We’re still gaga over Googie architecture

The hallmarks of Googie architecture include flying saucers, curved domes, upswept roofs, geometric and artist palette shapes, boomerangs and rocket ships. The Anaheim convention Center, above, opened in 1967 in distinctive Googie style.

The Pacific Car Wash in Stanton. An easy way to recognize Googie style? If a sign or building looks like it could have appeared in the cartoon, "The Jetsons.''

The Googie-style Beach-Lin Car Wash on Beach Boulevard in Anaheim, with its exposed steel beams. The origin of the term Googie goes back to 1949, when architect John Lautner designed a coffee shop named Googie's. The style was not an immediate success. Many panned it as silly or crass.

Linbrook Bowl on Brookhurst at Lincoln in Anaheim, opened in 1958. From the Orange County Googie Archive blog: "The marquee is fantastic! The typography on the Coffee Shop sign-- to die for! That welcome sign? So Mid-Century! All the flagcrete? Phenomenal!''

Mel's Drive-In Diner in Seal Beach took over the landmark Parasol building that opened in 1967, and retained its Googie style. Mel's itself closed in 2009. Does the name sound familiar? Mel's Drive-In, with several other locations in southern California, was made famous in George Lucas' 1973 coming-of-age classic "American Graffiti."

A funky chicken tops the sign on the La Palma Chicken Pie Shop in Anaheim. From LAist: the eatery is "an anachronism, a place that is so old school, it pre-dates retro ... it looks like a restaurant that was pulled straight off of Leave it to Beaver. And like the interior, the wait staff doesn't appear to have changed for the last 40 years.''

The sign marking Lindy's Motel and Coffee Shop at Beach and Ball in Anaheim shares some design characteristics with the "Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas'' sign coming up ...

Norm's restaurants have always been big on Googie-style pennant signs. From the Los Angeles Times: "Built on La Cienega Boulevard in 1957, Norms had many features that came to typify the whimsical style of architecture known as Googie — a vaulted roof that resembles a flying wing, a room-length dining counter and an attention-grabbing vertical neon sign with roots in Las Vegas kitsch.'' The McDonald's arches, Bob's Big Boy and Denny's restaurants are other examples of Googie style.

Starbursts are another design element of Googie style. Notice what's sitting on top of this world-famous sign.

You didn't think we'd leave out the LAX theme building, did you? The structure, which opened in 1961, was built to resemble a landing spacecraft.

The most famous example of Googie architecture in Seattle is the Space Needle, built for that city's 1962 World's Fair.

The Anaheim Convention Center has been through several updates, but the modern version retains its flying saucer shape. Click through for a quick roundup -- Cliff Notes version -- from Orange County's increasingly vanishing Googie history, as well as some Googie landmarks elsewhere ...

Eldon Davis, a famed Googie-style architect, has died in Los Angeles at age 94. Here's our homage to the goofy, space age architectural style from the '50s and '60s that's defined structures and signs around Los Angeles, Orange County and elsewhere.