Dial File — Steve Bornfeld: Let’s take a !#%$!&%@ vote!

Friday, May 28, 1999 | 9:58 a.m.

Wash your bleepin' mouth out with bleepin soap, ya bleepin'-bleepin'-bleep-bleeper.

That, ya bleepin-bleep-bleeps, will be the most eye-catching -- if not ear-catching -- gimmick of fall '99 TV, network-style, as revealed by last week's new series announcements: A season high on teens, low on sitcoms and high on a lowbrow concept in which previously unutterable utterances are now uttered for utter gutter effect -- sort of.

A bit of background: In September 1990 an adorable little lad declared "You Suck!" on "Uncle Buck" -- at 8 p.m. And So It Began. In September 1993 an irascible fatter lad -- Dennis Franz -- eloquently referred to "a pissy little bitch" on "NYPD Blue." And So It Began Part Two.

"Buck" and "Blue": Two defining moments of language debasement on network television.

Brace for And So It Began Part Three: Fox's fall series "Action," a comedy about an egomaniacal action movie producer that will talk the scuzzy talk -- speaking exactly the words you're thinking of -- but not quite walk the sleazy walk: They will BLEEP the actual sound. Of course, you'd have to have the IQ of a tree stump or a TV executive not to know precisely what the words are.

Saying the words while we not quite hear the words but know the words were said? How coy can coarseness get?

Railing about the plummeting level of pop culture class -- how's THAT for an oxymoron? -- is clearly useless now. We've been plunging toward the subterranean depths of public discourse for years. But this slow-motion, free-fall tumble to utter tastelessness is more exasperating than the eventual crash landing on the sewer floor, so ... let's get it over with:

JUST SAY THE @!*%[