Hey! Who invited the iguana?Elsie Stern of...

Hey! Who invited the iguana?

Elsie Stern of Santa Monica received an invitation to a graduation party at a Rowland Heights residence that contained this message:

“Please note: All reptiles will remain in their cages for this gathering unless guests request to see them in hand.”

Got that, party animals?

GEE, WHERE HAVE WE HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE? Cartoonist Tom Toles of the Buffalo News depicted President Clinton making this TV pitch: “So mail me just $29.95 for my video explaining how I’m technically innocent, and describing my tireless search for the real Whitewater culprits . . . “

BEST LEGS IN THE LEAGUE: The introduction of cheerleaders at Angels games by the new Disney owners has been booed by some purists. But such fan-inciters are not new to baseball. The Hollywood Stars of the old Pacific Coast League used them for a while in the early 1950s.

The Stars also tried another experiment back then--short pants. The club borrowed “the idea from a visiting British soccer club, whose players impressed the Stars’ brain trust with their speed, “ wrote Paul Zingg in “Runs, Hits and an Era,” a history of the league.

The shorts subjected the Stars to “suggestive whistles from fans and merciless ragging from their opponents,” Zingg said. One Eastern newspaper labeled the move a “screwball stunt from Movieland.”

Nevertheless, the players wore them on weekends and holidays for three years. Obviously, the players had no union.

OVEREATERS’ DELIGHT: Abbie Livingston of Lakewood says she’s heard of all-you-can-eat places “but this is the first time I’ve been told that I have to eat all the food in the restaurant.”.

SCREWBALL STUNTS FROM MOVIELAND (CONT).: Syndicated columnist Marilyn Beck wrote that “L.A.-area readers who have complained about the scary banners they have seen tailing behind biplanes--bearing the legends, ‘No Warning’ . . . ‘No Negotiating’ . . . ‘No Los Angeles’--will be happy to know there should be no more of them.”

Hey, thanks for relieving our fears.

But the since-curtailed campaign wasn’t really so “scary” inasmuch as there was also a fourth banner that announced the name of the flying-saucer movie, “Independence Day.” The only complaints we heard centered on the noise made by the planes.

Publicity stunts rarely fool Angelenos anymore. It was different back in the 1920s, though. The makers of one movie put up billboards warning that all sorts of activities were “outside the law.” The movie they were promoting was “Outside the Law.”

One billboard, in particular, panicked the male citizenry. It said: “If you play golf on Sunday, you are outside the law.”

DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT GEOGRAPHY: Bill Fawcett of Tujunga notes that the May issue of Westways magazine has a disoriented travel-package ad that says: “Your trip starts in Washington, D.C., where you’ll visit Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and more.” Sure. And take in a Washington Phillies baseball game, too.

miscelLAny

We’ve been offered a third theory on the meaning of the license plate, ME YRU. You may recall that one school of thought held it meant “Y R U following ME?” Another translated it as “ME WIRE U.” Now, Betty Barnett of Pomona has concluded it means ME SPACE-Y RU? Are we spacey? Heck no. We keep all our reptiles in cages, too.