Now that’s funny: Hey, who’s the Grinch...

Now that’s funny: Hey, who’s the Grinch who put a videotape labeled “Chevy Chase� among the gifts pictured on Fox TV’s Christmas card? Or was the card printed before Chase’s short-lived program on Fox was sent to mingle among the Ghosts of Talk Shows Past? “That’s possible,� said one Fox staffer. “I don’t think it was a joke. It’s unfortunate.�

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A new editor, for a start: Robin Winkler of Sherman Oaks saw a street person at Ventura and Sepulveda boulevards with a cardboard sign that said:

“Writer Need Help�

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Another presidential campaign under way already? It’s true. A Times reporter received a letter from actor Ed Asner on behalf of “The U.S. Friends of Ruben Zamora.� It was soliciting a campaign contribution for Zamora, the leftist candidate in El Salvador’s presidential election.

(Lou Grant, the newspaper editor portrayed by Asner on television, would have known that reporters aren’t supposed to make such contributions.)

No word on whether the right-wing candidate in the election is going to seek the support of Asner’s frequent foe, Charlton Heston.

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Guy talk: The newspaper clipping most often mailed to us by puzzled readers--even before John and Lorena Bobbitt’s little spat--is an ad for “penile enlargement/lengthening.� Readers ask why it says, “Men Only�--a strong candidate for Redundancy of the Year honors.

A spokesman for the Men’s (there’s that word again) Institute of Cosmetic Surgery replied: “We usually run it in a men’s area (of the newspaper), like sports. And we say, ‘Men Only’ because men have a tendency to look at it real quick. It beats, ‘Look here’ or ‘Read this.’ �

We’ll buy that--uh, the explanation, not the operation.

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Walk that walk, stomp that cockroach: Marilyn Hair found a casting call in the Recycler that illustrates why glamorous Hollywood still attracts would-be starlets from across the country.

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Only in L.A. is dunked: Hollywood historian Lee Harris, meanwhile, wrote to correct our item regarding the owner of the old Garden of Allah resort on Sunset Boulevard. “Alla Nazimova was never married to Rudolph Valentino, but he did meet both of his wives through her,� Harris said. Well, we were close.

And, Otis Wade noted that we omitted a key word from a quip credited to Robert Benchley after a tumble into the Garden’s swimming pool: “Get me out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini.�

By the way, this is a reminder that readers must submit their corrections of Only in L.A. items by Dec. 31. We wipe the slate clean come Jan. 1, 1993--make that 1994.

miscelLAny:

But back to that ex-Fox TV host. The onetime Chevy Chase Theater--a.k.a. the Star Search Theater, the Aquarius, Kaleidoscope, Hullabaloo, Moulin Rouge and Earl Carroll’s Vanities--has been renamed for the umpteenth time over the last half-century.

It’s now the (yawn) Sunset Theater. An Only in L.A. suggestion to dub it the Chevy Chased Theater was ignored. See if we try to help again.