People in the News for May 28, 1997

Wednesday, May 28, 1997 | 10:48 a.m.

Tabloid America abhors a vacuum almost as much as the People in the News cleaning staff. So with all quiet on the Kelsey Grammer front and Roseanne inexplicably minding her manners, it was only a matter of time before someone got sucked into the nasty vortex of sitcom-star misbehavior. That someone is Tim Allen. Hang on to your tool belts, "Home Improvement" fans: Allen apparently failed several sobriety tests the other day after cops clocked him doing 70 through a 40-mph zone in suburban Detroit. Allen, 43, reportedly reeked of booze and was unable to recite the alphabet, count backwards and stand on one leg. A blood test later placed his alcohol level at 0.15, well above Michigan's legal limit. No charges have been filed, but Allen was to be arraigned today. In the unlikely event he sees jail time, he'd do well to remember the title of his book, "Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man."

Tommy and Pam

Here are separate items about Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson Lee, neither of whom, we're sure, can recite the alphabet or count backwards, drunk or sober. Lee's band, Motley Crue, will accompany its new album, "Generation Swine," with Motley Brue, a new soft drink. Its gimmick? Not only will it color your mouth bright blue, but, ahem, your excrement as well. Try that, Dr Pepper! Because few things are funner than blue poop, Brue is being touted as "for people who are done with the whole drugs and alcohol thing but still want to have fun." Send a case to Tim Allen, quick! Investigative taste-testing indicates it has a "slightly medicinal taste." Meanwhile, Pamela has triumphed over the filmmakers suing her for backing out of a cable TV movie. The script, she says, called for too much nudity and simulated sex (on a pool table, in a shower). "I don't want to be touched by people I don't know," she said. Blue doo-doo! cried producers, who claimed Pamela verbally committed to the film. "Pamela Anderson has never done a project outside television that did not have nudity." Her departure cost Private Films $5 million. An L.A. judge this week agreed with Anderson that no contract existed.

See ya!

ABC's "Good Morning America," which has been doing 40 in the 70-mph zone of morning television, is about to lose a longtime face: The slightly medicinal Joan Lunden is leaving. Hold the standing ovation, though; she's not outta there until September. "After 20 years of waking up America with a smile," she statemented, "I have asked the executives of ABC to give me a chance to do something I've never done -- wake up my own children with a smile." She'll still do prime-time specials for ABC, while the network plans to revamp the once-mighty "GMA," which has been mired in the ratings equivalent of blue excrement, soundly trounced by NBC's "Today" the last 75 weeks. No word on Lunden's successor, but here's an idea: Pamela Anderson Lee ... pool table ... reciting the alphabet on one leg. Just make sure she signs the contract.

Compiled by Scott Dickensheets