Parks

Randy McDonald darted his eyes between the lotus bed and a pack of police officers, wondering if he could get away with it. He figured it was worth a try and walked from Echo Park Lake back to his car. After opening the glove compartment, he pulled out a hacksaw blade and stuck it into his back pocket. He tugged his T-shirt to cover it and returned to the lake. He worked his way through the thick crowd of revelers gathered for the 28th annual Lotus Festival and then crouched down at the water's edge.

Wham! Bam! Ka-Pow! A bruising brawl involving comic-book superheroes, Saturday morning cartoon characters and extreme sports icons will change the ride and roller coaster landscape of Six Flags' 11 U.S. amusement parks in 2011. An intellectual property housecleaning at the amusement park chain has left Bugs Bunny, Superman and Scooby-Doo victorious and Thomas the Tank Engine, The Wiggles, Evel Knievel and Tony Hawk vanquished. In a sudden about-face, Six Flags is undoing several licensing agreements established since 2007 for 60 amusement park rides and attractions.

One by one, some of the 70 California state parks slated to close in July are quietly being spared in the short term as nonprofits and other agencies raise their hands to take over their operation.  In April, five more parks, including writer Jack London's home and the remaining building of the Santa Cruz Mission, circa 1791, came off the list of closures announced last year as part of a $22-million cost-cutting measure by the California Department...

Winter always gets me thinking about going to theme parks in Southern California, even if I don't have visitors underfoot. The prospect of cooler temperatures and lighter crowds in February and March sends me looking for discounts on the high cost of tickets. I found that the Southern California CityPass -- with a flat rate for admission to Disneyland, Disney California Adventure, Universal Studios Hollywood and SeaWorld San Diego -- offers good savings, even when compared with incentives for SoCal residents.

SACRAMENTO -- The Legislature plans to hold a joint oversight hearing next week to probe California's scandal-plagued parks department. Controversy erupted last year with the discovery of a $54-million surplus in the agency's budget at a time when the deficit-plagued state was threatening to close dozens of parks. The revelation forced the parks director to resign and spurred calls for better oversight of the agency. The state attorney general's office subsequently determined that $20.4 million of the hidden money had been deliberately squirreled away because parks officials feared that their budget was going to be cut. The oversight hearing, set for Feb. 20, is to feature testimony from retired Marine Maj. Gen. Anthony Jackson , the newly appointed head of the Parks and Recreation Department, and focus on a series of financial reports revealing accounting problems.

A marathon of the first three "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, plus a Q&A with cast members and members of the production team, will be part of the ParkFilm Fest May 5 at Paramount Studios. Proceeds to help offset cuts to California state parks . . . . Looking for a reasonable Easter brunch in a festive setting? W Los Angeles-Westwood is offering a $20.12 meal that includes lots of choices, including lobster and brie sliders . Three egg hunts are also on the schedule for the 10 a.m.- to-3 p.m. brunch.

"Bates Motel": It is impossible for me to overstate how truly fabulous Vera Farmiga's performance is in the crazy, creepy yet emotionally resonant prequel to "Psycho. " The setting is "Twin Peaks"-evocative and the writing is terrific, if a bit overly concerned with making every person in the mythical White Pine Bay, Ore., (which is really Canada) Not Quite What They Seem. All the actors are solid, especially Freddie Highmore as a young sweater-tugging, fugue-state-experiencing Norman and Max Thieriot as his older black-sheep brother Dylan.

It seemed somehow inevitable that 2009 would be an Amy Poehler year, that the actress would be lifted by the rising water that is Tina Fey -- her former "Saturday Night Live Weekend Update" co-anchor and her costar in last year's "Baby Mama" -- and by her part in the pop-cultural wing of the 2008 election, in which she imitated Hillary Rodham Clinton and rapped like (but not as) Sarah Palin.

When handed lemons, people are usually admonished to make lemonade. The city of Tustin made a park. Orange and lemon trees once carpeted Orange County the way subdivisions do today. In 1929, for instance, The Times reported Tustin's record annual crop down to the box: 340,928, to be exact. "With the orange season at its height and the lemon season drawing to a close, reports from the four packing houses in the Tustin district this week show that growers are receiving high returns," one story read.