Loyola Marymount’s new scholarship may generate a lot of laughs.

ANOTHER FINE OFFER: The San Diego chapter of the national Laurel and Hardy Club has given $18,450 to Loyola Marymount University to create a scholarship honoring the late movie producer Hal Roach, creator of the comedy duo.

The club chapter--named “Another Fine Mess” after one of the comedy team’s feature films--will contribute annually to the scholarship fund in honor of Roach, chapter founder Tom Sefton said.

Roach, who died Nov. 2, provided both personal and financial support to LMU’s communication arts program, which teaches students how to write and produce for both film and television. The new scholarship will help support students in the program, particularly those studying comedy, Sefton said.

“I knew both Stan Laurel and Hal Roach very well,” Sefton said. “They were both fine men, nice men and we just wanted . . . to perpetuate the Laurel and Hardy comedy ideal.”

The San Diego group had been granting Laurel and Hardy scholarships to selected students from that area, but decided this year to honor Roach by transferring the program to his favorite university.

THE MAJESTY, THE MALL: Hollywood has its famous sign; Redondo Beach, its beaches and pier; the Palos Verdes Peninsula, sun-struck cliffs rising majestically above the surf.

And what does Torrance have that might be suitable to grace a postcard? Not much, judging from the general absence of Torrance postcards in area stores.

But one company has met the challenge and produced a bona fide Torrance postcard replete with four full-color views: the interior of Del Amo Fashion Center, the inside of the former Old Towne Mall (now Torrance Promenade); and two exterior shots of the Union Bank.

“Beautiful and interesting--Torrance, California,” reads the slogan on the card, first created several years ago by the Continental Postcard Co. of Santa Fe Springs, which has produced postcards featuring several Southern California cities.

Some think Torrance should be viewed from a different perspective.

In fact, Mayor Katy Geissert received a copy of the postcard from a constituent who queried if better views of Torrance were available.

“Commercial,” is how Geissert describes the card. “It does not give an image of a city that you would want to come and spend your vacation time in.”

She would like a postcard featuring the city’s new Cultural Arts Center, or its parks, or Madrona Marsh, or its snippet of beach.

The postcard firm’s owner and president, Donald Kase, agrees that Torrance offers more fodder for postcards than some California cities: “It does have good buildings and a lot of good architecture.”

Which only goes to show that Torrance is different things to different people.

And the city could have done worse. What about 190th Street at rush hour?

WHAT’S IN A NAME? Plenty, if you’re trying to turn around a struggling shopping center.

For 18 years it was known as Carson Mall--not a name with a lot of panache but certainly to the point.

But after a multimillion-dollar face lift, “Carson Mall” just didn’t seem to fit the splashy new decor, featuring buckets of teal paint and so many skylights you wonder why they bothered with a ceiling at all.

So, virtually overnight, Carson Mall became South Bay Pavilion at Carson (“Pavilion,” it seems, has replaced “galleria” in mall developer parlance).

“Carson Mall basically indicated a local mall instead of the regional South Bay area,” said Sharron King, the mall’s marketing director. “ ‘Pavilion’ gave it a more upscale name, which we are trying to create with the new architecture.”

At the same time, the name “Carson” had to be retained because developers are expecting a large part of the customer base to come from the city.

“We wanted to keep our identity with Carson,” King said, “because we felt that was what made us unique.”

SUCH A DEAL: El Camino College is taking a slightly different approach to keeping students from dropping out of school for lack of funds.

The spring semester class schedule features a 23-item list of things more expensive than a single-unit class at El Camino. The college now charges $10 per unit.

Sporting a drawing of a $10 bill folded into the shape of a paper airplane, the list includes such must-haves as a “101 Dalmatians” VHS tape ($25), an electric toothbrush ($79), a Liz Claiborne sweater ($87), a Willie Mays autographed baseball ($150), Rollerblades ($190) and a 10-speed mountain bike ($250). Oh, and the list also mentions such incidentals as California State University’s fees for 1 to 6 units ($426) and the quarterly fees for the University of California ($967).