Greetings from the Valley (Sherman Oaks Galleria)
This wonderfully sarcastic vintage postcard captures the San Fernando Valley at the height of its 1980s pop-culture identity. Photographed at the corner of Ventura Boulevard and Sepulveda Boulevard, the image shows a young man hitchhiking with a sign reading, “Anywhere BUT the Valley,” directly outside the Sherman Oaks Galleria.
During the early 1980s, the Galleria became ground zero for the Valley Girl mall culture that helped define — and sometimes mock — the San Fernando Valley in movies, music and popular culture. The postcard leans fully into that stereotype, joking on the back that while the Valley may be “exciting, cosmopolitan and boring,” growing up here meant desperately wanting to find out whether the next door really did lead somewhere else.
An interesting bonus detail is that this postcard appears to have been produced by comedian Bob Zany, whose name is credited on the reverse as “Bob Zany Postcards, a division of BZT Productions.” Zany, who was active in the Los Angeles comedy scene during the 1980s, was also known for selling his own original comedy postcards — making this an especially fitting piece of Valley-era satire.
Today, the image is a great little time capsule of Ventura Boulevard, the original Galleria era, and a moment when the Valley had become famous enough to parody itself.
You can view more Sherman Oaks Postcards here.
You can view more SFV Postcards here.
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Marty Mcfly
Anything and everything about the San Fernando Valley. This blog will take you back in time when the valley was covered with dirt and orange groves to a leader in the space race to its current status as America's suburb. Come along and join me on this adventure, I guarantee you have been influenced/impacted by the San Fernando Valley in one form or another even if you have never visited or heard of the SFV.
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