Big Doughnut, Randy's Donuts

Inglewood, California

Randy's Donuts is a 24-hour doughnut shop a few miles north of LAX Airport off the 405. Trees and brush obscure the freeway view -- but the freeway came after the "Big Do-Nut Drive-In" opened in 1953. Once up the exit ramp and onto the cross-street, the 22-foot-wide snack appears poised to roll off an otherwise uninspired drive-thru store.

Randy's -- it's been Randy's since 1976 -- is a destination with Hollywood star status. The giant doughnut appears over and over as a movie location or in obliquely angled atmospheric LA montages. It rolls down boulevards in animated cartoons and disaster movies. Randy's was a conspicuous news backdrop in 2012 -- and later in a Toyota Superbowl commercial -- when the retired Space Shuttle Endeavor was slowly towed by, heading to its new home in L.A.