Goodbye to all that:It’s time for Window...

Goodbye to all that:

It’s time for Window ‘96, a review of some offbeat moments of the past year in the Southland.

THEY WERE REALLY WORRIED ABOUT HIS DROOLING: Suspicious residents phoned police to report a sighting of “a man wearing a mask in a car,” the South Pasadena Review reported. Police tracked down the suspect, who turned out to be a “large dog.”

MOST INSULTING LETTER: Daniel Fink of L.A. received a piece of junk mail that had some fun with his name.

ZERO-TOLERANCE POLICY: A jury candidate in an L.A. courtroom, asked the standard personal questions, mentioned that she was divorced. “What did your ex-husband do?” the judge asked.

“He cheated,” she answered.

URBAN FOLK TALE OF THE YEAR: A blurb on the Internet claimed that the body of a scuba diver was found after a fire in a California forest, several miles from the ocean. The ill-fated diver, still wearing his gear, had supposedly been lifted out of the water by a Super Scooper plane and dropped on the fire. The state Department of Forestry told radio station KFWB the story was a hoax.

MOST CUTTING COURTROOM REMARK: A jury candidate in Ventura County was asked whether he recognized the prosecutor.

“No,” he said.

“You don’t?” asked the prosecutor. “I used to be your barber.”

“Dee?” the jury candidate asked. “Dee Corona? Is that you?” Indeed, it was Deputy Dist. Atty. Dee Corona, who trimmed him from the jury pool list.

MENU ITEM OF THE YEAR: Tom Hevell of Palm Springs sent along an ad for some lobster that was served with “paste,” perhaps to make it stick to your ribs.

STUPID CRIMINAL TRICK OF THE YEAR: Two sheriff’s deputies in Paramount approached a gang member, who began running down the street, dragging one leg. The deputies eventually caught him, finding an assault rifle in his pants. The man expressed “surprise” at the discovery of the rifle, but was arrested anyway.

SEPARATING THE REEL FROM THE REAL: Responding to reports of armed residents in a Mid-Wilshire house, police raided the address, only to discover that the gunmen were actors in a gangster movie. The camera crew on the movie exchanged pleasantries with the camera crew accompanying the cops. The raid was filmed for the local TV show “LAPD: Life on the Beat.”

SINGLES AD OF THE YEAR: Actually, this item, forwarded by Everett Greenberg, appeared in a lost-pet column.

HE’S SINCE GONE INTO A SHELL: When police responded to a 911 call at a La Crescenta residence, the owner couldn’t explain the false alarm until she spotted her turtle, Myrtle Ann, sitting next to the phone. The animal had apparently hit the button programmed for a 911 speed call.

STUPID CRIMINAL TRICKS II: During a hearing on a residential burglary charge, an inmate ate his wristband in the Criminal Courts Building, then argued that he was not the defendant in question. The court’s verdict: a bunch of baloney.

NO MORE MR. NICE COLUMNIST: An elderly L.A. woman accidentally dropped her dentures down the toilet and, when she reached down to grab them, couldn’t remove her hand. The Fire Department freed the hand but couldn’t find the dentures. We didn’t write about it, thinking, why add to the woman’s discomfort? Soon afterward, she was on the “Tonight Show.” Only in L.A.’s columnist had forgotten that this is . . . L.A.

NO ONE’S PERFECT: When Gov. Pete Wilson visited a zoo inhabited by a bear named Samson, The Times inadvertently combined two paragraphs in its account, resulting in this misstatement:

“After his speech, the governor, accompanied by six children, his entourage and dozens of reporters, climbed out of his pool to pace along his chain-link fence, occasionally standing on his hind legs and tilting his head back.”

Wilson wrote the Times that calling Samson “governor” is “unfairness that no bear should have to bear.”