Points of interest
The area's warm Mediterranean climate and 42 miles (68 km) of year-round beaches attract millions of tourists annually. Huntington Beach is a hot spot for sunbathing and surfing; nicknamed "Surf City, U.S.A.", it is home to many surfing competitions. "The Wedge", at the tip of The Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, is one of the most famous body surfing spots in the world. Other tourist destinations include the theme parks Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure in Anaheim and Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park. Water parks in Orange County include Wild Rivers in Irvine and Soak City in Buena Park. The Anaheim Convention Center is the largest such facility on the West Coast. The old town area in the City of Orange (the traffic circle at the middle of Chapman Ave. at Glassell) still maintains its 1950s image, and appeared in the That Thing You Do! movie. Little Saigon is another notable tourist destination, being home to the largest concentration of Vietnamese people outside of Vietnam. There are also sizable Taiwanese, Chinese, and Korean communities, particularly in western Orange County. This is evident in several Asian-influenced shopping centers in Asian American hubs like the city of Irvine.
Some of the most exclusive (and expensive) neighborhoods in the U.S. are located here, many along the Orange County Coast, and some in north Orange County.
Historical points of interest include Mission San Juan Capistrano, the renowned destination of migrating swallows, and the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda. The Richard Nixon Birthplace home, located on the grounds of the Presidential Library, is a National Historic Landmark. Other notable structures include the home of Madame Helena Modjeska, located in Modjeska Canyon on Santiago Creek; Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse in Santa Ana, the largest building in the county; the historic Balboa Pavilion in Newport Beach; and the Huntington Beach Pier. It is also recognized for its nationally known centers of worship, such as Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, the largest house of worship in California; Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, one of the largest churches in the United States; and the Calvary Chapel.
Since the premiere in fall 2003 of the hit Fox series The O.C., and the 2007 Bravo series "The Real Housewives of Orange County" tourism has increased with travelers from across the globe hoping to see the sights seen in the show. However, the former was rarely filmed anywhere in Orange County.
Religion
Orange County is also the base for several significant religious organizations:
- The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange headed by Bishop Tod Brown.
- Chuck Smith, father of the Jesus People movement, is headquartered at Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa.
- Reverend Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral is in Garden Grove.
- Trinity Broadcasting Network began as Channel 40 in Tustin, now in Costa Mesa.
- The Purpose Driven Life author Rick Warren and his Saddleback Church (the largest church in California) are in Lake Forest.
- The Vineyard Christian Fellowship movement began in Orange County.
- Family International, AKA "The Children of God" ,was founded in 1968 in Huntington Beach by David Berg.
- Monasteries of the Vedanta Society and St. Michael's Abbey are located in Trabuco Canyon.
- Pao Fa Temple in Irvine is one of the largest Buddhist monasteries and temples in the United States.
- Temple going Mormons are served by the Newport Beach California Temple, among four other temples operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Southern California.
- The Islamic Center of Irvine
There are about 1.04 million Catholics in Orange County.
Literature
A number of novels by best-selling fiction and horror author Dean Koontz, a resident of Newport Beach, are set in the area.
Several of the stories in Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon's collection, A Model World, are set in Orange County. Chabon studied creative writing at UC Irvine.
Orange County is the place in which Kim Stanley Robinson's Three Californias Trilogy is set. These books depict three different futures of Orange County (survivors of a nuclear war in The Wild Shore, a developer's dream gone mad in The Gold Coast, and an ecotopian utopia in Pacific Edge). Philip K. Dick's novel A Scanner Darkly was also set in Orange County.
From his first novel, "Laguna Heat," to more recent books such as "California Girl," mystery-writer T. Jefferson Parker has set many of his novels in Orange County.
The modern fantasy novel "All the Bells on Earth" by James P. Blaylock is set in Orange.
The classic novel "Two Years Before the Mast" by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. describes journeys along the California coast in the early 1800s and the trading of goods for cow hides with the local residents. The south Orange County city of Dana Point takes its name from the author, as the cliffs around the harbor were a favorite location of his.
San Juan Capistrano is also the home of the first Zorro novellas. It was first called Curse of Capistrano, but was later changed to the Mask of Zorro due to the popularity of the movie.
In popular culture
Orange County has been the setting for numerous films and television shows:
- The opening scene of Gilligan's Island that shows the S.S. Minnow leaving the harbor was in Newport Beach.
- The best known portrayal is as the setting of the popular 2003 Fox Network television drama The O.C. which is set in the Orange County coastal harbor town of Newport Beach.
- It is the subject and setting of the eponymous 2002 movie Orange County. However, the film was not actually filmed in Orange County.
- It is also the setting of the 2003 sitcom Arrested Development. Most of the series was not filmed in Orange County, but in Culver City and Marina del Rey in Los Angeles County. A running joke in the series that pokes fun at The O.C. is that characters will frequently refer to Orange County as "The O.C.," followed by another character's saying, "Don't call it that" (mirroring the fact that many Orange County residents do not use the term "The O.C.").
- The closing scene in Rain Man with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise was shot at the Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center.
- The film Better Luck Tomorrow was shot and set in the cities of Cypress and Anaheim
- The University of California, Irvine, has been used in many films, most notably Ocean's Eleven (2001 film); others include Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Poltergeist (film)
- The film Accepted had Harmon University shot in Chapman University in Orange.
- The film Life as a House was set in Laguna Beach, although it was filmed in Los Angeles County.
- The film Brick was shot and set in San Clemente
- MTV's Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County was filmed in the Orange County coastal town of Laguna Beach, California.
- MTV's Newport Harbor: The Real Orange County was filmed in the Orange County coastal town of Newport Beach, California.
- MTV's Life of Ryan is a reality[1] show following the life of pro skateboarder Ryan Sheckler. The title of the show is a play on Monty Python's Life of Brian, filmed in and around the Sheckler household in San Clemente, California.
- A key scene in the film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was shot and set at The Block at Orange in the city of Orange.
- The Christian Slater film Gleaming The Cube was set in Orange County and filmed in several cities, such as Anaheim, Woodbridge High School in Irvine, and John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana.
- A plot line in the television drama The West Wing involved a dead liberal Democrat unexpectedly winning a Congressional seat from an Orange County district.
- Orange County is the home of the late Republican President Teddy Bridges on the (now canceled) ABC drama Commander in Chief.
- Sayid Jarrah from the ABC drama Lost was bound to go to Irvine, where his longtime friend Nadia lives. John Locke, another castaway from the series, is said to have lived most of his life in Tustin. Also Libby told Desmond that she is from Newport Beach.
- Orange County was the location of the 1994 Charlie Sheen movie The Chase; the movie, however, was mostly filmed in Houston.
- The Park Place, Irvine corporate mall was the location for futuristic scenes in the 1993 film Demolition Man starring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes.
- The 2006 film A Scanner Darkly was set in the city of Anaheim. A freeway scene was shot along the Northbound I-5 in Tustin.
- The show The Real Housewives of Orange County is filmed in Coto De Caza.
- Costa Mesa is the setting for The X-Files episode "Hungry".
- In the 2001 film The Fast and the Furious, the scene when the Johnny Tran and his gang catch up with Vin Diesel and Paul Walker blowing up their car was filmed in Little Saigon, Westminster.
- In season six of the HBO drama The Sopranos while in a coma Tony Soprano dreams he is a businessman in Costa Mesa.
- The chase scene at the beginning of the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Kindergarten Cop was filmed at Main Place Mall in Santa Ana.
- In "The Incredible Mr. Brisby" episode of The Venture Bros., Hank and Dean Venture Travel to the fictional theme park Brisby Land, a spoof on Disney Land. During the episode, radical Orange County Natives known as the Orange County Liberation Front launch a full-scale assault on the Brisby Land compound out of revenge for the ever increasing size of the Park. Members of the OCLF are easily identified by their helmets that resemble enormous oranges.
- The shuttle bay scenes for the 2009 Star Trek movie were shot in the old El Toro base hangers.
Orange County has also been used as a shooting location for several films and television programs. Examples of movies at least partially shot in Orange County are Tom Hanks's That Thing You Do, the Coen Brothers' The Man Who Wasn't There, and the Martin Lawrence movie Big Momma's House. All three of which were filmed in or around the Old Towne Plaza in the City of Orange.
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Orange County
Orange County Arts and Culture