‘Simpsons’ Enlightened, but Don’t Expect Glowing Praise for Nukes

No more three-eyed fish? Or: Bless our nuclear family.

The people who run the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station don’t see themselves as operating a theme park. Still, the nuclear industry has been touchy about its image since “China Syndrome” and Three-Mile Island.

So the big plant north of Oceanside allows occasional VIP tours to get The Real Facts to the public: politicians, reporters, screenwriters, etc.

Thus San Onofre was selected when the Washington-based U.S. Council on Energy Awareness went shopping for a nuclear tour for nine writers and producers of the hit animated television show “The Simpsons.”

The council had been unamused by the show’s lampoonish portrayal of the nuclear industry.

Homer Simpson, dyspeptic father of America’s favorite dysfunctional family, has an assembly-line job at the fictitious Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.

In the opening scene shown each week, Homer casually discards a radioactive ingot on his way home. He’s also let an Albanian spy into the plant and found a mutated three-eyed fish.

Will the San Onofre tour mean a kinder, gentler view, as “The Simpsons” enters its second season?

Executive producer Sam Simon, through a publicist, says there won’t be any more low-blow stuff: no three-eyed fish or anti-nuclear lectures from Homer’s daughter Lisa.

Still, Homer will not become a poster boy for nukes.

He’ll avert a meltdown. But only after waking up and choosing the right button by eenie-meenie-miney-mo.

He’ll also give a pro-nuclear prayer, Homer-style:

“Thank you for nuclear power, which has yet to cause a single fatality. . . . at least in this country.”

Carl Goldstein, vice president of the Council on Energy Awareness, says Simon’s new attitude proves that the tour was helpful in showing that nuclear plants are not run by Homer-like bumblers.

And he adds that the industry is adjusting to Homer:

“We are not having a cow about ‘The Simpsons,’ man.”

Lend Me Your Voice

The talk of Del Mar.

James E. Smith, millionaire owner of the 23-acre Snake Wall Ranch overlooking the race track, has had his problems with Del Mar officials over the years.

True, the 58-year-old Smith is a bit idiosyncratic. At one point, 13 Cadillacs and scores of hospital beds littered the woodsy estate.

Negotiations to sell his acreage to the city have flopped. Smith has also failed to win approval to build a high-rise hotel or a slew of fancy homes.

Through it all, Smith argued that the Del Mar City Council wouldn’t listen to him.

But recently he figured he had found a sure-fire method. He gathered speaking proxies from 13 residents.

Council rules limit each speaker to three minutes but allow someone to cede time to another. Gotcha, figured Smith. I’ll have 42 glorious minutes to plead my case.

Not so. The mayor ruled that no speaker can exceed nine minutes, regardless of proxies.

When Smith reached his limit, a sheriff’s lieutenant escorted him, peacefully, out of the meeting.

“You’ll have to come with me,” said the lieutenant.

“You’re the law,” said Smith.

But he vows to return and talk again someday. And he’s not surprised by the minute-by-minute dispute.

“This is Del Mar,” he explains.

‘F’ for Originality

News you can use. Or maybe not.

* The Sierra Club “report card” on San Diego City Council members turned into a fiasco of charges and countercharges.

But that hasn’t stopped other interest groups from joining the fun.

Both Prevent Los Angelization Now and the Building Industry Assn. plan similar report cards.

* Yelling comeback.

First the nightly primal scream during finals week by UC San Diego students. Now “Midnight Yell Practice” by Texas A & M students and rooters in San Diego for the Holiday Bowl.

At the Hyatt Regency La Jolla. At 12:01 Saturday morning.

* Saddam in the side pocket.

Olhausen Billiard Manufacturing Inc. of Poway has donated 16 pool tables for U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.