HENSON STUDIOS honors the builder of one of LA’s oldest production lots by dressing Kermit the Frog like Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp. In 1917, when the actor/director/producer bought acreage at 1416 North LaBrea Avenue in Los Angeles, the property was an orange grove. Chaplin marked his turf with a signature and shoeprints splayed Tramp-style in concrete near the soundstage on which he made Gold Rush, The Great Dictator, and many more. In 1960, Red Skelton began taping his TV show on-premises—and moved Chaplin’s signed sidewalk to his Palm Springs pad. Skelton sold to CBS, which produced TV series Perry Mason at 1416. In 1966 A&M Records arrived, adding studios. Quincy Jones secretly convened 50 music stars at A&M to record 1985’s “We Are the World.” The Hensons, owners since 1999, restored Chaplin’s screening room and film lab—and reproduced the Chaplin signature slab. A trompe l’oeil image of Chaplin graces a door in Kermie’s gatehouse. The lot is closed except when someone rents the courtyard or soundstage, but a tour of the historic property awaits here:
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