This Design for a California Quarter Really Is All That It’s Cracked Up to Be

After a public call went out for coin designs for California’s new quarter, Larry Orcutt of Reseda came up with a couple of daring concepts. One would be “based on our state’s fame for its earthquakes,” he said. “The quarter would be minted in two pieces, broken along a fault line.” The other would dramatize the tension between Southern and Northern California (evident during the Angels’ triumph over the swooning Giants in the World Series).

Either design, Orcutt pointed out, would bring “a literal sense to the term ‘two bits.’ ”

Wake up, Malibu! Roberta Lemon noticed that a spa warning in Malibu seemed to imply that part of the citizenry is, shall we say, disengaged (see accompanying).

Speaking of unconscious: John Fenn came upon the work of a sign maker who could use some spelling advice from the local schoolkids (see photo).

Fetch, Gray! Good boy! Gil Chesterton, editor of a newsletter for First Presbyterian Church of North Hollywood, wrote about a congregant who ran into Gov. Gray Davis in the 1970s when the latter was working with L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley. The churchgoer, Joe Gallagher, said he asked Davis to help find his missing Great Dane, Gemini. Davis dispatched searchers who found it.

“I am grateful to Gray,” Gallagher said, “and probably will vote for him for governor -- certainly for dogcatcher.”

Who says anchoring TV news doesn’t involve heavy lifting? I mentioned the boo-boo at Fox TV after the World Series when the camera panned from Edison Field to the station too early, catching one anchor at her desk looking into a personal mirror and arranging her hair.

By coincidence, ex-KCBS anchor Hosea Sanders recalled a colorful Channel 2 snafu to the media Web site ronfineman.com this week -- regrettably, one that viewers did not see.

It involved KCBS’ switch in 1986 to a “News Wheel” format, which consisted of 20-minute theme segments (“Family,” etc.) along with headlines offered up a few times each hour. The “News Wheel” was “not only a format name but also an actual rotating set,” said Sanders (now based in Chicago). And one night the “set got stuck during one spin, forcing a couple of us anchor-types to get up and PUSH it into position during a commercial.”

The “News Wheel,” touted by the station as “the next generation” of local news, was roasted by the critics. It stopped rotating for good, on orders of management, a few weeks later.

miscelLAny: In the names-that-fit-the-job category, Lila Mankofsky of Northridge saw an ad placed by a Porter Ranch physical therapist named David Feeley.

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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.