Bring on the Olives and Anchovies to Enhance Cultural Mix on This Pizza

All we can say about the dismantled Kosher Burrito stand is RIP (rest in pastrami). Luckily, there is melting pot fare elsewhere, notably the Japanese Jewish Pizza at HamaSaku restaurant in West L.A. It’s a combo of salmon, tuna, yellowtail and vegetables over tofu cheese with a light miso sauce on a thin platter of dough.

What? No pastrami?

Just the thing to get the pulse racing: Juanice Charmaine of La Verne visited a nearby hospital for a blood test and couldn’t help but notice a macabre juxtaposition of signs (see photo). What was that lyric in the “Rocky Horror Show”? Oh, yeah: “Come on up to the lab/ And see what’s on the slab?”

Unwanted attention? You may have read how Steven Spielberg rang the cash register to the tune of $25 million in fees from companies that had their products showcased in his new movie, “Minority Report.”

This kind of fund-raising has been accelerated by studios seeking insurance against low box-office returns. Anyway, it got me to thinking about some of the more off-beat cases of product placement on the screen. I hope the companies didn’t pay for these references:

In “E.T.,” the hungry little extraterrestrial invades the refrigerator of his earthling hosts and tastes the contents of a jar labeled Boys Market Potato Salad. He then screams and throws the container against the wall. Boys discontinued that label before the chain was bought out.

In the satirical “Demolition Man,” set in 2032, the police state of Southern California offers only one type of restaurant: Taco Bell.

In “The African Queen,” Katharine Hepburn dumps Gordons Dry Gin overboard to keep it out of the hands of alcoholic river pilot Humphrey Bogart.

In “Christine,” based upon a Stephen King novel, a homicidally jealous 1958 Plymouth hunts down the girlfriends of its owner.

In “Escape from L.A.,” Universal Studios’ Black Tower office building and studio tour are shown buried on the bottom of the newly formed San Fernando Sea after a monstrous earthquake. (Interestingly enough, the studio’s parent, Vivendi Universal, is now flooded with debt.)

Did Fritz Coleman know about this? When the 2001-02 meteorological year ended June 30, rainfall in L.A., 4.42 inches, was the lowest ever recorded by the National Weather Service here. A Laundromat sign, snapped by Kenneth Kopec of Yucaipa awhile back, summarizes it neatly, if accidentally (see photo).

And while we’re in the past tense: Rob Lee, an English teacher at Pasadena City College, was dismayed to see botched punctuation at a concession stand in Orange County. The stand was open, contrary to what the sign indicated. I don’t want to reveal which amusement park Lee was visiting, but suffice it to say, the mistake was berry bad.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012 and by e-mail at steve. [email protected].