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It has become an international trend to use popular films and TV shows as a publicity tool for tourist attractions.
New Zealand for Lord of the Rings and various locations in the UK for the Harry Potter films and Vanuatu for the Survivor series are three examples.
Now comes Orange County, south of Los Angeles.
The county, home to scores of top draws including Disneyland, a heap of other theme parks and golf courses galore, is looking for the hit TV series The OC to pull in even more visitors from home and overseas.
Not, officials hasten to explain, that you'll bump into the show's stars on the streets or waterways of Newport.
The OC is not actually taped by the Fox Network at Newport Beach, the oceanside city where the action is set - Hollywood is on the other side of the "Orange Curtain".
But the backdrops of multi-million-dollar homes, the harbour and the beaches are familiar to the show's fans around the world.
Even better-known locally are the names of showbiz stars who've owned palatial homes on Newport Harbour and tied up their equally lavish yachts at their private jetties.
A cruise of "the world's largest small boat harbour" was a highlight of our day in Newport Beach.
Our boat's commentator name-dropped every few seconds, with a colourful style of delivery resembling that of James Fitzpatrick in those movie shorts of a bygone era - "... and as the sun slowly sinks in the west, we reluctantly say farewell to (wherever)".
From Shirley Temple and Heather Lockyer to James Cagney and John Wayne, from George Burns and Gracie Allen to Roy Rogers and Buddy Ebsen, plus a phalanx of sporting stars, they came to Newport Harbour for opulent seclusion.
Cagney reputedly won Collins Island, one of seven in the harbour, in a poker game - with three queens, our commentator confided; he sold off block by block later.
Wayne's waterfront mansion was estimated to be worth $US3.5 million shortly before his death in 1979; make that around $US20 million now.
Wayne's 100 metre yacht, a converted Navy minesweeper, was tied up at a pier near his old home, which was being decorated by the current owner at the time of our visit.
An arm of Newport Harbour is Pirates' Cove, a popular location for films (a 1919 version of Treasure Island), TV series (The Rockford Files) and commercials.
Joan Crawford also made a couple of her dramatic films here.
Another craft leaving from Newport's main wharf is the Catalina Flyer on day trips to scenic Catalina Island, which according to the popular song is 26 miles across the sea" (that's 43.8 km if you must know) - and outside Orange County!
At the harbour entrance is a rocky breakwater popular with local fishermen, scores of lobster traps and families of native sea lions which use a buoy for an afternoon nap.
Other OC attractions include:
- Huntington Beach, otherwise known as Surf City USA and site of the International Surfing Museum and the Surfing Hall of Fame.
- Balboa Peninsula Beach, where you can choose between ocean side or harbour side - on the former is The Wedge, famous for bodysurfing.
- Disneyland rivals, Knotts (Berry Farm) Theme Park and Universal Studios Hollywood.
- Long Beach Aquarium and the retired liner Queen Mary, now a floating hotel, museum and restaurant on the US Register of Historic Places.
- The Bowers Museum of Cultural Art at Santa Ana, rated Southern California's finest, with international exhibits.
- Former President Richard M Nixon's birthplace and library at Yorba Linda.
- Legoland at Carlsbad and the Crystal Cathedral at Garden Grove.
- San Diego's world-famous zoo - and the superior San Diego Wild Animal Park.
- OC is home to the Angels major-league baseball team and the Mighty Ducks ice-hockey team, both Anaheim and more than 50 golf courses.
- Of the latter, we managed a few holes at the Tustin Ranch Club,
a magnificent par-72 layout where the fairways had the smooth
quality of greens elsewhere.
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