For an Orange County Soap Opera, You’ve Got the Water, So Just Add Suds

Don’t know if you’ve heard, but the Fox network is developing a nighttime soap titled “The O.C.,” which is sort of a “Melrose Place” reset in Newport Beach. The new series inspired me to recall some past TV and movie dialogue with an Orange County twist, including these gems:

* “I’ve got to get out of Orange County.” (Young writer in “Orange County,” 2002)

* “Oh, car trouble? Don’t get me started. I got a 1963 Fairmont that’s as hard to turn over as me on Laguna Beach.” (Heavyset character in “Beverly Hills Ninja,” 1997)

* “But this is Orange County!” (Agent Scully expressing surprise that a brain-eating mutant is employed by a Costa Mesa hamburger stand, in a 1999 episode of “The X-Files.”)

* “Hasn’t anyone told you El Toro has been completely destroyed?” (Military officer referring to an attack by Martians, not developers, in “Independence Day,” 1996)

Two’s a crowd: A woman at a business reported “a herd of teenagers fighting in a parking lot,” according to the police log of the Los Alamitos News-Enterprise. An investigation found that “there were only two teenage boys fighting.”

Well, I can see how two teenage boys could be considered a herd.

No doubt this has happened to you: I mean, as you’re leaving for work, you ask yourself, “Now what did I do with my automobile?” The News-Enterprise said a man phoned police to report that his car had been stolen. The newspaper added: “Police discovered that the man forgot he had loaned the car to his best friend.”

Still on the crime beat: John Kruissink of Whittier found what could be a drug warning at the Port of Long Beach (see photo).

Don’t know much about geography: Jeffrey Wiese of Oxnard gave a bank teller a note saying he wanted to purchase a $31 money order made out to the Czech Republic Consulate General for a friend’s green card. (See accompanying).

Unclear on the concept: Mary Oran saw a window sign advertising a procedure that sounded like something that could be performed only on a figure in a Picasso painting (see photo).

MiscelLAny: I mentioned how I chuckled in a restaurant when I heard a waiter drop a food order to the floor, only to discover that it was my mahi-mahi. Which reminded Ginny King of Riverside of a joke: “I went to a club the other night where the music was so bad that when a waiter dropped a tray of dishes, four couples got up to dance.” Funny, but it won’t bring back my mahi-mahi.

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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 [email protected].