The hills of Beverly: Inquiring minds Bob...

The hills of Beverly: Inquiring minds Bob Madden and Lee Leddy sent us an edition of the Beverly Hills Courier and asked why in the world the newspaper’s motto is “The Farmers’ Choice.” Was it a holdover from the early 1900s, when Sunset Boulevard was a bridle trail?

Actually, our sleuths discovered, it’s a holdover from 1965.

The Courier was founded that year and, as a joke, the owners made a sly reference to the hit TV program of that era. It’s been a running gag ever since, a touching monument to the show that put the city on the map: “The Beverly Hillbillies.”

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List of the Week: Some equally shocking disclosures in “Biggest Secrets,” by L.A. writer William Poundstone:

* Grey Poupon mustard, the brand carried about by snooty chauffeurs in TV ads, is manufactured in Oxnard. (No, there isn’t an Oxnard in France. We mean the one in California.)

* Lassie, the gallant female collie, has always been portrayed by males.

* In order for organizers of the Hollywood Christmas Parade to be correct in their annual crowd estimate of 750,000, the spectators would have to be packed “shoulder to shoulder 44 feet deep on both sides of the street all along the 3.2-mile route.” Or “stacked like cordwood.”

* If Bob (Bobcat) Goldthwait’s comedy recording, “Meat Bob,” is played backward, you can hear the message: “Obey your parents, be nice, don’t eat snacks and go to church. Um, give money to Jerry Falwell. Bye.”

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Some like it cold: Poundstone was unable to verify one urban legend that holds that a man was “so enamored of Marilyn Monroe that he bought the empty crypt above hers” in a Westwood cemetery. And, after his funeral in 1986, his friends “honored the dead man’s last request. They turned his body face down” so he could gaze in Monroe’s direction for eternity.

True? The romantic in us hopes so.

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Deciphering campus banter: Following the success of UCLA’s student-researched campus dictionary, which was published as “Slang U.,” some Cal Poly Pomona communications students have put together their own version. It’s titled, “Faced and Faded, Hanging to Hurl: A Standard English Dictionary NOT! “

“Faced and Faded, Hanging to Hurl” translates as “drunk and waiting to vomit,” which were traditional activities when we attended college, and apparently still are.

Other entries include doorknob (one who exhibits ridiculous behavior), Homey, don’t play that (I disagree with you), spooge (a disgusting substance), zoon dweebie (being stupid or weird), flash a Kool-Aid (smile) and hit the gate (leave).

While there’s some overlapping between the two schools’ dictionaries, Cal Poly’s lacks one category: It contains no jokes about USC students.

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An overlooked revelation: Reviewers of “Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince,” the controversial new biography, have ignored the book’s most stunning disclosure. Walt had a mustache! It’s true--we saw the photos ourselves! Why is that stunning? Well, if Disney applied for a job today with the Walt Disney Co., he would be rejected unless he agreed to shave it off. That’s the law at Disney, which proves that even a corporation can be a zoon dweebie.

miscelLAny:

Among the parting gifts for losing competitors in a senior citizens tournament on KABC’s “Jeopardy” TV show were press-on tattoos.