LAUGH LINES

Popcorn watch: How bad for you is the stuff at movie theaters? According to Jay Leno, the government now says you are better off healthwise if you chew the gum you find under your seat.

Still, Leno wonders: If popcorn is so fattening and oat bran is so good for you, why is Wilford Brimley twice the size of Orville Redenbacher?

Comedy writer Bob Mills says some movie theaters have responded quickly to the popcorn crisis: “Now, with every ticket, you get a free EKG.”

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Reader Eric Cooper of Agoura Hills knows the January earthquake was bad:

“But you’re really in trouble when your FEMA check comes with Ed McMahon’s photo on the envelope.”

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The Source Awards, the first music prizes specifically for rap artists, were handed out earlier this week. Comedy writer Tony Peyser says he was saddened that both Snoop Doggy Dogg and Tupac Shakur were overlooked in the category of “Best Rapper Currently Under Indictment.”

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Word play: Reader Dorothy J. Rodriquez of L. A. says a Hawaiian Pedant is an Academia Nut. An Arty Gambler? That’s one who Goes for Baroque.

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Comic / writer Juliana Morgan says the epitome of desperation and loneliness for a single woman comes when she starts to think:

“If only Beavis had better teeth.”

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Jay Leno on California Congressman Ken Calvert, who was caught having sex with a hooker:

“He says he had no idea that she was a prostitute or he wouldn’t have done it. Today, the prostitute said: ‘Hey, I didn’t know that he was a congressman or I wouldn’t have done it either.’ ”

Speaking of Congress, Bob Mills says Thursday’s national “Take Your Daughter to Work Day” proved revealing:

“No one suspected that congressmen had so many 23-year-old blond daughters with Swedish accents.”

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Melanie Saldana of North Hollywood has often wondered at what moments she moved from being a girl to becoming a young woman, and finally, a woman. She is certain, however, about when she became a lady :

My sister and I were lying on the beach one spring afternoon. Several yards from us was a group of teen-age boys. We heard them talking and saw them point in our direction.

The boys passed by us as they went into the water, surfboards in arm, only to return by us again a few minutes later. When they passed us again later, we heard one boy comment to the others:

“See, I TOLD you they weren’t girls . They’re ladies.”