Prime Time

Prime Time

THE RIGHT BEEF

Richard C. Walls

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE: Burt Reynolds, generally thought of as that nice guy who makes those lousy movies, is currently in danger of losing his grip on the 'nice guy' part— incensed by the failure of critics to properly appreciate such efforts as Cannonball Run and Stroker Ace (The Man Who Loved Women checked in with mixed reviews before bombing at the b.o.), he's taken to spicing up his interviews by doing a 'devastating' imitation of Entertainment Tonight's resident film-crit Leonard Maltin, highlighted by a prissy-faced reading of Maltin's tagline 'On my scale of one through ten I'm giving it a_____________.' Now, not only is it unsightly for the macho Burt to indulge in this kind of neanderthal fag-baiting (after all, the good will one engenders by 'dating' Dinah Shore only goes so far) but he also seems ignorant of the fact that Maltin (who is also editor of the indispensible TV Movies) has, as often as not, been rather kind toward the dopey comedies Reynolds has been cranking out. during the past decade—but then, when you're striking out blindly who gives a fuck about facts? (Obviously the best revenge against uppity critics would be for Burt to make a good movie but— heh heh—nobody's holding their breath...).

Another fascinating bit of career flux witnessed lately involved the double spotting in a single week of once-famous crooner Pat Boone. First sighting was on the ever-weird 700 Club wherein Pat opined that the previous night's Grammy Awards Show, with its cross-dressing theme, was like something that might have been seen in Sodom (though not, one assumes, on television). Second sighting was on the somewhat more credible Nightline show where Boone was debating the school prayer amendment with Senator Lowell Weicker (who dreams up these matches anyway?). Weicker, a Republican, got more than a little miffed at Boone's clumsy insinuations that Weicker was a commie dupe for opposing the amendment —such smear tactics were, he said, 'trash' and 'garbage.' Boone looked abashed, striken and mumbled something like 'Oh yeah?' or words to that effect.

Suggestion: Pat, besieged by secular humanists, and Burt, abused by snobbish critics, should team together and, in the spirit of mutual career revivification, make a series of flicks together, maybe something like the old Crosby/Hope road pictures. . .maybe The Road To Sodom (with Loni Anderson, natch). It couldn't hurt.

☆ ☆ ☆

STUFF: The funniest unwatched TV show currently is NBC's Buffalo Bill, the only sitcom in memory built around such a relentlessly despicable character. Both the writing and the ensemble acting in the show are sharp, though it may take a few episodes to get your bearings. Worth a try, especially if you feel alienated from the usual sitcom fare...Intriguing article in the April Mother Jones about how TV Guide has turned into the instrument of insidious right wing forces. Which may explain why a recent letter column in the Guide carried some disturbed citizen's rant about how the Beatles' appearance on the American scene led to general immorality and 'anti-government posturing' (like, wow) while elsewhere on the same page, in response to some sap's complaint that J. Edgar Hoover had been slanderously depicted in the recent Martin Sheen/JFK TV-movie, the Guide agreed that yes, they too felt that poor Edgar had been unfairly treated in the years since his demise. Right...and speaking of unreal, be sure to catch The Wacky World Of Lyndon LaRouche when it comes to your neighborhood TV screen. LaRouche is a conceptual comic par excellence who makes Andy Kaufman look positively timid. The LaRouche shows are presented as half-hour paid political 'white papers' with LaRouche posing as a Democratic presidential nominee. Soberly dressed and speaking in normal tones he gives the most incredible speech about how Henry Kissinger is a Soviet agent and how Bertrand Russell and Nikita Khrushchev secretly met sometime in the '50s and drew up their game plan for dividing the world, and so on, never tipping his hand in any obvious way to signal to the audience that this is, after all, a joke. Really, how cool can you get?