Junto Boys

CELEBRITY SIGHTING

WHO: Howie Mandel
WHAT: eating a burger
WHERE: Topz burger joint in Canoga Park

After the kids' soccer games, we headed for Topz, which we discovered last Saturday. They serve lean burgers on wheat buns with baked french fries, or if you prefer, a burger bowl, which is burger salad in lieu of that nasty bun. Last time I loved the burger, but this time I tried the chili. We were playing our 20Q game and having a grand time when I saw Howie claim the table next to ours. He was later joined by a woman who must have been his wife and an older woman who was surely the other woman's mother. He never cracked a smile the whole time he choked down his burger, so either he wasn't enjoying the company he kept or he found it rather routine.

I thought of the last time I saw him and the first time. The last time I saw Howie Mandel was on Celebrity Poker Showdown. He wasn't much of a player, but he was his usual entertaining self. He had recently outed himself as suffering from OCD and he brought a box of disposable latex gloves with him to the poker game. He was seated next to Meat Loaf, which is never good news to a germaphobe.

The first time I saw Howie was on St Elsewhere, which was one of the finest shows of the 1980s. There aren't many 60-minute dramas I watch anymore, but as a kid, I really enjoyed St Elsewhere and Quincy and Hart to Hart, not to mention the Love Boats and Fantasy Islands of Sunday night. Elsewhere had just enough edge and just enough comedy to really hold my attention. I watched it with mom every Wednesday at 10PM. Howie was good without being the zany Howie from his standup act. Mark Harmon was there as the first prime time character to get the AIDS virus, and early Denzel Washington was there, along with the voice of Knight Riders' car and Norman Lloyd, who fell from the Statue of Liberty in a Hitchcock movie. And who could forget that classic finale in which the entire run was explained away as the daydreams of an autistic child. It was good to see Howie.