Dial File: Missing life on the Flip side

Friday, Dec. 4, 1998 | 10:11 a.m.

The gag defined the man:

"I flew balloons professionally for five years," Flip Wilson told reporters last year, explaining the Houdini act he pulled on the straightjacket of public life more than a decade ago.

"I told a lady that I am the only black helium-balloon pilot in the world. And the lady said: 'I didn't know there was such a thing as black helium.' "

The setup was about color. The punch line was colorblind. The one-two punch -- the black comedian with the colorblind comedy -- was pure Flip.

I miss Flip Wilson. And I'm surprised at how much I miss him, as much for his race-be-damned dynamic -- a long-lost concept in these uptight times -- as for his abundant talent.

When he succumbed to liver cancer last week at age 64, he was just peeking back into public view, with reruns of his vaudevillian-style variety show gracing cable's TV Land. For years, every so often, I'd wonder where he'd gone, following brief forays into a silly sitcom and a quickly-canned quiz show in the mid-'80s (as a rule, supernova TV stars don't spurn their stardom unless their egos are surgically removed). Now, sadly, there is a final, fatal answer.

Much was made in tributes of Flip's "universal" humor that never bumped up against racial roadblocks in reaching people of all color, even though his breakthrough characters -- sassy Geraldine ("the devil made me do it!") and Reverend Leroy of the Church of What's Happening Now -- were clearly born in black culture.

He was, predictably, criticized by some for leaning more toward traditional belly laughs than incendiary -- and racially pointed -- humor, a la Richard Pryor. He was even knocked for creating "stereotypically black" characters such as Geraldine. Never mind that generations of comics -- Jewish, Italian, Irish and Hispanic among them -- also poked fun at their own heritages.

Flip's "universality" was compared to that of Bill Cosby, the Grand Poobah of Racial Integration on Network Television. And, as noted here in a previous column about the abhorrent racial ghetto-ization of the networks -- with webs such as Fox, the WB and UPN building demographic success on the backs of black programs, then edging toward the Big Three's more Caucasian complexion as soon as their "brand awareness" expands to the culture at large -- Cosby will always be TV's trailblazer and standard-bearer of cross-racial appeal.

Unlike the narrowly-designed appeal of those webs' black shows -- which are purposely exclusionary to many white viewers and are, cynically enough, declared "hip," "funky" and "urban" by the largely all-white staff of suits that schedule them -- Cosby's shows speak to everyone.

And yet ... Flip will rest warmly in my memory as the man who most embodied what Cosby sought but never achieved: the irrelevancy of race. Of course, sociologically, race is never irrelevant -- the world is too complex and our history too scarred by hatred. But on a simpler scale -- making a country laugh for an hour a week for four years -- Flip wasn't black, white or powder blue. He was just Flip.

And his triumph was the marriage of perfect timing and talent. Born as blacks were emerging as marquee names, "The Flip Wilson Show" marked the first time America flipped for a TV variety show headlined by a black performer, accomplishing what Nat King Cole in the '50s and Sammy Davis Jr. in the '60s -- both vividly victimized by racism -- could not.

Of course, Cole and Davis had to suffer before Wilson could soar.

And Cosby was forever marked by his own noble quest to bridge the black-white TV gap. Yes, sitcom auteur Cosby aimed higher than sketch comic Flip, trying to reshape the entire image of black family life and courting criticism.

But by shouldering the weight of history -- being, pre-Flip, the first black to co-star in a TV drama in "I Spy" and, post-Flip, the man who triggered a titanic debate about the depiction of black families with his landmark '80s sitcom -- Cosby literally symbolizes TV's race debate. Ironically nestled between the two in less prickly times, Flip was free of such baggage.

"I'm not saying he wasn't talented and he wasn't funny," TV historian Alex McNeil told the Boston Globe about Flip, "but the time was right. He came in on the right wave."

But he was talented. And funny. And, yes, traditional and universal. Appropriately enough, his consummate comic creation was a character in drag, harking back to the cherished roots of television: Uncle Miltie. They were decades apart, but one truth is timeless: Black or white, guys in dresses are funny.

The race debate is complex and confusing. Simple declarations are insane. But I'll risk a little insanity: I miss a time when a guy named Flip made it OK to laugh without giving a damn about black or white.

To paraphrase a very funny man: What I saw was what I got, honey.

Croon a Tune: "I Got the Too Many Clues Blues," some of you mused about the pre-vacation Croon-a-Tune. True, it was tricky enough to trigger a couple of misfires -- "Soap" and "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," to be exact -- among callers, but a few fingered it by the hints alone, with nary a note needed.

To recap, the clues were: A popular 1979-86 ABC sitcom spun off of another wacky ensemble sitcom that included Billy Crystal, and named after its title character, played by an actor currently in a new ABC sitcom. Plus: Appearing in a small role as a messenger boy during the 1980-81 season was a pre-megastardom Jerry Seinfeld.

The answer: "Benson," spun off of "Soap" (Crystal played gay Jodie Dallas) and starring Robert Guillaume, now appearing in ABC's "Sports Night."

Congrats to trivia titan John Paine, who suggested that this was a tad too "easy" for his TV-seasoned noodle. Following John's lead were, in alphabetical order: Ed Boucher, Obert Brinley, Martha Campbell, Ron Farber, Joe Lacy, Mark Ritchie, Dan Ryan, Andie Sorvig, Bernard Tanchester and Tim Victor.

"Come up with more challenges than this one," Mr. Paine proclaimed.

Okey-dokey, artichokey. Croon-a-Tune loons can dial Dial File at 259-4012 for this week's theme. And if it's a brain drain? No Paine, no gain.

Never let it be said that I'm "easy," despite evidence to the contrary on bathroom walls all over town.

Play us out, Maestro: In a recent issue, the trade magazine Electronic Media asked the Burning Question Of Our Time: "Ever notice that the women on Fox News Channel are a little more 'Melrose Place' than 'Nightly News' in the cleavage department?"

The Burning Answer Of Our Time: Fox's New York-based stylists work with all of Fox's on-camera cuties -- excuse me: "news talent" -- to keep them, uh, abreast of the hottest looks for today's mammary-minded journalists. Said a Fox spokesman to EM: "We try not to be that boring, conservative look shared by the other network news anchors."

Instead of waiting years for this trend to spill over into its inevitable conclusion, let's cut to the chase, people:

I want Heather Locklear. Naked. With the ball scores.

And I want it NOW.