Wedding Bells, in Any Language, Ring Out Exciting News for Most Dads
First, some good news. The Seal Beach Sun’s police log reports that the “male wearing a light pink T-shirt who was yelling to himself in a foreign language turned out to be excited about the marriage of his son.”
Must have found out he doesn’t have to pay for the wedding.
Doing the laundry: Sheila Stark of Granada Hills noticed some puzzling ironing directions on a new blouse. Of course, laundry tags often provide entertaining reading. I’ve also included one that had some dueling drying instructions (see accompanying).
Unreal estate: Speaking of washing, Jim Peterson of Laguna Woods found a co-op with a view of what must be a very interesting machine (see accompanying).
It’s called what? To mark the California International Auto Show at the Anaheim Convention Center, I offer my nominations for the 10 dumbest car names ever.
No. 1: Ford Focus, partly because I found the car’s initial out-of-focus billboards so irritating. The others:
2. Volkswagen Golf (Is it a car or a cart?)
3. Dodge Prowler (“Honey, look at the Prowler in the driveway!”)
4. Ford Probe (a name only a physician would love)
5. Ford Edsel (auto-dom’s all-time flop, named after the founder’s son)
6. Chevy Avalanche (Burying the owner in payments?)
7. Oldsmobile Intrigue (Can you ask someone to ride in your Intrigue while keeping a straight face?)
8. GMC Jimmy (A toy car?)
9. Chevy Nova (Nova can be translated as “it won’t go” in Spanish.)
10. GMC Impact electric car (name later changed to EV1 after “Impact” was derided by comics, including Johnny Carson, who asked: “What’s next? The Ford Whiplash?”
The personal touch: Adding to my list of signature phrases of local broadcasters through the years:
* “The host who loves you most,” disc jockey Johnny Magnus
* “Going places and losing things,” disc jockey Gary Owens
* “Rounding third and heading for home,” the sign-off of Fred Haney, who used to call the games for the old Hollywood Stars (contributed by Jerry Schwartz)
* And--how could I forget?-- Laker broadcaster Chick Hearn’s declaration that one team has cinched a victory:
“It’s in the refrigerator, the door is closed, the lights are out, the eggs are cooling, the butter’s getting hard, and the Jell-O is jiggling!” (from Ritu Paramesh)
miscelLAny:
The other day I wrote about a caller to the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department who wanted to speak to the “cute” lieutenant she had evidently seen on the TV news.
The incident brought back memories for L.A. publicist Flo Selfman of a trip she made to California from Ohio in 1960.
“We thought the L.A. cops, especially the ones on motorcycles, looked so masculine and so attractive,” Selfman said.
“And being the naive tourists we were, we believed it when our friends said that men who wanted to be cops in L.A. had to pass before a panel of women before they were accepted.”
*
Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.
