Unfortunate Timing Dept.:On Thursday, the MTA issued...

Unfortunate Timing Dept.:

On Thursday, the MTA issued a news release saying that two-thirds of MTA bus riders and nearly 90% of Metro Rail riders rate the service as good. On the same day, an MTA bus crashed into a Metro Blue Line train in downtown L.A., causing two minor injuries.

DUELING DIETS: It’s obvious why Jack Sprat’s Grille would be on the health-conscious Westside--Jack Sprat, you’ll recall, would eat no fat. But an eatery named for Fatty Arbuckle (see photos) on the Westside? Of course, we know of one character who would approve. Jack Sprat’s wife, you’ll recall from the nursery rhyme, would eat no lean.

LIST OF THE DAY: Some highlights of KTLA-TV’s 50th anniversary special, aired by Channel 5 the other night:

* Comedian Bob Hope introducing the unknown station on Jan. 22, 1947, as “KTL.”

* Mike Wallace, in the early 1950s, eating a piece of pie while delivering a commercial for (not an expose about) Fluffo, “the first new shortening in 40 years. . . . Get golden Fluffo!”

* The revelation that there were about 350 TV sets in L.A. when KTLA began.

* The star of an early live show, “The Table Hopper,” getting stuck in a chair after interviewing patrons in a nightclub. “I’m a chair-hopper, too,” he ad-libbed.

* David Letterman being refused a kiss by a horse during pre-parade coverage of the 1979 Tournament of Roses.

* Chick Hearn telling a contestant who rolled a gutter ball on “Bowling for Dollars”: “Margaret, with the money you won on that ball, you aren’t going to Pomona.”

FREEWAY 101 LIT.: We’re surprised that no colleges offer courses on L.A. freeway literature, so extensive are the writings on this subject. The Harbor / Hollywood interchange alone has inspired selections heading in opposite directions.

Northbound, we have author Gar Anthony Haywood in “You Can Die Trying”: “Heavy traffic finally made a legitimate bid to collapse upon him as he reached the rolling parking lot where the Harbor and Hollywood freeways unloaded on one another. Some deft maneuvering and a brief, all-out sprint, however, got him past the congealing interchange and safely onto the northbound Hollywood. . . .”

Southbound, we have author Joan Didion in “Play It as It Lays”: “Again and again she returned to an intricate stretch just south of the interchange where successful passage from the Hollywood onto the Harbor required a diagonal move across four lanes of traffic. On the afternoon she finally did it without once braking or once losing the beat on the radio, she was exhilarated, and that night slept dreamlessly.”

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When we mentioned that Sylvester Stallone misspelled his name (Slallone) in concrete in 1983, we didn’t realize the extent to which the flub had been immortalized. Carlo Panno who was on the editorial staff of TV’s “Jeopardy!” back then, tells us he remembered finding the item “in your column and made it into a ‘Jeopardy!’ question. The clue was something along the lines of, ‘He misspelled his name in cement at Grauman’s Chinese, but managed to spell “Rocky” right in five screenplays.’ Somebody got it.” We’ll sleep dreamlessly tonight.