Hanging in there: Soon after chiropractor David...

Hanging in there: Soon after chiropractor David Reuben’s ad appeared on a billboard in normally sleepy Saugus, the Santa Clarita Valley sheriff’s station received an emergency call from a passerby.

The caller reported “that someone was noosed and hung up there,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Tim Peters. “We rolled a unit out there Code 3”--red light and siren.

What the deputies found, instead, was a mannequin hanging by its fingers.

More than a dozen other passersby also phoned the sheriff’s station in February. The billboard created so much controversy that the city even explored whether the daredevil mannequin was violating any codes--deciding that it wasn’t.

And how did Reuben react to the negative publicity? Well, his neck didn’t get out of joint.

“Any PR’s good PR,” he pointed out, adding that his goal had been to “get people to notice us.”

Reuben theorized that some of the initial criticism came from motorists who were already angry over being trapped in traffic on San Fernando Road, which had become an alternate to quake-crippled freeways. He added: “Ninety-nine out of 100 people we’ve talked to thought it was a good idea.”

Since then, the mannequin has become pretty much an accepted part of the Saugus community. “We haven’t received any calls for a long time,” Lt. Peters said. “It’s lost its shock value.”

For now, anyway.

Reuben plans to take down the billboard at the end of the summer with another eye-catching show. “We’re going to have a dummy-drop ceremony,” he said.

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A hermaphroditic dummy: Reuben, by the way, says that it wasn’t easy finding a mannequin.

“We had to go to the Downtown (L.A.) garment district and find a piecemeal one,” he disclosed. “It’s really half man and half woman.”

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Frilly chain: Frank Jacobs of Burbank called to say that a female friend of his received a chain letter that purred, “This is a Pretty Panties Exchange. Send one pair of panties, preferably sexy ones, to the person listed at No. 1 and send a copy of this letter to six of your friends in a Manila envelope. . . . You will receive 36 pairs of pretty new underwear.”

The sender of the plea signed her name, along with the designation: “Size 5 (thong).”

We’ve noticed that chain letters asking for money invariably warn that an unnamed general in the Philippines once failed to respond and died soon afterward.

But the panty chain appeal was less threatening.

“Don’t be the one who is responsible for spoiling the fun and stopping the flow of panties,” the letter pleaded. “It is not fair to those who have participated.”

Jacobs’ friend, incidentally, would identify herself only as:

“Size 8.”

And:

“Wouldn’t be caught dead in the thong panties.”

miscelLAny:

A reader sent us a magazine story about a disastrous earthquake that struck Sicily in 1693, underlining the phrase, “at 4:30 in the morning on Jan. 9.” We sense an every-301-years trend. So we’ve circled the entire month of January on our 2295 calendar, just to be safe.