DID YOU HEAR THE ONE ABOUT NORTHDIDGE? HUMOR HELPS COMEDY WRITER FIGHT CANCER.

Byline: Dennis McCarthy

A radiologist treating Milt Rosen's cancer four years ago hinted strongly that maybe it was time for the veteran comedy writer to go home and get his affairs in order.

So Rosen did. He went home and began writing a health-joke book full of one-liners like this:

``Physician making house call to wife of ill man: I don't like the looks of your husband. Wife: Neither do I, but he's good with the kids.''

Ba-boom.

Even ugly and virulent diseases, such as cancer, can be battled with the cure of laughter, Rosen wrote in the forward of ``Funny Bones,'' which he co-authored with writer Rocky Kalish.

Eleven joke books later, Rosen is still getting his affairs in order. He just finished making Northridge funny.

For the past six months, this remarkable 77-year-old man, who spent 45 years in show business writing one-liners for hundreds of comedians, including Milton Berle and Bob Hope, has been hanging out in supermarkets, drugstores and the Northridge mall buttonholing local residents to hear their jokes.

``I'd ask them if they lived in Northridge and if they said yes, I'd ask them to tell me a joke,'' Rosen said Thursday.

``They'd give me a look like I must be crazy, but most of them came through with a joke, and many of them were very funny.''

The ones that weren't too off-color have been compiled in a unique 170- page joke book titled ``Northridge Is My Kind Of Town.'' It will be available for sale in about three weeks as a fund-raiser for the Northridge Chamber of Commerce to help pay for its many community activities.

Every joke in the book is credited with the joke teller's first name and home street.

``Northridge has always been considered kind of a square town,'' Rosen said. ``The jokes were something like this: The Northridge museum was supposed to open the other day, but the frame broke."

``This book changes all that,'' he said. ``The people who live in Northridge, myself included, have some pretty funny jokes to tell.''

After he compiled enough of them for the book, Rosen took them all to his comedy central: Barry Pascal's Northridge Pharmacy.

The degrees on the wall say Pascal, a past president of the Northridge chamber, is a pharmacist, but don't believe it. He's really a stand-up comedian at heart.

When Milt Rosen first walked into his pharmacy about 20 years ago, it was the beginning of a long, warm friendship that has spanned thousands of one-liners.

``Milt and I would trade jokes, but I didn't know he was a professional comedy writer,'' Pascal said. ``One day he asked to use my fax machine to fax a couple of jokes to Milton Berle.

``I told him, Milt, you don't have to make up stories to impress me; we're friends. He'd just smile. This went on for almost a year. Then one day, the phone rang and the voice on the other end said, `This is Milton Berle; did you just fax me something?' I nearly fell over.''

Pascal's friendship and humor helped Rosen and Kalish write ``Funny Bones,'' so when Pascal mentioned about six months ago that the chamber was looking for a way to unite the community and instill some spirit, Rosen decided to help his friend out by getting his affairs in order again.

Here's a little sampling of the jokes, rated G and PG, in ``Northridge Is My Kind Of Town.''

From Mildred on Melvin Avenue: ``Did you hear some of the fast-food companies are hiring older people? Now you can make as much money at 80 as you did when you were 18.''

Ba-boom.

From Debbie on Rayen Street: ``One successful exec runs into another at a chamber meeting. How's business? asks one of them. You know, answers the other. It's like sex. When it's good, it's wonderful. When it's bad, it's still pretty good.''

Ba-boom.

And from Keith on Zelzah Avenue: ``A young college student going home on the other side of the hill after a few weeks at one of the CSUN frat houses is asked by friends how it's going.

``OK, the student says.

``How's the food? OK, he says.

``How are the classes? OK, he says.

``Have you decided what you're majoring in yet?

``Yeah, the kid says. Communications.''

Ba-boom.