Try to Keep Your Mind Out of the Gutter

Heads Will Roll Bureau: Bowling just hasn’t been the same since players stopped using human heads to knock down the pins. Sure, it’s easier to control a ball made of urethane, but there’s not much sport involved.

Fortunately, a Kentucky company has finally figured out how to simulate the experience of prehistoric bowling. Introducing . . . the Skull Ball from Ebonite International. It’s the world’s first see-through bowling ball with a human skull inside.

“The idea is to put a whole new face on the game of bowling--literally,” said a company spokesman. “The only thing we can’t tell you is where we got all the skulls.”

Perhaps from UC Irvine’s Willed Body Program, which recently got in trouble for the alleged sale of cadaver parts?

No, actually, the skulls are replicas. They’re the newest in a series of novelty bowling balls. Ebonite also has a giant eyeball bowling sphere due out in February, as well as an existing zebra-striped model and a tai chi ball with a yin-yang design.

Also on tap is another see-through ball with a Budweiser beer bottle in the middle. And Ebonite engineers are experimenting with a ball that lights up when it’s in motion.

Requests for other designs are streaming in. The suggestions include see-through bowling globes containing dentures, fake hands, roses, American flags, Furbys, hockey pucks, Harley-Davidson logos, personal photographs, gallbladders and just about everything else imaginable, said Bob Reid, Ebonite’s marketing honcho.

The only snag is getting whatever object is placed in the middle to function as a regulation core so the ball doesn’t roll into the gutter every time.

Here at Off-Kilter, we’re confident such technical glitches can be solved. Therefore, we propose several other bowling ball innovations:

* The goldfish bowl: a see-through bowling ball with an actual aquarium in the middle.

* Chia ball: Just add water and it sprouts grass, bringing new meaning to the term “lawn bowling.”

* Disco ball: enables you to dance and bowl at the same time.

* Snow-globe ball: contains a tiny village or other scene and fake snow that “falls” as the ball rolls down the lane.

* Magic 8 bowling ball: Shake it before rolling, and it predicts whether you’ll get a strike.

Black and White TV Bureau: Now that NBC and ABC have agreed to include more minorities in their TV programs, the NAACP is setting its sights on other organizations that lack racial and ethnic diversity. In the latest effort, NAACP leaders are demanding that UFOs abduct more people of color.

“It’s hard to believe in this day and age that 99% of alien abductees continue to be white,” fumed an angry NAACP spokesman. “Minorities have just as much right to be kidnapped, probed and impregnated by space creatures. We demand equal treatment. Beam us up. Beam us up now.”

In related news, Fox TV promised to add more minority characters to all of its shows, starting with “The Simpsons.” Next month, Bart, Homer, Marge, Lisa and Maggie will be joined by their long-lost cousin, O.J.

Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: “Ants Building Pyramids in New Mexico Desert!” (Weekly World News)

Roaches have motels so why can’t ants have pyramids, complete with little ant sarcophagi and hieroglyphics?

Unpaid Informants: Ann Harrison. E-mail Off-Kilter at roy.rivenburg@latimes.com. Off-Kilter runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.