City in Torment!

Thursday, March 9, 2000 | 8:30 a.m.

When Mike Nannini last saw the portly little guy with the cherub cheeks and Buddha belly, he was standing on the sidewalk balancing a double burger on a plate and grinning maniacally at passing motorists.

That was nearly three weeks ago. Feb. 19, specifically. It was a day when, as politicians like to say, "mistakes were made."

"We basically had kept him inside and safe for about two weeks," Nannini, the furrow-browed owner of Big Boy Restaurant & Bakery on Rock Springs Drive, said during a recent interview at his restaurant. "But where we are, not many people know we're here."

So Nannini made a bold and ultimately egregious administrative decision: to place his famed Big Boy statue -- recognizable to any burger buyer for his red-and-white-checkered overalls, protruding buns and Frankie Avalon pompadour -- out on the sidewalk.

Where people, including those thinking impure thoughts, could easily see him.

What happened next is unclear, strange and (unless you happen to own a Big Boy restaurant that's been open for just eight months) comical.

"The afternoon we put him out there, a customer walked in," Nannini said. "He said, 'Someone in a red pickup truck just took off with your Big Boy.' He was out there for no more than three hours."

Talk about your orders to go.

"We haven't seen him since," Nannini said, his voice carrying the slightest hint of a quiver. "The people who saw him, they couldn't help much. I think they got four out of the six numbers off the licence plates."

Such disappearances are not uncommon in the cutthroat world of corporate fast food restaurant service, particularly for Big Boy. Tony Michaels, the company CEO for Big Boy Restaurant & Bakery, has been with the company for 21 years and has suffered "hundreds" of vanishing Big Boys.

"It's not rare," Michaels said during a telephone interview from the company's headquarters in Warren, Mich. "Especially lately, we've had more of these Big Boys stolen than ever."

And they turn up in the strangest places.

"We've seen them in the middle of a divided highway, in the front of retail shops, in back yards," Michaels said. "We've seen them in the front yards of homes when they were just dropped off and in houses. We get a lot of them back and they're usually in pretty good shape. But sometimes it can turn bad and they'll have an arm cut off or be cut full of holes.

"That's unfortunate."

Said Nannini: "I guess someone likes to wake up looking at Big Boy. I hope they're not doing anything bad or weird to him."

Nannini is also offering a reward for the return of the 6-foot-tall statue, valued at around $2,000: one week's worth of dinners at his restaurant, a reward valued at something less than $2,000, but appetizing nonetheless.

There has been no progress in the search for Big Boy, however.

"We've heard nothing," Nannini said. "Not a thing. I think the chances of discovery are pretty slim."

(The straight-faced Nannini did not seem aware he had just punned).

Having been provided scant evidence of the events of that Saturday afternoon, our own sleuths tracked some rumored Big Boy sightings. Based on information gleaned from the investigation, it is apparent that the Big Boy disappearance was not a "heist," as company officials believe.

Tracking the, ahem, 'clues'

Following is our account of the movements, comments and whereabouts of Big Boy since his disappearance (keep in mind that the subsequent reports are strictly based on wholly fabricated sightings and are as artificial as Kathie Lee Gifford):

"Carl," waiting at a nearby bus stop at around 3 p.m. on Feb. 19 near the Big Boy restaurant, overheard a conversation "BB" was conducting on a cellular phone.

"He was looking around, looking down at his watch," Carl said. "It wasn't a wristwatch, but a pocket watch, a really nice little silver watch ... I think I heard him say he found it in the restaurant and palmed it. Anyway, he's looking at this watch and saying 'Come in little red riding hood. Come in little red riding hood.' Kind of quiet like, sort of wanting not to be heard, y'know?

"Then he sees me looking at him and he gets all edgy. He's like, 'Little red riding hood. It's BB and it's go time. I've been out here for three hours and I am not going back in there."

Then, Carl said, a red pickup squealed around the corner and pulled up to BB. Two youngish-looking men in blue-and-green polyester outfits and matching baseball caps bounded out and hoisted BB into the bed.

"He was real agitated, saying these guys were late and how he had to wait on the street like he was a hitchhiker or something," Carl said. "Then they took off and he's in the back, slapping the side of the truck with his free hand like he's buckin' out a horse. Really weird stuff, I tell you."

The next reported sighting was at the Bellagio Gallery of Art, where "Paul," one of the gallery guards, was called in to quell some commotion.

"We hear about a guy in checked coveralls, looking kind of like a clown but without makeup, who was causing a ruckus in the gallery," Paul said. "He brought a painting of himself, real crude. It looked like a real amateur piece, and one of the visitors heard him say he'd done it himself and was trying to hang it up. He was reaching for the wall and was making all these claims. 'I'm more famous than that! I was in both 'Austin Powers' movies! I'm a national symbol! People love me!'

"It took three of us to subdue him. We even used stun guns, but it only seemed to encourage him. We found him later relieving himself in the fountains."

The next reported sighting was at the Las Vegas Mini Grand Prix, near BB's former place of employment. "Chip" said BB was infuriated he was not allowed to drive any of the miniature race cars.

"We have a pretty strict policy about size and that kind of stuff," Chip said. "He was too big, plain and simple, and couldn't get in the car. He got mad and went into the cafeteria and took a half-eaten hamburger out of a kid's hand. He takes a chomp out of it, spits it out and says, 'You have a lotta nerve calling that food!' "

"Gary," a maintenance man at the Showboat bowling lanes, endured a similarly unpleasant encounter with BB the following night.

"Him and his cronies were trying to horn in on one of our leagues," Gary said. "They blew in here, and he's obviously the ringleader. He's carrying the big burger in one hand and rolling this huge cart with six balls in the other. He's got the whole thing going -- a cigarette in his ear and a tattoo of a pickle on his forearm. One of our waitresses asked about his tattoo and he says, 'That's nothing, honey. I've got buns on my buns.' He was a real slice of life, that guy.

"And after every strike, he wiggles his hips and shouts, 'How's this for a jumbo shake?' "

A few nights later "Candi," a stripper at Glitter Gulch, said she danced for a man matching BB's description.

"I'll never forget him, mostly because of the clothes," Candi said. "That, and his attitude. I mentioned the checkered overalls and he says, 'Let's play chess on my chest, baby.' He showed up in a limo, all painted just like his outfit, all checkers. He was wearing a little bandana, and it was also checkered.

"He likes those checks."

Candi also termed BB an "aggressive" tipper.

"He was no cheapskate, that's for sure," she said. "But every time he'd give out a dollar, he'd say, 'You want fries with that? Heh heh.' I've heard 'em all, but that was a new one. He was also asking if he could use the drive-thru. I don't know where that came from."

After telling Candi that he was heading to the Oasis Hotel to "sleep it off," there were no reported BB sightings until he was spotted by a patron at a rival fast-food restaurant earlier this week.

"Yeah, I was heading in for my lunch break and one person really stood out," said "Stan," a Las Vegas surgical supply salesman. "He was the only one in checkers, but he was wearing the hat with the arches. Didn't match at all. He was really a taskmaster, telling the employees that he'd had all this fast-food experience and he knew how to flip a burger, blah-blah-blah. He said when people found out he was working there they'd forget about 'Ronald the washed-up clown and Mayor McWhoosis.' He made me nervous."

That's the last we heard of BB. Still, Michaels said he was optimistic that BB would one day be reunited with his original home.

"They do turn up," Michaels said. "I'm not giving up hope on this one. I think we'll get him back."

Um, don't count on it. You probably wouldn't miss him anyway.

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