POP SHOW: When actor James Whitmore brings...

POP SHOW: When actor James Whitmore brings his legendary Will Rogers show to Thousand Oaks next week (F1A), he’ll be on familiar ground: His son, James Whitmore Jr., lives in Thousand Oaks. . . . James Jr. has made his own name in show business, most recently directing TV shows such as “Quantum Leap� and “The X-Files.� . . . Father and son worked together at least once: Several years ago, Junior directed Senior in a special Christmas episode of “Riptide.�

NAME GAME: Signatures that qualified a ballot initiative on the Buenaventura Mall expansion were not held to the same standard that doomed the anti-mall referendum drive this week (B1). . . . In the referendum effort, Ventura City Atty. Paul Bulens advised the city clerk to have the county validate only signatures gathered by registered city voters, which disqualified a large chunk. He gave no such advice on the earlier initiative. . . . This time, he said, the clerk “received a number of complaints� about the conduct of signature-gatherers, “and that caused her to be especially careful and talk to me.�

JOB SITE: The only drawback to Wednesday’s opening of the Nabisco Reemployment Outreach Center was that few seemed to know about it. . . . Early in the afternoon, four staffers were all alone in the small office suite at Oxnard’s Multi Service Center, 1500 Colonia Road. . . . Of the 700 people left jobless by the closure of the Nabisco plant, only one man had shown up since noon for help finding work. . . . “This is our first day, so it’s kind of slow,� said Margaret Guzman, using the phones to track down more clients. But she wasn’t complaining. “As of last week, we were calling from our homes.�