Where Was Cheaper by the Dozen Filmed?

One of the first scenes in Cheaper by the Dozen shows the Baker family sitting down for breakfast, and it introduces the family to the way this chaotic family acts. Despite all of the chaos, the children and their parents do have a method to their madness, and clearly function well as a family unit. Tom and Kate Baker are the parents of 12 children, Lorraine, Mark, Charlie, Nora, Sarah, Jake, Henry, Jessica, Nigel, Kim, Kyle, and Mike. Nora is the oldest of the children and has a boyfriend named Hank who the other children do not like. All of the children work with their parents during this first scene to prepare breakfast and stay on track when things get a little too crazy. Tom and Kate are also a happy and in love couple, who have multiple romantic scenes together. At one point early on Tom asks his wife, “You were checking me out, weren't you?” Kate’s response is, “Yes, I was. You got a problem with that?” The opening breakfast scene is at the first Baker house, which is in Petaluma, California.

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While the first scenes of Cheaper by the Dozen show the family working together, they also show the chaos that the family of fourteen frequently has to deal with. While creating breakfast together, Mark loses track of his pet frog Beans, and the entire family has to work to catch him. He is found in the lamp hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen, and the family goes on a hilarious chase to catch him. Fans consider this one of the funniest scenes in Cheaper by the Dozen. At one point one of the kids exclaims, “He's headed for the waffles!” This is also when Mark is called FedEx by one of his siblings, and reveals he was given the nickname because the other kids say he doesn’t fit in. Before leaving the house after chasing Beans, Mark says, “Everybody says the FedEx guy dropped me off...'cause I don't fit in with this family.” His mom promptly assures him that he does fit with them. This scene was also filmed at the first Baker home which sits on Walker Road in Petaluma, California.

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When the Bakers move out of Midland and to their new home in Evanston, chaos follows. Kate gets her book published and has to leave for a book tour, which means Tom will be alone and in charge of the kids. Nora and Hank promise to help babysit, but when the kids pull a prank on him, they storm out and leave Tom on his own. He even tries to hire a nanny but is repeatedly turned down because of all the children he has. During one call he says, “There's only two, oh plus ten,” and in another call he says, “How many kids? Well, uh, when you get here we can just count 'em up.” After making the final call Tom states, “Hello, I'll just hang up by myself,” before giving up on finding a nanny. As his last resort, Tom decides to train his football team at the house so they can help him with the Baker children. After telling the team his plan he says, “Get my kids and meet me at my house. Ready? Break.” The training scene film shoot is at the new Baker house, which is located in Los Angeles, California on Lorraine Boulevard.

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One of the funniest scenes in Cheaper by the Dozen is the meat prank that the children play on Nora’s boyfriend Hank, who is an actor and model that actively states his dislike for kids. This scene was also filmed at the Lorraine Boulevard location in Los Angeles, California. When Nora and Hank come over to help with the kids while Kate is gone, they soak his underwear in raw meat before he puts them on. While they are sitting down for dinner, the kids send the family dog after Hank, and another chaotic scene erupts. This leads both Hank and Nora to storm out, refusing to help anymore. When talking to the kids about their prank, Tom says, “You soaked his underwear in meat. That is so wrong. Funny, but wrong.” Sarah Baker is the kid behind many of the pranks played against Hank, and Tom tells her, “You have a dark gift, Sarah Baker.”

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Towards the end of the movie, Kate is trying to get her family under control to film a segment with Oprah Winfrey about her book. The book is about Kate’s life with twelve kids, and she wants them to act like the functioning and well-behaved family that she wrote about. However, it becomes clear to the parents and the cameraman that this will not be happening, and the segment ends up getting cancelled. During the height of the arguing, Mark reveals that his pet frog Beans has died. Sarah tells Mark, “Nobody cares about your stupid frog right now, FedEx, OK?” This upsets Mark, so he says, “Stop calling me that,” before running off. This scene takes place in the new Baker house, but quickly after Mark runs from his family he decides to run together completely.

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After his frog dies and Mark gets in a fight with his family, he runs away to the Amtrak station to try and take a train back to the old Baker home. However, the family does not realize this at first, and they all split up to look for him. This is also what leads Nora to break up with Hank when he expresses no concern for Mark being gone. When Nora asks, “Did you not hear me? My brother is missing!” Hank's response is, “Did you not hear me? I'm on TV!” Tom is the one who ends up finding Mark at the train station, after realizing his son would likely try and return to their old house. After finding Mark, he is reunited with the rest of the family. The train station meant to be the Amtrak station that Mark runs to is actually located in Santa Rosa, California, and it is still standing today.

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The final scene in the movie shows the Bakers together as a happy family again after Mark has been found, and they are sitting down to enjoy Christmas dinner. Shortly after they do, the chandelier that has fallen multiple times since moving into their new home falls down once again. After this last scene in Cheaper by the Dozen, Kate has a voiceover about how 12 has always been their number. This is similar to the voiceover she has at the start of the movie when she is also talking about her family. “I guess you could say that when Tom and I left Midland we had a mess of theories about how to raise children. We still have a mess of children, but no theories. Sure, 12 is still our number. It's the number of months my book was on the bestseller list. It's the number of job offers Tom turned down before we found one close to home. And each day it's the number of times I'm thankful there's such a thing as family,” Kate says.

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