LAUGH LINES : Jokes

Among David Letterman’s Top 10 ways to make World Cup soccer more exciting:

* Let ‘em use their damn hands.

* Replace ball with pinata filled with killer bees.

* Have Madonna inflate the ball.

* Three words: naked penalty kicks.

* Make nets out of sexy black lingerie from Victoria’s Secret.

* Score a goal, do a shot.

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In the News: Another celebrity placed a frantic call to 911. But, says comedy writer Bob Mills, the police dispatcher had to explain to Faye Dunaway that officers couldn’t provide emergency voice lessons.

Comedy writer Tony Peyser, on the closing of the play “Sunset Boulevard” because producers said Dunaway was not capable of taking over the lead role: “Couldn’t they just let Dunaway go on and retitle it ‘Pico Boulevard’?”

Peyser, on the University of Oklahoma giving Anita Hill an unpaid one-year leave to write a book on sexual harassment: “She is confident the book will prove she was telling the truth and convince any doubting Thomases.”

Comic Argus Hamilton says Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders has found the perfect way to allow prayers in school: “Print them on condoms.”

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Health watch: Bob Mills, on tobacco companies insisting that they never intended to mislead the public: “They claim that they were assured by the Reagan Administration that nicotine would be classified as a vegetable.”

Scientists say tobacco can be medically useful and produces a substance to prevent blood clotting after surgery. Comedy writer Paul Steinberg says that means doctors now will be able to prevent any clots that form after they remove a cancerous lung.

Viacom unveils the first Beavis and Butt-head video game today, says Premiere Radio Networks’ “Morning Sickness”: “The game is guaranteed to teach your kids better hand-eye coordination, sharpen their computer skills and . . . turn them into drooling video-obsessed psychopathic losers. Heh, heh, heh.”

Jay Leno, on the new home cholesterol test, marketed by Johnson & Johnson: “The way it works is that you take the number of pizza boxes you have lying around the house, multiple the number by five and that gives you the cholesterol count.”

Observes reader Katherine Poehlmann of Torrance: “It sure takes a lot of nerve to put nutrition information on a diet soda can.”

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Reader Joe Turner of Vista says his 12-year-old niece, Maggie, visited recently from Dallas, and he took her to lunch at the beach:

Admiring the sunglasses that Maggie’s friend Tammy had given her, the waiter said to Maggie: “Great shades. Are they Liz Claiborne’s?”

“No,” Maggie replied. “Tammy gave them to me.”