Some cultural institutions with that distinctly L.A....

Some cultural institutions with that distinctly L.A. flavor have fallen on hard times.

Hollywood’s Weird Museum, whose exhibits included the reputed remains of a werewolf, died in 1981--apparently too strange even for Hollywood.

The Real Thing, a Coca-Cola memorabilia shop with such antiques as score cards, thermometers and purse mirrors carrying the soft drink’s familiar red-and-white logo, recently shut down in Studio City.

Fortunately, we still have the International Banana Museum in Altadena, the Max Factor Museum in Hollywood and the Bigfoot Museum in Malibu.

And, one other historical center is returning--the International Brassiere Museum at Frederick’s of Hollywood.

While the store has displayed famous underwear for brief periods before--a sort of Temporary Lingerie--the duds of noted actresses will adorn a permanent wing, scheduled to open in November, spokeswoman Ellen Appel said.

“We decided to bring it back because so many people were disappointed the last time we took it down,” said Appel.

No comparable cry for the return of the Weird Museum has yet surfaced.

When it comes to aviation news, Valencia hasn’t received much in the way of national attention, except perhaps for the time that the town’s College of the Canyons tried to dissuade about 2,000 swallows from nesting there. Twelve of the birds were killed accidentally in the process and the school was fined $500 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Now, Valencia is looking to the skies again, but for different reasons.

It’s the host of the Valencia/Greater Los Angeles Balloon Race, expected to feature 100 entrants who’ll lift off from the Newhall Ranch Oct. 21-22.

Plans for the event were announced Wednesday at a press conference outside the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. Balloon-meister Roger Barker, who has logged more than 1,000 hours as a balloon pilot, ascended in a tethered gondola for a few minutes for the benefit of photographers.

While race organizers can exercise only so much control over the elements, they seem to have eliminated one possible obstacle by scheduling the air show in October. The swallows aren’t due to arrive until spring.

Sure, the leaves are changing colors in some parts of the country.

But the Beverly Center claims that Angelenos can find all the bright hues they need on its merchandise racks.

After all, as the mall points out in a sort of love-L.A.-or-leave-it radio commercial:

“If seasons were the most important thing, you’d live in Ohio.”

Harper’s magazine seems to be making a comment about the comparable levels of political interest in the Big Apple and Big Orange in these consecutive Index entries:

“Percentage of New Yorkers who say they have no opinion of Mayor Ed Koch: 1.

“Percentage of Los Angelenos who voted for Mayor Tom Bradley in this year’s election: 5.”

Obviously, mayors aren’t any more important to Angelenos than the seasons.

Phones we gotta have. But it wasn’t always that way.

No. 61 of “70 Facts About Los Angeles,” published in The Times in 1886:

“Los Angeles has a telephone system having 350 connections in the city.”

What does steam up an Angeleno?

As the checker at a Brentwood supermarket finished with a customer, she chirped: “Have a nice day.”

“No thanks, I have other plans,” he growled. “But you go ahead.”