A Claim That Drew a Chili Reception

Storm clouds have been hovering over Only in L.A. ever since I said that comic Steve Allen was the first to give the punny weather forecast of “Muggy, followed by Toogy, Weggy and Thurgy.” (Allen himself did not make the claim.)

Lloyd Wenn of Oxnard notes that Ed McBain’s novel, “Tricks,” credits the line to ‘40s radio comic Henry Morgan. I presume this is not a trick of McBain’s, because Marty Elkort and Kim Braithwaite concur.

“Morgan started his program with a funny weather report along the lines of your quoted selection,” Elkort said. “Others I recall were: ‘Chili today. Hot tamale.’ And: ‘Hail, followed by fellows well-met.’ ”

Braithwaite, meanwhile, remembered that Morgan, a brazen male chauvinist in those unenlightened times, once dared give this forecast: “High winds, followed by high skirts, followed by me!”

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THE 1YK PROBLEM: Lew Weiss of Winnetka noticed that an ad in a Valley newspaper implied that one insurance company hadn’t even entered the 20th century (see accompanying). Bet it doesn’t have 10th-century rates, though.

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT? Dick Williamson of Palm Desert spotted a sign that seemed to indicate that one fast-food joint was trying a drive-through buffet (seems it would be difficult for passengers to reach for the eats, doesn’t it?) (see photo).

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FOR THOSE NUTTIER THAN A . . . Still have that unopened fruitcake someone gave you over the holiday season? Well, you can drop it off at the Coffee Gallery in Altadena and get a free drink in return. The shop then gives the things out for free to those rare individuals who like fruitcakes.

“We’ve had 25 or 30 people drop off cakes this year,” said owner Ken Marshall.

Marshall says he wants to “get people connected with fruitcakes. I love them.” He added: “My wife thinks I’m really odd.”

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FREEWAY MYSTERIES: Wendy Hornsby, a history instructor at Long Beach City College, writes that a colleague, Merri Whitelock, was driving back to the San Fernando Valley on the Hollywood Freeway after an evening class “when she heard a kathump and thought she was hit by some road debris.” Not wishing to stop, she waited until she got home and “found, inside the well of one of her headlights, a marble elephant, about six inches in diameter.”

With all the controversy surrounding the impeachment trial, Hornsby wondered if “people from a certain political party are jettisoning” their symbols. (To give Republicans equal time, I suppose it’s possible that an enraged Democrat had stolen it.) Anyway, Whitelock is willing to return it. As cagey as a detective in an Ed McBain novel, I’ve omitted mentioning the color--something only the owner would know. (Hey, I read Ed McBain mysteries too.)

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OFFICE FROLICS: Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut scoffed Wednesday when his Republican counterparts said that the impeachment trial could be over relatively soon even with the admission of testimony. “This isn’t ‘L.A. Law,’ ” Dodd said, referring to the old TV program. No, it isn’t. But there are some similarities. An office romance was also prominent in that show, providing perhaps its best known moment: the collapse of a floor during a session of ardent lovemaking by low-life attorney Arnie Becker and a girlfriend.

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HE HAD TO ASK: During a church service in Newbury Park, Jeff Bliss reports, “The pastor was explaining to all the kids how wonderful it is to be an acolyte (acolytes light the candles on the altar). He said, ‘You get to carry the flame into the church, you get to wear a robe. What could be better than that?’ Without missing a beat, a kid in the back yelled out, ‘Video games!’ Ah, from the sacred to the profane.”

miscelLAny:

Did you hear that Dive!, the restaurant owned by moguls Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, has ceased operations in Century City? Wonder how much of a battering the submarine-shaped eatery took from Typhoon in Santa Monica?

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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.