L.A. often seemed a bit unbalanced in...

L.A. often seemed a bit unbalanced in 1994--especially after the Jan. 17 quake.

Or was it just a coincidence that:

--”The Films of Keanu Reeves” was the title of a course offered by Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design?

--The Flying Elvi sued the Flying Elvises over which group has the right to don costumes of the King and dive out of airplanes?

--And a radio station held an Anti-Menendez Benefit that raised more than $3,900, which was donated to the L.A. County district attorney’s office?

But any year-end review of terra unfirma L.A. must begin with the continuing search for the true . . .

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Nostradamus of the ‘90s: Alex Trebek? Well, the Jan. 17 caption in the 1994 “Jeopardy” desk calendar said: “What is, ‘We all fall down?’ ” The Jan. 17 caption in the 1994 “Far Side” desk calendar said: “Henry never knew what hit him.”

A U.S. Postal Service flyer sent out a few days before the 6.7 quake was headlined: “We’re all shook up.” (It was a reference to the father of all Elvi).

The January cover story of the Auto Club magazine Avenues was: “Quake Safe.”

Seconds before the 4:31 a.m. jolt, Joe Friday could be heard intoning on a Nick at Nite episode of “Dragnet”: “This is the city . . . Los Angeles, California.” Meanwhile, Channel 5 was showing the movie “At the Earth’s Core.”

And L.A.’s film liaison was quoted in a Jan. 17 Footnotes column in The Times as bragging: “We close freeways better than anyone else in the world.”

Especially the Santa Monica.

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Poodle-skirt panic: When a big aftershock struck a few days later, a waitress at Ed Debevic’s, a 1950s-style diner in Beverly Hills, was overheard yelling: “God, I don’t wanna die dressed this way!”

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Urban myth of the year: The California Highway Patrol supposedly pulled over several swerving cars on Pacific Coast Highway only to be told by the sober drivers that they had been frightened by angels who had appeared in the back seat to warn of impending quakes.

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SigAlert of the year (after Jan. 17): Traffic slammed to a stop on the Ventura Freeway on the day the makers of a “Brady Bunch” movie stationed prop trucks that flashed the messages “Gang War Riot Ahead” and “Killer Bee Gridlock.”

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L.A.’s just full of surprises: With many courts damaged by the January quake, Deputy Secretary of State Tony Miller came to L.A. to sign emergency legislation that extended the time a defendant could be held for arraignment. After signing the bill, Miller was robbed at gunpoint.

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One testimonial for The Club you’ll never hear on the radio: Police told a Monterey Park resident that they had recovered his stolen car, which was found parked with a Club device locked on the steering wheel. Funny thing was, the man said he didn’t own a Club. It belonged to the thieves.

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Most hair-raising disclaimer of the year: A theater group’s program proclaimed: “The stereotypes portrayed in ‘Winnie the Pooh’ are in no way condoned by the Young Artists Ensemble, and we have left them intact to preserve the author’s original message. All bears do not like honey, not all donkeys are slow, not all piglets are easily frightened, and not all boys think that Winnie the Pooh can talk to them.”

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Fighting extraterrestrial crime: Members of the L.A. Cacophony Society, a group of local artists, passed out packets encouraging spectators at a UFO expo to contribute to an Extraterrestrial Sperm Bank. The society said its goal was to preclude alien abductions by sending the samples into outer space “through channels that necessarily must remain undisclosed.”

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Obviously he never had any toilet training: An American Airlines passenger was arrested at LAX after allegedly kicking the door of an occupied restroom and threatening the person inside. The impatient man picked the wrong target. The person in the restroom was the flight captain.

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Traffic advisory of the year: When a driver crashed through the front window of Nirvana earlier this year, the Beverly Hills restaurant posted a reminder to other motorists, which was photographed by Benjamin Reuben.

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Trouble was brewing: A bus driver on Ventura Boulevard called an MTA dispatcher to report a passenger with a “Colt .45” in his waistband. Police boarded the bus and, sure enough, found a guy with a quart of Colt 45 malt liquor tucked in his pants.

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Who wears the pants in the Capitol anyway?: State Sen. Charles Calderon (D-Whittier), who sponsored a bill giving women the right to dress in pants at work, explained that he had “worn a skirt on occasion--during Halloween or pranks--(and) it’s the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever worn.”

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The Nostradamus search (cont.): A few minutes before KCOP’s “Baywatch” showed a December episode titled, “Living on the Fault Line,” a 4.5 aftershock hit.

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L.A. vaults onto the world stage: A U.S. Naval Institute conference in San Diego announced that it would hold a seminar called “The Perils of Peacekeeping: Bosnia, Los Angeles, Rwanda, Somalia.”

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And, finally: Everyone seemed to be talking about the saga of a celebrity who is accused of murdering a lover during a jealous rage in an exclusive section of L.A.--and then makes a dramatic surrender as media camera crews record the event.

We’re speaking of the play “Sunset Boulevard,” of course.