LABJ’s LA STORIES
Fair Play
As has become tradition, advertising for the L.A. County Fair will once again take a poke at the mindset of city folk.
This year, there will be a TV spot in which a little boy in nursery school says that cows give latte. In another ad, a girl shopping in an upscale boutique notes that cashmere that comes from a cow. There is also a billboard that says the cotton candy and corndogs found at the fair are part of the “Fatkins Diet.”
“We basically decided that the fair itself didn’t need changing,” said Cary Sacks, president of Ideaology advertising, which created the campaign. “It’s fun, low-tech and not glamorous but we wanted to make it relevant to today’s Southern California culture.”
The fair, scheduled to run Sept. 10-26, has in recent years drawn a more upscale audience to Pomona. Wendy Talarico, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Fair Association, noted that after a nine-year decline, attendance has steadily increased over the past four years, with admissions hitting 1.3 million last year.
Ideaology has handled the $1 million account for five years. Previous ads featured a tough-guy biker riding around with a pink teddy that he presumably won at the fair.
Al Stewart
Cult Objects
There’s history, and then there’s Hollywood history.
Some fans will pay big bucks for movie props that have been immortalized in an appearance on the big screen. And actors, grips and their families are all too happy to part with the mementos they took home from a movie shoot at the right price.
Profiles in History, a Beverly Hills auction house, is pleased to accommodate both.
At a recent auction, 260 bidders shelled out $1.2 million for 477 movie and TV show souvenirs.
The fiberglass prop tablets held by Charlton Heston as Moses in the 1956 epic “The Ten Commandments” were the most expensive items, fetching $65,000.
“This stuff is worth whatever someone wants to pay for it,” said Joe Maddalena, president and chief executive. “People grew up on this pop culture.”
Among the items sold: The prosthetic ear tips that transformed Leonard Nimoy into Mr. Spock in the TV series “Star Trek,” for more than $8,000; and a letter from Orson Welles thanking the editor of Look Magazine for a positive review of his 1941 film “Citizen Kane” ($16,000).
Matt Myerhoff
Adoption Option
Adopting a child doesn’t have to be all that difficult.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Nash, who presides over Juvenile Court, finalized 230 adoptions on July 31 as part of a volunteer program held on a single Saturday each year.
Since 1998, more than half of the 14,000 adoptions in L.A. County have resulted from the Adoption Saturday program, said Barbara Dab, communications manager for the Alliance for Children’s Rights, a non-profit legal services organization. Adoption Saturday, which was created in collaboration with Public Counsel and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, allows would-be parents to clear up any legal issues before going to the courtroom.
“The judges donate their time and court personnel so they’re able to do several hundred at a shot, as opposed to a normal weekday where they’re more limited in how many adoptions they can finalize,” Dab said. “They try to make it so they have everything in place.”
Amanda Bronstad
Lonely at the Top
Almost 500 members of the Young Entrepreneurs’ Organization descend on Los Angeles this week to schmooze over the basics of how to cope with being successful.
The event, at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, is the first under the group’s new president, Ashley Postlewaite, executive producer of Renegade Animation in Glendale.
Postlewaite said she joined YEO seven years ago because running a company and building it from scratch can be lonely.
“I didn’t have people I could go to and ask what kind of pension plan should I have, or even more sensitive questions about money,” she said.
YEO is a volunteer organization that costs $1,500 to join and only allows members under 40 who have founded companies with $1 million in revenues.
Kate Berry
OUT OF THE PAST
1986: Remember Cheap Gas?
Those were the days, and just like in the song, some people thought they would never end. Alas, they did.
In June of 1986, surplus crude oil made gasoline so cheap that local retailers were offering giveaways and extra services to try and woo customers while struggling to stay afloat in the highly competitive L.A. market.
The Business Journal reported: “Shell just rolled out (its) ‘Get Ready America’ promotion, complete with free Pepsi, cheap glassware and American flags.
“Gas stations in Ohio are carving up the market with free steak knives; in New York, it’s Christmas cards and in Washington, D.C., it’s digital watches. Texaco is giving away key chains, coffee mugs and calculators in some markets, too.”
Many gas companies were also offering cheaper full-service. Customers who hadn’t been to a full-serve station in years were willing to pay a little more to be pampered.
“At the Chevron station at Hillhurst and Franklin in Los Angeles, full-service customers were waiting more than five minutes for their chance at the pumps last Thursday. Meanwhile, the self-serve bay was empty.”
Drivers may have been jubilant over the low prices 79.9 cents per gallon at the start of summer but many petroleum firms had to fight for survival. The million barrels-a-day of surplus crude was pushing prices so low that independent producers had having trouble servicing their debt, and 10,000 oil wells were shut down.
Gas prices have spiraled upward for much of 2004, driven by higher oil prices, increased demand, a fickle spot market and fluctuations in production.
Gas prices in the Los Angeles area now average $2.125 for a gallon of self-serve regular, according to the Energy Information Administration, about 45 cents higher than at this time a year ago.
Experts say tightening supplies due to predicted cuts in production will send them higher again.
Kim Holmes
