Imagine if This Man Saw a Porn Flick

Bill Howes and T.C. Cirillo spotted a police log item in the Seal Beach Sun newspaper about a citizen who complained that two famous stuffed cartoon characters appeared to be having sex on the roof of an automobile. (No, of course, I’m not going to reveal the identities of the cartoon characters--they have their rights, too, you know!)

GUERRILLA PROOFREADER REPORT: Carmen Bautista of West Covina found a dinner announcement in a newspaper with an unfortunate substitution on the menu (see accompanying).

MORE FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Robert Chew of La Canada Flintridge came upon a special that didn’t seem so special (actually, the sign meant that the fish for sale hadn’t been cleaned. And Darren Beatty of Ontario sent along what I would consider an unsettling claim from a taco maker. My 11-year-old daughter, however, tells me that “bomb” is teen talk for “good” (see photos).

FLIGHT OF FANCY: Steve Odnea of Huntington Harbor saw a newspaper notice for an Amazon parrot that had been “lost in area of Suva/Guatemala.” Which seemed like a wide area, since Suva is in the Fiji Islands and Guatemala is in Central America. Turns out this Suva/Guatemala is an intersection in Downey.

WIN ONE FOR THE WHOPPER: Usually, most of the drama has been drained from a basketball game when one team leads 98-37 with less than 30 seconds left. Not so the UCLA-Morgan State game at Pauley Pavilion the other night.

Bruin fans looked nervously at the clock and chanted, “Whopper! Whopper! Whopper!” Reason: When the Bruins score 100 or more, the local Burger King gives out free burgers to the first 100 ticket-holders who show up.

Luckily for the hungry, while Morgan State had the ball, the Bruins’ Rico Hines committed what seemed like an intentional foul to stop the clock. The Morgan State free throw was no good, allowing UCLA to get the ball and reach the 100 mark.

In the Daily Bruin newspaper the next day, Hines was quoted as saying of the foul: “We wanted to make the fans happy.”

HOLD THE POINSETTIAS, PLEASE: To put you in the holiday spirit, the Web page (snopes.com) of the San Fernando Valley Folklore Society presents a study of several beliefs about Christmas, including these:

* One of Santa’s eight reindeer was originally named Donder, not Donner (true).

* Candy canes originated as a sweet reward for children who behaved well in church (possibly true).

* A child’s father dressed as Santa Claus got stuck in a chimney in their house and died (false).

* Two brothers alternately traded the same pair of gift pants at Christmas time for more than 20 years (true).

* Poinsettia plants are poisonous to humans (false--and experts say their taste is so awful that no one could eat one anyway).

miscelLAny:

I wish the folklore society would explore the following holiday rumor, which was started, I believe, by comic Johnny Carson: There is really only one fruitcake in the world and, each Christmas, the latest recipient sends it to another unwitting victim.

I know what you’ll say:

Whopper! Whopper!

*

Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com