Thursday, April 16, 1998 | 10:17 a.m.
LET'S TALK about tastelessness and truthfulness. And Howard Stern -- poster boy for both.
So Stern is storming network TV to try to topple "Saturday Night Live." So Stern promised that a woman would perform a sex act on any reporter who wrote a positive story about it. So Stern gleefully gushes about lesbians, artificial insemination, bra cups and penile measurements.
So Stern -- a bottom-feeder who presided over a pay-per-view special starring a nude woman slithering on the floor eating live maggots, and who playfully jangled the bones of a dead stripper on the radio -- declared, with obvious relish, that cultural standards have sunk below sea level, making him The Ideal Entertainer for our more-sleaze-please society.
So what?
As much as Stern's shtick triggers my gag reflex-- blasting him in a column in another city earned me a round of on-air coast-to-coast roasting that I'll forever remember with pride -- I'll take it over hypocrisy and dishonesty. On that score, compared to some of his supposedly sophisticated broadcasting bretheren, Howard Stern is A Paragon of Virtue. A Symbol of Righteousnes. A (GASP!) Role Model To Our Children.
Why? Three simple words: Truth In Advertising.
Consider: Recently, as reported here, a group called the Parents Television Council bad-mouthed the new content ratings, claiming that the labels intended to flag sexual content, suggestive dialogue and violence on network programs were failing miserably in their mission to tip off parents to questionable content.
With programs rated by programmers -- chaps desperate to attract enough eyeballs to insure success and eager to appear accessible rather than prohibitive (the old fox-guarding-the-henhouse mentality) -- the result is an orgy of flaming libidos and foul language on early-evening shows.
Among the findings: During weekday shows from 8 to 9 p.m. -- once quaintly known as "the family hour" -- 65 percent containing at least one obscenity failed to carry the "L" rating for coarse language; of shows spouting sexual innuendo, 76 percent did not employ the "D" designation to ID sexually-themed dialogue.
Programmers? They lie. Misrepresent their product. Play hide 'n' seek with the truth.
Stern? Nyet on all counts. He's gross, disgusting and sleazy, yes. But he knows it. More to the point, we know it. Turn on his show at your own peril -- but not your own ignorance. After his international infamy -- fanned by the most raucous, raunchy, revolting radio show in history, amplified for a national cable audience, plus two best-selling books, one of them adapted into a popular movie, and a bawdy New York gubernatorial bid featuring topless campaign aides -- can you imagine anyone tuning into Stern's upcoming CBS show and not knowing what to expect, regardless of how coyly, or even falsely, it's rated?
Granted, in a sane pop culture world, Howard Stern would be a fringe player at best, not a superstar slob (or superslob star) who is rewarded for lewd, loutish behavior -- and wouldn't have seduced the so-called "Tiffany Network" ("Tiffany," as Stern glibly pointed out, is also a common stripper's name). But we have to deal with the world as it is, not as we'd wish it to be. Stern is now a fact of TV life. Deal with it.
But, assuming you're a vigilant parent who sets -- and enforces -- limits for your children, ask yourselves this: From whom do you have more to fear? What-you-see-is-what-you-get Howard? Or what-you-see-when-your-children-turn-on-the-tube-isn't-what you-were-led-to-believe-it-was programmers? Or think of it in shopping terms: What poses more of a threat for accidental consumption -- a container clearly labeled "RAT POISON" on the front, or a frozen dinner lacking the names of all those nice chemical additives that will turn you into a walking science project?
Irony, thy name is Howard: This is the guy who publicly slobbers over the airwaves and shares his hedonistic, graphically detailed fantasies with the world -- then goes home to his wife. Meanwhile, some of our leaders -- no names, please -- preach family values and practice something else entirely.
It must be a topsy-turvy world, Howard -- you're starting to make sense to me.
But about that offer you made to reporters -- I'll pass.
MARTY PARTY: Thank God for the concept of balance. Just when Howard Stern plants his fanny at one end of the TV see-saw -- along with such taste-challenged types as the current "South Park" or the recent "Beavis & Butt-head" -- seemingly throwing the industry up in the air, along comes Martin Scorsese to level it out, following in the movie-turned-TV tracks of Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone. (Spielberg, you'll recall, produced "Amazing Stories" and has a hand in "ER," while Stone gave us the bizarre miniseries "Wild Palms.")
Scorsese inked a two-year development deal with ABC that calls for at least 13 episodes of a weekly series, plus a miniseries. And it's amazing that it took the legendary "Raging Bull" director this long to discover TV, which no longer plays ugly-duckling step-sister to movies -- witness Helen Hunt returning to "Mad About You," albeit for big bucks, right after scoring an Oscar.
With mega-blockbusters and FX-laden blowouts saturating the silver screen, it's now an accepted Hollywood truism that smaller, personal, more intimate stories -- read that as human stories -- are settling in on the small screen. And that's where a supreme storyteller such as Scorsese belongs, if not exclusively, than at least on a time-share basis with film folks.
And, as noted here last week, broadcast TV (especially bloodied and battered ABC), in a tense tussle with cable over viewers, could use all the programming gold it can get its paws on. Scorsese is 14-carat.
CROON A TUNE: Leave it to TV to boil down every complex idea you ever (or never) learned in philosophy class to easily digestible pop-psych sound bites. Example? "Keep your eye on the sparrow, when the going gets narrow." Why bother with Plato when you can pull such pithy pearls from a run-'n'-gun cop show?
Not that reader Robert Holding Sr. isn't thoroughly grounded in Greek philosophy -- he probably is. But he's also TV-savvy enough to be the first to ID that visionary verse in the "Baretta" theme (you remember -- the show starring Fred the Cockatoo, and co-starring Robert Blake). Robert also knew that late Las Vegas icon Sammy Davis Jr. belted out the title tune. Right on, Robert -- and Cockatoo to you.
Next? What three pop hits/signature songs by Tom Jones, Dean Martin and Bobby Darin served as theme songs for their respective variety shows?
This week, we're taking the title of this little feature to heart. If you know the answers, feel free to call and literally croon a tune -- all three, actually -- unless, of course, you're e-mailing the answers, in which case, just type in a few of the oft-sung words. The first reader to croon all three correctly gets his/her name belted out in full-throated Dial File glory.
Let the crooning commence.
KRAMER VS. KRAMER: On May 14 -- "SEINFELD" FINALE DAY, for those uninformed few who care about something other than Nothing -- "Judge Judy" (4:30 p.m., weekdays, Channel 8) will rule on a $1,000 debt case involving Kenny Kramer, the real-life New York nutjob upon whom Michael Richards' Cosmo Kramer is based. Kenny, you see, apparently owes the money to a campaign worker after his failed mayoral bid.
Imagine: Howard Stern as governor of New York and Kenny Kramer as mayor of Fun City -- now that's America to me.
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