Finally, the Right to Flip His Lid

--When South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan was succeeded last week by Roh Tae Woo, there was probably no one in the country happier than Park Yong Shik, once a popular television actor. In fact, he doffed his toupee--as a fitting gesture of his unbounded delight. Park, 44, had been forced to wear the hairpiece because he resembled the balding 57-year-old Chun. In 1981, at the start of Chun’s reign, Park was banned from appearing on state-run television, although nobody told him why. Later, he was told that it was because of his resemblance to Chun. The next year, Park managed to win some minor acting roles after he gained permission to wear the toupee and grow a beard. “I hope such a comic thing will never happen again,” he said.

--The convention in Auburn, Me., can be best described as a nyuk, nyuk affair--definitely in honor of knuckleheads. The Three Stooges convention, complete with films, T-shirts, ceramic masks, hand puppets and well-aimed cream pies, drew about 1,000 rabid fans of the nose-tweaking, head-thumping Larry, Moe and Curly. According to Joe Jerrier, one of the convention organizers, the two-day gathering raised more than $4,000 for cancer research. The original Stooges, created in the vaudeville days of the 1920s, were Morris (Moe) Horowitz, his brother Samuel (Shemp) and Larry Fineberg, a.k.a. Fine. Jerome (Curly), another Horowitz brother, took over after Shemp left in a pay dispute. “I’ve loved Larry, Moe and Curly ever since I was 5 years old,” said Virginia Riviera, 30, of Salem, Mass. “I’d go anywhere there’s a Three Stooges convention--as long as I don’t have to fly.” Naturally, a pie fight broke out during a trivia contest. “I was emcee, and I didn’t even get a chance to close my eyes,” said Jerrier, 37, of Gardiner, Me. “I got four of ‘em.”

--The full-page ad in today’s New York Times calling for a war on drug pushers was paid for by New York Mayor Edward I. Koch. In the ad, which cost the mayor’s reelection fund $12,900, Koch unleashes an attack on countries that supply the United States with drugs. He also expresses outrage over the death of Edward Byrne, 22, a rookie police officer who was gunned down last week while sitting in his patrol car. “He’s taken out the ad because of his outrage at a cop being assassinated here like New York City was some banana republic,” a Koch spokesman said. Koch’s open letter calls on readers to send telegrams to President Reagan and lawmakers asking a cutoff in aid to “places like Mexico, Panama and the cadre of other nations that supply this country” with drugs.