Those attending the Pasadena Tournament of Roses...

Those attending the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade are traditionally warned to leave early to avoid becoming enmeshed in the hopeless jam of traffic. Still it seemed a bit premature for one float entry--a 54-foot-high Superman balloon--to take off from El Cajon five weeks early.

Actually, the helium-filled Man of Nylon broke loose from his tethers while undergoing a stress test. In a single bound, he soared to a height of 7,000 feet from the parking lot of Bigger Than Life Inc., a company that makes giant balloons.

“He (Superman) actually got into the flight pattern, I understand, at Lindbergh Field,” said Roger Christianson, vice president of Bigger.

The Big Guy, who landed on a mountain Monday, is expected to recover in time to join an American Honda float in Pasadena on Jan. 2.

However, Christianson admitted that Superman, when found, had deflated into a wimpy Clark Kent-type after hitting “some rocks.” Kryptonite in El Cajon?

Imagine the anticipation, the suspense! Members of the Aerospace Writers Assn. were meeting at a restaurant near Los Angeles International Airport to pick up a television simulcast of the rollout of the Stealth bomber in Palmdale on Tuesday.

The boomerang-shaped plane, of course, was shrouded in such secrecy that, for years, the Air Force wouldn’t even confirm that it existed. Security was so tight at the rollout ceremony that officials bragged that no spy satellite could get a close-up view of the craft.

Meanwhile, 50 miles away, one member of the aerospace writers group produced a model of a plane that was made by an agency whose automobile ads appear to depict the Stealth bomber. The model, with a wingspan of about 12 inches, was virtually a dead ringer for the Air Force’s worst-kept secret.

A hopeful indicator for the state of Los Angeles streets? The real-life portrayer of Rambo no longer feels he needs to tool around town in a fully armored, attack-resistant 1987 Chevrolet Suburban equipped with a police alarm. Actor Sylvester Stallone’s jalopy/tank will be auctioned off by North Hollywood-based Rick Cole Auctions this weekend. Stallone is said to be shopping around for something in a lighter armor.

Bill Miller, the new boss of the Greater Los Angeles Visitors and Convention Bureau, has set up several committees to reverse an estimated 7% drop in tourism over the last year.

However, Miller, who previously worked for tourism bureaus in Phoenix (“Valley of the Sun”), Houston (“Space City, USA”) and Denver (“Tall and Terrific”), says “a high-level blue-ribbon committee” may be needed to sell the city.

So far, though, there’s no indication that City Hall will revive one failed idea of the mid-1970s--the Mayor’s Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Image Enhancement.

The Enhancement warriors mulled over such suggestions as appealing to comics to quit making L.A. jokes, asking the media to omit smog forecasts except on days when ozone was a problem and establishing a “Famous Citizen of the Month Award” to let the world know what worthies live here.

The committee disbanded soon after one survey quizzed visitors on what places they liked to visit in Southern California. Los Angeles failed to make the Top 10. Disneyland was rated first, followed by San Diego and that famous Southern California attraction, San Francisco.

The death of Hall of Fame pitcher Carl Hubbell recalls an unusual encounter he had with Bill Farr, the late Times reporter.

Farr, who gained fame when he went to jail for 46 days in 1972 for refusing to disclose his sources in a story on a trial, was in Scottsdale, Ariz., a few years later to speak at a journalism convention. That night he spotted Hubbell, an Arizona resident, in a Scottsdale bar.

Farr, a rabid baseball fan, hesitated at introducing himself out of respect for a famous athlete’s privacy. But he couldn’t resist. He walked over, and as he began to speak, Hubbell looked up and said:

“Say, aren’t you Bill Farr?”

A Chinese restaurant in Century City offers these menu possibilities for Thanksgiving: Turkey chow mein, turkey baos (rolls), turkey with broccoli and turkey fried rice.