When serious newspaper-types start fooling around

TONY DODERO

Every so often, I worry that we at the Daily Pilot have fallen victim

to a scourge that plagues newspaper staffers throughout the country.

Namely, they take themselves too seriously.

So today I decided to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the April

1, 1990, edition, when we let our hair down a bit with a phony

version of the Daily Pilot that came with the banner headline:

“Orange Coast Secedes!”

As a point of reference, in 1990 this paper was known as the

Orange Coast Daily Pilot. We covered six cities, Newport Beach, Costa

Mesa, Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach, Irvine and Fountain Valley.

Back to the April Fools charade.

I received a reminder of it in the mail a few months back from

Daily Pilot reader Betty Kilmer, of Newport Beach, who sent me a copy

of the phony paper with a note attached:

“Regarding your historical files,” it read. “I thought I would

tweak your funny bone. We enjoyed it so much that I filed it in my

drawer and continue to get a chuckle.”

That’s putting it mildly.

The lead story in that paper, which was renamed the Orange Coast

Sunday Plot, began this way:

“In a move that has left citizens coast to coast stunned and

amazed, a group of local leaders announced Saturday that the Orange

Coast will secede from the county and form the independent Duchy of

the Orange Coast.”

What the heck a duchy is, I’ll never know. But the next paragraph

attempted to explain.

“At the same time, it was revealed that a new and unique

government will be established on the Orange Coast and that three of

its leaders -- Don Bren, Henry Segerstrom and Don Koll -- have formed

a triumvirate to head the government.”

The next paragraph notes that former baseball commissioner and

Olympic Games organizer Peter Ueberroth from Laguna Beach was named

the “Coastal Czar,” former Republican Party chief Tom Fuentes was in

charge of the Department of Fashion, Taste and Etiquette, and the

late county Supervisor Tom Riley and home builder William Lyon, both

former generals, were put in charge of the militia of the new

government.

Those gullible enough to have been reading this in amazement

probably didn’t notice that the story was written by one Sidd Finch.

Some may remember that Sidd Finch was the name of another April

Fools fiction written by George Plimpton for Sports Illustrated.

There were a few other giveaways. Jimmy Olsen took the lead photo

and the front-page staff writers were Clark Kent, Lou Grant, Studs

Jerkel and Robert E. Lee.

Some other headlines from that paper included:

“Gambling casino planned for end of Huntington Pier,” “San

Francisco 49ers move to New Duchy, become the Newport Beach 49ers,”

and “Fashion Island, South Coast Plaza now single mall.”

There were stories about the entire UC Berkeley campus being moved

to UC Irvine, oyster beds being planted off the Orange Coast and a

story written by former Daily Pilot columnist Jim Wood that discussed

how the whole idea came about as “Segerstrom and Bren divided spoils

over a tall Bud and cheap Chablis.”

The four-page April Fools pullout was the brainchild of onetime

Pilot Publisher Bob Page, according to former Pilot Editor Bill

Lobdell, who also got a chuckle when I showed it to him last week.

And while it was a cleverly written piece of work, it’s hard to

know how those getting ribbed so publicly felt about it.

Still, it wasn’t the last time the paper pulled off an April Fools

con job.

A couple more followed in the years after, including a story about

a proposed bridge that would connect Balboa with Corona del Mar and a

wave machine being created at the Huntington Beach Pier.

I remember we had surfers calling months later asking when the

wave machine was going to be created (no surfer jokes please).

But times change.

Maybe an April Fools joke from time to time would ensure that we

don’t forget to have fun every once and a while and above all that we

don’t take ourselves too seriously.

As always, I’d love to hear your comments.

TELL IT TO THE EDITOR

* TONY DODERO is the editor. He welcomes your comments on news

coverage, photography or other newspaper-related issues. If you have

a message or a letter to the editor, call his direct line at (714)

966-4608 or the Readers Hotline (714) 966-4664, send it by e-mail to

tony.dodero@latimes.com or dailypilot@latimes.com, or send it by mail

to 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626.