Today is the first anniversary of the...
Today is the first anniversary of the death of Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and innumerable other cartoon characters. And to commemorate the occasion, a five-foot marble tombstone has been unveiled at the Beth Olam Cemetery in Hollywood.
Blanc’s son, Noel, said the tombstone is engraved with the last words “ever said on-camera or off-camera” by the Man of a Thousand Voices, who was stricken while filming an automobile commercial.
Those words were, fittingly, his famous sign-off: “That’s All Folks.”
Hope you didn’t forget to treasure two historic moments in our numbers-crazy society on Sunday. At exactly 56 seconds past 12:34 a.m. and p.m., there was a perfect sequence of one-digit numbers: 12:34:56, 7-8-90. We learned this courtesy of Alyce Hall of L.A. 90061.
But if you were concentrating on all the numbers that batters were running up against Dodger pitchers while you soaked up some sun, you might have heard this announcement from broadcaster Vin Scully, halfway through the game:
“If you’re on the beach, it’s time to turn over.”
We were on a diet last week and ran no Only in L.A. Menu Item of the Week. So, this week, we offer two: the Vegetarian Burrito at La Esquinita in Long Beach (recommended by Val Rodriguez) and the Swordfish Tacos at the City Club on Bunker Hill (recommended by the Downtown News).
Now, just a darn minute there:
A story by the Reuters news agency on the soon-to-be-opened Richard M. Nixon Library in Yorba Linda carried a “Los Angeles” dateline.
But we should talk:
When we recently mentioned this Saturday’s wedding on the famous compost pile of Zeke the Sheik in Altadena, we got the groom’s name wrong. It’s Don Miller.
Zsa Zsa Gabor, who became a world-famous criminal defendant after a run-in with a Beverly Hills cop last year, sold her infamous Rolls-Royce for $90,000 to a Boston collector over the weekend in Las Vegas.
During the bidding, Gabor sat in the 1979 Corniche convertible and affectionately patted the door. That’s right, we said patted , not slapped.
From our how-times-haven’t-changed file: Author Robert Mayer, in his history of L.A., points out that 123 years ago this month, the “City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting everybody, except officers and travelers, from carrying a pistol, dirk (dagger), slingshot or sword.”
It was “an attempt to curtail the lawlessness of the city, which was made more rampant by the fact that wine and brandy were cheaper than water. . . . The measure lacked public support and little attention was paid to the law.”
Our Dueling Signs of the Week Award goes to the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills, whose two-faced marquee (see photo) was noticed by Norman Sklarewitz of West Hollywood. In this day and age, who can say which is the typographical error?
miscelLAny:
A cereal company’s survey found that two-thirds of L.A.’s adults eat breakfast alone, compared to 53% nationally.