The big spring roundup is over, and...

The big spring roundup is over, and the ranchers are driving their herds to market. Branding time must be a real bear: The three-day Great Snail Festival (they’re always billed as the first annual--hope springs eternal) begins today in the City of Industry, where snail ranchers from the San Joaquin Valley will give away samples of stuff they swear they actually sell: escargot jerky, escargot pizza, escargot turnovers, escargot caviar. The latter is fairly colorless and tasteless, it is said, so they add creme de menthe or raspberry flavoring and dollop it onto a cracker spread with cream cheese.

Mmmm . . . make mine mollusk.

The festival, also featuring free samples of, uh, real food from San Gabriel Valley restaurants, is the run-up to the Great Western Fair (which really is annual and begins next Wednesday at the City of Industry’s equestrian center). The slogan is “Pest or pate? You decide!” and they honor snails on the hoof as well. The best-decorated snail wins $100, and snail bride and groom are the reported favorites here.

Gastropod thin-clads will race up a 13-inch stick for a crack at the world’s record of 2.31 minutes. The winner’s owner gets $500 and the winner himself will, one hopes, not be eaten but be put out to stud.

Now they know how those cold-fusion guys in Utah must feel.

Eighth-grader Fernando Alamilla, one of 232 entrants in the Gidley Elementary Science Fair in El Monte, bought two small sharks and placed them in a tank to study them. Alas, he later found the creatures dead on the floor near the tank. They had leaped out.

The young naturalist’s conclusions: “That sharks are suicidal,” said teacher Marilyn Coffin.

Classmate Alyssa LaBrado won a prize for her study: “Which brand of gum has the most elasticity?” Alyssa, who gave the nod to Wrigley, wants to enter her project in a fair at the county Museum of Science and Industry. But she also has a problem.

“The other kids stole all the sample gum mounted on her display,” Coffin said. “As a matter of fact, I almost ate a piece myself while I was grading it.”

“Only” doesn’t happen to tune in to this particular program, nor do they in all likelihood read “Only,” but Hollywood apparently bested TV Thursday, when an actor about to be interviewed live in Los Angeles on “Good Morning America” was pulled away by his director and taken back to work.

Reuben Blades, a singer-actor filming “Predator II,” was talking via remote hookup to chatshow hostess Joan Lunden when the director, Stephen Hopkins, stepped in front of the camera, told Blades “We have a film to shoot,” plucked out his earplug and led him off, leaving N.Y. with empty air.

The rush, movie people said later, was to finish a night scene before the sun came up in Los Angeles. Something even Hollywood can’t forestall.

MiscelLAny:

In a survey of 46 major U.S. markets, L.A. ranked last in percentage of residents who use a Sears card, eat at Wendy’s or own a home. L.A. tied with Denver for first place in percentage of divorced or separated residents.