Mr. Burbank loves his city like a boy loves his puppy. : Picture Yourself in Iowa

Burbank is on the move again. Just weeks after the city lost a proposed high-tech theatrical extravaganza on the life of Jesus Christ, the Walt Disney Co. has announced plans to develop 40 acres of downtown into a backlot shopping and entertainment center.

It’s like a miracle.

The center will feature a Burbank Ocean and a Fantasy Hotel and a restaurant that hangs over the edge of a waterfall, and all the other dazzling components of a Disney project.

There hasn’t been so much excitement in town since Cluck in a Bucket opened on Verdugo.

I mention the religious extravaganza first because losing it was a blow to the ego of a town striving hard to find one. The $6-million production would have filled the Starlight Amphitheater with laser-image angels, computerized resurrections and a whole order of animated wonders brought to us through the secular magic of special effects.

Unfortunately, it would have also caused traffic problems, and in the end it was decided that Jesus Christ was simply too big for Burbank.

Then, however, the city authorized Disney “imagineers” to create the aforementioned fun complex on a plot of land currently occupied only by a green outhouse. The so-called Backlot Center will cost about $300 million. Formal blueprints will be submitted in November.

It all seems like pretty exciting stuff to me, Mousketeers, but I am not the one to judge what is good for Burbank. I live in Topanga Canyon, which is about as emotionally removed from Burbank as Madonna from Nancy Reagan.

However, I did call upon Mr. Burbank himself, Don Baroda, for a first-hand opinion on how the people of the city, I mean the folks of the town, feel about accepting Mickey Mouse as their symbol.

Baroda said, “Ithinkit’sterrificandanyonewho

doesn’tlikeitiscrazy!”

You have to understand Mr. Burbank. He is a former rock ‘n’ roll disc jockey turned salesman who does not use spacing or punctuation when he speaks, so that a simple declarative sentence can blow past you like a hot wind on the desert.

“Slow down,” I said to him, “and remain calm.”

“I love the idea,” he said, flashing a grin that lit up dark corners of his personalized business gifts store.

I should mention, I suppose, that Mr. Burbank loves everything. There is a streamer on the wall around his desk that repeats I love you in multicolored letters. I love you I love you I love you I love you . . .

But, especially, Baroda loves Burbank like a boy loves his puppy.

A member of the Chamber of Commerce, he is the one who came up with Burbank cups and Burbank T-shirts and Burbank aprons and beach towels and even women’s bikini panties with the name of the city in appropriate places.

His latest is a matchbook-like container upon which a business might have its own logo inscribed. Inside the container is a single condom. Baroda hasn’t created any for Burbank yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did.

If there is any sex at all in Burbank, it certainly ought to be made safe.

When I entered his store, Baroda was talking to a man who had a sheet of Kleenex hanging from his nose. It was supposed to be part of a joke, I guess, but I didn’t ask.

“I’m all for the Disney project!” Baroda said. “Why not? It will bring us tourists and trade and recognition and . . . and . . . “ He struggled for the word. “. . . respectability! I’d also like to see a Wall of Fame somewhere!”

“A Wall of Fame?”

“Right, with plaques naming the famous people who have lived in Burbank. Debbie Reynolds, Angie Dickinson . . . uh, Anson Williams . . . “

“Who is Anson Williams?”

“Oh, you know, he was Potsy on that show, I can’t remember its name. Ronnie Howard, Debbie Reynolds . . . did I already say Debbie Reynolds?”

I asked wouldn’t this alter Burbank’s image too abruptly?

“Wrong,” he said. “We will always be a friendly town. Look out the window. People honk their horns and wave and say howdy, God love ‘em.”

Mr. Burbank smiled and waved to illustrate. No one honked or waved back.

“You don’t get that in North Hollywood or even Stockton.” He closed his eyes. “Picture yourself in Iowa City, Iowa.”

The Disney Co. creation will be only the beginning, Mr. Burbank said. He envisions the whole town turning “theatrical” without diminishing the Howdy Factor one bit.

“We’re the motion picture capital of the world!” he said. “Let’s gingerbread it up a little, if you know what I’m sayin’. A Wall of Fame would make it complete. I saw Andy Griffith just the other day at Lumber City! He’s gotta live around here somewhere, right?

“God, I wish I could remember all the famous people in Burbank. They’d fill a book. Kim Fields, that’s one, and uh, uh, what’s-his-name, the guy who plays Mel on ‘Alice’s Restaurant,’ a nice Syrian boy, and Burton Gilliam and . . . and. . . . Did I say Debbie Reynolds?”

It’s only too bad Jesus Christ moved away.