Celebrities Cruise In for American Oceans Benefit : Make mine a plankton on the rocks

If you can’t manage a close encounter with a whale, Doug Thompson figures, a close encounter with Ted Danson and other stars may be the next best thing.

“Whales are my celebrities,” says the Laguna Beach environmentalist extraordinaire, who leads expeditions each spring to the Baja breeding grounds of the California gray whales.

Instead of touching and swimming with marine mammals, guests at last weekend’s three-day American Oceans Campaign benefit at the Dana Point Resort rubbed elbows with Danson, best known for his portrayal of ladies’ man Sam Malone on TV’s “Cheers,” along with Woody Harrelson (who plays the bartender) and John Ratzenberger (Cliff the mailman) from the long-running comedy, as well as fellow NBC star Robert Urich (“Spenser for Hire”).

Danson, who founded the American Oceans Campaign two years ago along with his wife, Casey, arrived Friday night after being delayed for hours on the Santa Ana Freeway behind a dumped load of 40,000 cans of tuna. (“I hope it was dolphin-safe,” Casey quipped, taking the opportunity to make an ocean-related point.) And they stayed through Sunday morning breakfast, giving 250 guests who paid $600 each for the weekend, or less for individual events, ample mingling opportunities.

“For them, this is by no stretch of the imagination a relaxing weekend,” Thompson said. “But it was important to do it this way. I wanted something intimate.”

Seascapes, sea voyages, seafood

The event began Friday evening with a reception displaying works donated by marine artists from California, Hawaii and elsewhere, and featuring gourmet samplings from area restaurants. Saturday was a day for exploring, with naturalist Thompson taking boatloads of guests out to explore the kelp beds off the Dana Point coast. As the sun sank into the Pacific, attendees gathered on the garden deck by the pool for seafood alfresco and speeches by Danson, AOC executive director Bob Sulnick, and others.

Mr. Ambassador

Danson admits he’s well aware of the power of his celebrity. “ ‘Cheers’ has given me an amazing ambassadorship,” he says. He decided to tap that power after a family outing to the beach at Santa Monica had to be aborted--the water was unsafe because of spilled sewage and toxic runoff. “We decided to focus all our time and energy into this one issue,” he says.

“You have to do something about it or you’ll feel like a victim. It’s not even a cause. It’s an emergency. We have to change people’s attitudes about the way they treat the ocean.”

Pass the scissors

Urich said he made the drive to the South Orange County coast--unfamiliar territory but “a really nice area”--because “this is a really personal thing to me. Living in Southern California, the ocean has become a place for me to escape to. We all have to find a way to get involved, even if it’s something as simple as cutting those plastic things (six-pack rings) so animals don’t get caught in them.”

Giving notice?

Harrelson, a member of the AOC board of directors, says he’s so concerned about the cause that “sometimes I think maybe I should just quit my day job so I can devote more time to this. I just feel like I should be doing more.”

From hippie to mailman

“I’ve been involved in the environmental movement since 1967,” Ratzenberger said. “That was a direct result of me not being able to swim in the same harbor where my father and grandfather had gone because it was so polluted. A lot of people thought it was just going to be some hippie fad. It wasn’t.”

Don’t say “netted”

Given the AOC’s efforts to outlaw drift nets for fishing, perhaps it’s best to say the event garnered about $50,000.