Do You Know Your Valley

1. Which Valley mall was the first enclosed shopping mall on the West Coast?

Answer: Topanga Plaza, which opened in 1964.

2. Who coined the phrase “Valley girl”?

Answer: Frank Zappa

3. In what year did the first section of the Hollywood Freeway (101. enter the Valley?

Answer: 1957

4. True or false: The Valley has the largest ratio in the world of cars per household?

Answer: True, at 1.83 cars

5. True or false: The Valley’s population is larger than that of Dallas.

Answer: True. Dallas has 1,006,877; the Valley has 1,239,431.

6. What community is home to the Elysium Fields nudist colony?

Answer: Topanga

7. What famous screen siren attended Van Nuys High School?

Answer: Marilyn Monroe

8. What other celebrities were once students at Van Nuys High School?

Answer: Natalie Wood, Robert Redford and Paula Abdul.

9. What screen heart-throb attended Grant High School?

Answer: Tom Selleck

10. What actress is a former Miss Burbank?

Answer: Debbie Reynolds.

11. What comedy film legend had a ranch on Devonshire Street in the 1950s?

Answer: Lucille Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz.

12. What famous early Western screen stars had a ranch nearby?

Answer: Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

13. Which Valley high school was used in the filming of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”?

Answer: El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills

14. Which famous crooner sang the hit song “The San Fernando Valley” in 1944?

Answer: Bing Crosby

15. Name some of the Native American tribes that were represented in the Valley?

Answer: Chumash, Tongva, Yokut, Aliklik and Kitanemuk. All of whom spoke dialects of Shoshone.

16. In dollars, how much damage did the Jan. 17 quake cause to Los Angeles?

Answer: Between $13-20 billion, making it the most costly natural disaster in California’s history.

17. What are the cross streets of the epicenter of the Jan. 17 quake?

Answer: Reseda Boulevard, Elkwood Street, Yolanda Avenue and Arminta Street in Reseda

18. Was Walt Disney’s body frozen and stored in secret vault or are his ashes buried at Glendale’s Forest Lawn cemetery?

Answer: Forest Lawn

19. How did Vanowen Street get its name?

Answer: The street connects Van Nuys to Owensmouth (now known as Canoga Park.

20. What famous aviator was a resident of North Hollywood and tested and repaired planes out of Burbank airport?

Answer: Amelia Earhart

21. What percentage of the Valley population is Latino?

Answer: The Census Bureau reports 31.1%

22. Who is Tarzana named after?

Answer: Tarzan, because the creator of the Lord of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs was one of the founding residents of the West Valley community.

23. Name the famous white collar criminal from the Valley who stole $500 million?

Answer: Michael Milken

24. Who was the first Spanish explorer to set foot in the San Fernando Valley?

Answer: Gaspar de Portola, who eventually became the first Spanish governor of California

25. At what Valley playground was the final scene of “ET” filmed at?

Answer: Porter Ridge Park in Porter Ranch, at the end of Reseda Boulevard

26. Where in the Valley can you enjoy tofu and multi-grain baked goods, served to you by a waitress in a floral print dress, next to a babbling brook?

Answer: The Inn of the Seventh Ray in Topanga

27. What famous film studio, which was the first to introduce talkies, moved to Burbank in 1928?

Answer: Warner Bros.

28. The split-level house shown in the television show “The Brady Bunch” is located in which Valley community?

Answer: North Hollywood

29. How many farmers’ markets are there in the Valley every week?

Answer: Three: Burbank, Calabasas and Van Nuys

30. What famous Pacoima early rock legend just had a park named after him?

Answer: Ritchie Valens

31. Name three movies with Valley references in their titles.

Answer: Encino Man, Valley Girl, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

32. The San Fernando Rey de Espana Mission was built to be the halfway point between which two California Missions?

Answer: San Buenaventura and San Gabriel.

33. What was the original name of Cal State Northridge?

Answer: San Fernando Valley State College.

34. When and where did the Valley stage its own “Woodstock.”

Answer: Devonshire Downs in Northridge. June, 1969.

35. What rock singers appeared there?

Answer: Janis Joplin, the Grass Roots, Joni Mitchell, Three Dog Night, to name a few.

36. How many public high schools were there in the Valley in 1953 and what were they?

Answer: Four. Canoga Park, North Hollywood, San Fernando and Van Nuys.

37. How any public high schools are located in the Valley today?

Answer: 17.

38. When did the tiny city of San Fernando attempt to annex a portion of the surrounding city of Los Angeles?

Answer: In 1914 and again in 1978. Both attempts were unsuccessful.

39. How many screens did the Winnetka Drive-in theater have when it opened in 1978?

Answer: Four. It now has six..

40. What best-selling detective novelist covered the police beat for the Valley Edition of The Times during the late 1980s and early 1990s?

Answer: Michael Connelly, author of “The Black Echo,” “Black Ice” and “The Concrete Blonde?”