Elvira’s Counterpart Is Alive and Kicking Crypts in Valley Center

Where, you ask, is the male Elvira?

That is to say, a male stand-up horror comic celebrity, doing what Elvira does (sans bionic chest, of course): wearing ghoul rags and telling bad, often risque, jokes.

Answer: Out in Valley Center going by the nom de zombie Armando Creeper.

Actually, it’s Andy Neal, thirtysomething, who once made a living in Hollywood as a photographer and makeup artist for C-grade, bucket-of-blood films, as well as for Knott’s Berry Farm and Movieland Wax Museum.

He met Cassandra Peterson, who does Elvira, Mistress of the Dark on Los Angeles television and other gigs. He figured to become the male equivalent.

Now he’s trying to break into show business as the crypt-kicker Armando Creeper, often accompanied by his decomposing prop sidekick, Mother.

His jokes are vaudeville, lots of Mother put-downs:

“If you’ve ever seen raisin bread, you know what Mother looks like naked.”

“The last place I worked sent a limo for me. It missed.”

“I’m a reverse hypochondriac. I make other people sick.”

“Mother’s a real movie buff. She sits in the theatre naked.”

And who is the audience for this stuff?

“Three groups like Armando the best,” Neal said, “7-year-olds, 20-year-olds who’ve been drinking, and gays, who like the Mother jokes.”

He gets weird fan mail:

“Some of it is from guys who just wrote their daily letter to Jodie Foster.”

He’s done “Into the Night With Rick Dees,” “America’s Funniest People,” comic book conventions, the Improv Comedy Cafe in La Jolla and a bunch of public-access television videos.

He’s doing another video: a half-hour (toned-down) children’s show to be filmed at his spread in Valley Center by his own company, Roadkill Productions.

He figures Armando Creeper is a natural.

“I see Armando as Everyman.”

Armando Creeper as Everyman?

“Sure, he’s just a working stiff.”

Say good night, Mr. Creeper.

If 1 Doesn’t Work, Take 2 of These

It says here.

* In case she says she has a headache?

Only two items are sold in the coin-operated dispenser in the men’s room of the Frogg’s Lane restaurant in Horton Plaza: condoms and Tylenol.

* Plans to hold an All Star Legends Game at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium next August--featuring Sadaharu Oh, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Duke Snyder, Harmon Killebrew and others--are on hold.

A scheduled press conference here last week for Oh, Snyder and Killebrew was canceled at the last moment.

The Toyko-based group that is underwriting the game, as part of a World Children’s Baseball Fair, may want the game played in Japan instead.

* San Diego has slipped from 16th to 52nd on Money magazine’s top 300 places to move. Blame (or thank) our high housing prices.

* Sometimes you can just sense newlywed discord.

Classified ad selling a bed in the Valley Roadrunner:

“Almost new 3-pc. king set; new husband wants ‘his’ waterbed. $350.”

* Bumper sticker, seen at Scripps Memorial Hospital/Encinitas parking lot: “Cancer Sucks!”

Oh, Fiddledeedee

Just when you think you’ve heard it all about Betty and Dan Broderick.

The sizzling and heavily pro-Betty story in September’s edition of Mirabella magazine (“A Woman Scorned . . . Is She a Feminist Heroine or a Crackpot?”) has some nuggets that even Betty & Dan aficionados will find tantalizing.

Like Dan’s supposed fascination with the movie “Gone With the Wind.”

Mirabella writer Susan Lehman says that, along with naming a son Rhett and buying a mansion that resembles Tara, Dan also kept a picture of Clark Cable on his desk.

Plus--and this is the best part--when Betty begged Dan not to leave her and told him she’d perish without him, he just “smiled sweetly” and replied:

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”