Vegas Holds Appeal for Banana Museum

It’s difficult to imagine Paris without the Louvre, Madrid without the Prado or Altadena without the Banana Museum. But one of those shrines may be moving to Las Vegas and, believe it or not, it’s the one in Southern California.

The Banana Museum, as you are no doubt aware, is the home of 17,000 treasures, ranging from a banana-shaped golf club and a banana-shaped lampshade to a banana-sequined purse bearing an image of Michael Jackson.

Bob Patterson of West L.A. tipped this column to the Banana’s possible split after a conversation he had with museum founder Ken Bannister (he also goes by “Banana-ister”). And Bannister confirmed to me the shocking news that a design competition is being held for a proposed International Banana Club Museum and Casino in Vegas.

He added: “If this concept is sold to Donald Trump or someone else, I am not sure about what to do with the site in Altadena.”

If the Banana Museum departs, it would be another cultural blow for the Southland. After all, we’ve also lost the Hopalong Cassidy Museum in Downey, the Foot and Toe Museum in Long Beach and the Bigfoot Museum in Venice in recent years. And what museums have we added (besides the Getty)?

PREDICTING THE FUTURE IS DANGEROUS: Will the Banana actually leave? Well, I won’t be asking the L.A. psychic whose marquee was shot by Charles Forsher (see photo). You’ll notice the board has a “Danger Do Not Operate” sign that appears to be draped over it.

BEWARE PEOPLE WHO CLAIM TO BE FIRST: Don Manning of L.A. points out a Times article recently quoted descendants of Japanese gardener Makoto Hagiwara as saying Hagiwara invented the fortune cookie in San Francisco in the 1890s.

Fine. But Manning notes that the city of L.A., in its self-promotion campaign, claims to be the home of the fortune cookie. This latter boast may be the outgrowth of a Smithsonian magazine article that credited the invention to David Jung, a Los Angeles noodle manufacturer, in the year 1916.

Which city’s claim will hold up? I don’t know. It’s tough to predict the past, too.

SPEAKING OF FORTUNE COOKIES: Reader Manning also related the story of a chef from the Philippines who came to Southern California years ago and “took a job with a Beverly Hills caterer.” One of his first jobs involved fortune cookies. The meticulous young man took one look at them and “took it upon himself to remove all those little pieces of paper.”

THOSE WORTHLESS $1s: These days, merchants set out trays next to their cash registers for customers to discard or take pennies. Judging from the letter that O. Mauricio of Glendora shared with this column, the day may not be far off when the trays will hold $1 bills (see accompanying).

MOSES OF SHERMAN OAKS: Pauli Carnes writes that her husband, a general contractor, was once remodeling a kitchen at the home of “a charming retired couple in Sherman Oaks. It turned out that the older gentleman had owned an earth-moving equipment company, and often worked at the movie studios. He had, in fact, dug a trench for the ‘children of Israel’ to walk through in the filming of the Red Sea scene of Cecil B. DeMille’s ‘The Ten Commandments.’ ”

Carnes added: “Now I tell people I know who parted the Red Sea: he lives in Sherman Oaks, and my husband remodeled his kitchen!”

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I saw a car with a bumper sticker that said, LOVE HUMANITY/SERVE HUMANITY--a nice thought indeed. But I couldn’t help thinking of that “Twilight Zone” episode about some space aliens who arrive here with a book titled “To Serve Man.” The earthlings who board the seemingly friendly visitors’ space ship find out too late that it’s a cookbook.