The simple magic of a gazebo

Hollywood studios use different kinds of "magic" to transport us in place and time. We're all familiar with the larger-than-life, explosive effects that create those magical moments that defy reality. But there’s another kind of magic that magicians might call sleight of hand, which Hollywood uses all the time to create a real world for us on screen.

A simple gazebo on the Warner Bros. studio lot perfectly represents the way studios trick us (with our complete permission).

You’ve seen this gazebo as part of Hazzard Square (The Dukes of Hazzard), Stars Hollow (Gilmore Girls) and the town square in Bluebell, Alabama (Hart of Dixie).

Since it was built in the 1930s, Warner Bros.' Midwest Street backlot has been featured in more than 400 TV shows and movies. It’s in Pretty Little Liars and movies like Rebel Without a Cause, Bonnie and Clyde and The Music Man.

Whether snuggling up to watch something at home, or out for a night at the movies, when we watch

these shows and films, the magic works because we want it to. First of all, we’re so immersed in the characters and storylines that we suspend disbelief and emotionally believe these quaint little towns that house our favorite characters actually exist.

Even if we’ve taken the tour of the famous Warner Bros. backlot called Midwest Street, or as the studio calls it “Anytown USA,” we willingly journey and settle into another place that allows us to escape reality and enter someone else’s imagination. Why would we fight it? It's so much fun!

So great is our disbelief, that in the TV show The Dukes of Hazzard, there are times when you can actually see the trailers for the crew right there in the background. You can even see the large sound stages that tower above the houses.

Part of why that worked was because back when the show was made (1979-1985), audiences saw these backgrounds as a flash in time that they couldn’t possibly rewind and see again. There was no expectation that the show would be shown over and over in reruns, or that a person would be able to dissect the details of what they were seeing.

But more than that, audiences work with the studios to protect this false reality because it’s a mutual agreement that we all want these places to be real.

When you watch your favorite shows or movies, keep an eye out for buildings or locations that look familiar. Studios only have so much backlot space, and a few decorative touches can’t always hide the core facades.

Just down the way on the Warner Bros. tour is their jungle/lagoon set. This lagoon can hold 270,000 gallons of water and is filled only when needed for filming.

It was originally built for the film Santiago, but the Warner Bros. website notes it can be used for “a tropical paradise, murky swamp or lush forest.” You can see it in Private Benjamin with Goldie Hawn, Fantasy Island and numerous commercials “starring alligators and frogs.”

It's kind of sweet to think that all of our best escapist impulses can be represented by a quaint little gazebo in the middle of "Anytown USA," where we all settle in and create different versions of home. Hollywood magic done the simple way.