Now it’s the Dancing Leno:Guess who has...

Now it’s the Dancing Leno:

Guess who has asked for tapes of the “Dancing Ito” segments on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show? Yes, Lance (the Judging) Ito. In fact, he also wants every Ito look-alike skit, more than 30 segments in all. “He [Ito] said that the bits he happened to see were funny,” a Leno spokesman said, making it clear his boss wasn’t in trouble with the court. To the contrary, Ito wants to show the outtakes at a staff get-together. Leno, of course, will comply with the judge’s request for the tapes. He doesn’t want to risk having Ito turn off the Tonight Show’s cameras.

WE’RE SURE SHE’S BEEN MEANING TO CALL: The Tonight Show, by the way, has received no request from Marcia Clark for the Dancing Ito skit that featured a Clark look-alike.

JUST WHAT L.A. NEEDS: It’s a sequel to the novel that may have indirectly darkened the city’s image more than any other piece of fiction--”Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Doesn’t ring a bell? That’s because the title was changed for the movie version to “Blade Runner,” that portrait of L.A. with a perpetual drizzle, buildings in ruins, inhabitants mumbling a multicultural gibberish and killer robots on the loose in the year 2019.

Now, we have “Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human,” by K.W. Jeter, which is set a year later. Things, as you might expect, aren’t a heck of a lot better.

Intrusive blimps hover overhead with flashing screens and bullhorns making pitches for “off-world emigration” to other planets (one of the airships is shot down over Alvarado Street). The off-world terminal is based in San Pedro (the Port of L.A. has obviously adapted to the future!). And much of the action takes place at the mysterious Van Nuys Pet Hospital, whose four-legged creatures turn out to be mechanical.

The air is so bad that face masks have become a fashion item, with such variants as “deranged silk organza wedding veils complete with tiny artificial orange blossoms, severely retro Thirties side-perched pillboxes with falling black-dotted sweeps [and] rough nomadic Berber head wraps. . . .”

Oh well. At least it sounds as though department stores have made a comeback.

WHERE LITTLE ANDROID CARS CLIMB HALFWAY TO THE STARS: A note at the back of “Blade Runner 2” says it “resolves many discrepancies between the movie ‘Blade Runner’ and the novel upon which it was based, Philip K. Dick’s ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ ”

Actually, it doesn’t resolve the foremost discrepancy--the one that should outrage every Angeleno. Or make every Angeleno feel proud, depending on one’s point of view. The novel that was the basis for “Blade Runner” was not set in L.A. Its nightmarish model of a 21st-Century city was. . . San Francisco.

ANOTHER REASON TO GET IN SHAPE: But enough about 21st-Century disaster scenarios. How about a closer one--killer bees? They’re due in L.A. in several months, no matter how much the Border Patrol is beefed up. Anyway, we heard a scientist say the other day that a human can outrun the little devils. But, he added, they will chase you for up to a quarter-mile.

NOBODY’S PERFECT: But we were shocked to see a graphic on a recent late-afternoon broadcast of the KCBS-TV news that proclaimed a “Tripple” murder. Well, it could have been worse. At least it wasn’t misspelled with three Ps.

miscelLAny When Travel Holiday magazine asked readers which cities had the most knowledgeable cab drivers, 26% selected San Francisco. New York City was second with 21.4% of the vote, followed by Chicago (11.7%), Denver (5.6%) and Atlanta (4.8%). Then came Los Angeles with a miserable 3.5%. Why did L.A. rank so low? Maybe it has something to do with those Raiders ads that can still be seen on the outside of numerous L.A. cabs. Or do they give a special fare to Oakland?