Fresno’s Two-Way Portrait of L.A.

You can’t blame Fresnans for their lack of love for L.A.

After all, comic Johnny Carson used to quip that Fresno’s slogans were “Gateway to Bakersfield,” and “Home of the Highest Speed Bumps.”

Then there was the TV satire, a 1986 miniseries called “Fresno.” In the opening scene, the origin of the city’s name is revealed this way: A Spanish conquistador spits out some grapes, then growls, “They taste like fresno.”

So I wasn’t surprised when Bruce Dembo of Venice sent along the regional weather page from the Fresno Bee, which has scenic icons for most areas. But not for Southern California, which is symbolized by a highway (see accompanying).

This is patently inaccurate. After all, where’s the bumper-to-bumper traffic?

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WHERE THERE’S . . . : Julio Elguezabal of L.A. snapped a shot of a sign that took on new meaning during a downtown fire (see photo). Actually, the blaze was on the freeway.

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TRANSLATION--PLEASE! “I was at the gym, where they use the closed-captioning system on the TV, so people on the life cycles and other cardio machines can follow along with the volume down,” wrote Steve Morris.

And also have some laughs, apparently.

Morris isn’t certain how the captions are produced, but he notes: “I saw some interesting stories on the news.”

One caption made a reference to Or Landau. An actor? No, silly. A city in Florida where Disney has a theme park.

And for Father’s Day, another caption recommended a purchase of a “tuck see doe.” Well, Dad likes to dress up occasionally, doesn’t he?

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L.A. MILESTONES: Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of the firing by KCOP-TV (Channel 13) of the host of “The Oscar Levant Show.” Levant, the pianist-actor-wit, had feuded with his Philco sponsor and, on this night on his live variety show, he urged people not to buy the company’s TV sets.

Levant correctly predicted on the air that he would get the ax, according to Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger, authors of “A Talent for Genius.”

But, Levant also predicted to members of the audience he’d probably find work at KHJ-TV (Channel 9) or KTLA-TV (Channel 5) because “they’ll take anybody.”

Soon, he was at Channel 9.

miscelLAny:

Betty Mills of Victorville is happy to report that the Altadena milk company has already mastered the problem of adjusting its computers to recognize the year 2000.

Her husband brought home a carton of milk that carried an expiration date of “Dec. 25, 2003.”