Dial File: Connie is back, but what about Carey’s backside?

Thursday, Nov. 6, 1997 | 9:41 a.m.

HANG ON -- we're goin' in:

* So Connie Chung is back, this time on ABC, completing her CBS-NBC-ABC hat trick (If she gets to Fox, UPN and WB, she'll hit for the cycle -- excuse the mixed sports metaphor.) ABC News Chairman Roone Arledge declared that CBS "abandoned" Chung after she shredded journalistic ethics by -- you'll recall -- promising Newt Gingrich's mom that her description of Newtie's description of Hillary Clinton as a "bitch" would be "just between you and me." And a few million viewers.

Everyone, including Chung, makes mistakes -- even whoppers like that -- and deserves a shot at career rehab. But Arledge shouldn't relax ABC News standards by making excuses for his stars. If he does, he'd be better off hiring Chung's tabloidy hubby, Maury Povich, who could probably offer better ratings and definitely offer less pretense of respectability.

* Speaking of career rehab and trashy talk show hosts, "Jenny Jones: My Story" is now in bookstores. Jones' show, of course, triggered the infamous "talk show murder" of one guest by another in 1995. A book won't wash the blood off her resume, but bet on brisk sales for this opportunistically timed tome.

* A huge thumbs-up (Siskel & Ebert aren't the only critics with dancing digits) to Channel 13's new chief meteorologist and ex-CNNer, Ted Textor. It's refreshing to see a relaxed, relatable presence who's only trying to sell us the weather, not razzle-dazzle.

* Chris Spencer is dumped as host of "Vibe." HBO host Chris Rock is offered the gig and passes. Sinbad gets the "Vibe" job. Rock invites Spencer on HBO to kvetch about losing the "Vibe" gig -- which Rock didn't want -- to Sinbad. Isn't it amusing when the backstage saga is more entertaining than the show?

* Watching TV can be akin to Alice touring the looking glass. On "Suddenly Susan," several characters obsessed about watching "Seinfeld." Fictional "Must-See" characters worshipping fictional "Must-See" characters. I longed for someone to step out of character, face the camera and say: "Must Be ... the real world."

* Not satisfied by the sight of Dennis Franz's tushie? Next Wednesday, ABC displays Drew Carey's derriere when his sitcom salutes the bare-bottom finale of the flick "The Full Monty." How many fleshy fannies are enough?

WHEN, GWEN?: The rumor mill is abuzz: Gwen Castaldi is apparently in line for the news director gig at Channel 5, which is expected to launch a local newscast -- and news department -- in January. Castaldi -- one of the shining lights in local news -- politely declined to elaborate, saying only that she still has a contract with Channel 3. Channel 5 Vice President/General Manager Salvatore Durante did not return messages.

A STAR IS PORN ... ER, BORN: Last week, I poked fun at Traci Lords, the ex-XXX-rated star who has gone PG-13 (more or less). On Saturday, she starts a stint as a serial killer on NBC's "Profiler." "It's been a lot of blood, sweat and tears," she told TV Guide about overcoming her XXX-capades, "but I think along the way I've become a darn good actress."

Give the lady credit. She managed the impossible -- escaping the video red-light district for the bright lights of prime time. That took guts, perseverance and a high tolerance for ridicule. And she hasn't squandered her opportunities, giving viewers the creeps as a woman whose mind is hijacked by aliens in "Stephen King's It" and an all-out nutjob in "Melrose Place."

Now a serial killer. OK, so with her seXXX-sational past, she may never play the ingenue. And you can smell the voyeuristic value of her "Profiler" stint -- coinciding with the run of the porn-adorned "Boogie Nights" -- but that's the nature of the beast. One paw washes another.

NBC knows that many male viewers -- guided from below the belt rather than above the neck -- will follow the scent of sex right to Lords. She surely knows that her cinematic infamy lends her a kinky cachet that, in the celebrity-addled age of Joey Buttafuoco, John Bobbitt and Tonya Harding -- when boorishness, humiliation and scandal are rockets to stardom -- is oddly alluring.

And if she can make us believe she's one bloodthirsty babe who should be the next centerfold for Maniac's Monthly, who are we to argue?

DI JOB: Very angry reader Kristi Matz called to bitterly complain about Channel 3's tasteless and hypocritical references to the late Princess Diana.

Last week, Brenda Stanton, reporting from a Boulder Station costume party, spied a tiara-topped woman with short blonde hair -- and fake blood smeared across her chest. Tasteless as it was, Stanton cheerfully called attention to it by blurting out: "Look, there's Princess Diana!" The next morning, Channel 3's AM crew, announcing that Elton John's tribute tune to Diana was still topping the Billboard charts, cooed about it in a tone bordering on reverential.

"Any way they can use her name to get people to watch, they will, and that's what really steamed me," Matz fumed. "I was floored. Does it never stop? If you think I'm right, will you write about it?"

Consider it done.

CROON A TUNE: There's a holdup in the Bronx. Brooklyn's broken out in fights. There's a traffic jam in Harlem that's backed up to Jackson Heights. (And, to quote last week's quiz): "There's a scout troop short a child, Khrushchev's due at Idelwild." What is it? Try: Where is it -- as in "Car 54, Where Are You," a theme reader Robert L. Anderson knew well.

Thank you, Robert. So where were those kooky cops, Toody (Joe E. Lewis) and Muldoon (Fred Gwynne) while chaos was breaking out over Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx? Probably hiding out in Staten Island.

Next? What theme lamented: "Got kind of tired of packin' and unpackin'; town to town, up and down the dial"? Be the first to tell us and get your name immortalized (OK, so this ain't the National Register of Historic Places, but it ain't chopped liver, either) in this space. Please include the spelling of your name and daytime phone number.

LACK FLAK: NBC News President Andy Lack stepped in Major League Doo-Doo during a telephone press conference for the series "The Sex War: The Tension Between Men and Women." Lack's fuse was lit when asked why none of the executive producers were women (the underling "senior producers" were mostly female). Lack asked if the impertinent reporter was married. He wasn't.

"Then I think," Lack shot back, "you probably don't understand that anyone who has a woman in his life ... that (the women) are in charge of the game." Since one kamikaze comment deserves another, Lack then explained how in TV news, women just aren't bumping their noggins against some silly glass ceiling, but some simply choose to nurse kids instead of careers.

Surgeons are still laboring to remove Lack's pedal extremity from his oral cavity.

In related news, rumors are rampant that NBC will replace Lack with Traci Lords.