"Attorney Bob Loblaw" - Repeat three times quickly

Best character name of the year is Scott Baio's lawyer on Arrested Development, "Bob Loblaw."

Saying "Attorney Bob Loblaw" is better than Prozac for your mood.

Bob Loblaw, Bob Loblaw, Bob Loblaw. I'm cheered up already.

Presumably the scriptwriters came up with this very Canadian-sounding name from Bob Loblaw Video Communications, a firm in Vancouver.

A reader comments:

""Say Bob Loblaw three times fast" has been a kids' joke in Canada (at least Ontario) for at least 30 years and probably for much longer than than. I can remember as kids amusing ourselves for days over this. The joke owes it heritage to the largest food chain in Eastern Canada - Loblaw's (www.loblaw.com)."

With kids' jokes that good, no wonder Canada produces so many fine comedians.

That reminds me of my favorite Scott Baio story, about how Baio made a friend of mine extremely happy.:

When you travel, you're always hoping that your stereotypes about the place you're visiting are confirmed. And I've long noticed that the rest of the world - deep down - wants to believe that Los Angelenos are good-looking but spoiled and irresponsible airheads.

This was brought home to me in the early 1980s when a friend of mine from Houston came to stay with me in Santa Monica, Calif. One beautiful day, we were driving down Sunset Blvd. We ran into a traffic jam at Deadman's Curve, a perilous spot made famous by Jan and Dean's 1964 surf rock hit about a fatal street race down Sunset. We finally saw what was causing the rubbernecker's roadblock. An extremely agitated Scott Baio, the hot young 20-year-old star of the new sitcom "Joanie Loves Chachi," was standing, look quite au courant in a Fiorucci warm-up suit, next to his brand new, but utterly totaled, sports car.

Now, I'm sure that Mr. Baio was not in the least at fault for destroying his extraordinarily expensive new car - he probably had selflessly swerved to avoid a kitten, or something. Yet, my Texan friend was filled with malicious glee. That single tableau confirmed every one of his prejudices about La-La Land. He went back to Houston well satisfied with his visit to LA.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer