Mamma Mia! Sounds Like Lucy Had a Hand in Assembling the Pizza Pies

Oh, my, pizza pie!--as one long-ago commercial used to cry.

One of the workers at Dan Arney’s packaging company has a part-time job at a pizza parlor. The fellow told Arney he was in the kitchen when he looked outside and noticed his car door was open and some of his belongings were missing.

He told two other pizza employees and they all went out to inspect. Problem is, one of them left the keys inside the parlor and the door locked.

“They had to call the manager on a cell phone to get his keys to open the door,” Arney said. “While they are waiting, they look inside as the pizzas come off the oven conveyor and land on the floor--flop, flop, flop--about eight or 10 of them.”

Takeouts--to the trash can.

Did Fritz know about this? My apologies to all you Angelenos who woke up Thursday and found you had to shovel off your front porches and driveways. I would have warned you about the blizzard, but I forgot to check the forecast on the Weather Channel Web page, which was later relayed to me by Toufan Rahimpour (see accompanying). Vic Trippetti and Michael Clark came upon similar forecasts. Amazing how the weather warmed up later in the day.

Major insult? I just don’t understand how it can happen. L.A.’s mayors have all been so charismatic, and yet people keep bungling their names.

I’ve recounted the many variations of Richard Riordan that appeared in print, including “Robert Riordan” in Time magazine.

And the syndrome has carried over to his successor. One network news show identified Jim Hahn as “Mike Haan” a while back.

Now Gary Kemsley of Sun Valley has come across another foul-up, though it pertains to Hahn’s title (see photo).

Even Hahn’s own city couldn’t get his title straight.

Or maybe it wasn’t an error. Perhaps, as Kemsley points out, Hahn has quietly declared martial law, feeling he has to do something to keep the San Fernando Valley from seceding.

Bon voyage, Mr. Major, eh, Mayor! Of course, even when writers get their names straight, L.A.’s mayors don’t appear in the best light. The New York Times once said of Riordan: “He is no speech maker and is terrible on television. Even some of his allies refer to him with a mix of affection and exasperation as ‘Mayor Magoo.’ ”

Which in California, of course, qualifies him as a major gubernatorial hopeful.

The New York Times recently referred to Hahn as “phlegmatic.” As in “sluggish”? I dunno about that. As Times columnist Patt Morrison noted the other day, Hahn has taken five weeks of vacation in his first six months on the job. Sounds to me like he’s got plenty of get up and go.

Of course, his absences also might explain why his own city’s Department of Public Works is unsure of his title.

miscelLAny:

The Highlights, Beverly Hills High’s newspaper, carries an ad with a message from a local driving school to the students.

“To better serve you,” the driving school says, it has “acquired the latest in car models with cell phones.”

Nothing like chatting with a pal while taking a driving lesson.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, 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.