The Banzai Institute exteriors were shot in Rustic Canyon, Los Angeles, with the interiors filmed in an Art Deco house designed in 1931 by MGM art director Cedric Gibbons for his wife, Dolores del Río. Deserted rooms at Brentwood 's V.A. hospital were used for Dr. Lizardo's room at the Trenton Home for the Criminally Insane. Lizardo's 1938 laboratory was filmed at a deserted industrial site, Alpha Tubing. The set decorators rented a collection of 1930s electrical props originally used in the original Boris Karloff Frankenstein films. The interiors of Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems were shot in the abandoned Firestone tire factory. Wilmington 's Department of Water and Power provided the location for Dr. Lizardo's shock tower and served as the Yoyodyne exterior, while the Armco Steel Plant in Torrance housed the Lectroid launch hangar. Weller remembers that during the scene where his character is tortured by Dr. Lizardo, "I was laughing at the banter between [Christopher] Lloyd and [John] Lithgow... I never laughed so hard in my life! They had to stop takes over and over on that segment." Finally, 12 weeks of filming were done on the backlot and soundstages at MGM.