It’s official – Encino Man, aka Brendan Fraser, has an Oscar! (As does his cinematic sidekick Ke Huy Quan!) The seasoned entertainer, who by all accounts is one of the nicest guys in Hollywood, took home Best Actor gold this past Sunday night for his role as morbidly obese Moscow, Idaho English teacher Charlie in the drama “The Whale.” Long before that (three decades prior, to be precise), he was cutting his teeth as a show biz newbie over 1,000 miles away portraying Link, a 40,000-year-old caveman discovered frozen and buried in a San Fernando Valley backyard by two local teens in “Encino Man.” While the latter wasn’t exactly highly regarded by the Academy, it did become a cult classic, turning its star into a household name in the process. Marking the then thoroughly unknown 23-year-old’s feature debut, the flick also “set the template for Fraser’s most recognizable archetype: the naive, good-hearted stranger, clueless and innocent, plopped into society from a distant era,” as noted in Inverse’s highly comprehensive “Encino Man” oral history.
The fanciful 1992 comedy was concocted by producing partners George Zaloom and Les Mayfield, who, up until that point, had been helming documentaries, most notably 1991’s celebrated “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse,” which detailed the behind-the-scenes goings-on of the 1979 war classic “Apocalypse Now.” “Encino Man” chronicles far more low-brow happenings, with a humorously improbable premise centering around nerdy high schooler Dave Morgan (Sean Astin), who sets out to become popular – and catch the eye of his crush, Robyn Sweeney (Megan Ward) – by digging a pool in his backyard. As he tells his best bu-ddy, Stanley “Stoney” Brown (Pauly Shore), “I’m not going down as this geek kid from Encino. When I finish this pool, I’m gonna have the killer party after the prom. I’m gonna be the prom king! And I’m going to graduate a legend!” When his pursuit leads to the discovery of Link, he instead decides to utilize the Ice Age-teen to reach the pinnacle of high-school heights, passing him off as Linkavitch Chumovsky, an effortlessly cool foreign exchange student from Estonia.
The silly but enduringly sweet tale, which is currently available to rent on numerous platforms including Apple TV and Amazon Prime, proved comic gold, earning “back its entire $7 million budget in [its] opening weekend alone,” per Inverse’s oral history, ultimately garnering over $40 million at the box office and cementing its place in history as a zeitgeist comedy and “nostalgic touchstone for anyone raised in the VHS era.”
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Image Credit: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures -
Image Credit: Lindsay Blake for Dirt Sorry to totally chirp your lobes, but, despite the catchy title, “Encino Man” wasn’t actually filmed in Encino. Shot over a scant 30-40 days in late 1991/early 1992, the comedy instead made use of several other San Fernando Valley-area neighborhoods, including Sylmar, where Dave and Stoney head to Los Angeles Mission College, masquerading as Encino High, each day for school. Stoney teaches Link the wonders of the microwavable burrito and how to wheeze the ju-uice at what was then a Quick Food Mart (it’s now a 7-Eleven) at 6586 Van Nuys Blvd. in Van Nuys. And the two ride the Vapor rollercoaster in reverse at Mega Mountain, aka Six Flags Magic Mountain, all the way out in Valencia.
Not even the house at the center of the story is in Encino! The Spanish-style abode where Dave lives with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Morgan (Richard Masur and Mariette Hartley, respectively), and annoying little sister, Teena (Ellen Blain), can actually be found about ten miles west at the edge of a leafy cul-de-sac at 7532 Sedgewick Ct. in the similarly suburban community of West Hills. (Please remember this is a private home. Do not trespass or bother the residents or the property in any way.)
The two-story pad was originally designed in 1988 by Larry Kaltman of the Encino-based Kaltman Development Group as part of Urban West Communities’ upscale Estate Collection project. A 1987 Los Angeles Times write-up describes the planned enclave as consisting of 175 homes with four different floor plans and 12 different exterior designs, initially “priced between $415,000 and $538,000.” According to Zillow, the “Encino Man” house, which last sold for $970,000 in May 2009, is worth upwards of $1.8 million today.
The abode is one of the Estate Collection’s largest models, boasting five bedrooms and five baths in 4,359 square feet, which is plenty of room for two adults, two teens and a caveman guest to comfortably reside.
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Image Credit: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures -
Image Credit: Lindsay Blake for Dirt Incredibly, despite the passage of over 30 years, the dwelling appears frozen in time from its 1992 appearance, much like the caveman that was found buried in its yard. Don’t go looking for the Morgans’ mailbox anywhere on the premises, though. Uniquely styled to mimic the house, complete with a scalloped red tile roof, the piece was just a prop brought in for the filming, which eagle-eyed fans likely noticed was oddly moved around quite a bit from scene to scene sans any sort of explanation.
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Image Credit: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures At the time of the “Encino Man” shoot, the pad’s sprawling 0.34-acre parcel lacked a pool, as was depicted onscreen. That is no longer the case. Three years after the movie wrapped, the property’s then-owners installed a 35-by-18-foot Grecian-style version with a water feature and jacuzzi along the eastern edge of the rear yard. Otherwise, little of the lot, which also includes a covered patio and rolling lawn, has been changed since its big-screen appearance.
Like the mailbox, the ramshackle shed where Dave and Stoney leave Link to thaw out after first discovering him was just set decoration brought in for the shoot, not something authentic to the home.
Fun fact – the 1992 overhead view of the residence featured on the Historic Aerials website was either captured during filming or shortly thereafter, as the home’s backyard, while shown covered in grass throughout the years prior, is pictured consisting of little more than a dusty, dug-up patch of dirt, just as it was in “Encino Man” thanks to Dave and Stoney’s thoroughly unprofessional handiwork.
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Image Credit: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Only the exterior of the West Hills pad was featured onscreen. As reported by the Chicago Tribune in 1992, inside scenes were filmed on a set fashioned by production designer James F. Allen (who was also behind the looks of “Weird Science,” “Sweet Hearts Dance” and “Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills”) at a warehouse in Sylmar. The set’s aesthetic was loosely inspired by the home’s actual interior (photos here), though it was crafted with an even greater ‘90s feel, complete with pastel paint, floral wallpapering and a plethora of glass blocks.
Per the 2009 listing, the residence’s real living spaces comprise an entry foyer, a living room, a family room with a wet bar and a gourmet kitchen featuring oak cabinetry very similar to that of the Morgans, with the capacity to store groceries from all four of the main food groups, aka the dairy group (Milk Duds), fruit group (Sweet Tarts), vegetable group (Corn Nuts) and meat group (microwavable burritos). There is also a formal dining room on the premises for your grindage weazin’ pleasure!