Courting Support : Attorney Larry Davis Found a Special Way to Speak Out for His Alma Mater

In minutes, archrivals UCLA and USC will clash in Pauley Pavilion. But wait--here comes “Frisbee,” mike in hand, an ancient Bruins hard hat atop his balding head:

Holding up a huge inflatable basketball, he yells, “Is this a basketball?” The UCLA cheering section roars: “Yes, that’s a basketball!”

“Is this a court?” The fans shout: “Yes, that’s a court!”

Frisbee gestures toward the USC players. “Is that the loooooosing team?” “Yes, that’s the loooooosing team . . .”

No one needs coaching. After all, Larry (Frisbee) Davis, the Bruins’ unofficial-- very unofficial--alumni cheerleader first introduced this cheer at the UCLA-Washington Huskies game back in ’78.

So what’s a nice 37-year-old lawyer doing in a place like this?

First, you must understand that Davis (whose nickname dates from his undergraduate days) is not acting out some Walter Mitty fantasy. As a grad student at UCLA--where he earned degrees in chemistry and finance--he was head yell leader. But he resigned in a bit of a huff about style versus substance. At 6-plus feet and 225 pounds, he says, “I couldn’t dance.”

Second, he reasons, “I can’t give $2 million to the school.” But he can yell.

Starting as a frosh in 1973, Davis was there for every Bruins-Trojans football game. Then, he says, on Nov. 18, 1989, his wife, Nancy (also a loyal Bruin), “found a way after 16 years to make me miss a game.” That day she gave birth to their son, Spencer. Weeks early. The teams tied, 10-10.

Frisbee the cheerleader is infamous for his stunts. During the 1979-80 season--when the Shah of Iran gave megamillions to USC--Frisbee and friends dressed in robes and wheeled an oil derrick into Pauley. For a game with Oregon, Davis brought along a live duck.

Recently, he made a little statement about a late starting time to accommodate national TV. He wore his pajamas.

Three-year-old Spencer has already learned to say, “Go, Bruins! Beat the Trojans!” It’s never too early to groom a successor. It’s not that Dad’s enthusiasm is waning, even after cheering his Bruins through 300 basketball games and 100 football games.

Still, as he watches the nimble blue-and-gold-clad UCLA song-leaders, he says, “They could be my daughters . . . “ He mentions, too, that after one good cheer, he’s hoarse. “Nineteen years ago I could do the whole game.”

And life does have a way of interfering with fun. “I’ve got a first and second mortgage, a business, a 3-year-old. . .”

As Lawrence Davis, estate planner, he offers clients a little extra option: If their kid goes to USC, no trust fund.

He smiles and says, “A couple have actually put it in.”

The Candy MAD Can

It seems that the tooth Alfred E. Neuman is missing is not his sweet tooth.

MAD magazine’s most famous personality (“What, me worry?”) will soon be appearing at a store near you on boxes of MAD Idiotic Fruity Candy. It’s Alfred, all right, a la Carmen Miranda with a pile of fruit atop his head and a gold hoop in one of his oversized ears.

Alfred the candy man debuted at a recent L.A. trade show as the pride of the folks at BerZerk Candy Werks in Memphis. They think Alfred’s irreverent enough to appeal to the 8-to-14 set; still, they hope over-the-hill MAD fans will also buy Idiotic Fruity Candy.

After all, would those readers--who have bought 500 million copies of MAD since it hit the stands 40 years ago--let Alfred down now?

Idiotic Fruity Candy boasts of being artificially flavored with “the usual assortment of stuff you’ve never heard of.” The teeny-weeny brightly colored candy bits spill out of Alfred’s mouth through a pull-out spout. It’s all explained on the side panel in “easy opening instructions for idiots.”

Each box comes with a wallet-sized MAD comic offering “the usual assortment of articles and garbage from past issues.”

BerZerk, established in 1992, is definitely a non-stuffy division of Kraft. At BerZerk, says spokesman David Compton, anything goes. Well, almost anything:

“We had this great concept, Toe Jams. You suck the jam out of the toe. We thought it was hilarious.” BerZerk tested it on a panel of kids. Toe Jams bombed.

Need a Moat?

Feeling a bit confined in that 2+2.5+loft urban townhouse?

Does Beate Falk of Malibu Realty have a deal for you. For $12 million--give or take a mil or two--you can own Schloss Rothenstein, a 22,000-square-foot neo-Gothic German castle with 30 bedrooms, 12 baths, a drawbridge and four towers--on 32 acres.

“Actually, I’ve had a lot of calls about it,” reports Falk, who placed a classified ad in the Times offering the Schloss for sale or exchange.

“There’s a man who wants to trade a lot of apartment buildings for it. Some investor in the Valley wants to give my client $12 million worth of paper from his corporation. Another wants to go into business with the owner and make it into a hotel. They’re talking.”

Falk has actually visited the castle, which is near Allendorf, about an hour’s drive north of Frankfurt. She waxes poetic over the duck pond, the forest, the “tapestries, chandeliers, marble columns . . . “

Other amenities include a private chapel and stables (Schloss Rothenstein was built in 1899 as a hunting lodge for a titled German).

Alas, many a titled German fell upon hard times. The castle was in total disrepair when Falk’s client, Peter Schlimbach, bought it from a royal descendant six years ago. Everything’s been brought up to snuff.

Before Schlimbach, his girlfriend and the caretaker move out, and someone turns the castle into a bed and breakfast, he has a bit of unfinished business. The title to go with his castle is for sale.

If he buys it, he will return to Los Angeles as Graf (Count) Peter Schlimbach von Rothenstein.