Ali Baba Man is gone, along with...

Ali Baba Man is gone, along with Chicken Boy, two giants who straddled now defunct L.A. eateries. Gone also is the Paul Bunyan-type who brandished a tire above the since-remodeled Mark C. Bloome store in Culver City.

Rooftop figures once flourished here, part of a genre of advertising aimed at attracting the eyes of motorists when unbridled growth was the rule.

But no more. New signs in most cities must meet tough design standards. The ordinances, observed L.A. City Planning Director Kenneth Topping, stem in part from a desire to decrease traffic congestion and reduce visual clutter. But he added that some see the remaining odd-shaped structures as valuable examples of a bygone period of architecture.

Old-timers, such as a King Midas (Muffler) in Whittier and the towering Dominguez Duffer at a golf course along the San Diego Freeway, have been allowed to live out the lives of their businesses, as have a few animal figures. But the survivors aren’t reproducing elsewhere.

One of the most striking creatures--in more ways than one--is Carson’s 17-foot-tall Exterminator Man, who is poised off the San Diego Freeway with a mallet behind his back as he confronts an unsuspecting rodent.

As the logo of Western Exterminator Co. it enjoyed a brief second career when the Van Halen band secured permission to use the symbol on a 1980 world tour. (Later, Western Exterminator would sometimes be asked why it was using Van Halen’s symbol.)

But design restrictions in L.A. prevented the company from installing a twin of Exterminator Man on a roof in the Silver Lake area a few years ago. Nor was Western allowed to have a neon mouse running across a sign--it was deemed too distracting to motorists.

One L.A. giant who predates the city’s sign ordinances--the most recent was passed in 1986--is the Carpeteria Genie, who still presides over the rug company’s Vine Street store.

But even he’s not quite as flashy as he used to be--his turban jewel no longer lights up and his head doesn’t nod like it once did.

The concept of the muscle man on the roof was developed in the mid-1960s. “We modeled it after my uncle, Ted (Haserjian, the chairman of the board),” said Bryan Haserjian, company executive vice president. “But Ted never dresses like that.”

Less than a fifth of the Carpeteria stores are still topped by the genie.

In some cases, the company had to remove him as a precondition for refurbishing an existing store; in other cases, when it was opening a new outlet, such as in Mission Viejo, the city didn’t want a giant in the neighborhood.

Carpeteria did manage to install the genie in one city just before a sign ordinance was passed: Las Vegas.

You know things are getting tough for sign makers when Las Vegas begins regulating them.

Comeback Kid:

The rooftop Frosty Man on a Foster’s Freeze on Pacific Coast Highway seemed in danger after La Salsa Restaurant acquired the site a couple of years ago.

“It was a neighborhood landmark and we wanted to keep it,” said David Villarreal, La Salsa’s vice president. “But how do you keep a soda jerk on a Mexican restaurant?”

Answer: Give him a serape and sombrero. And a new name: Giant Salsero.