Dial File: A TV kid without a rap sheet? How Savage

Thursday, Oct. 16, 1997 | 9:33 a.m.

"You have the cool, clear, eyes of a seeker of wisdom and truth. Yet there's that up-turned chin, and that grin of impetuous youth."

-- "I Believe in You" from "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying"

ROBERT MORSE sang those words to giddy perfection -- to his own gap-toothed reflection in a men's room mirror -- as corporate climber J. Pierpont Finch in the delightful musical "How to Succeed..."

They define that desirable duality: The maturing, wisdom-seeking adult with the "cool, clear eyes" and the still boyish, fun-loving adolescent with the "grin of impetuous youth."

Potential on the cusp of achievement. Child blossoming into adult -- something Fred Savage has done with grace, an alarmingly rare feat among many of TV's ex-child actors.

The aforementioned lyrics -- and the faces of former TV child stars -- drifted through my memory this week thanks to Savage, the former "Wonder Years" imp who has grown into young adulthood in the new Corporate America-skewering sitcom "Working" (9:30 p.m., Wednesdays, NBC). He plays Matt Peyser, a fresh-faced, mint-new college grad slowly awakening to the often shark-infested absurdity of the workaday world at a large corporation.

The show (it ranked a respectable 25th last week) so far is fair -- armed with an eager but erratic sense of satire and some stock sitcom supporting characters -- but the still-engaging Savage is an investment in the memory bank.

My nostalgia-addled mindset is aided by the "Wonder Years" marathon airing this week on Nick-at-Nite (Coincidence? We think not) with Savage as pixieish prepubescent Kevin Arnold, wrestling with the childhood dilemmas that series so astutely chronicled.

Watch Fred grow. Watch Fred grown.

Of course, the similarities between "How to Succeed" and "Working" are inevitable. Except for the absence of gray-suited corporate drones breaking into raucous song and executing flawless choreography -- and the fact that Savage plays more of a likable innocent than Morse's lovable schemer -- "Working" is "How to Succeed."

And succeeding in life -- whether or not "Working" works up any ratings success -- is what is so refreshing about Savage, turning a sad cliche on its ear.

You know the TV child actor horror stories: The "Facts of Life" troika of Todd Bridges (jail time for weapons and assault charges), Dana Plato (robbery) and Gary Coleman (suing his parents); ex-"Partridge"-turned-DJ Danny Bonaduce (assaulting a transvestite); one-time "Addams Family" child ghoul Lisa "Wednesday" Loring (heroin addiction, porn films, attempted suicide); former "Family Affair" darling Anissa "Buffy" Jones (a fatal drug overdose); and a host of others.

At the other end -- and the guy who set the how-to-succeed standard for aging pint-sized actors -- is Ronny-turned-Ron Howard. Still adored as Opie and remembered fondly as Richie Cunningham, the now-famous film director/solid family man did indeed suffer career heartache in between hits (does anyone remember his flop series "The Smith Family," a short-lived '70s family drama notable only for starring Henry Fonda and a jaunty theme song called "Primrose Lane"?)

So adolescence, stinker series and a severe case of the no-longer-cutes -- often cited by ex-child actors as the career slide into the quicksand of personal hell -- does not necessarily spell post-childhood pandemonium.

Even if "Working" doesn't, Savage -- a nice kid-turned-budding-grownup who interrupted his Stanford University studies to do this show (but does plan to earn his degree) -- has already earned more public respect than many of the child actors before him, the corpses of their careers littering network history.

Watch the little squirt on "The Wonder Years." Watch the young man on "Working." Watch a member of our own extended American family -- the one TV is so good at creating -- grow up.

And take some surrogate-parent pride from the fact that not all TV careers launched in diapers end in destruction.

SEASON SURVIVORS: Good deal for "Ally McBeal." The terrific David E. Kelly series, lauded in this space recently, has been picked up by Fox for the full season. Fox says the show improved the target 18-to-49-year-old audience by 72 percent over that slot's (9 p.m. Mondays) average during the first month of last season. Also earning full-season pickups: NBC's "Veronica's Closet" (Kirstie Alley's new vehicle deserves it); ABC's "Bridget Loves Bernie" update "Dharma & Greg"; and UPN's feet-of-Andrew-Dice-Clay comedy "Hitz."

SPACE CASE: The "Star Trek" faithful are firing photon torpedoes at each other on the Internet over the new Borg babe: Sexy Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine on "Star Trek: Voyager" (9 p.m., Wednesdays, UPN). Some purists call it an obvious hubba-hubba ploy to transform it into "Melrose Space."

Lower your shields, Borg bashers. You're shortchanging Ryan's character.

OK, the lady smolders like Dante's Inferno (I'm a red-blooded American male; so sue me), and a little sex appeal is the American way, as long as it isn't all sex and no story.

And with Ryan's character -- a human female kidnapped as a child and "assimilated" by the machine-like Borg race, then unwillingly "rescued" by the Voyager crew -- the series, suffering from a severe case of character blandness, finally has one with complex psychological underpinnings.

Like Data the android on "The Next Generation," here's a character grappling with how to discover -- or in her case, re-discover -- her humanity. And adding her innate hostility as a still superior-minded Borg to the Voyager crew is like blending a scoop of tangy rainbow sherbet into a bowl of vanilla ice cream.

So she's dishy and easy on the ol' optical scanners. We'll have to suffer.

WELCOME 'EXPOSURE': Depressed by the drivel dribbling out of the new fall TV season? Take shelter at A&E, which has corralled the mystical "Northern Exposure" weekdays at 3 p.m. The urban-guy-among-outback-oddballs tale of Dr. Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow) in Cicely, Alaska, is rife with comedy, drama and a rare spirituality -- not to be confused with religious zeal -- that made it one of the most refreshing series of the '80s. Tune in and enjoy it all over again.

CROON A TUNE: The Felix-Stop-Honking! Award goes to Alex Harman -- an engineer at K-News Radio -- who was the first to tell us that the spoken prelude to a theme that asked "Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other CRAZY" was from "The Odd Couple."

Congrats, Alex. You win dinner with Oscar: A three-day-old tuna fish sandwich from under his bed; two slices of leftover pizza draped over an open dresser drawer, dripping cheese on a pair of boxer shorts; and a flat, half-filled bottle of beer. Bon appetit.

Next quiz? What theme told of a character who "adores the minuet, the Ballet Roos and crepes suzette"? Be the first to tell us and get mentioned here. Please spell your name and leave a daytime phone number.

SLAM DUNK: Sadly, Dunkin' Donuts has retired Fred the Baker (actor Michael Vale), their early-rising, zombie-like pitchman who turned "Time to Make the Donuts" into the rallying cry of the working class.

With his eyes as glazed-over as his donuts in the pre-dawn darkness, Fred was us in all our groggy, grumpy morning glory. We salute you, Fred. Have one of those squishy, chocolate-with-rainbow-sprinkles-and-creme artery cloggers on us.