He Sure Knew How to Fake Them Out

After polling assorted funny people, GQ magazine published “the 75 funniest jokes of all time,” including this observation from George Burns:

“Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

Other clean gags included the joke about Jack Benny’s cheapskate character being stopped by a stickup man who says, “Your money or your life!” Benny says nothing for several seconds, whereupon the holdup man repeats the threat. An exasperated Benny responds at last, “I’m thinking! I’m thinking!”

Finally, GQ saluted Groucho Marx for uttering this diagnosis in one movie after taking the pulse of an unconscious man: “Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped.”

OFF TRACK: Several of Benny’s fans assailed me for getting the order wrong in the train conductor’s cry of “Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga” on his old radio show.

Anaheim-born John Kemper recalled that Benny once visited the Orange County burg as an honored guest during one of its anniversary celebrations.

“He told us how the phrase was born,” Kemper said. “His writers were looking for a few towns of little renown in the Southern California area whose names would work euphonically and rhythmically with Mel Blanc’s characterization of the conductor.

“They came up with ‘ANA-heim, a-ZUS-a and CUUUUU-camonga,’ because those three met the standard.”

I guess Westminster just didn’t have it.

BEFORE DISNEYLAND: In his 1872 guidebook, “California for Health, Pleasure and Residence,” Charles Nordhoff made these points about the inhabitants of Anaheim:

* “There are no poor in Anaheim.”

* “It is the general testimony that the making of wine and brandy has not caused drunkenness among the colonists.”

* “They have achieved independence, and what to an average New York mechanic would seem the ideal of a fortunate existence.”

* “Only one of the original settlers has moved away.”

He didn’t say whether to Azusa or Cucamonga.

WAY OUT: Returning to 1999, I found that the folks in one Silverado Canyon settlement in the Cleveland National Forest had a bit of fun in naming their streets. Thisa Way is one turnoff (see photo). It leads to Thata Way, Bytha Way and Uppa Way. But when I visited, I couldn’t find another street on the map: Hidea Way.

JOBS-WANTED STARS: In the San Bernardino Mountain hamlet of Crestline, Pat McDonough of L.A. noticed a trio of locals who had become marquee names (see photo).

WHAT ABOUT SATELLITE PHOTOS? In a dumb-boss contest on the Internet, one employee related this story: “I work on a television show involving amazing facts. The executive producer fanatically reviews all scripts to ‘ensure quality.’ In a planned show, we cited the loudest sound ever heard on Earth as the eruption of the volcano Krakatoa on May 20, 1883. My boss asked for videotape.”

miscelLAny:

My definition of irony: Being stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway behind a truck with a sign that says, “Many Stops--Do Not Follow.”

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Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at 1-800-LATIMES (Ext. 77083), by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com