A Look Back at Oddities and Ends

It’s time for Only in L.A.’s “Window ‘97,” a review of the offbeat from the past year in the Southland:

HE’D KNOW THOSE AK-47 BURSTS ANYWHERE: After the big North Hollywood shootout in February between police and two would-be bank robbers, the LAPD played a supposed audiotape of the incident for the media.

It was later determined that the tape was actually the soundtrack from the movie “Heat,” which ends with a big shootout between police and would-be bank robbers.

The tape had been given police by a Valley businessman who admitted the hoax. And how was it uncovered? “One of the officers who was there [at the incident] happened to have seen the movie several times,” a spokesman said, “and he was very familiar with that soundtrack.”

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CAN’T HURT TO ASK: The North Hollywood incident aside, crime (if not crime movies) declined last year. And Darin Esper found an Arleta pawnbroker whose sign no doubt played a part in the decrease (see photo).

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MAYBE THERE WEREN’T ENOUGH LIMOS: In a discussion of “enhanced programming for community teens” in Beverly Hills, that city’s Recreation and Parks Commission briefly considered the possibility of a “scavenger hunt by limousine” for the kiddies.

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NOT THAT THEY’D NOTICE . . . : Todd Franklin of Glendale sent along a life insurance form that appeared to offer higher rates to marijuana smokers (see accompanying).

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UNFORTUNATE-TIMING AWARD: On the day the MTA issued a news release saying that a majority of MTA bus riders and Metro Rail riders rate the service as good, an MTA bus crashed into a Metro Blue Line train in downtown L.A., causing two minor injuries.

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TYPO OF THE YEAR: In an October article about the Getty Museum in Malibu, Newsweek twice stated that the museum was located in Mali.

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BEST-KEPT SECRET: The London Daily Telegraph referred to a Southland congressional member as “Congresswoman Dana Rohrabacher.”

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WORST CONNECTION: GTE directories had to recall 17,000 Sierra Madre phone books after residents complained that the listings contained home phone numbers for the citizens of El Monte, West Covina and several neighboring cities--but not for Sierra Madre.

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BEST FREUDIAN SLIP: Protesting that her support payments should not be lowered, a woman filed a brief on her own behalf in the state Court of Appeal in L.A., accusing her ex-husband of “inaccurate copulations.”

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SPACIEST LEGAL ARGUMENT: After the Cassini spacecraft was launched, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory received a call from attorneys for Oleg Cassini. They demanded to know why JPL put the fashion designer’s name on the Saturn probe without his permission. JPL’s lawyers replied that the spacecraft was named for Jean Dominique Cassini, an 18th century astronomer.

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HE DOESN’T GET OUT MUCH: A roster of 1963 grads of Muir High (Pasadena), compiled for a 35-year reunion, included this notation in the list of those not expected to attend: “Sirhan Sirhan . . . prison for life, California.”

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AT LAST! A TRUTHFUL CIVIL SERVANT: One telephone extension of the city of L.A.’s abandoned vehicle/building hotline offered this ungrammatical advice for a short time: “Hi! If you want to call the city and have nothing done, just call me and I will take your message and file it away like the rest of the city employees does. So please feel free to leave a message and not have anything done. Bye now.”

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MOST AGONIZING CHOICE: After Heaven’s Gate members committed suicide in Rancho Santa Fe, radio station KIIS-FM put up billboards showing its disc jockey Rick Dees alongside Marshall Applewhite, the cult leader, and asked: “Who would you rather follow?”

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VANISHING BOSS FROM HELL: In honor of Secretaries Week, the L.A. Downtown News published a reader survey of horrible-boss stories. One of the most memorable concerned an employer who temporarily moved himself and his wife in with a secretary’s family--then fled to another city, leaving his wife behind.

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JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GO INTO THE WATER: Checking out a report of a body floating in the L.A. River in Van Nuys, a police diver discovered it was an inflated sex doll (male).

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STUPID CRIMINAL AWARD: A suspected car thief was pulled over in the San Fernando Valley by officers who were suspicious about the anti-theft device attached to the steering wheel.

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CONGRESSWOMAN ROHRABACHER IS LOOKING INTO IT: And, finally, a listener phoned the syndicated radio show of Art Belland and said that a UFO had dropped a green 1952 Chevrolet onto an intersection in Long Beach. Local authorities said there was no evidence of such a crash. Of course, what would you expect them to say?