Valley exposure:Times columnist Scott Harris wondered if...

Valley exposure:

Times columnist Scott Harris wondered if the makers of “Independence Day” snubbed the San Fernando Valley by excluding it from the space invasion scenes. The area wasn’t important enough to be attacked?

The omission came at a time when the Valley was questioning its own identity and whether it should secede from the city of L.A.

But, if it’s any comfort, two more recent movies give the Valley plenty of attention. In “Escape from L.A.,” a 9.6-magnitude quake turns the region into the San Fernando Sea (and the rest of L.A. into an island).

And, a yet-to-be released thriller, “2 Days in the Valley,” deals with a kidnapper, a suicidal film director, a troubled art dealer and some other fun folks.

The movie makes a couple of important contributions to our somewhat scanty file of Valley film dialogue, too. At one point, a character in “2 Days” says, “I know we’re Valley detectives so we’re not all that bright but . . . “

Then there’s the 60-ish apartment dweller who hears a fistfight on the floor above and tells his wife: “Maybe that’s how they make love in Tarzana.”

It’s a jungle in suburbia.

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LIST OF THE DAY: A brief refresher course in past cinematic references to the Valley:

* In “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” Roger is a hospital visitor who is tied to a gurney and mistakenly rushed into surgery. He screams as he is pushed through doors labeled “Pathology,” “Proctology” and, finally, “Burbank.”

* In “Get Shorty,” Danny DeVito says: “I’m Italian but I was born in Tarzana.”

* And, after an unplanned shooting in “Pulp Fiction,” Samuel Jackson tells co-hit man John Travolta that he’s phoning an associate in Toluca Lake for assistance. “Where’s Toluca Lake?” Travolta asks.

Just don’t confuse it with the San Fernando Sea.

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THE GOSSIP MUST HAVE REALLY FLOWN HERE: Don Lasch of Whittier spotted a mysterious coffee shop that “got its sign up but never opened” (see photo). We bet the sign was supposed to have an I at the start of its name, but you won’t catch us saying anything bad about the Slander Coffee Shop.

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UNCHOICE CUT: A financial planner made what can only be labeled a rare misspelling of a Glendale hotel’s name in a recent flier. The boo-boo (see excerpt) was roasted by readers Joann Latuf, Henry Reynosa, Alice Phillips and Nancy Tew.

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A PADDLE-BY INCIDENT: Alas, our proposed surfers’ peace pact has already been broken. After incidents of violence among hot doggers at Palos Verdes’ Lunada Bay and Malibu beaches, we endorsed the Surfer’s Code of Conduct, which is posted in Santa Cruz. Its commandments include: “First surfer on a wave has the right of way.”

So what happens? At the recent U.S. Open of Surfing at Huntington Beach, world champion surfers Kelly Slater and Shane Beschen attempted to take the same wave and nearly collided. Beschen, who was cited for interference, paddled up to Slater afterward and splashed him. And you know what Slater did? He splashed back. It was ugly.

miscelLAny:

Air Touch seems to be listening to one dairy product’s advertising campaign. The cellular service’s message pager, which carries such programmed commands as “Call boss” and “Call home,” recently added a new one: “Get milk.”