Putting Candidates to the Taste Test

Glendale-based Baskin-Robbins is about to serve up its quadrennial ice cream poll in which customers are asked to submit special flavors to honor the presidential candidates.

In 1996, Baskin-Robbins chose Sax-y Candydate for incumbent Bill Clinton and G.O.P.eanut Butter for challenger Bob Dole. Several more colorful names were turned down for Clinton, including Whitewater Swirl, So Good I Inhaled It! and I Feel Your Plain ‘Nilla. Rocky Road was deemed inappropriate for Dole.

Always willing to lend a helping hand, this column is asking readers who avoid ice cream shops to submit flavors here for candidates George W. Bush, Al Gore, Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader (See fax number and postal and e-mail addresses at end of column; no phone voting please).

Winners will be awarded copies of my 1996 non-bestseller “The Best of Only in L.A,” thereby helping me create more room in my garage.

SPIN-OFFS: During Clinton’s impeachment fight, a mock poll for the Official Flavor of the Clinton Trial appeared on the Internet. My favorites: Peach Mint and Subpoena-Colada.

NO FAX MACHINE, THOUGH: On the Autopia ride at Disneyland, Roy Dahlke reports: “We saw the cars in front of us driving off. As one woman was just going out of sight, I saw her pull out her cell phone and start to make a call. At least the cars are on a track, so she couldn’t swerve off the road, but she could certainly rear-end the car in front of her. More proof that cell phones should be outlawed on our highways [and thrill rides!].”

SUCH A DEAL! For today’s shopper-beware section, we bring you:

* Some $3.39 bath tissue that is on sale--for more than 20 times that amount (submitted by Stephen McKeown of Fillmore).

* A tiara sale where you really get your penny’s worth (Raija Cuomo of L.A.).

* A not-so-free carwash (Bob Gustafson of Anaheim Hills).

And, finally:

* An oil and filter special that, in the words of J.S. Brattain of Gardena, seems to be limited to those in kiddie cars.

THAT PERSONAL TOUCH: Don Fawcett of West L.A. wasn’t as flattered as you might imagine when he received a letter informing him that he had been selected to “receive automatic credit approval” from the Bristol Farms store in Brentwood because of his “outstanding credit history and shopping profile.” Why Fawcett’s lack of enthusiasm? The envelope was addressed to “Resident.”

SPOTTED IN LONG BEACH: A pickup truck with a cardboard sign in back that said, “Caution! Firestone ATX On Board.”

STEWARDESS HUMOR: San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Diane Bell writes that after passengers on a Southwest Airlines flight were shaken up by a rocky landing in that town, an attendant took the mike and quipped: “We apologize for that rough landing. I want you to know that it wasn’t the flight attendants’ fault, and it wasn’t the captain’s fault. It was the asphalt.”

miscelLAny:

One of the slogans for the Page Museum/La Brea Tar Pits is: “Voted L.A.’s Oldest Tourist Trap.”

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.