‘Please Have the Exact Change’ wasn’t exciting...

‘Please Have the Exact Change’ wasn’t exciting enough?

As part of a $700,000 advertising campaign, the MTA has introduced a new slogan--”Travel Smart--Take Metro.”

We’ll pause here to allow the applause to die down.

Obviously, the agency didn’t consult Only in L.A. beforehand. Luckily, this dull motto isn’t etched in stone.

So once again, we’re appealing to you readers to come up with a more fitting slogan for the MTA.

And if you need any additional incentive, beyond the good feeling you get from performing a public service, we’re offering the most imaginative participants a variety of tacky prizes, including our last copy of Angelyne the Billboard Queen’s video. We welcome phone calls (213) 237-7083 or letters (Metro, L.A. Times, L.A. CA 90053).

Oh yes, one other thing. We will disallow any variation of the wisecrack that Hollywood Park used on its own billboards a few years ago:

“More hair-raising rides than the RTD.”

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THE CUTE SIDE OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: As an Oscar promotion for Polygram Entertainment’s “Dead Man Walking,” academy voters were sent videocassettes of the somber movie in coffin-shaped boxes.

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LIST OF THE DAY: In honor of Sunday’s L.A. Marathon, we offer some of our favorite L.A. running milestones:

* Santa Monica-based Triathlete magazine spotlights “curb-running,” a revolutionary, East German training technique, in which adherents jog with one foot on the curb and one on the street. The article is a practical joke but many readers are fooled, even though the guru of the technique is identified as Jurgena Hirt (as in, “you’re gonna hurt”) (1991).

* Dribbling jogger Mark Harwell bounces a basketball up 30 stories of the Century Plaza Hotel. He takes the stairs, not the elevator (1987).

* A Kenyan running group objects that its slogan, “hakuna matata,” (Swahili for “no problem”) is the name of a song in Disney’s movie “The Lion King.” The group is particularly displeased that the song is performed by a flatulent wart hog (1994).

* Off ‘n’ Running Tours is founded in Beverly Hills--for tourists who want to sightsee and run at the same time (1995).

* Frederick’s of Hollywood wins the corporate competition in a walk for charity, prompting Co-Chairman Chevy Chase to scrawl this mock warning on the company’s certificate: “No crotch-less running shorts next time” (1993).

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UNOFFICIAL ECONOMIC INDICATOR: Scott Dewees of West Hollywood found a gloomy financial disclosure statement on the back of a truck.

miscelLAny:

To University (formerly Warren G. Harding) High School and Verdugo Hills (formerly Calvin Coolidge) High, we say, happy Presidents Day anyway.