Pizza patter:When Adrienne Omansky’s acting class improvised...

Pizza patter:

When Adrienne Omansky’s acting class improvised commercials for a contest held by Big Slice Pizza, some of the students’ endorsements were, well, unusual.

“One said, ‘I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,’ ” said Omansky. “Another said, ‘I have a cheese tolerance problem, but it was worth it anyway.’ ”

Omansky’s class is made up of senior citizens at the L.A. Community Adult School, and Big Slice thought their pitches were so funny that they were awarded first place.

Not only will Big Slice play excerpts of their performances on its in-house television sets, but the company sent over enough pizza for all 50 students.

About 400 seniors are enrolled in the free commercial-acting classes offered at the Claude Pepper Senior Center in L.A. (phone number: (213) 931-1026). The students have entered several other contests.

“They did a Dreyer’s commercial, and Dreyer’s sent them enough ice cream for a year,” Omansky said.

Not all the prizes were so overwhelming.

“They finished third nationwide in a Twinkies commercial [audition],” Omansky said. “They got one T-shirt to split among 400 people.”

NOTHING PERSONAL: “See what happened when I told my wife I’d like my name on my license plates?” writes Bud Pittman of Canyon Country (see photo). “And, no, she’s not a blond.”

DOC, HOW ABOUT ANOTHER SLICE OF THAT KIDNEY PIE? “I guess I’ll have to serve more than just good medical practice,” says Dr. Howard Ross of Los Angeles, who found the accompanying ad in a Yellow Pages directory for the Westside.

WATER, WATER, NOWHERE: One reason we’re thankful for a rainstorm is that it gives the Civic Center’s dusty fountains a bath. And do they need it. We’re talking about downtown’s large collection of waterless water attractions, including these long-dry receptacles:

* Tom Bradley Fountain (outside New Otani Hotel): Don’t blame Bradley’s Republican successor. The fountain was turned off during the drought that struck while Bradley was in office, as were several others.

* Frank Putnam Flint Fountain (outside City Hall): Named after a U.S. senator early in this century, the marble monument was drained years ago after a homeless person drowned in it.

* Ft. Moore Pioneer Memorial Fountain (on Hill Street, north of Temple): Water once tumbled down a 40-foot wall of blue and gold tile. Now the base is a small homeless encampment. Ironically, a plaque near the chipped wall says: “Water and power have made our arid land flourish.”

* Eleanor Chambers Memorial Fountain (on Main Street, across from City Hall): Honoring the city’s first deputy mayor, it has a multicolored surface of tiles arranged in fan patterns. The dry bottom also holds several unplugged footlights, as though a stage has gone dark.

* The Triforium Fountain (on Main Street, near Temple): The 60-foot-tall Million-Dollar Jukebox (that’s the amount the city paid the artist) was designed to play music and give a light show via its 1,494 colored glass prisms. Perhaps there wasn’t enough money left over to keep its fountain full.

miscelLAny:

Here’s an angle of the militia movement you probably never considered. The Elysium nudist camp’s publication in Topanga has a story headlined: “Nudists, Naturists Threatened by Highly Organized Radical Right Groups.”