Valley serves as more than a mere backdrop on hit TNT show

For two seasons, TNT's "Men of a Certain Age" has been showcasing the San Fernando Valley as it really is.

Ray Romano, Scott Bakula and Andre Braugher star as three longtime buddies coping with midlife crises during scenes filmed at the Valley's golf courses and car dealerships, and along its mountain trails and endless streets.

Created by Romano and his "Everybody Loves Raymond" writer-producer Mike Royce, the Monday night comic drama views Valley life as an essentially all-American phenomenon, adjacent to the glamorous world over the hills but a distinct place of its own.

"It's a pretty down-to-earth show," Royce said. "Basically, we wanted to set it in Los Angeles, but not in the Hollywood that you always see. The show is about three guys who are just living here, and where they've gotten to in their lives.

"One of them is an actor. But this is not like `Entourage,' where they show the ins and outs of the glitz of Hollywood. It's more, sort of, the daily travails and celebrations of just living life here and dealing with small victories and defeats along the way."

Bakula's Terry Elliott is that actor. Correction: former actor. Still a swinging bachelor in his late 40s, Terry is getting over a drug dependency and is taking a shot at gainful employment by working for his buddy, Braugher's Owen Thoreau Jr.

Braugher, the Emmy-nominated actor who previously starred in "Homicide: Life on the Street" portrays a happily married family man with three young kids who is filled with self-doubt about his ability to take over his domineering father's auto dealership.

Romano's Joe Tranelli has a full set of apprehensions and demons, too. Recently separated, he's doing better than he's morally comfortable with on the semi-singles circuit. He's mainly focused, though, on trying to replace a gambling addiction with the avid pursuit of his lifelong dream to become a competition golfer.

The guys get together almost daily to lend mutual support and bust each other's chops over meals at the Norms in Van Nuys and on morning hikes.

"That's a moveable canyon," the show's location coordinator, Kristan Wagner, said of the trio's exercise route. "It was Franklin Canyon in season one and the pilot, but we also in season one shot at the top of Reseda, which has a beautiful Valley view."

"The one that we shot at this season is a little-known park that I don't think has been shot in much, if at all: O'Melveny out in Granada Hills," she said.

"It's never an all-day deal with the running and talking; it's usually married to some other location. O'Melveny, for example, is very close to Knollwood."

That would be the Knollwood Country Club, where Joe perpetually fails to hit his desired distance on the driving range.

"I'm not a golfer, myself, but it is interesting to me how beautiful it is out there," said Royce who, unlike confirmed Valley-dweller Romano, lives in Westwood. "I guess golf courses, in general, are fairly manicured, but you don't get the mountains all the time. It's interesting that you can take a right turn and see the natural world from the Valley."

And then there's the working world. Joe runs a party supply store, which was built on a soundstage at Paramount Studios.

Thoreau Chevrolet scenes, however, are actually shot at Rydell Chevrolet in Northridge.

"We shoot there quite a bit, especially this season because two of the main characters were working there," Wagner said.

"They're absolutely cooperative, they even have people that move cars around for us. We have big signs that say `Rydell is open for business during filming."'

The production's art department even created a Thoreau sign that folds down over Rydell's when exteriors are being shot.

Over at Norms, the restaurant's sign and frontage are the real things. But since the place famously "never closes," only the pilot episode was taped inside the busy eatery. Since then, the guys' booth and surrounding areas have been replicated at Paramount.

"The set's reproduction, to the average person, looks like a Norms," said Philip Singerman, president of Norms Restaurants. "To someone who built the restaurant or manages it every day, we might say, `What is that taco stand across the street?' or `The cashier area is very different.' But the uniforms are pretty close and the booths and trim is the same.

"To all intents and purposes, it looks like a Norms."

While appearing on the show hasn't resulted in lines around the block, Norms' association with the series has raised the profile of the Southern California chain.

"Someone from a university in Missouri contacted us wanting to know about Norms because they'd seen it on `Men of a Certain Age,"' said Norms senior vice-president Janice DeRouen, who cut the deal with the production. "He taught a film class, and he wanted to know how one went about getting your business in a show.

"I told him, `Hey, they just called me for the pilot,"' DeRouen added. "They looked at several possible sites. I know that Mr. Romano was one of the ones that came in, had a meal and liked what he saw."

"Our whole focus - maybe forever, but certainly formally for the last four or five years - is our little tagline: Norms restaurants, where life happens," Singerman pointed out. "`Men of a Certain Age' couldn't be in a better place than where we are. It's life. It's like we were both designed for each other."

Royce's philosophy of the show reinforces that perception.

"Los Angeles, in a good way, is like a lot of other cities in the world," the showrunner said. "We don't always get credit for that. People think of it as some airy-fairy land where the weather is always great so everyone's always happy or everyone's always depressed.

"Anyway, that it's somehow apart from mainstream America.

"But really, it is mainstream America - maybe with a little nicer weather - and that's what we're trying to portray. That's what helps the show become relatable."

And while it's doing that, the show brings both the flavor and the variety of life here into homes across the country and throughout the world.

"I haven't run a percentage on it, but easily 90 percent of the show's exteriors are shot in the Valley," Wagner said. "I find that the Valley is so vast in terms of locations that you can't scratch the surface.

"And certainly, my contacts in the Valley - the people whose locations we use, and their neighbors for the most part - have a sense of pride that a series is based in the Valley and showcases its locations and the lifestyle of the Valley."