Bright Ideas or Millennium Madness

On New Year’s Eve, L.A. won’t have to depend on the usual 3-hours-old Dick Clark rerun from New York for entertainment. L.A. City Recreation and Parks commissioners have approved a plan to light up the HOLLYWOOD sign to usher in 2000.

I’m gratified that the commissioners were paying attention when several readers wrote to this column to suggest such a celebration.

But let’s not stop there. I hope that other L.A. landmarks also can be decorated for the occasion.

Reader Keith England has suggested “rigging up all of the ‘Angelyne’ billboards to pop her top at midnight.”

Another deserving subject is Randy’s Donuts, off the San Diego Freeway in Inglewood (see photo). The Big O has been gussied up before: It held a 1950s Woody station wagon for the movie “Earthgirls Are Easy.”

Just don’t expect Randy’s to serve any millennium concoctions of strung-together doughnuts, though. “I tried a five-ring doughnut when the Olympics were here,” said co-owner Larry Weintraub. “It didn’t work out.”

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NO CAMERAS, PLEASE: I doubt that anyone will want to light up the L.A. County Cemetery for the New Year, which is just as well. One sign there reads now as if it’s the last stop for deceased dairy cows (see photo).

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SPEAKING OF Y2K: Greg Duke of Rancho Palos Verdes found a detour that apparently is scheduled to last into infinity (see photo).

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THE GREATEST CANINE DISC JOCKEY: Inspired by ESPN’s series on the 100 greatest athletes of the century, USA Today recently issued its Animal All-Stars of the Century, which includes Frisbee-chaser Ashley Whippet.

Whippet made his debut at a Dodger baseball game in 1974 when he and Ohio State student Alex Stein ran onto the field between innings. Stein tossed his disc and Whippett, who could hit speeds up to 35 mph, leaped high to fetch it. Stein was fined $250, but the crowd loved it and Whippet later performed at the Super Bowl--after first obtaining permission.

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VICTOR THE BODY: I was shocked, though, that USA Today omitted Victor the Rasslin Bear, who was said to have been undefeated in more than 5,000 matches against humans through the 1980s. I remember when Victor, who stood 8 feet, 3 inches tall in his bare paws and weighed about 650 pounds, whipped The Assassin in a bout in L.A.

Alas, Victor came along too soon to enjoy the fruits of stardom. Had the big guy wrestled in the 1990s, he’d probably be governor of Minnesota.

miscelLAny:

It sounds like a bargain. At the Long Beach Coin and Collectibles Expo (Sept. 23-26), you can buy a bag containing five pounds of currency for $35. Alas, it’s discarded currency that has been shredded.

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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.