Barbara, Really!It was a disgrace.A shocking display.The...

Barbara, Really!

It was a disgrace.

A shocking display.

The First Lady getting knocked down by a lunatic, and then doing a handstand off a balcony. Her white cotton panties were on national view.

We all know not to sit next to the first gentleman at a Japanese banquet, but no one could remember ever seeing Barbara Bush up to such low-down behavior.

In “Naked Gun 2 1/2,” thanks to Leslie Nielsen and associates, we got to see a new side of the First Lady, which actually was a bogus impersonation of a great woman who has had a great impact on the sagging fake-pearl business.

The Barbara Bush impersonator was stuntwoman-singer Kaye Wade of Studio City.

Wade says the stunts were nothing, really. She grew up in Nebraska where every female was required to be Wonder Woman.

“We all had to be able to cook, clean, bale hay, drive a tractor, rope cattle and sing and dance,” Wade said.

Doubling for the First Lady was a day at the beach, she said.

When not impersonating national figures, Wade can be seen singing in front of a Dixieland-jazz band.

Kaye Wade’s Riverside Ramblers take the floor of the POV restaurant in Toluca Lake from 4:30-8:30 p.m. Sundays. (The POV is the reincarnation of the old Alphonse’s Restaurant at 10057 Riverside Drive.)

In addition to the Ramblers, the club and restaurant features other jazz and swing bands throughout the week.

None of the other singers looks anything like an incumbent or presidential candidate’s wife.

Now There’s a Platform to Stand On

We have found a substantial platform in this presidential campaign year. It’s the kind you might have seen on women’s feet in the dark ages of the 1970s.

That was when women tried to walk on something called platform shoes--ugly, even grotesque shoes with amazingly high platforms and heels that women strapped to their feet and then attempted motion.

This was not an Olympic event, like platform diving, but a fashion statement the magazines that cover such things told us we should make.

It looked like a fashion statement as perceived by P.T. Barnum, who was sure a sucker was born every minute, and eventually the strange-looking footwear ankled off the fashion scene.

In its March issue, Vogue magazine, a harbinger of sartorial splendor, says the idea of platforms is again gaining a fashion foothold.

When asked if they had ordered a lot of platform shoes for spring, the response from the shoe department at Bullock’s in Sherman Oaks was: “Who would we sell them to? Women are too smart to get caught in that trap again.”

But from the folks at Robinson’s in Northridge, the response was something else.

A sales associate said there have been several requests--mostly from young trendoids--for platforms, and some are on order.

Fudging It

Many well-informed sugar fiends and chocoholics consider Amy Pressman the Sweet Tooth Fairy so heavenly because of the confections this woman can concoct.

Although her alma mater, Spago, is best known for its complicated, improbable pizzas, there were those glucose junkies who knew it as a great place to get a Pressman chocolate fudge fix.

Actually, Pressman says that the best-selling dessert (outside of sour grapes) at Spago, was the All-American apple pie.

“It’s number one all across the United States, at all kinds of restaurants, the only difference was that, at Spago, we cooked it in the pizza ovens,” Pressman said, laughing.

Now you don’t have to suffer through waiters who mistake themselves for European nobility, and pizza crust that harbors unspeakable (at least unpronounceable) items to get your sugar rush.

Just buckle up in your car and end up at Amy’s Handmade Ice Cream & Desserts, 130 N. Maryland Ave. in Glendale.

For those of you whose lust is totally out of control, you can take home a whole chocolate raspberry mousse cake for about $35.

Whatever you buy, it’s best to put it in the car trunk.

Eating it with your hands on the side of the freeway is not a capital offense, but it’s not a pretty sight.

Overheard

Overheard

“Please, come into my personal space.”

--Executive ushering a minion into his Chatsworth office