Wally George Goes to City Hall--With an Eye on Its Hottest Seat

Wally (“I’d Rather Be Right Than Anything”) George, the only man outside a comic strip whose every remark ends with an exclamation point, was off and running--again.

George, host of the raucous Orange County-based TV talk show “Hot Seat,” was at Los Angeles City Hall on Tuesday to declare his intent to solicit contributions for the mayor’s race that is still almost two years off.

But the master of high-decibel bombast, who once prompted an offended former priest to topple a desk during a taping, was the very picture of politeness to reporters and to elections division staff member Barbara Lavender.

“Do you have any questions?” she asked. “No,” George said. “Just that I’m going to win.”

His Own Cameraman

Ten minutes later, he did it all over again, for the benefit of his own cameramen, who had panted into City Hall late. George, wearing a red, white and blue tie, re-enacted the episode with jauntiness and verve.

“Excuse me, could I have someone hand me this as I walk in--repeat it for my camera crew?” he asked Lavender. He strolled back in, smiling and waving, once, twice (the light wasn’t right) and accepted the envelope again. “These are the papers I need?” he asked winningly.

The arch-conservative, whom Johnny Carson once called the William F. Buckley of the cockfighting set--says he wants to be mayor of Los Angeles.

Tom Bradley is “the worst mayor this city has ever had.” Not only is he winner of one of George’s 1987 Wimp Awards, he is the man who defeated George’s friend and political mentor, former Mayor Sam Yorty.

‘The Yorty Years’

“My slogan would be, ‘Let’s bring back the Yorty Years,’ ” said George, who also helped host and produce Yorty’s television show in the 1970s.

“Under Bradley,” he said, “we have gone from the glamour capital of the world to the sleaze capital of the world.” Los Angeles is becoming “nothing but a carnival town with a bunch of freaks walking down the street, winos and degenerates.”

There are serious issues, he says, like mini-malls and crime. But there is also image. “I would like to be Los Angeles’ answer to (New York) Mayor (Fiorello) La Guardia. I think he was a great and colorful mayor and I think L.A. is ready for a flamboyant and, if you will, exuberant and maybe a little bit outrageous mayor.”

He has no fund-raisers planned, and no campaign staff assembled. If and when he formally declares, he would have to surrender his TV and radio shows, and George is in no hurry to trade his bully pulpit for the campaign stump.

Paper work done, George began a proprietary stroll through City Hall. “I like it very much. I can see myself moving in here in 1989 and probably getting a big kick out of it,” he said, pacing the grandly marbled third floor.

“Wally George!” shouted a teen-age girl. “I saw you with (disc jockey) Rick Dees (another one on the Wimp List). It was a great show!” George thanked her. This is his real strength, he says--the young voters who mob his shows and chant “ Wah -lee, Wah -lee!” “They’re the ones who can score the big upset over Tom Bradley,” he promises.

George stopped at the archway of the mayor’s office, and dabbed a bit of green breath gel on his tongue. He wanted to interview the security guard he had talked to earlier. “He seems like a real friendly guy.”

But the guard was on the phone and then the cameraman’s last light bulb smashed on the floor.

So George headed outside, forgetting the packet of election papers he had propped up on an ashtray. He dashed back for it after a reporter reminded him of it.

Finally, he got an interview. Out on the City Hall steps, he chatted up two red-blooded Americans: Universal Studios attractions Conan the Barbarian and his partner in comic-book thralldom, Red Sonja. She, clad in a chamois bikini, had to toss her dangerously trendy Giorgio of Beverly Hills tote bag hurriedly out of camera range. Conan, flexing his muscles significantly, said he would “support Wally for whatever he wants.”

What Wally George wants is to take Los Angeles back to the olden, golden Yorty days.

“I want to bring Sam Yorty back,” George said. “If I was elected mayor, the first thing I’d want to do is have counsel with him every single day of my life as mayor.”

Oh, Wah -lee.