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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, October 3, 2002

THE LEFT LANE
My life as a dog

Advertiser staff and news services

You know your dog is the cutest thing in the universe. But can Fido or Fifi stand up to competition in the cute, funny or adorable category? Find out by entering the "Hi! It's Me, Your Dog!" photo contest sponsored by Borders Books & Music on behalf of Lisa Mendoza's book of the same name. Mendoza, an award-winning TV journalist, wrote the book from a dog's perspective, designed to inform pet owners about the psychological, social and physical needs of their animal companions.

To enter the contest, take or send a nonreturnable picture of your pup to either of the two O'ahu Borders stores between now and Oct. 31. Put your name, address and phone number on the back of the photograph. One entry per person. Information: (800) 497-4909. Pictures will be displayed in the stores, and Mendoza will pick the winner when she's here. Prizes are trophies and ribbons.


Bully! for teddies

Nancy Vilhauer of Honolulu will lend about 20 teddy bears from her extensive collection for a display at the Honolulu Academy of Arts' Teddy Bear Picnic. "They don't look like your cute, little fluffy teddy bears you see now," says Vilhauer, who has more than 100 antique bears. "Most of the earlier ones aren't as squishy."

She never had a teddy bear as a child. The passion was born in the 1970s, when she was taking in a one-man show of James Whitmore playing Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt. He yelled the word "Bully!" and tossed into the crowd an antique bear (named after the president, coincidentally, because on a hunting trip he refused to shoot a bear cub). Vilhauer remembers the hands of the audience in an arc overhead, but the teddy bear — made by the vaunted German company, Steiff — landed in hers.

The academy is hosting its Teddy Bear Family Picnic 1:30 to 3 p.m. Sunday in honor of the 100th birthday of the academy's stuffed bear, purportedly one of the earliest teddies ever made by the American woman whose creations spawned the Ideal Toy Co. Reservations recommended: 532-8726.


'Big Fat' comes back

"My Big Fat Greek Wedding," a hit on the big screen, is coming to the tube mid-season.

CBS is picking up "My Big Fat Greek Family," based on Nia Vardalos' sleeper hit movie of the summer, and negotiations are under way to determine if it will be a seven- or 13-episode venture from Brad Grey TV and Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson's Playtone Productions.

Hanks and wife Wilson saw Vardalos' one-woman show, which evolved into the movie. A Greek American girl (Vardalos) falls in love with a WASPy vegetarian boyfriend (John Corbett), both pictured below, creating cultural collision for her family. Steven Eckhold plays the boyfriend in the pilot, but producers want to retain the Vardalos-Corbett chemistry.