Playboy’s Secret Recipe for Success?

An old recipe for “Hef’s Fried Chicken” aboard the personal jet of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner is one of the fascinating documents in Kathryn Leigh Scott’s new book, “The Bunny Years.” Nothing unusual about the dish. Except maybe for the instruction for mixing the dish’s ingredients before cooking:

“Combine in air-sickness bag.”

Bon appetit!

BOYS-WILL-BE-BOYS DEPT.: Scott, a onetime Bunny, notes that the Playboy Club on Sunset Boulevard opened on New Year’s Eve in 1964. Hefner was apparently nervous about what might happen to the costumed lasses, in their revealing outfits, when the clock struck 12 and the lights went out.

“Just before midnight,” Scott wrote, “the Bunnies were asked to leave the floor as a safety precaution.” They were allowed to return a few minutes later “after the boisterous revelry that brought in the New Year.”

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TALK ABOUT SPECIAL EFFECTS: The city of Paramount’s newsletter says that an L.A. County sheriff’s sergeant “spotted flames from the roof of the Wal-Mart (in the city). Acting quickly, he notified the fire authorities and drove around to the back of the market for a better view. Oddly enough, when he got there, the store no longer seemed to be burning.”

It was then he realized that what “he had seen were really flames from the burn-off tower at the oil refinery behind the store.” When the firetrucks arrived, they found only a slightly red-faced sergeant.

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PASSING THE BUCK: Rodger Howard of Valencia came across a more-or-less 99-cents-only store, which belongs in the same category as a shop that Gerald Jones found in L.A. a while back (see photos).

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GUERRILLA PROOFREADERS’ REPORT: Only in L.A. followers also sent along these unusual findings:

* An airline advertising “the only nonstop scheduled service from San Diego to Hawaii” (submitted by Dick Boyle, who’s relieved there’s no stopover in Guam).

* A marquee announcing Little League “sing” ups--to perform the national anthem, perhaps (Helen Hensley).

* A headline in a Standard & Poor’s publication that spoke of investing in telecommunications “vices” (Dave Papke).

* And a gardening tip--apparently for hospital flower beds--explaining that it is necessary to exercise “patients” when cultivating freesias (Jim Grove).

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MORE MR. NICE GUY: “Godzilla” has been somewhat of a disappointment at the box office, which leads Chuck Schimmel to wonder if Sony has decided to try to promote a kinder, gentler leviathan around the country. At a Santa Maria drive-in, Schimmel saw this marquee:

GODZILLA

MR. NICE GUY

A week later, the marquee proclaimed:

GODZILLA

THE WEDDING SINGER

miscelLAny:

Stuart Weiss of West L.A. says his daughter was recently given a kite that contained the warning, “Do not fly within 5 miles of an airport.” Inasmuch as there are more than a dozen airports in the county, Weiss added, “We’re now searching for a location to fly it.” I surveyed the county and believe there’s one sidewalk square that qualifies for kite-flying near the downtown corner of 2nd and Alameda streets.

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Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.