Yes, Legoland Still Has No Hollywood

A while back I reported that Legoland in Carlsbad was forced to remove its pint-sized “Hollywood” sign from the park’s Miniland (see photo) because it hadn’t received permission from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. (The chamber has sort of a “Snooty” attitude, if you ask me.)

Anyway, the grassy slope beneath the miniature planetarium is still unoccupied. And a Legoland spokesperson knew of no plans to honor any other Southland institution there. She didn’t sound enthusiastic when I suggested another Tinseltown icon for Legoland: the ubiquitous billboard queen whose image has been seen in numerous L.A. movies: Angelyne.

SIGALERTS APLENTY: While at Legoland, my 7-year-old son, Jamie, drove the kiddie-car course, a miniature grid of surface streets with traffic signals, stop signs and lane markings. (OK, there were no overnight delivery vehicles or moving vans blocking the streets, but these kids are just beginners.)

A few novice drivers in my son’s group were nervous. But not as nervous as the fenced-off parents, some of whom showed signs of being burned-out freeway warriors.

When the dozen or so peewee motorists set out in their electric vehicles at a few miles per hour, one mom began racing back and forth while shouting directions to her daughter: “Don’t forget to stop at the stop sign! . . . Watch where you’re going! . . . You’re driving on the wrong side of the street!”

My son’s tour was uneventful, although he was rear-ended at one stop sign by a flashy blond of maybe 6 years of age (not the daughter of the screaming mother). From where I was standing, I couldn’t tell whether the blond had been talking on a cell phone.

FOR EXERCISE ZEALOTS: Southern Californians have long had a reputation for worshiping fitness. So it came as no surprise to Irwin Rosten of L.A. that there’s a gym in Hollywood that offers an almighty workout (see photo).

MYSTERY PARK: One of the more colorfully named recreational sites in this area is Two Strike Park in La Crescenta (see photo).

Colorful, but puzzling, inasmuch as there’s no explanatory plaque.

Author Frances Height is trying to change that. While working on a biography of 1940s movie star Dennis Morgan, she learned that Morgan had donated the land and raised the funds for the park to give neighborhood kids a place to play. And the origin of the name?

Morgan saw a safety poster featuring a boy who had been struck by a car and said that any kid who had to play in the street “had two strikes against him and the third strike could be getting hit by a car.”

Height says she has phoned local officials about having a plaque installed, but so far she has struck out.

miscelLAny:

Thought you’d want to know that Ken Bannister, owner of Altadena’s Banana Museum, is willing to sell the shrine for $750,000, down from his original price of $920,000. Now that’s a slip.