By Charly SHELTON

After more than a year of closures and quarantine, many businesses and attractions are reopening to the public. Some attractions have reopened in the same condition as when they closed, just glad to have made it through the pandemic without going out of business. Other attractions took the downtime to construct new offerings and streamline things, making use of the guest-free days to do all the headache work of building without losing revenue-generating days to do it. Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank did just that and now that they have reopened, a whole new world awaits.

A brand new tour complex, complete with massive Warner Bros. gift shop, has just debuted with the reopening of the tour last weekend. The Storytellers Showcase is the entry point of the tour and it showcases nearly 100 years of history on the lot, from the filming of hit TV shows like “Friends” and “Dallas,” to the classic animation of the Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, to the timeless classics filmed on the lot like “The Jazz Singer,” the first talking motion picture. And the archives have been opened up for this exhibit as well, which includes the microphone on display that was invented for “The Jazz Singer” as well as Jack Warner’s phone book with entries including “Disney, Walt” and “Dali, Salvador” and “Davis, Miss Bette.”

Then, halfway through the tour, guests are invited to step into the world of the modern classics like the DC Universe films and the Wizarding World films. Guests can get sorted into their Hogwarts house, lie in Harry Potter’s bed in the cabinet under the stairs, visit The Watchtower database of the Justice League headquarters and even stroll through the Batcave with several Batmobiles on display and a live screen as different iterations of the iconic car take off to go fight crime in Gotham City. And the “Friends” experience is even more immersive, with a full Central Perk Café offering coffee, sandwiches, signature lattes and a couch to sit on with your own friends.

All these new offerings come alongside the already stellar studio tour, which was a great attraction to begin with. For those who have never been, the tour winds its way across the Warner lot, past the iconic water tower where the Animaniacs live, through the backlot sets that were home to the “Gilmore Girls,” past the sound stages where “Casablanca” was filmed, and is now bookended with the museum and the immersive exhibit. It’s a three-hour-tour, and a lot of fun – not only for tourists who want to see how movies are made but even for LA locals who are no strangers to walking a studio lot.

Shooting on a stage or on a backlot is fun, but it never has the old Hollywood glamour one would hope for. You get in trouble for wandering off, you spend more time with sandbags than with iconic sets, and the whole point of shooting there is to separate the look of this show from the look of whatever famous movie was shot here 20 years ago so as not to copy it wholesale. But on a tour, you get to see the whole lot and immerse yourself in the famous films that are really cared about. If you’re shooting background shots for a CBS pilot that will never get picked up, and you’re on the stage where Bogart said to Bergman “We’ll always have Paris,” you aren’t thinking about the CBS pilot first and foremost. Being on this tour allows film fans to revel in the idealized movie studio experience and, for the uninitiated, give a peek at how films are made.

The Warner Bros Studio Tour is a lot of fun, and it has just recently reopened so everything is still shiny and new. Come visit the lot and see for yourself. Starting July 15, the tour is offering So Cal Resident ticket deals to get the locals to come see what they’ve been missing. Visit WBStudioTour.com for tickets and more info. And to check out a video tour of what’s in store for you, find our coverage on TikTok at @zipadeedodad.