Audrey Geisel, widow of Ted Geisel, licenses Seuss characters to Universal theme park in Orlando

San Diego — It had to come someday: the cancellation of Silk Stalkings, the trashy sexy-girls-and-hunky-detectives series that was the pride of San Diego's taxpayer-funded motion picture bureau and ran for eight years on the USA cable network. Though shot in San Diego, where it purportedly provided hundreds of jobs over the years for starry-eyed would-be moviemakers, Stalkings was supposedly set in Florida's Palm Beach, which inspired the Palm Beach Post to write last week about "some of our favorite Silk Stalkings moments." They included: "The gorgeous shots of Palm Beach mountains. You didn't know there were mountains in Palm Beach? The not-so-gorgeous shots of dirty boulevards and -- heaven forbid -- an overpass! Towering glass skyscrapers and patches of urban blight. The gratuitous shots of barely clad hotties. The show's glitzy police station, a hilarious swirl of neon lights, Day-Glo colors, and palm tree cutouts. The lingerie shows. You know, the island's famous lingerie shows. Did we mention the bad acting?" ... Another San Diego export going to Florida in the near future is Dr. Seuss. Audrey Geisel, wealthy widow of Ted Geisel, the man behind Seuss, has licensed the Seuss characters to a new Universal theme park in Orlando, where they will inhabit a high-tech ride called Seuss Landing, according to the May edition of Hot Wired magazine.

Low, Low-Brow

KSWB, the low-brow South Bay TV station owned by Chicago's Tribune Broadcasting Co., may really carry out on its threat to start a 10:00 p.m. newscast to compete head to head with KUSI, the low-brow Kearny Mesa TV station owned by local Mike McKinnon. According to a press release from Sony, Tribune has just ordered $5 million worth of a hardware and software bundle called NewsBase, a "server-based news production system [which] enables television stations to deliver higher-quality newscasts and dramatically cut the time it takes to get news material on the air.... Producers can view material, edit simple teases and voice-overs, or even reporter packages. KSWB in San Diego is the next station in line for NewsBase, having placed an order for delivery this summer."... Joe McIlvaine, who briefly managed the Padres before being fired back in June 1993, when he ran afoul of the team's penurious owners, is in another scrape. This time, McIlvaine really lost his pants. According to the Palm Beach Post, McIlvaine, now 51 and assistant general manager with the Minnesota Twins, was busted for illegal nude sunbathing on a Florida beach. Cops were summoned to the beach by an irate woman who saw McIlvaine -- who had been lying on his back -- roll over and put his shorts on. He was charged with misdemeanor "exposure of sexual organs" and released on $1000 bail... Actor Anthony Newley, who died of cancer last week, spent some of his last days at a San Diego treatment center.

It's the Layoffs, Stupid

Employees at Golden Eagle Insurance are nervously updating their résumés as rumors of big layoffs grow. The Journal of Commerce says 25 of the company's 47 underwriters may be on the chopping block, as well as an "unspecified" number of other workers at the insurer, which was seized from owner and chairman John Mabee by state insurance commissioner Chuck Quackenbush and later sold to Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. of Boston. A Golden Eagle spokesman denied that the pending layoffs meant the company was facing new financial woes ... Another local outfit, Science Applications International Corp., is also laying off, but the workers are in Tennessee. In January, SAIC won a $72 million "information technology" contract at the federal government's Oak Ridge nuclear complex. Now it's firing many of the workers it inherited from the former contractor, Lockheed-Martin Energy Systems ... How much is the America's Cup worth? San Diego boosters claimed that it brought the city more than $900 million when it was held here in 1990. Hawaiian politicians are using that number to justify their plan to spend $3 million in a taxpayer-funded entry in the race to be held next year in New Zealand. Backers claim that the money will benefit entry-level workers who will acquire new boat-building skills.

Contributor: Matt Potter