Royal mistreatment?Al Utter of Agoura points out...

Royal mistreatment?Al Utter of Agoura points out that just before Prince Charles’ visit to L.A., the Wall Street Journal ran a “Fairy-Tales for Sale” real estate ad, which included a property labeled:

“Castle with royal stud.”

Despite what the Journal’s wording might have led readers to think, it wasn’t Windsor Castle. This site--and horse farm--was located in Germany. We’re not sure who’s minding the palace there.

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Covering up Fido: The latest edition of Journal of the Senses, the publication of the Elysium Institute nudist colony in Topanga, carries “a Special Christmas Offer for Bare Bear Lovers.” It’s a set of cassettes featuring Winnie the Pooh.

We were offended by the ad because we once belonged to the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals (SINA), whose purpose was to improve the moral climate by clothing all of God’s creatures, including the four-legged ones.

At its peak in the early 1960s, SINA had a reported membership of 40,000, a board of directors, a theme song, a set of official animal-clothing patterns, and a magazine (which linked animal nudity and juvenile delinquency).

Alas, it was not destined for glory.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported a SINA raid on the Children’s Petting Zoo in Golden Gate Park in which President G. Clifford Prout Jr. and two other men “tried unsuccessfully to hitch a pair of white panties on (the) hindquarters” of a fawn. Onlooking children “screamed with joy and one little boy fell off the fence laughing,” the Chronicle added.

Eventually, as the book “Publicity Stunt” notes, G. Clifford Prout Jr. was later unmasked as comedy writer-actor Buck Henry. And one of his assistants turned out to be Alan Abel, a free-lance media hoaxer who would later promote several other fictional events, including the the World Sex Olympics, in which couples were to compete for points on style and endurance.

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We thought even the animals were clothed there: Gene Mestel of Glendale was surprised to see a local newspaper describe Monday’s Ovation Award ceremonies for theater excellence as “an optional-dress evening.”

For non-juror eyes only: Shirley Hershey of La Mirada came across this product label that made her wonder if everyone’s caught up in the O.J. Simpson case.

miscelLAny Pity the poor L.A. Clippers. Not only are they winless, but when they played in the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim the other night, they were surrounded by floor-level ads that seemed to mock them. The ads were for B.U.M. clothing.