Disaster Movie Was Disaster for El Toro

My assertion that makers of disaster movies routinely snub Orange County has been challenged by readers Tom Pevehouse and Betty Key. They cited “Independence Day” (1996), in which El Toro Marine base is zapped by the Martian invaders (all I can figure is I was out getting popcorn when the flying saucers attacked).

The film, you may recall, stars Will Smith as a career-minded pilot who is stationed at El Toro but lives off base with his love, an exotic dancer. Hence this memorable piece of advice from fellow flyboy Harry Connick Jr.: “You’re never going to get to fly the space shuttle if you marry a stripper.”

L.A., as a whole, doesn’t fare any better than El Toro in the movie. Some Angelenos do survive, because they are underground during the saucer’s aerial bombing assault.

“Today was the first day I used the subway,” says one man. “Thank God for the Metro Rail.”

I don’t know why the MTA hasn’t used that scene in its advertising.

THAT’S WHO AGAIN? Some personalities who are immortalized in statues in unlikely places:

* Actor James Dean at the Griffith Observatory (scenes from “Rebel Without a Cause” were shot there).

* French heroine Joan of Arc outside the Pacific Alliance Medical Center in Chinatown (it was formerly French Hospital).

* Gen. George S. Patton Jr. in front of Church of Our Saviour in San Gabriel (his grandfather helped found the church).

* Mao Tse-tung in Yorba Linda (he is among world leaders depicted at the Nixon Museum).

* Comic Jack Benny, at the minor league ballpark in Rancho Cucamonga. Benny is so honored because a joke on his old radio show had a train conductor saying, “All aboard for Azusa, Anaheim and Cuc-amonga.” Benny put those three towns on the map.

BUT WHERE ON THE MAP? A completely fouled-up Mary Kay Cosmetics map of a few years ago had Anaheim north of San Jose (see accompanying).

DON’T YOU DARE CALL THEM BLOODHOUNDS: Jane Goldstein of Sierra Madre saw the long-winded name of one local police department’s section and concluded that bureaucrats had been at work again (see photo).

HITCHHIKERS AVOIDED THEM: Knott’s Berry Farm is hoping its recent 53-hearse convoy will find immortality in the Guinness Book of Records. Knott’s sent documentary evidence of the event to Guinness, which has never featured this category. (The unofficial record holder is L.A.’s Orpheum Theater, which staged a 33-hearse parade for a previous Halloween event.)

The creepy vehicles, many belonging to the Phantom Coaches club, made the trip of a bit more than a mile from the Buena Park mall to Knott’s in about 20 minutes.

Knott’s spokesman Bob Ochsner said the convoy was “only open to retired hearses.”

Needless to say, they carried no cargo in the back.

miscelLAny:

Before the Dodgers revealed the purpose of Thursday’s press conference--the naming of ex-studio honcho Robert Daly as the team’s boss--there was much speculation about the event. Noticing it was being held at Staples Center, wise guy sportscaster Joe McDonnell of KFWB-AM (980) quipped that since attendance was likely to drop because of the team’s poor performance, the Dodgers were moving from 53,000-seat Dodger Stadium to the new 20,000-seat Staples Center.