POP SHOW: When actor James Whitmore brings...

POP SHOW: When actor James Whitmore brings his legendary Will Rogers show to Thousand Oaks next week (F1A), he’ll be on familiar ground: His son, James Whitmore Jr., lives in Thousand Oaks. . . . James Jr. has made his own name in show business, most recently directing TV shows such as “Quantum Leap” and “The X-Files.” . . . Father and son worked together at least once: Several years ago, Junior directed Senior in a special Christmas episode of “Riptide.”

NAME GAME: Signatures that qualified a ballot initiative on the Buenaventura Mall expansion were not held to the same standard that doomed the anti-mall referendum drive this week (B1). . . . In the referendum effort, Ventura City Atty. Paul Bulens advised the city clerk to have the county validate only signatures gathered by registered city voters, which disqualified a large chunk. He gave no such advice on the earlier initiative. . . . This time, he said, the clerk “received a number of complaints” about the conduct of signature-gatherers, “and that caused her to be especially careful and talk to me.”

JOB SITE: The only drawback to Wednesday’s opening of the Nabisco Reemployment Outreach Center was that few seemed to know about it. . . . Early in the afternoon, four staffers were all alone in the small office suite at Oxnard’s Multi Service Center, 1500 Colonia Road. . . . Of the 700 people left jobless by the closure of the Nabisco plant, only one man had shown up since noon for help finding work. . . . “This is our first day, so it’s kind of slow,” said Margaret Guzman, using the phones to track down more clients. But she wasn’t complaining. “As of last week, we were calling from our homes.”