October 12, 1992 / Los Angeles, CA 90053 : 145 South Spring St.

Dear Lazlo:

The first collection of funny letters you wrote, “The Lazlo Letters,” made me laugh. Your new book of the same kind, “Citizen Lazlo!,” made me laugh. You haven’t lost a step.

You know what I especially like? I especially like that you get funny without getting nasty. (OK, so you come close, but that doesn’t count.) And I especially like it when someone writes you a clever answer, sometimes even cleverer than your original letter. And I especially like your being a patriot, and an entrepreneur.

Lest you think I can find no fault with Lazlo, let me say right here that I got kind of sick of your efforts to talk British royalty out of pictures of themselves. You ask the same funny question too many times and it gets to be a yawn.

But nobody bats 1.000, Lazlo, and you have a lot more than your share of hits. I’d say you’re batting .800.

Just so people get the idea of what you do, let’s consider your letter to the Kellog Co. about their Rice to Riches contest. You wondered if you should enter your oysters Califano recipe as a “Main Dish” since there was no appetizer category. Monti Trent-Zinn, the company’s consumer consultant, wrote back that your recipe sounded awful. (Oysters Califano with four cups of Rice Krispies does sound odious. Sorry.) Trent-Zinn is a vegetarian, and she thinks oysters were put on earth to make pearls, not to devour. You should send her some vegetables.

It was a good idea to write McDonald’s president, Edward H. Rensi, to suggest tying the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America to the 20th anniversary of the Filet-O-Fish sandwich. Were you surprised to get a response from Ronald McDonald inquiring if you were still putting jelly on the top half of your hamburger bun? You wrote McDonald’s about that idea years ago.

Your patriotism and entrepreneurship showed up in a lot of letters. Both qualities came out in your plan for reducing the national debt ($4 trillion now) by giving Uncle Sam your royalties if Anheuser-Busch used your idea of brewing Deficit Beer. Too bad Anheuser-Busch never responded to that one. Maybe they were still mad at you over the tiff you had about sharing the profits from “Bush Beer--A Kinder, Gentler Beer.”

Well, I could go on about your plans to replace the Panama Canal with a trans California-Arizona-New Mexico-Texas trench (Jimmy Carter’s assistant said he would refer it to the appropriate team), your tragically unsuccessful efforts to persuade Swanson Foods to market “Hungry-President Dinners” (fried chicken and grits in the Jimmy Carter dinner, Peking duck and rice in the Richard Nixon dinner), and more and more. But I won’t.

Keep those cards and letters coming, John Dreyfuss

“Citizen Lazlo: The Lazlo Letters, Volume II” by Don Novello (in stripes, above) is published by Workman ($7.95, paper).