to find a way to get rid of them.
- "Movie Madness" (an earlier cartoon) has the two gatecrashing a movie studio and getting chased by Chesty the guard.
- Amphibia's partially L.A.-set Season 3 has "Hollywood Hop Pop", in which Hop Pop accidentally stars in a commercial.
